Customer Reviews

Enchanted Arms

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

First off, let me say that I'm a huge role playing game fan. I have been for as long as I can remember. One of my main gripes with Microsoft's XBox was that there was a huge lack of good RPGs. It seems with the release of Oblivion, which was an action RPG, and the release of this game, which is a turn based RPG, they are off to a good start with the 360.

The battles in this game are fun and strategic. Your characters are placed on grid-like terrain, and it's your job to move them around and position them to be able to attack the enemy. The enemy is also on the same grid, opposite of you. The positions of which your characters are placed at the start of each battle are random, so it does require strategy on your part.

Another huge part of this game is golemn collecting. Think of it as a Pokemon-like collection experience. Many of these golemns have unique powers that will be of great help to you on your journey. Golemns that you can collect are different from normal enemies in that they actually show up visibly on your map, as opposed to the random battles you will enter into to fight normal monsters.

The story is the best part of the game. It starts out slow for the first few hours, and then after a certain event that happens to you in the game, it's full steam ahead.

The main character, Atsuma, is your average meatheaded student who doesn't quite pay attention in class. Throughout the game, his learning curve doesn't seem to improve too much. He's always the last character to figure out what is exactly happening around him. His arm is what ties this story together, as it is the source of a mysterious power. Throughout the game, more backstory about his arm will be revealed to you. At first you will be joined by two characters, Toya and Makoto. Toya is more like a mentor to Atsuma and takes him under his wing at the beginning of the game. Makoto is the game's over-the-top stereotypical gay guy. He's madly in love with Toya and claims himself to be the president of Toya's fan club. Makoto is the source of much of the game's great comic relief for the first few hours of gameplay.

Later in the game, you'll be joined by Karin, Raigar, and Yuki. Karin is a headstrong woman who is part of a group called the "resistance movement". Raigar is Karin's personal bodyguard, who reveals himself to be freakishly strong. When you first meet him, he doesn't talk much, but he'll open up as the game progresses. Yuki is a selfish little girl who's main goal in life is to become the most famous golemn hunter that ever lived. She's also the source of alot of the game's funny dialog as the game goes on, because she has something to say about everything.

Speaking of the dialog, it's suprisingly fresh and natural. It never tries too hard to be funny, and in return you'll find yourself laughing aloud many times throughout the game.

I would love to reveal more of the story to you, but since it's the greatest part of the game, you'll have to get it and see it for yourself. Overall, Enchanted Arms is an enjoyable experience that has a good few fun sidequests to enjoy along with it's main storyline, which should keep you busy for many hours. I'd personally suggest this game to anyone who likes turn based-style battles or anyone who enjoys a fulfilling RPG story.

I really enjoyed this game. It brought me back to the style of play I first experienced with the Final Fantasy series. Something about the mini battles and the turn based fighting is a welcome change to all the real-time combat every other game in the world incorporates.

As other reviewers have said, this is basically a complete Final Fantasy rip-off, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, and its buggy in that the game tends to crash at odd times, which is a bad thing

Other bad things include the complete linearity of the early levels, where you can't turn left or right at all, you basically just follow a narrow path to each encounter, and also the very very slow save/load menu, which gets slower the more saves you have. I would reccomend just saving in maybe 2 slots because of that, and over writing one or the other whenever you save (which should be often)

Now on to the good: the game gets ALOT better if you stick with it. There's a little indicator that shows how far along you are, and I almost gave up on it in the 15-20% range because of the many problems, but for whatever reason i stuck with it and it got much much better 40% or so

The levels opened up and you could back track and explore sections you might have skipped earlier. You got more choice about what order to do things in too. And finally the story line kicked in, and by the 50% mark i was pretty much just playing it to see what the characters would say and do next in the cut scenes, which is a tribute to the story if not the game play

Another really over looked element is the humor in the voice acting. Its cheesy and silly but I really did laugh out loud in several places. So give it a chance and you might be surprised at how much better the middle is than the beginning

First off, I really liked this game for the fact that i'm a big turn-based RPG fan. So warning to the buyer, Enchanted Arms is an RPG in the truest sense of the phrase. I will start by saying that if you aren't a turn-based RPG fan you should probably rent this game first to see if you like it, it's definitely worth a rental!!! This is a genre that the 360 was missing, though there are other RPG's for the 360, none are Turn based. So let's get started!!

Graphics, Great!! I'd say definitely better than Xbox or PS2, but not Amazing, but I would say "Great". The graphics shine the most in my opinion when in a battle, magic spells and skills shine vibrantly and beautifully!! There are also extra extended skills which are loosely similar to the FFVII limit breaks, which look amazing!! Are the graphics Next-Gen? I would say yes!! Do they compare to other graphically amazing 360 games like Fight Night 3 (just one example)? No it doesn't but at times the game does show 360 power.

