Having never thumbed through a single text box in the original Arc the Lad trilogy, it’s perhaps unfitting for me to be here writing a review for the new one, not because of a lack of experience, but because in the dozens of hours I’ve registered into Arc the Lad: Twilight of the Spirits, not once did I get the feeling that I was playing an Arc the Lad game. No stigma of past failures, no apparent reliance on historic laurels; no connotations at all that would come with the Arc name. Blame it on the fact that the first three games came too late and way too hard (regardless of your view of Working Designs, all three games in one package is damn gutsy, commendable, and outrageous), but with four obscure games into the series, I wouldn’t have been surprised if Sony had done what everyone else these days is doing when an old, or unknown, series gets resurrected and passed this off simply as Arc the Lad (The First, The Only). I get the feeling that I’ve completely avoided a blizzard and what’s left behind now is only this fresh, brand-new snow to play in.

And that is to also say that with Spirits, like so many guilty RPGs, the terrain is very familiar, but glossed in such a way so that it’s nothing to throw up your hands over. For whatever development decisions or politics I’m not fully aware of, the game follows in the footsteps of the previous game (which I’m sure will continue to alienate, or confuse, fans of the original two): the battles are still turn-based but the arenas are much more constricted and progression isn’t as stodgy or menu driven, like a Grandia 2-lite. With necessary preparation and basic wherewithal, the fights won’t take much longer than your average console RPG and the encounter rate exists at but a fraction of the norm. The battles still aren’t all memorable, but now are much more significant; it’s rare not to see someone from the party level up every other battle and there’s a heightened feeling of progress and growth.

The battle system, which is very fun for the first dozen or so hours, has two things going for it. Like the new style of the adventure game where there isn’t a list of commands at the bottom of the screen or even the mouse arrow present in order to create a seamless animated world, Arc the Lad has this same lack of formality. Most of the time, there aren’t any boxes of text or stats or even a reticule; the camera pans over quickly to the enemy and if it moves, it moves, and if it bites, it bites. Perhaps this is of a trivial sort but it shows that less is not necessarily more, but at least executable with conscious grace.

Physical attacking is pedestrian save for the fact that every person has different width and range (and this is the second good mark for the battle system). The guy with the sword has an average width and range; he won’t be able to hit the opponents standing in line at the same time, but if the opponents are shoulder to shoulder, then your man’s in business. And vice versa: the girl with the whip isn’t useful if she’s being circled in but if two enemies are standing face to face, then they can both be targeted and attacked. The best is the archer. With an attack range that borders on the unseemly and unfair, he can knock over so many guys in a straight line it’s like playing a game of bad guy dominos. And it’s a good thing that developer Cattle Call had the foresight to have party members leave and join the foray by control of the puppet strings of the plot, because otherwise, the player would be liable to substitute everyone for archers.

But in the rush to create a battle system revolving around range and width, they forgot to add in some depth. Even though it’s entirely capable for variety, more so than the usual, it’s a real head-scratcher to go into a “random encounter” (just like in Final Fantasy Tactics; moving across a “hot spot” on the map may plug you into a fight) only to find the exact same enemies, in a pack of the exact same number, in the same formation, and then to find yourself be going through the exact same motions. What happened to the “random” of the “random encounter?” If someone can kindly tell me if this is laziness, ignorance, or a giant insult, please do.

Stalking the enemy, trying to lure them all into one spot or a straight line so the player can hit them all in one fell swoop may be warmly gratifying, but that’s all there is and nothing else to consider. Since there’s absolutely no fear of taking extra damage when being hit from the side or the back and no terrain effects that may affect, there’s only one strategy required for every brawl: all-out gung-ho offense. Instead of a battle for survival, it’s a battle for efficiency. And with enemies being the colossally idiotic academy rejects that they are (even with long distance weapons, they prefer hand-to-hand combat) and the game being so tipped in the player’s favor with cheap healing items and magic (I was stuck at one point and after wandering and fighting some battles, I turned off the game without saving in fear of become too powerful and spoiling the difficulty of the game even further), the battles become only an empty, confectionary thrill, and certainly no substitute for the normal staples of the strategy/RPG genre that are so subtly addictive.

The plot is propelled by two kindred folk who have never met: Kharg, the leader of a military coalition for a small country (oh, by the way, he hates monsters), and Darc, a disliked half-human, half-monster who is destined to lead his monster kind to victory (oh, by the way, he hates humans). The game starts off with Kharg and once a major story sand pit has been cleared, the player is whisked halfway across the globe to control Darc, and we see his rise to power, and thus this plot pirouetting is repeated over and over, a little bit past the establishment of the “the power of friendship and teamwork!” moral and well after the “if only they could compromise and understand” message. It’s good to see someone attempting to show first-hand the antagonist’s troubled past and present (rather than some cheesy flashback where we get glimpses of the antagonist’s family getting killed or eaten or whatever dandy nonsense), but once fate and destiny kicks in - those ubiquitous temptresses! - and Darc starts spewing his endless rhetoric about blind ambition of power and blind hatred of humans, he ceases to become an interesting character. Regardless of the fact that we ourselves guided Darc through the unfortunate situations that would transform him from a miserly nobody with a little hate to one of greed and even more hate, as we drift 20, 30, 40 hours away from the beginning of the game, those events become old hat and start to seem more and more inconsequential and with no bearing on the present. But still, nice try.

And just who is representing the human home team, the one that is pissing off an entire monster subspecies? Namely, there’s that Kharg, who is stunningly rendered and drawn with a kind of feral ferocity rarely seen in a game. Unfortunate that he’s more goal-oriented than a guidance counselor, which practically screams, “No time for a real personality!” That’s also evident in the party he keeps, with the exception of Maru, who initially enters the spotlight as a vagabond boy that puts on a green goblin mask and steals the town’s food. He’s the only one written with a sense of fun in mind, and there’s an especially wonderful cut scene where a particularly nasty bad guy is being insulted by a pirate, and then the camera cuts to Maru who has develops a quick sly and snide smile, and that part is so human, that it’s almost (dare I say it?) cinematic. Everyone else is as imposing or engaging as Easter Island heads, so cardboard cutout-ish that it’s like a throwback to 1989. But, I guess in the enormous galaxies of console game fantasy and make-believe where you’re either dutiful and noble or obnoxious and whiny, one should have to eventually choose: Would you prefer to be bored or annoyed?

· · · Sqoon