Arcana is an awesome SNES RPG game that is often overlooked because of its 1st Person perspective. Unlike most SNES RPGs, which are top down like Final Fantasy, Arcana touts a first person perspective, providing limitted viewing and a need to look at your map. This classic style, more often found on PC games, works well in this game. The basic premise of Arcana is that you, Rooks, are the only Card Master alive because your father died in a battle. An evil reign is about to begin and you need to stop it. With a decent cast of characters that fight with you, betray you, aid you at opportune times, the plot moves along quite well. And despite the cliche 'I'm going to save the Kingdom from disaster', it is a very fun and engaging plot. Gameplay: 9/10 In many ways, Arcana is like a classic D&D game, where experience is recorded which lead to level advancement, which give you bonuses in your stats. Like many games, this game allows you to gather money to buy better equipment along the way. It is a very linear game, so as you go along the monster get harder and the equipment gets better. The downside to this linear style is that you cannot go back to past areas to re-explore. Once you are done with a dungeon, it's gone. Also, there is not a game world to explore... just cities for you to buy things, rest, and heal... and dungeons for you to fight and explore. What is great about this game is the concept of Spirits. You, the Card Master, eventually control 4 spirits - Wind, Water, Fire, Earth. In your party, there are 4 character slots which include yourself, a spirit, and two other companions. The last two companions are set by where you are in the game. The spirit you can change even during a battle. Certain monsters have worse defense against certain spirits, so there is strategy involved. Also, as you level up, your spirits also gain spells. Sometimes you need the Water spirit to heal.. or the Earth spirit to cast a spell for your defense. Battle sequences are turnbased, with each character chosing an action (whether to attack, defend, use magic, use an item, or activate a magic weapon. It is fairly straightforward except for one major problem. It is impossible to tell what the sequences is for turns. Sometimes an enemy will attack 3 times before one of your characters gets to attack once... even with high agility. Otherwise, the gameplay is excellent. It could use better inventory and shop management. But those are easy to get used to. Graphics: 8/10 The graphics are great in this game. While there isn't much of a game world, the scenes are drawn well. The dungeons are a bit drab. But that makes sense. The character drawings are okay.... but the faces are great and done in a Japanese cartoon style. The monsters are cool, but a drawback is that some of the monsters use the same basic model, with slightly different colors to denote a stronger version. The towns are very simple, but the building facades are done nicely. Sound: 7/10 There is steady background music that overall fits the game very nicely. The music changes between scenes and battles. Special battles get special music as well. The tunes are a little repetative. But they help keep the action going when you need to just wander aimlessly to level up. The sound effects are good. Each spirit has different magical attacks and the sound effects go well with those attacks. Reviewer's Tilt: 8/10 I really enjoyed this game. It is not easy. And with only 3 save slots, it takes some time to get through the game. There is nearly 0 replayability since the game is so linear and does not have a lot of options. But for a one time run through type game, this is very good.
Other Helpful Reviews for Card Master: Rimusaria no Fuuin
Arcana Arcana Arcana, what can I say about this game? It has some good points and some bad points. Let me elaborate. Firstly, the story is about a boy named Rooks. It turns out his father was what is known as a Card Mast... Read Full Review
What can I say except this is a highly underrated game. This was an above average RPG for the SNES. For it's time this game had decent graphics. The music and sound effects were also entertaining and the story although l... Read Full Review
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