Sound, Okay, nothing amazing here at all! Voice over are average, they are good but I have seen better. Background music is typical of your average RPG.

Controls, Great. For a turn-based RPG that is. I mean it is turn based so it controls never get complicated, Menu navigation is really easy and standard I was able to figure out how to upgrade skills, equip, and synthesize golems without ever looking at the manual.

Gameplay, okay this is where and why I decided to give this game a 4 instead of a overall 3. The gameplay is pretty fresh, because of the addition of Golem creating and using them in Battle, which I will touch on a little later. But first the battle system, which is a pretty good combo of Turn-base/strategy, cause your team is place on a grid where you can only move your players anywhere within the grid, of course movements are limited to spaces available and how far a specific character can move. So strategy comes in to play by trying to put yourself in range to attack, heal others, and defend. What really impressed me was the use of Golems, which I can only compare very loosely to Pokemon. Golems are used similar to how Pokemon are used, i.e. to help you fight, heal, protect, etc. This feature adds another level of gameplay to this game which raised this game from "mediocre" to "Very good". Simply because you can capture parts of golems you have fought or randomly find parts to create your own Golems to fight for you. Building different golems is pretty easy and quite addicting, thus far. I am only in the first 25% of the game right now and I am already addicted to creating golems from parts I have found, I only imagine this feature getting better with the ability to build stronger and more interesting golems. Without this feature this would have been a really mediocre RPG. So overall the gameplay holds this title together and great gameplay is what we all look for in a game right?

Story, the story so far seems to be average, like I said I am only 25% in to it so I am hoping this will improve as the game goes on but for right now there is nothing amazing here as far as the story goes.

So overall, if you are a turn based RPG fan and you own a 360 then you will definitely want to pick this game up. But this game is definitely not a ground breaker and definitely not a reason to run out and buy a 360 (there are other games that warrant that). But all in all I can't think of a reason to tell any XBOX 360 turn based RPG fans not buy this game, especially since it is the only one of its kind available for the 360. For others though I would only suggest waiting for a demo or a rental to see if you like what this game does.

I personally am a fan of lots of all Genres of games, with the exception of a lot of strict car driving games, so I thoroughly enjoy this game so far. I could definitely understand an argument for this game not being even close to one of the best RPG's ever, but for the first turn based RPG for the 360 I think it fairs pretty well.

I am 77% through the game and I was liking it up to this point. Finding different Golems through out the game reminds me kind of a Pokemon game except they don't evolve and they don't learn new abilities unfortunately. I guess i'll do some pros and cons of the game.

+ Fast paced battles. You sometimes have to be very strategic up against the stronger enemies. The good thing is it gives you the option to retry the same battle if you lose instead of having to load up from another save point.
+ You can save anywhere in the game. If you go into a battle against a lost golem and are using the wrong characters to defeat it you can load up the last save before you get to them and switch characters.
+ Lot's of different golems to use throughout the game.

Now for my negatives

- VP is stupid. When you play the game you will at some point come across the Holy Beast Shrine. The further you explore the more like a maze it becomes. Making it harder to get to heal spot to increase your VP. The thing about VP is that each character starts out with a certain amount and once it hits 0 that character will enter all battles with only 1 HP and if the enemy get's a jump on you your dead. Doesn't even give you a chance to escape.

- The game only allows you to carry 9 of each healing item. I don't like that. In the Holy Beast Shrine you can use all the heal items you can get. So I guess it was ok up to that point.

The game in all though is pretty fun. Like any other RPG though you will usually hit a frustrating point.

Well I'll start with a little recommendation, if you do not like RPG's do not buy this game. Secondly I will say that this is a very traditional and mildly interesting game with a fresh battle system and some interesting content. Contrary to what other reviewers have said, the dialogue is fresh and often very funny and the storyline itself, though simple, is solid and, often stemming from its simplicity, enjoyable. To those accustomed to the open play style of Oblivion and other open-ended games this will be quite a change as you are guided from level to level and are forced to back-track through relatively boring environments on occasion, in the style of metroid prime. All and all this game is an enjoyable experience that I highly reccomend you partake in.

Enchanted Arms is an Anime based, turn based RPG. Now that this is out of the way let me briefly explain why I would not recommend this game to anyone today in 2011. The game was released in 2006. The graphics are very outdated if you care about such details. The intro movie is very cool but when you get into the gameplay itself the age really shows. The area during battle mode is divided into a grid where 3D characters stand in their battle stance waiting for your order. The interface is very similar to classic JRPG like Final Fantasy or Phantasy Star. The animations are very repetitive and do not have much variety in movement. The special effects for attack or defense spells and other weapons are ok. Lots of nice flashing shapes and lights. You can move the camera into various positions plan out your attack paths or move very easily. What is especially nice is the quick mode or auto mode, one just does the battle choices for you, another avoids the steps that ask you to move.

