Arcana

"A repetitive and disapointing maze crawler."

Hal, the makers of Kirby, made a an attempt to give SNES owners an RPG. This attempt failed. Instead of an epic Role Playing game, we get a borning maze crawler.

Story: The land of Elemen was a peaceful place. However, Conflict broke out between six kingdoms. The dispute brought about unrest. To make matters worse, The evil Sorceror and court magician, Galneon, decided to take advantage of this unrest and ran a coup against the king. The king was killed and Galneon took over the throne. Galneon now plans to rule all of elemen. You are Rooks, a card master. Your mission is to gather three treasures and stop the evil Galneon. Armed with a sword, cards, a spirit, and a Blue Beret, you begin your quest.

Sounds generic, but this is what RPGs are all about. Fighting evil and saving the world.

Score: 7. Not bad. It sounds a little bit over used. I, personally, never get sick of the world saving scenario.

Audio/Video: The graphics are a big disapointment. The game is in 1st person perspective. They're not so terrible that they don't belong on an SNES, but they are overused and lazy

All the towns look EXACTLY the same. They all consist of 2 Shops, a Pub, an INN, and a house. The Dungeons (I consider them mazes) were not impressive at all. You will mostly see brick wall over and over. There are caves, forests, mountains, and towers. The towers look the same and all the caves look like the first cave, only different colored.

The in-battle graphics are pretty bad. They lack Visual detail. The battle consists of enemies inside cards that barely move and have poor attack animation. As you progress through the game, the enemies you fight are usually repeats of other enemies, only different colored. The magic attacks were poorly animated. For instance, when you use a lightning attack, you will see a tiny bolt of lightning appear on the target and thats all. The graphics were not impressive at all.

The Sound in the game is also very poor. The town's music is okay, but nothing special. The dungeon music seems a little overused. The battle music was not impressive. It just didn't have an edge to it. It doesn't really sound like battle music. Music is important for keeping the player interested in games and this games music is not good or bad, just fair. The in-battle sound effects, however, are terrible. All of the characters' weapons sound the same when a character attacks. I believe the magic spells all sound the same too, which is bad because they sound like they came from a high quality NES game. (No offense to NES.)

Score: 1. Lazy and Repetitive. Just doesn't cut it.

Gameplay: You are in 1st person. The D-pad is used to turn left or right and go forward and back. You can open up your menu to switch spirits, equip weapons and armor, use magic, use items and check the status of your characters. You can also pull up a map to see the areas you've been to in a dungeon.

While in town, you can visit a house to hear a person talk, go to a shop to buy stuff, go to a bar to eat or drink, and sleep at an INN. You may exit the town to enter a dungeon.

In a dungeon, you must navigate through mazes while fighting random battles to survive and reach the next destination. These mazes are long and tiresome and random battles appear WAY too often. You will easily get sick of the mazes and angered at the random battles. You gain exp. to level up after battles, even though it won't do much. The enemies are very difficult, even at higher levels. I remember having a hard time fighting battles towards the end ogf the game even with Max Stats. Your spirits are only good for their magic. Their attack power is ridiculously low and it never gets any stronger. Not to mention you cannot equip them with anything.

This game is very, very linear due to the fact that you cannot go back to places you've previously completed. All you can do is go through mazes or return to the town you're at. The only things you can explore are the dungeons. That's all.

Score: 1. The controls are simple, but going through the dungeons is not fun at all. There is too little freedom and interaction. It will bore you and aggravate you before you beat the game.

Replay Value: None at all. There are no side quests or secrets to find. This is not an awesome experience that will have you coming back for more.

Score: 1. I don't see any reason to play this game again.

In conclusion, Aracan is boring, repetitive, and linear. If you love SNES and love RPGs, then play Final Fantasy 2 (4, in Japan) Avoid Arcana at all costs. If you happen to see someone playing it, you should turn it off, wash your eyes out if you caught a glimpse of the game, and tell that person about how much of a big mistake they were making.

Reviewer's Score: 1/10, Originally Posted: 06/07/05