TGS 2008: Hands-on Arc Rise Fantasia
Marvelous was prominently featuring Arc Rise Fantasia at its TGS booth this year. The traditional Japanese role-playing game is looking really nice, busting with giant monsters, some slick special effects, and attractive ladies. It comes by way of the team that created the strategy RPG Luminous Arc. Today we spent some time getting a feel for the battle mechanics and wandered around the overworld doing some light puzzle solving. The game "feels" a lot like Final Fantasy. The story has something to do with dragons invading the land and pushing the territories to the brink of war. It's up to the player and their band of pals to vanquish the dragons and set things right.
As Arc Rise Fantasia is a pretty traditional experience, it can be played with the traditional classic controller. Monsters roam around the overworld, as they tend to do, and if one sees you it will charge and initiate a combat sequence. Battles are turn-based, but presented in 3D, as is the entire game. The player gives commands to each of the three characters in their party and then selects "execute," causing them to perform all their tasks at once. Only three characters can battle at a time, but you will gain more allies along the way.
The game runs on an ability points system. These points are shared by the entire party and every attack or spell will cost you. Obviously, there will be a way to regenerate ability points, but it wasn't apparent during our play session. It is possible to let one character spend all points at once and let loose a super attack.
One unique feature of Fantasia's fighting system is the crystals that appear on each battlefield. These can be attacked instead of enemies to provide you with a power boost. It's a strategic call because you miss dealing damage for a turn and leave yourself open to the enemy. But crystals are embodied with different elements such as fire and water, and need to be attacked with a corresponding spell or item or else your party will be powered down.
The game looks great with interesting character designs and some good animations. One troubling thing, though, was that sometimes our characters would run off screen to attack during a battle and the camera wouldn't follow them, causing us to miss the action.
When we weren't fighting rabbits and ladybugs, we were exploring a series of cliffs, flipping switches to lower passages and gain access to new areas. Several hidden trails were discovered that held weapons, and they were usually guarded by some jerk monster. By the end of the demo we had encountered some pretty large beasts, including a winged lion-thing with horns.
Arc Rise Fantasia is currently 70 percent complete and is looking like a very nice (exclusive) addition to the Wii's library. XSeed will be publishing the game in North America, so RPG fans definitely have something to look forward to.
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