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GamerTag
The rarely updated blog of Joel Dixon
Monday, October 08, 2007
Enchanted Arms
# Posted by Joel Dixon at 08/10/2007 13:54:09After completing Oblivion I decided to move on to the Japanese Role Playing Game of Enchanted Arms.
Boxart for the Enchanted Arms game
You take on the role of Atsuma, an "enchanter" at school with his friends, with a mysterious and powerful arm. Bad things happen, and you need to fix them (basically). As with most games in this genre, storyline is very important, and I found this story to be engaging and actually very funny in parts. Character development is a strong point (sometimes a little too strong for some, like with the un-ashamedly homosexual character Mokoto and his undying love for a school mate) and the visuals are satisfactory for a game in this era.
The in-game visuals didn't blow me away - but were more than good enough to keep me engaged in the story
A large part of the game is your fight against golems, which are essentially robot warriors. You can find or buy different types of golems and have them fight for you as well. This was a high point for me, as the different strengths and general variety of golems kept the game interesting. Of course, there were a unsurprisingly high number of robot "warriors" made in the image of a school girl, nurse, maid etc
Another important aspect of RPGs is the battle system employed, and Enchanted Arms gains points in this respect as well. You make your 4-member party up from a mix of characters and golems and battles take place in a 6 x 4 grid in which you cannot pass the halfway line. Different attack ranges, elemental attacks and the fact that hiding behind another character lessens damaged made this system fun and challenging. The biggest problem I had with battles was that there was very rarely a warning that a difficult battle was going to take place, and when you lost a battle you could either retry or quit. What's the point of having a range of golems at the ready when you can't edit your party after you've seen the type of battle you're about to have? You could runaway from a battle (but not all the time, especially with bosses) but this would cause a big health hit.
Another negative for me was the end of the game, and the achievements rewarded. Firstly, when you finish the game you can no longer progress through the world (and find extra golems) with your current party. You can save your game and use your characters for online play - but there were no more games being hosted when I looked - and multi-player seemed to be an afterthought. Basically, if you didn't save the game before you reached a particular point in the story, you are unable to go back through the game collecting golems.
This leads to another negative - all 1,000 achievement points are awarded over the course of finishing the main storyline (with a "happy ending"). Even though the game tracks the number of golems you've found - there's no achievement for finding all of the robot warriors. I feel this is a place where the developer could have provided so much more replayability to the game, but instead left the audience wanting. I guess poor achievements can be excused for release titles, and the fact the game was originally delayed a month probably explains why these kinds of things were lacking. But the biggest place where they fell down was by using a generic icon (a yellow symbol) for every achievement. This is something that would have taken a graphical artist no more than a day to fix, had achievements not been a complete afterthought.
The generic achievement icon - From Software could have done much better here with little cost
Overall, I definitely enjoyed the game - but it's a shame they didn't have enough time to finish it and polish it up a little. 3.5 out of 5
# Posted in the Gaming section and tagged as: Xbox 360
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Comments
 Hitman Posts: 16 |
Game Completion Joel, Looking at your Gamer Tag. I can see that you take the time to fully complete each of your games. Very impressive. What is it with Kameo though, I noticed you have only 33/50 Achievments, yet you are still placed number 1 in world rankings. What has made Kameo that difficult for yourself and the rest of the world not to have gained all achievments? Hitman # Posted - 08/10/2007 19:33:46 |
 joeldixon   Posts: 156 |
Howdy Hitman, yeah - whenever possible I try to nab all of the achievements in a game, but Kameo's a weird one. When the game was released there were 1,000 points available - all for the single-player game or two player co-op (on the one Xbox). They then released extra game modes (like co-op over Xbox Live) and included extra achievements for this - but made them all 0 points. So while I've received all of the points - there are still some 0 pointers available (the world ranking is based on the 1,000 point value). I'll get to the remaining 17 zero-pointers one day - just waiting for someone else to play it online with me (Dave's got the game - but hasn't started it yet).  # Posted - 09/10/2007 03:46:12 Last Edited - 09/10/2007 04:11:16 |
| Eryc-Ads Posts: 13 |
Dave Williams? # Posted - 09/10/2007 12:59:47 |
joeldixon Posts: 156 |
 (nice pickup)Not Dave Williams - but does look a fair bit like him  # Posted - 09/10/2007 14:06:35 |
| Eryc-Ads Posts: 13 |
Don't know why I keep changing names..it depends on the mood. Getting back to the point..you must mean Dave Denny then! # Posted - 10/10/2007 11:52:01 |
joeldixon Posts: 156 |
