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Absolutely a nice game

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: February 19, 2008
Author: Amazon User

This is definitively not the best RPG game, but for certain one of the best, I really like this game except for Arc The Lad - End of Darkness, they shouldn't have done that crap, in the other hand, there is an interesting series of this game, i'd like to have all the PS1 Arc the Lad but the collection is kinda expensive :-S

An Extremely Average RPG

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 2 / 4
Date: January 19, 2008
Author: Amazon User

This review was written by my son, James Shea.

The first incarnation of the AtL series on the PS2, Arc the Lad: Twilight of the Spirits is a tactical RPG, though more the latter than the former.

The game follows two viewpoints: that of Kharg, a human prince, and Darc, a Deimos (monstrous humanoid) slave. The two must unite to fight off a powerful army that seeks to capture the five elemental stones and gain ultimate power. The plot is, as it sounds, fairly cookie-cutter, and there isn't a huge amount of character development or really deep storyline. It's certainly not enough to support the gameplay. There are several attempts at "messages" - the splintering between the Deimos and the Humans as a metaphor for racism being the main one - but as a whole these are shallow.

The gameplay is "tactical", in a way, though the numbers of your party aren't as high as would be expected in such a system. Similar to Phantom Brave, each character has a radius that they can move in. Walking within range of an enemy allows you to attack them. Different weapons have different ranges, and certain skills also have longer ranges. Positioning for combination attacks becomes important.

The graphics are decent, and reasonable for a PS2 game of the time, but for the most part the character designs are uninspired. Every part of the character costumes and design seems to be stylistically taken from some other RPG, and none of them stand out in any way. The music is similarly generic; no particular piece stands out. This game is so remarkably average that it is unbelievable.

As a whole this game isn't excellent in many ways. It is simply another one of the seeming thousands of PS2 fantasy RPGs, and it doesn't add anything major or important to the formula that would be worth discussing.

Rating: 6/10.

Pretty Good

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: January 17, 2008
Author: Amazon User

It was quite interesting. As you play it tells you 2 different stories: one of a human and the other as a demon. I enjoyed playing it! It's pretty good!

All Glam and No Substance

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: July 25, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I have never written a review before, but I feel that I must warn off anyone thinking of getting this game before they waste 30-40 hours of their life. This is one of the least enjoyable games I have ever played. The worst thing about this game is that it is just intersting enough to keep you playing, while never giving any real satisfaction from the experience. The voice acting is absolutely terrible, the characters personalities seem to come right out of some cheesy teen flick, and the endless battles quickly become tedious. There are NO NEW ARMOR OR WEAPONS in the game, period. They try to make up for this lack with some lame weapon upgrades, such as a damiond coating, that must be equipped to improve each characters attack power. Really, how do you apply a daimond coating to a sword? There are barely any treasure chests at all to find in this game, and most just have spirit stones and the same items you buy in the shops. The game is super easy until the final boss, whom I had to spend hours leveling up to defeat. Finally, the story could have been interesting if the dialouge between the humans and deimos had not been so completely unbelievable and two-dimensional. Any comparisons between this game and Shining Force or Final Fantasy Tactics are purely aesthetical, as those two games are some of my favorites of all time. In any area other than graphics this game falls far short of those two. Apparently gaming companies these days are under the impression that some pretty graphics and a bunch of animated cut scenes make a great game. Sounds kind of like Hollywood.

Arc the Lad

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: May 24, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I've played Arc the Lad 3, 4 and 5, and this one is the best. There is
a certain amount of replay value, but not as much as some other games.
The visuals are very good, the story line is very good. I enjoyed
playing this game and after a few months I'll probably play it again.

Could have been executed better.

