Arcana

"So good that I cried when it was over"

In an earlier review that I wrote, I listed ''Wizardry 5'' as one of the best 1st person maze crawlers on the SNES. At that time I hadn't played ''Arcana''. This game is mind blowing in its sheer goodness. The graphics are great, especially when you realize that it is an early generation SNES title. Published by Hal in 1992, ''Arcana'' is a game that can stand up to many of the other SNES greats.

GRAPHICS: 10/10

Battle animations in ''Arcana'' made the game a step above the rest. This was one of the first turn based RPGs to employ a graphical battle movement system. When your characters or the enemies made attacks, their images actually moved in accordance. And while spells were not the graphical masterpieces of ''Final Fantasy 6'' they still portrayed a good idea of what casting them would really be like.

All of the characters, enemies, and treasure chests of the game were cards with pictures on them. This is rather hard to explain, but it looks good. The faces of the characters are drawn in early anime style and their bodies when in battle look decently drawn. Towns and shop owners are not eye popping, but dungeons and the final boss are all remarkably well done. Dungeon walls extend far into the distance and are very detailed in their drawings (even though they are rather bare). In the graphics department this title does not disappoint.

SOUND: 8/10

Now don't get me wrong, the sound wasn't bad, but it wasn't great either. The game offered a huge variety of 4 or 5 different tracks throughout its course. And while these tracks weren't bad in and of themselves, at times they could seem a bit overplayed. One really cool thing that the developers did was to make the final boss emit an eery laugh every time she attacks. Personally, though, the great gameplay blinded me from any sort of problem with the audio aspect of the title.

CONTROL: 8/10

In a first person maze-crawler RPG it is very hard to screw up in this category, so there really isn't much to say about ''Arcana''. You move down the halls of a dungeon and make choices from menus. That is pretty much it. The factor that prevented this from being perfect is the fact that navigating your item and equipment menus could sometimes be a pain. Instead of just pressing left or right for different columns an arrow at the top had to be clicked. Also, you could not purchase multiple items at a time from stores and this could be time consuming when you are stocking up on one item.

GAMEPLAY: 10/10

Again, let me reiterate the fact that I love this game. Much like ''Wizardry 5'' the game only consists of towns and dungeon exploration. The dungeons themselves were very expansive and could take some time to explore completely. There were no real secrets to speak of except for random treasure chests that were scattered in various corners of the game (they are easy to find once you realize how they are placed). Traversing the dungeons isn't very mind twisting, except for the very labyrinth like Ice Dungeon. Getting back to the towns has also been made very easy through the purchase of the very cheap Return Rings and the later learned Home spell.

The battles in this game are what add the difficulty and the fun. Basically, the battles consist of your main character Rooks, a spirit, a max of two other characters, and the enemies. All of the game's 5 characters differ only in spells and equipment, except for Rooks. Rooks is the last living card master and can use card items and switch spirits. Card items work just like spells and can be used in greater quantities for better effects. For example, 1 fire card will cast the equivalent of Fire 1, 2 will cast Fire 2, and 3 will cast Fire 3. This can be very effective in a tight spot. The other ability he has is to switch in between spirits that total 4 by the end of the game. These spirits work just like normal players, but are element specific and lack the ability to run and use weapons.

On the edge of each player and enemy card is a border that specifies elemental affinity. Each element is weak against one other and strong against one other (except gray is neutral and doesn't care). In this game, though, magic works in a cycle instead of back and forth. Water hurts fire, fire hurts wind, wind hurts earth, and earth hurts water. Trying to go in reverse is just like swimming upstream. The great thing that is done in ''Arcana'' is the ability that spirits have to change the elemental affinity of each player. Combine this with the ability to switch spirits in battle and an entirely new element of strategy is added.

All other battle options are just hack and magic. The one problem I had with the game is that the other 4 characters the come and go throughout the quest don't stay long enough. Each one ends up leaving you alone for a time to fight battles not meant for one player and a spirit. That was where the difficulty came in.

STORY: 8/10

Although it may seem a little cliched the basic premise is to go and stop the big bad evil. You are the last living card master, a boy named Rooks, who has been training every day since his father and mother were killed by treachery. One thing that bothered me as I played the game, though, was the fact that you could buy cards in every village. If Rooks is the last living card master, why are there still card salesmen? Who knows. Anyway, your friend Ariel lets you know that the evil king Galneon is trying to resurrect a big bad monster, so off you go. Not very original, but there are some cool plot twists along the way.

In closing, this game was awesome. Period. Any minor flaws are completely washed over by the great battle system and graphics. Would I recommend buying this game? Yes. The replay value is pretty good and the fun is off the charts. Play this game now or die by my hand!

Recap:

GRAPHICS: 10/10
SOUND: 8/10
CONTROL: 8/10
GAMEPLAY: 10/10
STORY: 8/10
TILT: 10/10

TOTAL: 10/10

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 02/22/03, Updated 02/22/03