Baziru the Otaku here, I will be working on posting blogs about anything nerd related, but as my name applies I will primarily work on reviews and discuss things Japanese entertainment related, so enjoy my first post.
This has been one of the most uneventful summers I had yet. I been having nothing to do, but sit around lazily and indulge on video games. Owning a PlayStation 3 I make good use of their online market, and me being obsessed with PlayStation 1 Japanese Role-Playing Games decide to buy the trilogy of Arc the Lad, off of the Psone Classics section. Here on this series review I will be discussing the first three Arc the Lads, on the PlayStation and then I will get into the last two Arc the Lads released on PlayStation 2, but that will be at a later date, and review them. I may or may not give spoilers, but if I do I guess I will warn you now, and if I do give spoilers I will be sure to make them incredibly vague. Here we go!
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Arc the Lad 1:
First issue I had with this game, I am going to come out the gates right now to discuss, is that it is incredibly short, but isn't really an issue, because the developers just wanted this game to be a prologue or a stepping stone of what's to come. I mean seriously, I beat this game in 16 hours! The game is of course short and sweet, which is commendable, if done right. Let's discuss the story and its characters:
The game starts out with a destiny shrine maiden named Kukuru, who has village, shrine, and "It's your destiny!" issues as an internal conflict. She is born to protect the Flame Cion (which just looks like a cauldron... maybe?) and make sure the flame in it doesn't go out, because she has been told it has been burning 3,000 years and is a seal of indescribable evil, but soon gets thrown out the window when the mayor, or whatever, of Seirya (continent where she lives) tells her that he has been sent by the king's minister (or whatever they are called), Andel, to extinguish this flame without reason, and with Kukuru, being an adolescent dolt that she is, does so stating that the job sucks anyway. Of course an Ark Ghoul, which to me looks like a moth man or something, comes out like a bull out of the gates, saying his usual evil monologue of stuff is about to go down, and Kukuru, the unimportant mayor, and moth man just leave for somewhere, and it cuts away to our hero of the game Arc.
Arc's story basically starts off with a flash back, where Arc is a child sleeping in a bed in this house, which seems like any generic JRPG home: were there is a bed in the kitchen which is also the living room and there is another bed in which it seems to be the storage closet (I don't even wanna know where the bathroom is), anyway it starts off with Arc sleeping in the bed in the kitchen, and his mother, Polta, and father, Yoshua, are having the usual point in any marriage, where the father has to go on a long journey to end his life to save the world and the mother will be lonely and soon becomes hostage, but that won't be until later, and then cuts to the present day. Arc gets promoted to waking up in the bed in the storage closet, next to brown generic barrels and a gold and and indigo chest, which is a very temporary mystery. He walks into the living room where he finds his lonely mother reminiscing of his father, and makes her even more in despair by telling her he must go on a odyssey as well, find his decade missing father, and join the Palencia, kingdom, Army. His mother tells him that he is the chosen one anyway, and guides him back to where the chest is, to reveal that it is just armor and sword left by his father for this very day, and so he suits up, and like any other JRPG talks to his mother, she gives him a bag of weed which will heal him when he gets hurt, supposedly, and walks out the door as his mother says, "All the men in my life disappear from me!"... Have you considered adoption?
As Arc steps out the door, he comes across the unusual climate of a snow storm, which this village hasn't seen in I don't know CENTURIES! *Me pointing finger at Kukuru* He talks about this paradox for a few seconds and goes to checks out the hill in which the seal is burning to find out, somebody has dropped the ball, and that it wasn't burning, and that it is what has been causing this storm. He meets up with Kukuru, tells her he must go ignite the seal again, she begs to go with him, but he instructs her to sit idly by at the gates to think about what she has done, whilst he rids the cluster bomb paradox she has created. A few steps in, Arc soon gets scythed by the Ark Ghoul, whilst he graces us with more evil monologue, and it is a journey soon ended... Unnntiiiillll a Deus Ex Machina occurs, in which a Forest Spirit of the continent Millmana revives Arc and reminds him he is the chosen one, and that he must save mankind, by resealing the Flame Cion once again and unsealing it later on, finding the Ark, and find his missing father, and Arc goes up the hill to fight a few level 1 green slime along the way. Meanwhile at the entrance, moth man here spends more time on evil monologue talking about how he is going to kill the woman who revived him, whilst some green slimes are getting bitch-slapped by the mighty sword, and the ghoul as well as the blizzard fades away, as the flame gets re-kindled. Seriously, they don't make very good villains now-a-days. I been saying "whilst" a lot haven't I...hmmph!
Shrine maiden decides to dig herself a deeper hole, and joins the chosen one on the journey, leaving her post. They are soon summoned by the King and his minister, Andel, and Andel instructs them to test if they really are chosen by the guardians to save the world, by going into a field to fight some level 3 fire wheels and zombies. They do that and they find a cowered drum corps soldier, Poco, laying down ready to die in this field of dried wheat, and Arc tells him to sack up and avenge his battalion, seriously worst scenery you can think of to bite the big one. After returning to the king, convinced Arc is the chosen one, instructs him to find the Ark to save mankind, something slightly identical to what he told his brother, YOSHUA, as he spiraled onto the one-way journey of no return, telling him to do the same and to go to the continent of Millmana to find the Forest Spirit in the forest called Toyoke, and meet a fat bastard named General Yagun along the way, and dead-weight musician, Poco, insists on being Arc's dead weight, and so Arc lets the little curse join his small brigade, as they get assigned the awesome battleship called the Silver Noah, flying them to the continent of Millmana.
