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Intro
Ubisoft keeps the better late than never theory rolling as they present Enchanted Arms for the Playstation 3. From Software has given Atsuma a licence to dance on the new platform. Literally on fire, you will melt the Queen of Ice into a puddle.  Enchanted Arms isn't the next coming in role playing games, but it is enough to keep you occupied for a good 40hrs.

Game
Last year, From Software’s Enchanted Arms received a large number of mixed reviews which seemed to hit a nerve in the gaming population. Enchanted Arms is one of those games you’ll either get right into, or not like at all. I took the chance to look over the reviews on Game Rankings and Enchanted Arms for the Xbox 360 ranged from the low 40%, ranked by popular gaming site 1UP, all the way up to 90%. Extreme Gamers’ review of Enchanted Arms was a respectable 80%, and focused on the excellent turn based gameplay while pointing out its flaws. Enchanted Arms is anything but perfect, but for the next generation Japanese styled role-playing it proved to be satisfying experience.

Going into the port review for the PS3, I’m mainly investigating to see what new content they have added, if the bugs where exterminated, and what advantage the PS3 version might hold over the Xbox 360 version. The main plot line of Enchanted Arms isn’t overly interesting, but it has a few strong points which mainly revolve around the Golems. Enchanted Arms can be a little slow and dull at times, and then it can be funny with colourful characters and interesting with the grid based combat. I can see the reviews getting garbled up again, one good aspect out of all the conflicting reviews, is that people are talking about Enchanted Arms.

For those who haven’t had the pleasure of the playing Enchanted Arms, I recap the main plot and the main characters. The story revolves around Atsuma, a young student of Enchanter’s University, a school for enchanters which basically translates to magic. Atsuma and his best friend Toya, and the flamboyant and openly homosexual Makoto wander into a twisting plot involving a Golem war that turns into an epic adventure dealing with the malicious Queen of Ice. Along this adventure Atsuma crosses the path of three other main characters Yuki, Raigar, and Karin and learns to accept his new face, dealing with personal struggles along with unfortunate circumstances of destruction that surround him.  Enchanted Arms follows the typical hero storyline fighting against outnumbering odds. Enchanted Arms really isn’t original, but like many role playing games you accept the plot for what it is.

The Golems in Enchanted Arms are robots with magical powers on both sides of good and evil. The Golems are also are aliened with an elemental source, along with each of the main characters. As you would suspect the normal Earth, Wind, Fire, Wind and Earth are present, along with the other fractions of light and dark. It’s fitting that Atsuma is based under the sign of fire, while his main opponent is the Queen of Ice. The elementals are much more than something attached to the characters for iconic purposes; these elements are the key to winning battles and making you way through the game. In battle you will have to keep an eye out for the enemy’s elemental status to watch out for attacks, to counter attack, and properly switch up your party to deal the most damage. In many instances the battles play out like a chess battle with the pieces moving around, strategically trying to take out the other side. In this respect Enchanted Arms holds a lot of weight and involves more thinking then other cookie cutter role-playing games.

The battle system is based on a grid system that allows you to have up to four characters on each side in battle. During the game you will collect and synthesis Golems to help you in battle. Each Golem has certain specialized attacks, defences and powers to aid you in battle. It’s good to have a few of each elemental alignment along with a few good healing Golems. A varied party is the best approach in Enchanted Arms, and even though half the fun is collecting Golems, you main party is adequate enough to deal with any force that challenges you.

Golem collecting can get addictive and its fun just to see all the crazy designs From Software has conjured up. For an example their are cute little witches on brooms with the classic black hat (Bella Donna) to robotic metallic dogs (guard dog), to a pizza man mascot (crazy pizza), and all the way around to the Master Daruma, a head with two arms and no body. There are over a hundred different Golems in Enchanted Arms and the PS3 version boasts another 30 Golems to find and synthesize. If you really loved this aspect of Enchanted Arms, I could see a few gamers switching over to the PS3 version just to grab the extra Golems. It can be addictive, and although I tried, I never collected near a hundred Golems.

If the combat doesn’t hold your interest in Enchanted Arms, its doubtful the linear point a, to point b progressive storyline will keep you enthralled. The battles in Enchanted Arms are also random battles which jump around from being to frequent, to long patches of nothing. Frequent battles can get tiresome, especially if you’re in an area that isn’t challenging. Make not that Enchanted Arms isn’t a total cake walk; there are certain areas in the game that will test you battle skills and have you narrowly winning rounds nervously searching for a health rejuvenator. I had no problems running through Enchanted Arms the first time on the Xbox 360, and on the PS3 it was even more of a breeze.

Aside from the 30 extra Golems in the PS3 version players will also get optional Sixaxis motion controls built into the game, a few extra cut scenes, and some additional visuals in the gaming world. The Sixaxis controls as you could have guessed are absolutely unnecessary, but they managed to work them into the game in a way that is interesting enough. The main new addition to the gameplay that the Sixaxis offers is the ability to charge your EX meter during a ultra cheesy dancing mini-game. This mini-game has Atsuma dancing while a fool, while you sit and shake your controller around like a fool. I wasn’t a big fan of this addition, but even though it’s whacky it suites this game in that weird way. The best use of the Sixaxis controls is in combat when you get to shake the controller to boost up an additional 20% of damage from your EX attack. Other than that, it has a few instances of shaking it, but you always have the alternative of just pressing “X” on the controller.

What’s missing from the PS3 version is the online multiplayer that was present on the Xbox 360. It’s not a big hit to the game since it wasn’t that involving, but if you’re a Golem collector and liked building armies and fighting them, this would be a major down point. Another down point of the PS3 version is that they didn’t fix the spotty voice acting that would cut in and out during the game. This was my biggest pet peeve with Enchanted Arms for the Xbox 360 and I really question why they couldn’t have polished this up given the extra development time.

Lowdown
The PS3 version of Enchanted Arms has a few bonuses over the Xbox 360, but in no way is it superior. Despite the unoriginal linear storyline Enchanted Arms provides a creative list of Golems to collect, interesting and strategic combat, along with all the rest of Japanese styled finesse you’d expect in a role playing game. It’s not worth a re-purchase, but Enchanted Arms is definitely worth a look if you enjoy Japanese role-playing games or turned based combat.

Gameplay: 8, Graphics/Sound:7, Innovation:7, Mojo:8.5 Final: 7.5 / 10

Good Lots of collectable Golems, Unique Design, Strategic Combat, Extra Content on PS3
BadLinear Storyline, Stereotypical and patchy voice acting, Online Scratched
 
Reviewed by Jimmy | 04.20.07

Features

  • Master the SpeedTactics Battle System: Easy-to-navigate interface, the ability to move characters in-battle and distance-dependent attacks combine to create fast-paced, hands-on gameplay.
  • More Than 500 Characters, Including 130 Unlockable Creatures You Control: Find and unlock 130 controllable creatures to use in battle as part of your team. Customize your party and learn to harness their unique abilities. Includes 30 all new creatures exclusive to the PLAYSTATION 3 system.
  • Includes Both the Original Japanese and an All-New English Language Track: Choose to play the game with either Japanese or English dialogue.
  • More Than 50 Hours of Epic Gameplay: Delve deeper as you meet new characters and explore over 75 environments with multiple objectives and branching missions.
  • Includes More Than an Hour of Anime

Enchanted Arms

Publisher
Ubisoft

Developer
From Software

Genre
RPG

US Release
April 2007

Japan Release
Jan 2007

ESRB
Teen

Platform
PS3, X360

Details
Players 1
16:9 Support
Dolby Digital
Sixaxis Support