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: March 18, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Overall this game has a good story and many surprises. However the graphics, battling system, and the characters are flawed. First let me begin with the graphics, they're not the worst I've seen, however they certainly aren't the best and they can look a bit cheesy (An example would be Kharg's pony-tail, it is a bit weirdly shaped). The same thing goes for the voice acting and battle voices (thank God you can turn them off). After a while I began to notice that all of the cut scenes went on too long. If not, they were uncalled for. Whenever you hear someone speak during a cut scene, their dialogue is cheesy and overacted because of the poorly-chosen voice actors. I wish I could have skipped them even though they contained "important" story information. However, the game doesn't present the option of skipping them.
As for the story, this game is about the clash of two races (deimos and human) fighting for an energy source (spirit stones) and the dominance of the world. In the game you start out as Kharg, a human prince who lives in a boring little town named Yewbell. His mother, the queen of this town, has kept many secrets from him, such as the whereabouts of his father. There's a strange stone lying around his house and when Kharg comes near it, a wind spirit comes out and speaks to him.
After going on a few quests the story switches over between main characters to Darc, a half-deimo living in Orcoth, a deimo ruled city. Darc has been enslaved by Geedo a giant toad-like woman who treats him very badly. However, Geedo is not the only one who treats him badly, everyone in Orcoth does since he isn't a full-blood Deimos. Darc came here with his father (a full-blooded deimos). He was being chased by Drakyr (winged monsters) and died immediately after the chase. Darc hid his father's remains in the ruins of a church adjacent to Orcoth. His father was carrying a mysterious stone that Darc also hid in his grave. The stone calls out to him sometimes and it says that he is the spirit of the wind.
The story of this game is probably the best aspect it has to offer. Unfortunately, the game designers didn't exploit their good story-writing and even punished you for looking into the story. I say this because the cut scenes are really hard to watch without gagging, or at least putting your television on mute. I can't stress enough how bad the voice actors are (they're about on par with Power Rangers). Another problem that plagues this game, is the story presentation (text boxes and cut scenes). Text boxes in my opinion are a poor way of presenting the story. It isn't very entertaining to read text over and over, when you could be battling demons or doing some other activity. Another thing games do is that they make the string of text boxes go on way too long, this game is no exception. So really this game (and many other games that are not careful about how they use their text boxes) force you into skipping through them and after a while become an annoyance (unless you are the most patient person on Earth). I used to see cut scenes as a happy medium for story presentation because they're more entertaining or impressive. I say this because they are more visual like a movie rather than a book. However, once again I've been proven wrong by Arc the Lad just because of how poorly they're executed.
The battle system is flawed because of just how annoying it is to battle. Instead of magic points there are spirit stones which you have to buy instead of recharging them. All of your character's regular attacks are somewhat ineffective to kill the enemy, (however the enemy's attacks are also pretty weak). So you're forced to resort to special skills/magic if you want to make even a dent in the enemy's defenses. I would have no problem with this except that these skills cost a lot of spirit stones and spirit stones cost money. That means that you will be running out of spirit stones pretty often. 75% of your money will have to be devoted to spirit stones, if you make it a habit to refill your character's magic reserves often. Another flaw in the battle system is just how long it takes to go in and out of battle. You could spend twice as much time going in and out of battle than in any other RPG, (Final Fantasy, Earthbound, etc.). Instead of random encounters or enemies running up to you on the map, you engage in battle every time you go to a location on the map that doesn't have to do with the story. For example if you go from Geedo's house to Orcoth, there's a midway point in between them that's not part of the story that you have to go through to get to Orcoth. So that means that every time you go to Orcoth, it inevitably leads you into a battle.
Since there isn't much motivation to train your characters (I've never found a boss I really had to level up for), you'll spend more time fleeing than actually battling, unless the battle is required for you to advance in the story (a.k.a. quests). All of the quests get repetitive after a while since they're the same two layouts over and over again. The first quest layout is set up like this - insert location here, insert enemy here, insert available characters here, insert story here, go to location X with characters, fight enemy, advance in story, repeat. Second layout for quests don't have anything to do with battling. All you do is look for triggers (such as talking to a particular person) that are very hard to find. At times you might be forced to look at an online guide (buying a guide for this game would be a waste of money).
Another annoying aspect of this game is the characters. Almost all of the characters are poorly fleshed-out or they overreact in every emotional situation or they're whiny or weak in battle or just plain stupid looking or all five put together. In my opinion, having likable main characters is essential to all games because you're stuck with them for the whole game and have to follow them around, and watch their reactions to story events (however stupid they may be). Even if you can see past the flaws in the characters you notice that they all have really weird names (Kharg, Darc, Desimo, Delma, Paulette, Lilia, Choco, Maru, Volk, Tatijana, Bebedora, Diekbeck, etc.). In my opinion, this game has a good story, but everything else is poorly done.
Final Grade: C-

Obscenely underrated RPG...one of the PS2's best

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: February 21, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This game was included on a demo disc from some magazine I forget. I'm a fan of RPGs so I thought I'd try it out. As soon as the game started I knew that it was going to be a game I'd enjoy immensely. And I was right.

This is a game that flew under the radar of the mainstream gamer, resting in the shadows of big-budget standouts like the Final Fantasy series. Which is a shame, since while "Twilight of the Spirits" is no technical marvel like those games are, it has every bit as much careful attention to detail and is as much fun to play.