Once they are at Millmana first thing they mistakenly do is meet up with fat bastard, General Yagun. Yagun does the usual thing of testing the chosen one's strength, by sending Arc and his party to fight monsters in 3 different areas before he has permission to go into the forest, and Arc is dismissed, as Yagun's annoying pet monkey perched on Yagun's shoulder does its ear-grated laugh. Arc soon returns telling him the monsters were weak sauce, and tells him he is done wasting his time and leaves for Toyoke Forest, with frustrated approval of Yagun, but as soon as Arc leaves, Yagun hires an assassin to kill him at the Forest, this basically insures us that something sketchy is within the kingdom. As they meet up with the Forest Spirit after killing the assassin, of course, she, the Forest Spirit, tells him Yoshua met her 10 years ago and just like then gives Arc permission and some instruction to save mankind. As they go back to Yagun's place his guards tell the party that Yagun doesn't want to see their face again, so the party decides to head back to Palencia in the awesome Silver Noah, wondering what the deal was with Yagun's PMS.
As they return to Palencia they see a samurai being escorted to the castle's dungeon, under the grounds of treason, but the samurai, Tosh, exclaims through the confusion that it was by Andel's command that his town was completely decimated and that Tosh is the sole survivor, so the only treason that exists was his survival? Post-awkwardness, they start to explain the trials they endured at Millmana, but soon dismissed by the sudden sickness of the King. As they step out of the king's throne room, they decide to investigate the captured samurai and go to the dungeon. Of course the power of sheer bad assery shows the scene of a cell with its bars destroyed and a couple of dead guards laying in front of it, so they decide to investigate a little further just to see Tosh being ganged up by a dozen guards, and the guards turn into monsters questioning what kind of experiments Andel is cooking up. Arc and friends destroy the monsters with help of Tosh, and postmortem, Tosh just pulls a kthnxbai and goes on his merry way. Arc goes back to meet with king again, and the king tells him that he will help him every step of the way, and Arc explains that he has to seek out elemental guardians in hopes of saving the world and finding the Ark. So they decide to rendezvous back at Arc's home to find any clue of the such. Things go down hill from here.
They returned to a burned home and a missing lonely mother, don't be too sad the home didn't have much going for it, and a message courier from Yoshua saying to find a book at the Ancient Monolith a few clicks away, and that it will guide them to the Guardians! They go to said Monolith to find an old 3,000 year old pervert, Gogen, explaining he IS the book, whilst he flirts up Kukuru... She is too young for you bro! He tells the party that first guardian they have to meet is in the continent Alatos, and joins the party saying he will be the guide to the Guardians. As party returns back to the king saying they need transport he just says, "Yeah sure whatever take the Silver Noah". As the party starts to get on the ship Tosh suddenly appears begging to join their party, after mourning the death of his father. Really!? You need us!? We need you man, you are a bad ass samurai! They should've just called this trilogy Tosh the Bastard or something.
As the crew reaches Alatos, they meet up with an old merchant with horrid sentence structure were he has the beginning of the sentence is the end, the middle of the sentence is the beginning, and the end is middle, with the added dose of grammatical errors, and he is called Chongara. Chongara tells them that he will help them find the guardian if they retrieve the summoning pot from the 5th floor of the Forbidden Ruins, which has 50 floors, which is an optional dungeon past the 5th floor, and so with as awesome as the party is they get it without trouble, and meet back with Chongara, as he states the summoning pot is his weapon, and that he was hired by Yoshua to join Arc's party when he meets them, so he does and he becomes dead weight number 2. The circus soon meets the Light Guardian who gives the party his blessing, by giving them a Light Stone, which is one of the five pieces of the Ark, and they head back to the Silver Noah and Gogen tells them the next Guardian will be in the continent Greyshinne, and so they leave with the useless summoning merchant Chongara. This is going to be a long flight.