Mate - if you don't register, you'll never get your post count up! You've already had a couple - you'd be ahead of "Hitman". I may be thinking of Denny - though he seems to have grown a little # Posted - 10/10/2007 13:07:45 |
 Hoff Posts: 39 |
Hey Joel, I would have to completely agree with your assessment of EA. There was so much room to put in good achievements like get all the golems. Get 100% FP. Win X at the casino... Lame Still I would rather a game have points like this that are at least achieveable then the unachievable ones in other games. Noticed you moved on to 99 Nights... You should knock over the 1000 points in that without too much trouble as well. You really are going to catch up to me. Problem is I'm enjoying playing Halo 3 so much I'm not going to get any new points in a hurry. Maybe I should just so I can keep my Rep   # Posted - 12/10/2007 16:26:12 |
joeldixon Posts: 156 |
Welcome Hoff - you should think about registering on the site - that way you can setup a fancy avatar. I can think of a few you could use Really good point - I much preferred Enchanted Arm's achievements when compared with the incredibly annoying royal flush search on Texas Holdem. And yeah - 99 Nights is really fun so far, great at the end of a long day when you just want to mow down countless enemies! I can imagine the last achievement might take a while - level nine with every character. Oh well - I got staying power! ha ha - that was my plan. I asked Bungie to make Halo 3 enjoyable so I could keep you occupied! I wonder if I will be this obsessed with Achievement Points if (when) I eclipse your mark # Posted - 13/10/2007 06:18:56 |
Hoff Posts: 39 |
99 Nights isn't too bad. I found the first run through was a little dull but it gets better as you move through the characters coz you get a new bit of the story every time. Its a weird game coz you kinda have to put the story together. Plus depending on the character you played you get different endings. Its hard work getting all characters to level 9. Thats the only achievement I havn't got yet. I do have half the characters at 9 tho. Just need to get the motivation to finish it off and get that last 200 points. Big chunk for one achievement. I managed to drag myself away from Halo 3 for a bit... doing a run through of Dead Rising since i've had the game for over a year and barely played it. Had the urge after seeing the new Resident Evil movie to kill zombies. I'm actually finding it lots of fun too! noticed you havn't been on for over 4 days... what happened? that must be a record since you moved. BTW I had problems confirming my email address. Recieved the email fine but the link didn't seem to do anything when I clicked on it. Just sent me to your site but didn't confirm. # Posted - 16/10/2007 09:35:45 |
joeldixon Posts: 156 |
(I've confirmed your address and moved your comments against your userid. If you've still got it could you forward me your confirmation email so I can see what went wrong? BTW - love the avatar!) Re 99 Nights - I definitely agree with you. it kinda feels (right now) like it's on the verge of great storyline - but not much has come out yet. Can't wait to play as that priest dude with the big staff thing! Dead Rising looked pretty cool - how many games have you got that are completely un-played? I'm down to 5 - which is manageable. (until I get home and pickup a few more!) You've gotta get onto Kameo! I have achievements waiting for your assistance And yeah - I was at work all weekend, and haven't had a lot of time lately (which I'm not happy about). I was hoping to fit in an hour of 99 Nights tonight - but I'll see how I go. # Posted - 16/10/2007 11:08:44 |
Hoff Posts: 39 |
Hopefully soon I'll get to kameo. It is actually fairly high on my list to play. I've got a couple others to get through first. I havn't got that many games that are completely unplayed. A rough guess of about only 2 I think... Kameo and Need for speed. I have a feeling i'm forgeting at least one tho. Will have a look when I go home tonight and let you know. I would probably have at least 10 games that are 30% played or under which need to be fixed up. My rough order of business at this stage will be Dead Rising, Blue Dragon then Overlord which will probably progress slowly because of Halo 3 multiplayer gaming. # Posted - 16/10/2007 11:43:26 |
joeldixon Posts: 156 |
It certainly is a good wrap on a game when you keep playing it after most of the achievements are completed! I might have to add a section to the profiles on this site where you can type in your Gamercard id. That way I can add something like this to posts: or # Posted - 16/10/2007 12:44:00 |
Hoff Posts: 39 |
Oooo nice I like it! Yeah Halo 3 is really good fun multiplayer. Plus it lets me actually use my gold membership for once. So now I can say I didn't waste it! Hitman just told me he got his xbox and halo. So you'll have to get it so we can all have a game! Do it... do it now!  # Posted - 16/10/2007 13:13:30 Last Edited - 16/10/2007 14:50:38 |
Hitman Posts: 16 |
You are going to have to get your self a copy of Halo 3 Mr. Dixon..... .....as somebody just brought themselves an Elite  # Posted - 16/10/2007 13:15:18 |
joeldixon Posts: 156 |
Ooh - damn - nice work Mr. Hitman! I'm kicking myself now - I won't be home for another month - and I need to buy a PAL copy of Halo for it to work when I get back there. If I get Bell to buy it for me - it won't be delivered here in time. I guess I have to give the two of you a healthy head-start (for now) # Posted - 16/10/2007 13:33:27 |
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