Arc the Lad: End of Darkness
May. 11th, 2010 11:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chuckroArc the Lad: End of Darkness, the fifth game in that series, really doesn't have much going for it. Twilight of the Spirits had a decent balance between being a sequel and being a stand-alone story; there was enough to the characters and the overall arc that you could forgive the final boss coming a bit out of left field if you were new to the series. This feels much more like the design team were told "make a sequel, make it cheap" and threw something together.
There is no question that this is a sequel to Twilight of the Spirits, as not only does it use all of the same character and monster models and locations, it keeps referencing the events of the previous game. Thing is, it’s either too much of a sequel, or not enough of a sequel. It's "another story set in the same world," which TotS was also, but that stood alone and this pretty much dovetails on to TotS. Except that the protagonists from TotS have gone missing and the supporting cast (but only the human side of it) are doing the Mary-Sue thing where they all recognize how wonderful the main character (Edda) is and send him off to do missions for them. It doesn't really follow up on hanging plot points or develop any of the relationships from the previous game, though. Everything feels kinda "tossed together." (Several of the Deimos characters show up in a tacked-on post-game mission so they, too, can squee over Edda.)
There isn’t very much to the game – it took me about 15 hours to do the full game and most of the post-game content - and they seem to try to make up for that with online PvP play (which I won't do). The game is about half the length of the previous one, and they set up the experience system to be padding. There are two kinds of experience / two kinds of missions you can do. (Sound familiar? Lunar: Dragon Song did the same thing, also as padding.) You need to do "counter missions" to earn money between doing "task board missions" to advance the story.
The system is fairly standard third-person beat-em-up, except there's effectively no camera control and there's no "block" button. The default angle making aiming problematic--I've taken a lot of hits because a swung next to the enemy rather than at it. The dodge functions are non-intuitive (you need to be homed in on an enemy to dodge him) and having a block button would make the fighting rhythm make much more sense. The magic system takes getting used to, but is broken once you do, as the best spells will knock out bosses in 2-3 hits. The game desperately needs a tutorial, especially if you don’t have the manual. I only died a handful of times, but most of them were during the very first battle, when I wasn't quite sure what all the buttons did.
There's very little advancement--going up hunter ranks increases your MP, but nothing else, and is required to advance the story. Making Edda stronger is entirely dependent on his equipment. You can use the item synthesis system to create some of the best items early on, and while some of them have rank requirements to use them, most don't. Particularly, the "Healing Card", which makes you regenerate HP, is available as soon as you do enough tasks to afford the ingredients, and it's the game-breaker item, because it means you don't have to rely on your limited MP for healing. You can also get the best weapon very early on if you get lucky with random enemy drops and are willing to spend an hour save-scumming the lottery game--one of the ingredients is only available randomly through the lottery.
The counter tasks are very short, each one takes ten minutes or less. The task board (story) tasks take longer and get longer as the game goes on, with some taking the better part of an hour to complete. Which gets to my biggest complaint of all: This game has no "pause" button during action sequences. A standard of games since the NES, and this game doesn't have it. Have to go to the bathroom mid-dungeon? Pick a safe-looking spot and hope nothing appears and kills you while you're gone.
I would have been rather upset with this game if I’d paid more for it. Given that I bought it for $6 including shipping, it was okay.
It occurs to me that I tend to be more long-winded about games that aren't as good. (It also helps when I write down thoughts as I have them--after a 40-hour game, I really don't remember most of my initial thoughts or complaints.)
There is no question that this is a sequel to Twilight of the Spirits, as not only does it use all of the same character and monster models and locations, it keeps referencing the events of the previous game. Thing is, it’s either too much of a sequel, or not enough of a sequel. It's "another story set in the same world," which TotS was also, but that stood alone and this pretty much dovetails on to TotS. Except that the protagonists from TotS have gone missing and the supporting cast (but only the human side of it) are doing the Mary-Sue thing where they all recognize how wonderful the main character (Edda) is and send him off to do missions for them. It doesn't really follow up on hanging plot points or develop any of the relationships from the previous game, though. Everything feels kinda "tossed together." (Several of the Deimos characters show up in a tacked-on post-game mission so they, too, can squee over Edda.)
There isn’t very much to the game – it took me about 15 hours to do the full game and most of the post-game content - and they seem to try to make up for that with online PvP play (which I won't do). The game is about half the length of the previous one, and they set up the experience system to be padding. There are two kinds of experience / two kinds of missions you can do. (Sound familiar? Lunar: Dragon Song did the same thing, also as padding.) You need to do "counter missions" to earn money between doing "task board missions" to advance the story.
The system is fairly standard third-person beat-em-up, except there's effectively no camera control and there's no "block" button. The default angle making aiming problematic--I've taken a lot of hits because a swung next to the enemy rather than at it. The dodge functions are non-intuitive (you need to be homed in on an enemy to dodge him) and having a block button would make the fighting rhythm make much more sense. The magic system takes getting used to, but is broken once you do, as the best spells will knock out bosses in 2-3 hits. The game desperately needs a tutorial, especially if you don’t have the manual. I only died a handful of times, but most of them were during the very first battle, when I wasn't quite sure what all the buttons did.
There's very little advancement--going up hunter ranks increases your MP, but nothing else, and is required to advance the story. Making Edda stronger is entirely dependent on his equipment. You can use the item synthesis system to create some of the best items early on, and while some of them have rank requirements to use them, most don't. Particularly, the "Healing Card", which makes you regenerate HP, is available as soon as you do enough tasks to afford the ingredients, and it's the game-breaker item, because it means you don't have to rely on your limited MP for healing. You can also get the best weapon very early on if you get lucky with random enemy drops and are willing to spend an hour save-scumming the lottery game--one of the ingredients is only available randomly through the lottery.
The counter tasks are very short, each one takes ten minutes or less. The task board (story) tasks take longer and get longer as the game goes on, with some taking the better part of an hour to complete. Which gets to my biggest complaint of all: This game has no "pause" button during action sequences. A standard of games since the NES, and this game doesn't have it. Have to go to the bathroom mid-dungeon? Pick a safe-looking spot and hope nothing appears and kills you while you're gone.
I would have been rather upset with this game if I’d paid more for it. Given that I bought it for $6 including shipping, it was okay.
It occurs to me that I tend to be more long-winded about games that aren't as good. (It also helps when I write down thoughts as I have them--after a 40-hour game, I really don't remember most of my initial thoughts or complaints.)
