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An entertaining story

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 41 / 43
Date: August 02, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I have been interested in this game recently, and I finally gave in and bought it. It is well worth every penny. I have been a major RPG fan for years, and this one is high on my list now. I think the most powerful and recommendable part about this game is its story. It is a story that is TRULY epic. I remember thinking to myself at one point that the plot twists in this game seem more like something from Shakespeare or mythology than the standard, run of the mill RPG. The issues of racism, hate, and prejudice are all handled so well in this game, and it makes the characters much more interesting than just powerful heroes. The story is also very seldomly predictable. I like this a lot because some recent RPGs have been so easy to predict, like FFX. With a couple of thoughts, about 90% of the storyline could be foreseen after reaching only about the half-way point of the game. I think that this RPG does not fall to this error at all.

Also, I really like the battle system in this game. It is really similar to FF Tactics. The style is move around and attack. It keeps the turn based style a lot more interesting than usual. It is a definitely refreshing change.

I also loved the music and graphics in this game. It is completely stunning.

The only drawback is that there are no side-quests (unless you want to fight in arenas to unlock secret characters, which there are two of), but the story runs so smoothly that they really aren't necessary.

I hope that many of you will buy this game and enjoy it as I have.

A Little Long Winded

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 23 / 26
Date: December 15, 2003
Author: Amazon User

On a world that depends on magical energy for it's motive power two races vie for control of the scarce source of that power - spirit stones. Humans seek them out to run their maachines, and the Deimos, or demons, seek them because their very nature is magical. Children of a rare Deimos/Human relationship two brothers who were seperated at birth are drawn into a web of conflict that makes them mortal enemies - each raised by a different race, each sworn to defend their own by killing the opposite. Kharg and Darc are their names and this is the story of how they discovered that there are even worse enemies out to destroy them both.

The game is a standard RPG in format, but shifts the player back and forth between Darc's demon quest abd Kharg's human one. As the game builds the player can select characters for battles, and chose how individuals will develop skills. The plot meanders back and forth across the face of the world in carefully orchestrated fashion, the only variable being how many random conflicts one finds. You need a large number of these, since money and spirit stones are extremely scarce commodities. So hard to find that their acquisition will become the primary fixation of the game.

The reason for this is that you have to stop fighting and actually pick up your winnings during the battle, rather than receive a lump sum payment. As a player who likes to acquire new weapons and skills, I found this irritating - too often you leave a titanic struggle with almost nothing to show for it. The other big flaw in the game is that it is completely linear. The game makes sure that you always do the right thing in the right order, which limits its replayability. Many people are comfortable with this kind of game, but I find that, once you taste freedom, you don't want to head pack.

But most of my issues with Arc the Lad have to do with playing it right after playing Final Fantasy X-2. The result is that I became acutely aware of it's shortcomings. Of course, FFX-2 was created to be an extravaganza, and Arc the Lad was developed to be something less - just another decent, playable RPG. Thus the plot, which is really adequate for an RPG, comes of as glaringly tepid and character development seems sketchy and archetypical. Yet, had I played this a year ago I would have liked it much more. In any case, Arc the Lad is quite playable, even if it fails to meet the compelling quality of some of the releases of the past few years.

An enjoyable RPG romp

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 19 / 20
Date: June 24, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Arc the Lad: Twilight of the Spirits is a Strategy RPG simular to games like Final Fantasy Tactics, Shining Force, and Ogre Battle. Not a standard RPG like a Final Fantasy X, Suikoden, and so on. Let's get to the review.

The story is well told with solid voice acting, and an intersting plot. You plays as one of two brothers as main characters, switching between their stories before they eventually meet up. But their very gathering could cause great disaster. Added to the two brothers are 12 other main playable characters who can take place in battle with you.

Battle takes place on detailed hand drawn locations and instead of an old fashioned grid movement system you are alowed total analog freedom of movement (within your characters max walking distance) before you can attack an enemy. The game rewards you hard earned time with some fantastic full screen magic spells. Ice meteors, flame swirling everywhere, even a selection of summon beasts. The characters vary from human swordsmen, archers, and even some cool looking demon people.

I think that the games highest praise goes to it's music. It sounds very proffesionally composed and has a very celtic feel. Flute and bagpipes along with standard RPG fanfar themes. Overall, I am really looking foward to this game. It seems to be a very solid Japanesse RPG with it's share of good cinematic scenes, character developement, and eye poping spells. For the price tag, it's worth it, go for it!!

Different, very different

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: December 01, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Arc the Lad combines the old and the new to create an engaging game that will intrigue you at the very least. This game is probably one of the most beginner friendly games imaginable. Unlike Kingdom Hearts, and a lot of the Final Fantasy games, the gameplay does not relay on mere speed and fine motor skills (i.e. pressing the right buttons). For anyone who has played the old Online RPGs, or became aggravated with Kingdom Hearts in the beginnings, Arc will be a refreshing blast from the past.

The best description I can give for this game is Kingdom Hearts with Pokemon like gameplay. Battles are based on turns. You go, then your enemy goes. The frustrating thing about this is that if the game lets your opponent go first (which it does in upper arena levels or important boss fights) and your characters have low defense, they can die before you even get a turn. However, this style of gameplay can also be seen as a useful advantage. For those gamers who have had problems mastering the sometimes downright frustratingly complex controls for other games, Arc is a huge blessing. You can plan your attack slowly, without pausing the game. Your mistakes are easily fixed before you even make them.

Being a "gamer" won't help you as much in this game as it may have in other games. The way to win Arc is man (or woman, go female gamers!) hours. Being at the highest level possible is the way to win. The other way to win is strategy. You are in control of your whole team which can include 14 characters. You'll figure out each character's strengths and weaknesses, and the best time to use them.

