Arcana

"Very cool first person rpg from the creators of Kirby."

I have never liked first person games, no matter if they were rpgs or not. I remember having played some horror first person games like Elvira II and Wax Works, and I liked them even if they were not rpgs at all, but I also remember having played some Wizardry games and I just couldn’t stand them, too slow hard and without any trace of plot or anything to tell you where the hell you are. I still dislike first person rpgs, but I have to admit that this Arcana is a great game.

Plot 8/10:
Tremendously cliché, with sacred treasures, a chosen kid descendant of the usual ancient hero, summonings based on the four elements, an monster mage that threatens the world, and some mad guys trying to revive an evil empress that will rule the world. ANYWAY, the game also has some great and the most important thing “unexpected” story twists that make the plot something very, very interesting. Then you have to consider that this Arcana was one of the first Snes games. Very good.

Graphics 9/10:
A bit blurry, but with superb designs and lots of variety. All the characters and enemies have plenty of superb animations. As this is a first person rpg the game seems to be in 3D, and while it is not, it looks like, and it looks great. With just four or five megs the graphics are really good, can you imagine how good would they be in a 24 meg cartridge?. Again, considering how old the game is and how many megs it has, excellent.

Music 9/10:
Wonderful, the soundtrack is very epic and fits the game perfectly. There are only four or five tunes sadly, but aside from that the music is rocks.

Gameplay 7/10:
Like in any first person game you will be exploring dungeons, caves and forests finding treasure and fighting slimes and skeletons. The map will be your biggest friend in the game, it is extremely easy to use and will show all the places you have been so it is impossible to get lost.

Fortunately the combats are not in real time, like in any other classic rpg they are turn based. You can summon elementals to aid you, use magic and cards (these cards lets you use attack offensive magic), items, and have up to three companions without counting the elementals, that act as another friend because they can attack like any other member, cast magic, etc. Great battles.

The main problem with this game is that it could have been a million times better with just a few changes, the biggest change the game needed was smaller and more varied dungeons. The first two chapters are superb, truly remarkable, but then everything gets a little repetitive, the third, fourth and fifth chapters have basically the same dungeons as the first two ones, and these dungeons get awfully long. Another flaw is the impossibility to return to the towns and areas you have already beaten to try to find all the treasures. Anyhow, if you come to think, again considering how old the game is, these flaws are not that bad, and the nice plot helps the game a lot in this aspect, the big problem is that without them Arcana could’ve been without doubt one of the absolute best rpgs for the Snes.

Arcana (or Card Master in Japanese, which is a worst but more appropriate title) is a great and unique rpg for the Snes in any case, those guys from Hal Laboratories always make splendid games and never get the recognition they deserve, and this game is a prove of it. Too bad, so sad and so unfair that it was not a success because I’m sure it could’ve spawned terrific sequels.

””My lack of vocabulary and grammatical errors (if there’s any) are because I’m not from an English speaking country, sorry.””

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 10/30/03