Enchanted Arms

"Another JRPG for the 360, however there are better available for the 360."

Enchanted Arms was the first proper JRPG for the 360, it doesn't mess with the JRPG premise much, giving JRPG fans something to play before they move onto much better JRPGs (Lost Odyssey being one of them). Enchanted Arms isn't particularly bad (better than Phantasy Star Universe at least), but it does have quite a few flaws.

The story was actually fairly decent. At first it may seem a bit rubbish, a few love-to-hate students stumble upon the Queen of Ice, a Devil Golem (pretty much an unstoppable killing machine), reviving her in which she becomes hell-bent on destroying the world. However there is slight mystery toward the slightly camp main character, Atsuma, and his odd right arm. Whilst most of the game does follow the idea of the Ice Queen, the sub-plot, and background to the is fairly interesting. However it isn't quite one of those stories which makes you finish the game to see what happens, its just one of the few stronger points of the game. Unfortunately, characters don't help the story much. Every character is incredibly camp, annoying, or just plain stupid, making most characters the kind you hate, not love. The game is also littered with pointless events, making you run back and forth, just to draw the game out.

If you have played a JRPG then you should know exactly what to expect. The game involves you running around dungeons etc, fighting random battles, and eventually, beating a boss to move on. However the game adopts a few new ideas, despite being slightly flawed, certainly make the game a little more interesting. Firstly, we have the idea of golems. Golems can be added to your party of four to help you fight, giving you access to many different and unique party members (roughly 100 in total). To obtain these you must either find the core material, or beat them, in which you obtain their core. You can then synthesize them at a shop, and add them into your party. It is a nice idea, although simply put, your four human party members are much better at fighting, they're just kind of a back up. Which leads me to the VP system. After a battle is fought, you will notice your characters stats are fully restored, courtesy of VP. VP basically restores your characters stats (HP etc) after battle. However VP is lost depending on how many turns you take in the fight (so 10 turns means you lose 10 VP per character), or if they die. Getting your characters killed doesn't really matter since they still get EXP etc, they just lose more VP. When a character runs out of VP, their stats are reduced to 0, considering the fact items can only be used in battle (the character using an item can only use it on them selves, not an ally), this is one of the rare occassions you put a golem in your team to fight instead. However in each dungeon you're likely to find a shop and a recharger (restores all your VP), so whilst its certainly helpful, its a bit of a nuisance as well.

Lastly, we have the battle system. This is what saves the game from a lower score, and is certainly different. Each battle is fought on a 4x4 grid for each team (ie, your team and the enemy team). You then select an action for each character to move, then attack, much like a tactical RPG (a bit like Final Fantasy Tatics). You can equip many different skills to your characters, making them stronger, or just giving them a bigger attack radius. To use an attack you must use EP, which can be restored by waiting for a turn, or using an item. You can also pull off combos for more damage (Shadow Hearts Covenant anyone?), and gain EX by defeating enemies, which can be used to pull off special attacks (ie, limit breaks/overdrives/whatever). Whilst it doesn't sound much it can be very tactical, when you look properly you can get some very clever attacks in sometimes and it does make you think. The game isn't a walk in the park, but its not overly different either, the difficulty curve works well, the further you get the more wiser you are in battle, but so are the enemies. Its an interesting aspect of the game and definitely the strongest.

Before I played the game a friend warned me that the graphics were crap, and that Phantasy Star Universe (which he is a big fan of) had better graphics. However I was actually surprised, the graphics in Enchanted Arms (for a very early 360 title) were really good. Character models are pretty good as are environments, and lighting effects. Some places look great, although admittedly a few do look a little dull. My main complaint was that most surface in the game looked like it had just been rained on, and in a few places (for example the palace at Junk City) the lighting was way too bright. However as a whole they were good, and I was certainly impressed.

The music in the game wasn't bad. There were a few good tunes, but it was mostly a little dull, the battle theme can get quite annoying (considering you have fights literally every few seconds) but overall, the music was OK. My main complaint is with the terrible voice acting. Characters sound incredibly stupid, and very camp (as mentioned about the characters), its more annoying than anything else, you're best to put the Japanese VA on instead.

Overall, Enchanted Arms boasts an impressive battle system and a good plot and story, but not much else. It may be about 40 hours long, but if you can actually be bothered to play through it all (I got bored at 20 but I did finish it) remains to be see. If you're a massive JRPG and haven't played this yet then go ahead, but if you're new to the genre you may want to try something else like Blue Dragon.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 04/14/08

Game Release: Enchanted Arms (EU, 09/08/06)