The problems arise when you are in the movement mode or outside the battle. Let me give you an example. There is a class of students and in this particular scene all the male students are one to one copies of one another and the girls as well. It is annoying. When you move you can barely see any shadows anywhere. The NPCs do not show much life either. If you were to see similar characters talk to each other, they have the same look with exception of haircuts or eye colors. When you run around you look like a robot and run with limited animations. When you face an obstacle your character keeps repeating the the running motion.

English language voice overs are horrible with the exception of few characters. I cannot tell how bad or good the Japanese voicing is.

Another strange or annoying thing, whatever you might call it, is the voice acting and presentation of one character who is suggested to be a crossdresser or homosexual. The issue I have with this is not that he is there but how he is presented. If you were to imagine any gay stereotype its in the character. (think South Park's Big Gay Al) There is a collar, face makeup, exposed stomach and girly gestures. Just makes me think why.

I would avoid this game at all costs. There are many better JRPGs for xbox 360 out there. Blue Dragon is a great alternative.

I first played Enchanted Arms after a trip to Blockbuster and rented it. It hadn't been the game I was hoping to rent, but I figured I would give it a shot. When the time came to return it...well I had become hooked and renewed it so that I could finish the story.

It starts off fairly slow. It has this cool battle scene as an opening movie, then goes back in time to earlier that afternoon, and up to the point of that scene is pretty much a giant tutorial. It was fairly slow, and the instructions at times felt repetitive, and the plot progression was linear. But whatever you do, DON'T STOP READING THERE!.

Then the story really picks up speed as Atsuma (the main protagonist) seeks to figure out everything that happened, deal with emotional conflicts, transforming from very naive student, a member of a resistance movement, and ultimately a hero of a war 1000 years in the making. He manages to do all this while maintaining his trademark "Single-Brain Cell" throughout the whole story, his intelligence, or lack thereof is often used as a source of humor.

This game has excellent character development, from the short-tempered Karin, the strong and silent Raigar, the money-loving Golem Hunter Yuki, and finally to Atsuma's friends Toya and Makoto. By the end of the game, I absolutely loved each and every character.

For Characterization I would rate the game 10/10. The characters dialogue was both witty and serious, and sometimes downright hilarious. There are many moments I had to stop going forward in the storyline and pause the game because I was laughing so hard at either Yuki's or Atsuma's antics, or Karin blowing a gasket. I still laugh when Yuki tries to get Atsuma to bet his right arm in a wager during a tournament in the beginning of the game.

For Music I would rate it 9/10. The music flowed very well from each location and matched the mood seamlessly.

Plot: 10/10. I urge each and every person trying this game out to trudge through the beginning of the game. You won't be disappointed. Atsuma' right arm is the focus of much of the mystery of the game, being artificial and created by methods no longer known by mankind; in addition to its many powers, all of which cause problems for Atsuma, both funny and tragic in many cases.

For the combat system I would say it's very unique. Battle is played on a six by four grid with a line in the middle, and each character has a limited space to move, and each of their attacks affect certain areas of the grid, both ally and enemies side of the grid. This requires strategy as moving one character to attack an enemy may very well rob another character a chance to use one of their moves to support your own team. Along with the whole opposite elements does double damage to each other, while same do half, it leads to some very thought out battles. At the end of each battle your characters recover all health, but lose Vitality points depending on damage, and if you run away from the battle, all characters lose Vitality points. Once the vitality points reach zero the character goes into battle with only 1 health point. So after a long journey, it's best to have a large collection of golems with a variety of skills, because Vitality points are recovered while moving as long as the character is not in the battle party. I rate the battle system at 8/10.

Overall: Definitely get this game. 10/10.

Pros-
Engaging Storyline
Excellent characterization
Thought out battle system

Cons-
The beginning is fairly slow
The battles can get repetitive after awhile
(if this really bugs you) the graphics aren't the best Xbox 360 graphics out there, but who cares about graphics!!!

Maybe not the best game I have ever played, but the game is one of the best I have played for the price I paid. I enjoy turn-based games and role-playing games and I have enjoyed many hours of good strategic fun with this game. Sure it was made as a Japanese game with english dubbed in, but I have no problem with that as long as I can enjoy the strategy at a relaxed pace. If you want a cheap game and you enjoy turn-based and rpg get this you cant go wrong.

Bought it and got rid of it quickly due to the voice acting. A friend said to give it another shot and just mute the voices...good game now.