When they touch base at Greyshinne, they go to a place called Amaidar Temple, which is a sanctuary of bald headed weirdos trying to find the meaning of power by secluding themselves, and the party requests an audience with the Arch Monk, to head to the mountain of Amaidar to get the blessings of the Earth Guardian. Without reason, the Arch Monk just decides to get the strongest disciple, Iga, the only one with hair and boy is it long, and tells him to throw the party out of the temple, like a bartender cutting off the highly intoxicated customers from their favorite liquor, but like the little alcoholics they are they beg for their prize. Until then, with Gogen and his infinite wisdom just tells Iga that if Arc beats the living pulp out of Iga, which he does, that they can have a second audience with the Arch Monk, which they do, and Iga agrees, and so they catch their second wind, pun intended. As they go for round two, Kukuru, with the first useful thing she has done all game, suspects the Arch Monk is a monster using the actual Arch Monk as a vessel, which he is, and it peels the Arch Monk's skin off like a banana peel retreating to the proving grounds of the temple, which the party soon follows with Iga joining their squad, as they beat the pulp out of the monster. Soon after the monsters death, the party heads to Mt. Amaidar to get the Earth Guardian's blessing by acquiring the Earth Stone, see the pattern here? After all is said and done the complete 7 man wolf pack leaves the temple, as Iga says his good byes to his fellow frat bros, and the temple guards tell the party to comeback anytime to try their hand at the proving grounds, for if they need a good beneficial grinding spot to get some easy experience, and the party leaves. They acquire another bad ass, and Gogen tells them that the next stop is the continent of Niedel. It's like running a world-wide gauntlet, but with the full team it will be a walk in the park.
At the continent of Niedel, the party catches wind (hint, hint), that there is a battle tournament, in which you select a person in your party... Arc! *COUGH,COUGH* to go in a series of one-on-one battles, to win the first place prize of the Wind Orb, supposedly tied to the Wind Guardian. Upon acquiring the prize, the battle announcer of the tournament would soon kill the fist place prize winner, to make sure NO ONE gets the Orb, but NOT TODAY! And he becomes roadkill... Soon after deserving their prize, they end up clumsily dropping the Wind Orb shattering it into pieces, accidentally freeing the Wind Guardian. Ergo, Guardian gives them blessing of the wind stone, and 3 done two to go. Journey halfway done, Gogen tells them the next Guardian will be in the desert continent of Zariban to get to the Water Guardian (ironic huh?), long story short, they had to have a pissing contest with the Zariban General, Kasadoll, who was destroying his own homeland to get the Wind Guardian, and well encountered Arc and Friends, and well Arc's group succeeds, getting the fourth blessing. Upon leaving for the final piece of the Ark, Gogen tells them, that last remaining Guardian is in the Palencian castle in the continent of Seirya. Dun dun duunnnnn!
Upon arriving to Palencia, they find that Andel is running the show with his sketchy ways, upon the king's stead, because well he is dying of his sickness, and well the party decides to sneak into the basement, where they first met Tosh, because well why wouldn't you!? It's a great place to concoct sketchy things! And so they did, the Fire Guardian, last one in their journey, just right under their noses, captured by Andel, in a tube of some sorts getting his power drained from him. Upon releasing the Guardian he gives them their blessing, instructing that they must hurry before Andel gets what he wants. The party meets with the king right before his death and he tells them that Andel is from the continental empire Romalia, and seeks the evil power sealed within the Ark to bring power to rule the land, and dies. Meanwhile Andel puts a 1,000,000 dollar bounty for anyone that brings Arc or a member of his 7 man army to his doorstep, and publicly pins the party on the death of the King. And the ending of the game plays out, which I am not going to tell, because I want you to play it, so I will now go on to discuss other stuff.
All I will tell is that the ending is where I have my second issue with this game, and that it ends on an abrupt cliffhanger, and final boss didn't seem like a final boss, basically giving you gamer blue balls, telling you, you have something more serious coming this way, and that Arc the Lad 1 was more just a lengthy prologue to Arc the Lad 2, which picks up right after Arc the Lad 1.
Now I am going to discuss the game play of Arc the Lad 1, it is a turn-based strategy rpg, where you control the whole 7 man team of Arc and his friends (which I liked cause usually it being rpg they usually limit you to the use 3-5 characters, *whispering* which becomes a minor setback for the rest of the trilogy, but I won't get into that right now *end whispering*), but therein lies another problem, you can easily beat this game by using Arc the whole game, he has a move for crying out loud that kills 7 enemies at once! That is like take the experience of one and multiplying it by 7 to get Arc to his max level of 60 to carry over to Arc the Lad 2! By the way when you do start Arc the Lad 2, you can carry over your file from Arc the Lad 1, to retain items you collected and experience you earned, which I found to be pretty neat.
The other problem I had, which they fixed for Arc the Lad 2, is that while you have amazing range on magics, like Arc's Gale Flash (my favorite move), there is no range on weapons, so to were you can only hit what's in front of you. There is also equipment customization, which AGAIN they got right on the second game, but in Arc the Lad 1 there isn't no shops where you buy weapons, armor, and accessories, you can't even choose weapons or armor your people can equip, but they do have is were, each character has 4 accessory slots to were they can equip a maximum of four accessories, and you just earned accessories through battles or story. With the talk of no shops there is also no towns or places you go to talk to people, the game just consists of battle areas and areas of the story. The whole map (world map/continent map) which is central to the game is just color-coated areas with names, it Reminded me of the board game Risk, but all this basically was set up to make game short and sweet (and got you immersed in battles and story), and not waste your time, so you can get onto the second Arc the Lad, in which they fixed and made a perfect solid game.
To end with this post and all other future posts, I will produce a quote relevant to what I just discussed, usually something within what I discussed, so yeah:
"All the men in my life disappear from me!" - Polta, Arc the Lad 1
