Enchanted Arms Xbox 360 review

I’ve got a favourite jumper in my wardrobe. It’s very comfy. It’s green(ish), it’s warm, it’s comfortable, and it makes me happy. OK, so it’s a bit scraggy around the edges, it sags here and there, has a few interesting stains, and it should probably be replaced. That said, it’s been with me for years and I’ve no plans to get rid of it even though I know I should.

Welcome to Enchanted Arms.

There is so much of this game that is just ok, that is that little bit beyond average, that it shouldn’t be fun. If it wasn’t for the fact that there isn’t another Japanese RPG title for the 360, it would be possible to dismiss it as an also-ran. That is the fate that awaits it but, until a better title arrives, this is what we’re left with.

All present and correct

The story of Enchanted Arms really isn’t much to concern yourself over. It is populated by clichéd characters and dropped into a clichéd setting. The hero, Atsuma, is a student at an academy for enchanters – self-confessed low-rent magicians dabbling in one side branch of magic since the terrible events of the Golem War 1000 years earlier. Yup, post-apocalyptic setting all present and correct. Want more?

Atsuma is the owner of the titular enchanted arm – a limb that cancels enchantments and generally makes him as popular at the academy as President Bush at meetings of international heads of state. Well, maybe not that unpopular. He has two friends, one of whom could give camp lessons to Graeme Norton. Nice to see a gay character in an RPG (they’ve been in anime and manga long enough), but this kind of stereotyped delivery does no-one any favours. The other is the expected cool friend character, the one who has seen the world and is beloved of every other character and provides an excuse to give the player information and allow NPCs an excuse to talk to the unpopular hero.

Not far into the story, you get the hero’s secret destiny being revealed in snippets by others who have more information that the player and Atsuma, the required ‘meddling with powers you don’t understand’, the inevitable ‘releasing an ancient and terrible power’, and the fight to put it all to rights. Just in case you were worried that a particular cliché might be missed, along the way you’ll smash lots of crates and barrels. There, you can relax now.

Oh, and the bad females seem to have large breasts, while the good females generally have small breasts and are a little androgynous. Someone somewhere on the development team has issues, methinks.

‘S alright

I’ve read here and there that the visuals in Enchanted Arms were lovely. Well, sort of. The environments are pretty enough, but in a clinical, shiny, hugely under populated way that makes you feel strangely uninvolved. This backs up the feel of the story – it happens to you but without involving you. Puzzles, such as they are, are fairly basic. The characters you meet, good and bad, look ok, and there are a lot of them. Unfortunately, it all feels very last generation with just a bit more polish.

The gameplay leads you by the nose with no option for meaningful exploration. Wandering off the narrow path means you generally meet invisible walls everywhere. Even low walls and tiny wrinkles in the scenery defeat you. Obvious paths are sometimes blocked. Other times, the narrowest gap is suddenly the only way to go. And you have to go right to the very top of a slope before you can follow the path around. The slightest hint of the smallest bit of the slope left and you won’t be able to step up. Very annoying.

So, what on earth is there to recommend this game?

Faint praise

Well, it’s huge. It took me 11 hours of play to make it past the 20 percent mark. If you can stand the clichés and are a dedicated genre fan, there’s enough here to keep you involved for a long time. However, it’s the battle system that almost saves it, despite the huge irritant of random fights springing up to frustrate your progress.

Played across a grid, with them on one side and you on the other, it’s all pretty basic turn-based stuff when you first start out. However, as time progresses, the battles become tougher. Tactics become hugely important, as you figure out how to best play the various elemental alignments of good guys and bad guys off against each other, and the optimum positioning of your team on the board. Get it wrong, and the most impressive spell attacks do almost no good. Get it right, and the most basic attacks can be devastating.

Unfortunately, even those random encounters can become a slog of positioning, skill and defence boosting, and offensive/defensive combat balancing. There is an item later on in the game that lets you dodge random encounters, but that’s way later – too late, perhaps, to keep you interested.

Fortunately, the petty trading of items, clothing and suchlike is gone, as is the need (for the most part) to worry about healing. Characters automatically fully heal between fights, with only their vitality points leeching away. Once those are gone, the character can be replaced by one of your golems (Pokemon-like battling droids that you collect) for the journey to the nearest healing point. There are still weapons and golems to build, not to mention skills and stats to boost, but it’s not as reliant on micro-management as some RPGs.

What is lost, perhaps, is more chance for the player to feel involved in the game world. The biggest problem I had with Enchanted Arms was the feeling of being constantly disempowered by the game. All the significant choices, and a great many of the others, were taken care of by the game. Everyone knew more than Atsuma did, but in an irritating way rather than an intriguing one. The way the player avatar interacted with the environment served to distance the player from that environment.

Fanboy

Enchanted Arms isn’t a particularly bad game. Unfortunately, it brings completely, utterly and absolutely nothing new to the genre. It makes all the same mistakes that many others have, what it does well it only does reasonably well, and it offers no real outstanding moments to make all of that forgivable.

So, not a bad game, but not a good game either. If, like me, you’re vulnerable to anime/manga/JRPG cliché, then this game will be a guilty pleasure, but I’ll be surprised if you finish it.