Arc the Lad demo impressions

[James]

Not a big fan of cloning stuff, but I thought this might be of interest to the board. I posted this elsewhere first but figured it could use some lovin' here too-

Got my hands on a demo of the Arc the Lad: Twilight of the Spirits demo today and just finished playing it a minute ago. This will be a bit shorter than I wanted, thanks to a looooooong day, but I wanted to dump these thoughts while they're still fresh.

It's thousands of years past the end of Arc 3, and in whatever the country they're in is being called (kind of lousy with names, sorry) the land is divided in half between Daimos, sentient monster-critters, and humans. Our main character is the son of the woman who negotiated peace between the Daimos/human peace and de-monarchy-ed the country. Our guy, Kharg, would be a prince if they still had them, and is generally referred to with much respect. Of course he's as hot headed and impetuous as a young main character needs to be, and that arrogance will kick-start the plot quite nicely.

Spirit stones are the power source of the land, and humans have a good vein of them going. A nasty group of dragon Deimos decide they want the mine, and our plot is off and running. Add in a deep dark secret or three (that the demo doesn't reveal, but none are hard to guess (unless I'm totally wrong)) and that's the demo plot in a nutshell.

There are three playable characters in the demo- Kharg, who attacks with a sword, Paulette, his childhood female friend who wears low neckline armor and has a mole on her right breast (might as well comment on it, it's next to impossible not to see) and attacks with a yo-yo thingy, and a kid whose name escapes me who has arrows.

Combat is the tactical sort found in previous Arcs, excpet the grid is gone. It's a bit more of a circle than a diamond for your character to run around in, and the same goes for the attack direction. Hitting a button calls up the attack radius, and you can then, for characters with ranged attacks, line up critters for more efficient damage. It's every bit as fun now as it was then to nail 2 or more creatures with one attack.

Spirit stones are used to power magic. Every spell you cast consumes them, and if you need more they cost 2 gold apiece. Enemies can also drop them, but here's one thing I wasn't too fond of- When you defeat an enemy, they drop an item. On the ground. Which you then have to walk over and pick up if you want to get. Once you've picked up an item you've used up all your movement, so you'd better hope there's a creature around or you'll just have to blow off an attack. It's not so much a problem for my arrow guy, but Paulette and especially short-range sword Kharg weren't suited for it. It does kind of add a bit of strategy to whether or not you want to grab an item or finish the battle, but I think it'll probably be an annoyance over time.

There's also a powered multiple-character attack, and it seems to be activated by taking damage. I didn't really figure out how to make it go in the demo, though, I just saw it in action once or twice.

Interesting weapon power-up method- you buy or find accessories for your weapons that you can take off and put on at will. You never buy a new weapon, just find new toys for the one you've got. I didn't mess around with it much but it looks like each weapon has three slots to put things into. I'm hoping this will be as fun as it looks like it should be.

(Intro-movie spoiler warning) The intro movie gives off some neat hints of things to come, like familiar looking airships and even something that looks flying castle-like. Haven't seen a hint of Choko or Diekbeck yet, though. The classic Arc theme is always welcome. Early in the game you also get a nice recap of Arc, although very brief. it does tie the old games and the new one together, but so far that and the wind crystal spirit thingy are the only connections I've seen. I should note that I haven't given away any plot beyond 10 minutes of starting the disk up in the PS2.

The translation is a bit iffy. It's servicable, but I've found some glaring typos too. Voice acting is mixed as well, but it only gets obnoxious in battle, which is par for the course for these things. Hopefully they'll do some text clean-up before the June release, but I'm not betting on it.

I'll buy it, I'll play it, I'll beat it. I don't expect it to live up to the first two games, although it might equal the third. It's a Sony first-party title so it should be $40, so I'm guessing I'll get my money's worth out of it. Still, it'll be weird not to see the WD logo in front of it.

Wow, that went on longer than I was expecting it to...

-new material here-

I forgot to comment on the graphics. The camera is in a fixed position at all times, which after a game like Dark Cloud 2 I find kind of strange. Character models are perfectly serviceable but not great, although they do put a good number of them on screen at once in the towns. There seem to be some nice monster models but the demo isn't really enough to say how many or varied they'll be.

Not a whole lot of new material, but worth a mention.

James

[Werewolf]

Sounds pretty good, I still need to finish Arc the Lad 2 and 3 though, but I'll definately be picking this up

I heard there's a werewolf character in this ... I want to hear more... please

[Roufuss]

Lol I still need to buy the Arc the Lad Collection.

I don't think I'll find it any cheaper than 50 at EB though.

[Videodrone]

Originally posted by Roufuss
Lol I still need to buy the Arc the Lad Collection.

I don't think I'll find it any cheaper than 50 at EB though.

doubt they will have any left, but i got mine about a month ago at Media Play for $20...

[Roufuss]

I don't think I have a Media Play anywhere near me. But that's a damn nice price for it.

Yea, the nearest one is so long away, I might as well spend 50, because I'd be putting at least 20 bucks into the tank.

[NeomegaCloud]

Yet another game I had no idea was coming out until I saw it in my new PSM...I will definately buy this, but I'm still needing to finish Arc 2 and 3. Looks like it should be pretty good and isn't taking years to bring over (but it won't have all sorts of extras either)

[Roufuss]

What's the release date?

[James]

The werewolf character has a very short scene at the end of the demo, you can't miss it. No comment, it's a big story bit and I'm allergic to spoilers. You'll see soon enough.

http://www.ebgames.com/ebx/categorie...p?pf_id=234369
The release date would be June 24. A bit of a ways off but that just gives me time to kill my current pile a bit.

EB still has the original collection for $50 a pop. I may be biased (I worked on both Arc 3 and did a good load of editing on the guide book) but I think it's worth picking up. To put it another way- I Sweated Blood On That *&%$!@* Game And You'd Damn Well Better Buy It, You Load Of Ingrates!!!111oneone!

James

[Roufuss]

I've been debating it for a long long time, hoping to find it at the flea market...but... the series has always interrested me a bit, so I'll probably get once I'm doing with FF: Tactics.

[ssbomberman]

Originally posted by James
The werewolf character has a very short scene at the end of the demo, you can't miss it. No comment, it's a big story bit and I'm allergic to spoilers. You'll see soon enough.

http://www.ebgames.com/ebx/categorie...p?pf_id=234369
The release date would be June 24. A bit of a ways off but that just gives me time to kill my current pile a bit.

EB still has the original collection for $50 a pop. I may be biased (I worked on both Arc 3 and did a good load of editing on the guide book) but I think it's worth picking up. To put it another way- I Sweated Blood On That *&%$!@* Game And You'd Damn Well Better Buy It, You Load Of Ingrates!!!111oneone!

James

Best Buy has them for cheaper I think...check there. Well I got the games and guide the moment they were released...do you have any idea what happened to the second guide and is WD still in business -- they had a bunch of games planned and haven't said anything for like a year...