Microsoft
(360) Enchanted Arms
By Ryan Newman
Sep 12, 2006, 6 :29 am

What? I have to play an effeminate whiny teenage male again? Oh, I get to save the world this time? Okay, that changes things.

Enchanted Arms, from the beginning, is comfortable with the known. Sometimes the known is fine; companies need to build upon past success to carry genres forward. But there is a different between building upon legitimate foundations and simply carrying on clichés because you are too lazy to come up with anything different. In many respects, From Software went with the latter. To keep the game from being an abysmal jRPG (Japanese Role-Playing Game) grind, they took a nod from the Pokemon series and infected their game with an insidious collection aspect that manages to tie together with the combat sufficiently enough to keep you hooked and it worthwhile.

There are problems everywhere, though. I spent 50 hours in total on Enchanted Arms. The last 9 of which were literally me going back through the hallways of the last area and grinding out a handful of levels. Of course, the mega last boss was only truly difficult in its first form, meaning that the rest of the weaker forms made that last 9 hours 9 hours spent simply to defeat one opponent. That’s endemic throughout the game, and a fault I find both infuriating and insulting: I just played through the portion, even took a side quest or two, so why was I able to steamroll the mini boss and then immediately trampled into oblivion by the subsequent boss? If I should level up, fine, give me a legitimate break to do so, don’t make me repeat tracks of the game because you got the giggles at the thought of crushing the player after they just waded through thousands (and thousands) of random battles. If I could reach From Software’s nose with a rolled-up newspaper, so help me.

In a game that’s a pirate appearance away from making a seventh grader’s daydream come true, what can be so redeeming? Golems. Well, golems and combat. The story revolves around a war fought between creatures called golems, dolls created by magic, a thousand year before, with the war coming to an end after devil golems, created to end the war, fought with humans. Humans triumphed, and the art of magic was replaced by technology and enchantment. Golems are the Pokemon of Enchanted Arms; throughout the game you can either buy the core and materials necessary to make one or obtain one’s core through victory in combat. Golems come in all shapes and sizes – they can be the robotic pizza kiosk salesmen or the Dungeons & Dragons inspired black knight. Each golem has their own skills and limitations: some are large and some are small while some focus on healing and others on combat. Since combat is broken down in an elemental system (fire and water units cause more damage to one another and so on), attention needs to be paid to a golem’s element specialty.

Golems are only playable during combat, like the other main characters. The world is navigated like an action title via Atsuma, the game’s main character, controlled and used to represent your party. To add variety to an otherwise drab part of the game, the developers decided to toss in things like rings that require grappling hooks (enchanted grappling hooks, mind you) and floating platforms (enchanted platforms!) that randomly break, requiring you to repair by quickly pressing a button, without explaining why someone would build a structure that require grappling hooks to navigate or platforms when there are ladders. The adventure obstacles are well intentioned but poorly thought out – they do nothing but bog down an already slow-moving game.

Enemies are unseen in the world with combat beginning once the game pauses and loads the battlefield. Combat is turn-based and done on a split plane grid system. Movement is restricted to so many squares on your side of the grid, and spells and attacks are limited as well – some attacks may attack four squares directly in front while another might attack in an X pattern. Placement of your party is critical, because throughout the game the enemies will be more than a match for your people, with even simple encounters capable of wiping out your team. Thankfully you can view an enemy’s movement and attack range, as well as cancel your own movements without a penalty, to optimize each turn. A loss in battle isn’t too bad since you can either load a save game or retry the battle. Even if members are killed in a successful battle you still aren’t in too much trouble thanks to vitality points. The vitality points, increased through leveling up, are a means for you to continue on after a rough battle: your character’s vitals are refilled back to 100% as long as they have vitality points. You lose the points through combat, none if you wipe the enemy out in one turn, and more if you retreat. Thanks to the game’s love of random encounters, there will be plenty of times where you’ll have several characters with no points left, leaving them with one hit point, causing you to scrounge through your entire roster (more characters are off to the side and selectable before combat) and hoping to find a healing station nearby to revitalize.

Due to the game’s VP and combat system, you will utilize all of the units you take with you. Since there are hundreds of golems you do have to leave some behind, but these are swappable with characters in your mobile roster whenever you reach a store. At stores you can purchase the minerals needed to synthesize weapons and golems, as well as actually synthesize the weapons and golems, name your golems, and purchase items. Dropped minerals from fallen opponents can be sold to purchase items like skill point enhancers. Skill points are actually crucial to the game, because they are used to both purchase skills, equip skills (the double hit kind of burns), and also used towards upgrading base stats, like health, effectiveness of direct and range attacks, support, and so on - being able to purchase an item that gives you the points is a lifesaver. You earn skill points in combat, though don’t expect those to be enough.

The story isn’t too bad, but the game really lacks flair. The settings, even though we’re talking about magic and high technology and ancient civilizations, are pretty bland. The main characters are generic; the spell effects are tame; and most of the music is forgettable. What is hard to ignore is the voice acting. Wow. I know the actors didn’t have a good script to work with – for some unintentional hilarity, speed past a story portion and watch the characters stop-motion their way through their 3-4 stances while saying the first word of each melodramatic sentence – but some of this stuff is cringe worthy. A few of the main characters are also grating, including one that always references money and another that is so over-the-top that it borders on insulting. The main character is also constantly insulted, despite saving innumerable people throughout the game, and plays the part of the bumbling buffoon very poorly. Sure he looks like Meg Ryan (too), but it’s hard to go along with the ‘Ha ha! He’s so dumb!’ joke when characters that are so much worse surround him.

There’s also a Live component, where players can battle their teams against one another, but that should be on your mental backburner due to the community being far from thriving.

Overall: 6/10

If you absolutely crave a generic title, Enchanted Arms is there for you with arms wide open. Hey, sometimes it’s nice to sink in with something you’re used to and ride it out. For those whose tolerance for role-playing games peaks at Final Fantasy, you will quickly tire of having to wade through the atrocious dialogue, unlikable characters, and bland world to get into the combat.

The patient gamer will find an endless supply of golems to track down, synthesize, and practice with in combat. Combat will also reward those who like to plan, though the ability to simply retry a lost battle negates a lot of the negative consequences of a poor strategy. It’s a trying game, there is no doubt about it, but it manages to come out as a decent way to kill some time. It’s linear as linear can be, making stopping and starting a breeze, so it works well as a good stand-by title.