My favorite game of all time is Shining Force 2 for the Genesis, so I was thrilled to find that "Twilight" is actually something of a strategy/RPG hybrid (minus the grid). The battle system is awesome, and a refreshing departure from three or four characters standing in a line, trading blows with endless, generic enemies. Of course, the open-movement battlefield style isn't everyone's cup of tea. But it adds a new level of strategy to typical RPG combat, as you're given the freedom of choice to move around the battlefield as you wish. Some characters only have a short range of attack, but can hit multiple enemies with one turn. Other characters have long-range attacks but can only hit one enemy at a time. So, well-thought placement of each character on the field is crucial to success, much like Shining Force (which like this game, shows each attack in a special cutscene).

The graphics in "Twilight" are certainly worth mentioning. While the characters and world aren't as detailed or have as high a polygon count as in FF, the colors are amazingly vibrant and the various areas of the game have their own distinct feel. You'll be swept away to many different lands over the course of the game, and its world is completely immersive. There are airships, dragons, ninjas and scarily powerful technology to be dealth with.

The story isn't the typical cookie-cutter RPG plot (Unknowingly powerful main character must rise up to defeat lord of chaos). Play time in the game is actually split between two very opposite main characters: Upstanding and idealistic Kharg and outcast and disillusioned Darc. I won't try to spoil anything, so suffice it to say that the two have much more in common than expected and the story that ensues is rife with conflict, betrayal, intrigue and redemption. The only downfall to having the back-and-forth storyline is that you might begin to lose track of the specifics of each character's path. But the fresh, original tale is emotional and the ending is rewarding, and there is a large supporting cast of unique playable characters.

This game is very inexpensive to pick up used now. I would recommend that any RPG fan (especially those of the Shining Force series) try this game out. It's one of the best on the system.

There will always be hope...

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: January 01, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I absolutely loved this game despite the fact that I had never heard or seen the Arc the lad series. I had a lot of low expectations of it, because I use to feel that no rpg game compared to Final Fantasy 7 but this game changed me completely. Okay, here's alitte sneak peak in my own words. You play two main characters who have a strong secret (no spoiling) connection to each other and fight hard to defeat and rid the world of basically humans or monsters called "Deimos" depending on which side you prefer (you are basically both). I choose deimos =D. Anyway, comes down to the fact that there's a big bad guy wanting to destory the world and you for the first time have to defeat him by bringing hope and peace between humans and deimos for a brief time. It's just really captivating. I am a REALLY picky gamer...but trust me if you like rpgs and drama plots or dig the series this should be on your list. I hope I helped out!
=D

Good game, combat gets very repetitive

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: February 26, 2006
Author: Amazon User

The story to this game progresses quite nicely and alternating story lines add to the interest. The combat, however, becomes quite repetitive after a while and starts to detract from the game. The use of voice acting is also quite inconsistent, with some cut-scenes using voice and others using text in seemingly the same sorts of situations.

OK on its own... big let down for fans

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: January 20, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I own all of the Arc the Lad games and have played through 1 & 2, I still haven't bothered beating three. When I heard this game was coming out I had to own it. We bought it and I started playing. First impression was, "This game is awesome!" but after playing for a while I lost my enthusiasm. I went ahead and finish the game and now I have a slight distaste for the game. I'll explain what I liked and what i didn't.

The best part I would say is the battle system. It is a tactics turn based system which is true to the original Arc the Lads, but it adds a three dimensional element to it which makes it even better than the originals. The game looks really nice too. The stages and towns look beautiful and the world maps are again reminiscent of the originals.

The things I didn't like were the story and the character and the ending. The game focuses around two brothers who are both half human and half daemos. One is accepted by humans and the other isn't accepted by anyone. This would be an excellent setup and it added to my initial enthusiasm, but as the game went on I started to empathise with Darc and the Daemos and despise Karg and the humans. I still had to play as the humans though for what is at least half the game. The two teams only come together for the final stage and never resolve the conflicts between them. I found that annoying. The game ends with human and daemos still hating each other and the "spirits" gone. Since both human and daemos have great need of the spirit stones it is suggested that the "twilight of the spirits" might lead to war. I felt like that should be the real beginning of the game rather than the end.

For the people who have been following the series there is no data load from three. You don't see anyone from any of the original games at all, though they are mentioned occasionally. Anything related to the earlier games felt more like an Easter Egg then anything important to the plot. I wouldn't mind any of this if they were planning on continuing this series in the same way they did Arc the Lad 1 & 2, in fact that would be awesome, but I don't see them doing that.

Just as itself this game could only be called decent, but when paired with the original three it couldn't even be called that. I can't say the game isn't worth playing, but be prepared to be disappointed often by the anti-climatic plot.

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