Another great aspect of this game is its plot. The Daemos (my personal favorite team), a blend of demons, animals, and humans, are being experimented on, and basically oppressed by humans. They don't like it, so they try to fight back. A war breaks out between the two races. On the Daemos side is Darc, a half Daemos, born of a human mother and a Daemos father. His genetics make him different than anything ever seen before. The part of him that is Daemos is constantly fighting with the part that is human. He vows to destroy the humans for what they have done. On the human side is Darc's twin brother Kharg, who is half human half Daemos as well, but looks human. The two are on opposing sides and when they finally meet for the first time, sparks fly.

The character design is the best I have ever seen in any video game. The diversity, especially among the Daemos team, is so wonderful. The voice acting is good, and the writing is better. The kind of language used for each character/race is so different from character to character that you start to think of the characters as real. My personal favorite, besides Darc, is Bebedora, is a being that has to be seen to be believed. A monster that can use mind control, she is a great friend and terrible opponent. You'll find out.

If you like any role playing games, give this game a try. It's a refreshing change that will please veterans and novices of the video game alike.

Following in the footsteps of greatness

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 9
Date: June 29, 2003
Author: Amazon User

When I turned the game on for the first time, I was reminded somewhat of the FFVIII and FFX movie sequences. The storyline and lore are not only intriguing and fantastic like the FF's, but we now have a spirit system, fans of the Suikoden series would like to call these "ruins," that I loved. Like the Suikoden series there are also "true spirits" and he who holds them all will have the power to rule the world. The battle system reminds me of FF Tactics with free movement during your turns. The world map reminds me of the Chrono Trigger/Cross series. All in all, this game is truly remarkable.

unspectacular

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 5 / 8
Date: July 16, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I'd written a review for this game when I was in the middle of playing it. When I finished, I wished I hadn't spent the time. Here's the deal... I hated almost every character in the game. They were annoying! How are you really expected to enjoy a gaming experience when you hate all the characters you play as?

What I liked in the game was the deep story, and I loved the combat system. Combat was actually a lot of fun. The graphics were nice too.

What I hated involved all the characters and the way they reacted to things. In fairness, there were a couple of characters I liked, like Bebedora (sp?). It may be an unfair comparison, but in games like Final Fantasy, you can go back to various areas, and there's all sorts of side quests and weapons you can get. It gave the Final Fantasy series a lot more depth.

Ultimately, this could have been worse, but if they'd just made the characters interesting, it would have been a lot better.

Great RPG

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 6
Date: July 24, 2003
Author: Amazon User

As above the game control is great. Sort of like FF Tactics, but more free form of fighting. From what I have got through the story line is great. Some times the text can get a bit off base, but the sound makes up for it ten fold.

If you like hack and slash RPGs, this game is a good pick if you can deal with some plot. Great graphics and cut scenes.

This is a game

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: August 16, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Listen, and listen good, you don't have to buy this game, but I'd advise it. Heck, I'd give it a five star if only for one thing. The graphics aren't the best, so what. But it still counts toward a great review, and everything does. Trust me when I say this, its one of the best RPG's you'll find for the PS2. Yeah, I know, it doesn't look all that good, and it's kind of hidden and stuff. Even I was not sure about buying it, but after I did, I was happy. It features turn-based combat, but in a new way. Instead of the hits back and fourth, you actually move in combat, and then attack when in distance. Oh, fine, there's one more reason why I gave it a four, in battle the characters say things, and sometimes its freakin' annoying. The story great, the gameplay's great, graphics are fine, and the voices are good. I would recomend this game too anyone who likes RPG's, or all those like me who are huge RPG fans of all sorts, this game is a great buy. It's also kind of cheap. In the game, you will switch for a while between two brothers who are completely different, and have never met each other. Okay, fine, there more than a little different. It's hard, i'm sorry, but can't explain the story too much, if I do it will spoil a lot, and for two it's too hard. The story is so complex and everything, so yeah. I hope my review helped, now go buy it or rent it, or don't bother, it doesn't matter too me. Oh, yeah, and if you like this game you'll like Kingdom Hearts as well, no matter how dumb you think either look, and if you like Kingdom Hearts. you'll probobly like this, well, bye.

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-

Its like something from a good fantasy novel

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: February 04, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I'm a big Sci-fi and Fantasy reader. So, when I played this game I couldn't help but like it a lot. Racism is an extremely delicate issue and I don't think I've ever seen any game depict that issue as well as Arc the Lad. This game takes place in a world where two races have been at each other's throats for thousands of years. Two brothers, both of them half breed of human and deimos (basically demons), were seperated when they were very young when the father (a deimos) and mother (human) have to run from persuing deimos because of thier illegitemate children. Kharg grows up in the human world with a somewhat social standing and Darc in the Deimos world as a slave boy. As the story progresses, both of them rise up to a position of leader and defender of thier respective race and both eventually clash into each other with the repricussion being far greater than both have ever imagined. This game has some unique plot twists and its kept me guessing all the way till the end.

The graphics are decent and there some attack spells/techniques that I love to watch over and over again.

The acting could've used some work but the really only annoying part of the voice overs is during battle. Some of the things they say is pretty corny so I usually just turn the voices off during battle.

The battle system is something more like FF tactics but in a more analog sort of way of movement and fighting. I liked it.

The music is something altogether different. I liked this music so much (the orchestrated pieces in particular) that I actually went online, found the soundtrack to this game and ordered it so I can listen to it without playing the game. I know, I'm straight up nerd. It kind of gives off the feeling of celtic music.

I can see that by playing this game you'll either love it or hate it. I was lucky in that I actually bought this game without knowing what it was about and turned out great in my opinion. I don't recommend to anyone doing that same thing. Go rent it. If you like it, buy it. Be forewarned, there are no sidequests other than fighting in arenas.

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