Arc Rise Fantasia is a great RPG for the Wii. Worth a look into.
The game follows the adventures of a mercenary named LA'rc Bright Lagoon and his friends. On one of the Feldragon hunts he had been assigned to, he met a girl named Ryfia who turns out to be a Diva. It is later found out that L'Arc is a Child of Eesa, Eesa being a god, which means it is up to L'Arc to decide the fate of the world. Along the way, there are many twists and turns in the story, and a lot of background is given to the main characters of the game that unravels over time and sub-plots having to do with these backgrounds. At the beginning is can be easy to get confused as to what is going on since there is a lot that is going on in the game that is thrown at you from the start, but soon enough it is easy to figure it all out. Overall, the game offers a very interesting story, even if it seems cliche at times.
The world of Arc Rise Fantasia features a number of different areas and towns to explore that cover four different land masses ruled by three different factions which have tense relationships with each other. For the first part of the game, you will have to walk to your destinations. The land is filled with enemies that will chase after you if you are spotted and are a certain level, normally under them. It not that hard to get away from them if you do not want to fight with them, unless you end up traveling to a dead end. Fortunately, about halfway through the game you pick up a flying vehicle which makes travel a lot faster. Later on, you can get upgrades for your lightship that will let you teleport to your destination.
Your over all party eventually comes to the grand total of six characters and a guest character at times. But like other RPGs, Arc Rise Fantasia limits you to only having three on the battle field and that guest which you do not get control over. When it comes to the battle system, it seems similar to other games that are not turn-based. The team has a set pool of action points (referred to as AP in the game) that you can divide up between the characters (or set the AI to attack for themselves while you take control of one of the characters). Different actions take different amounts of points, like doing a basic physical attack costs two points while moving else where on the field takes one. The base is not that hard to pick up, and the game does a nice job at pacing the addition of other things like magic syncing attacks, Excel Acts (which are powerful moves that either do a nice amount of damage, boost stats, or even heal, but can only be used if you have enough SP) which can be combined to make Trinity Acts (which is when three characters use an Excel Act on the same enemy) and Rogress which are powerful creatures that L'Arc can summon to aid him and normally do crazy amounts of damage.
Magic is fairly basic in this game as you place orbs on characters in order for them to learn different spells. There are four different basic types: fire, water, earth, and wind (Excel/Trinity Acts can have elements attached to them as well). By getting higher level orbs, or combining similar ones that are the same level, you can unlock stronger magic. And if you want to get a little more crazy, you can combine some of the elements for even more spells, though if you try to mix fire and water or earth and air the level of the orbs with actually decrease. One of the nice things about the magic system is that it is fully customizable. If you want to completely change how much MP a character has at one level or which elements they are strong with, you can for the right price. But once you get into the late game, money does not matter one bit since you should have more than you would ever need.
Where things get interesting is in the weapon system. Each character has their own set of weapons that you can buy at shops or sometimes find in dungeons, meaning there are six different weapon types. Each weapon has things call Arm Forces that are locked on to the weapon until you use it enough in battle to where you unlock it. Also by gaining more WP (the points that are given to the weapon you use) will also go towards unlocking more rows for a grind that you place the Arm Forces on. Once you have unlocked an Arm Force, you can freely move it from one weapon to another, making the weapon and character stronger. If you are able to fill the grind fully (think of it like playing Tetris in a way), you can unlock the bonus for that weapon, called a Weapon Secret. This system is fairly easy to get a hold of and makes the game a lot more fun since you can tailor your characters how ever you like, well as long as you have the Arm Forces you want. Unfortunately, Arm Forces are only found on weapons and are one of a kind, which means you have to pick up all the weapons in order to have access to all the Arm Forces, which can be a bit of a hassle. Also, if nothing else, you end up spending more time grinding for WP more than anything in the game since you earn so little of it in normal fights. While it is a fun system, these downsides do hold it back a bit.
While normal monsters and enemies are great and all, the real challenge and fun starts when you take on the bosses. Each one has its own strategy that you need to work around. While the first few can be rather easy to beat (although some of them did give me some trouble my first go at them) the latter bosses really test your skills and knowledge of the battle system. Of course, some may feel that it comes down to pulling off strong magic and Trinity Acts, but there is also a lot of Arm Force planning that needs to be done. Besides all of the fights that have to do with the story, there is a number of optional boss fights as well. Some of these boss fights can only take place after you have beaten the final boss. There are also some that are quests from the guild, which gives you side quests to do that give you items or money that will help you out during the story.
For those who are looking for more to do in Arc Rise Fantasia, there are some more things to do then the side quests given out by the guild. There is an arena where you can challenge set enemies for a fee. These fights supply you with limited amount of items (which makes some of the later ones pretty hard) and sometimes there are special conditions in place, but they reward you pretty well on your initial run through them. The last fight is a cameo from the Luminous Arc series and is one of the hardest fights in the game. If you are familiar with the Pokemon series, you will be familiar with the other place you can spend your time: the casino. It is pretty lazy and there isn't much of a reason to visit it outside of a few weapons and some costumes. There are card games, slots, and Kopin races to play in it, but it is almost just faster to buy the tokens you need flat out.
As for collectibles, there are some in the form of costumes. These costumes do not actually do anything with in the game except change what the character looks like in the pause menu and add some hidden extra cut sense. While some of these costumes you can buy in the game, there are some that you get buy talking to someone at the right time. The window for these are fairly small and not really worth the time hunting for all of them.
Overall, the story is pretty beefy, it took me around 80 hours to complete the main game and then a while longer to beat the optional bosses you unlock after beating the final boss and the final dungeon. The final dungeon is a four part maze that puts you up against some of the toughest enemies in the game, some rehashed boss fights from early on in the game, and one of the longest boss fights to cap it off: Allwise. While Allwise wasn't that hard for me, the fight against him is just really long. Outside of the Infinite Maze of Allwise, picking up any Rogress you did not get before you beat the final boss, and those optional bosses, there really isn't much to the post-story part of the game. For those who like to play the game through again, there is not a New Game + feature. While in some cases this would be nice to have, I think that Arc Rise Fantasia is fine without it.
Graphically, this game looks great. The in-game graphics are very well done and have a nice style to go along with them. Everything is very detailed and has a very traditional RPG look to it. The character models are done well and it is nice to see that when you select a new weapon, it changes during battles. The over-world has a bit of a problem in that it is filled with dead ends and areas that are covered in trees make it hard to find the right path. The fully animated cut sense look amazing, but one could argue that there isn't enough of them. There are other cut senses where cut outs of the characters appear when they talk. While this look good, the fully animated ones just look a lot better. There are also slow down times when you are in the huge cities and there is a lot going on or when you are in battle with certain enemies that have some kind of effect (bugs that have this cloud being produced while they fly). This is pretty tolerable since it doesn't lag the game too much and it is almost expected since this is a Wii game.
The music is some of the best I have heard to. The sound track really fits with the game. The best songs that come to mind are the battle ones. The main boss theme has that "epic" feel to is as it adds a rock sound (guitar rifts and driving drum beat) to a symphony. And then there is the voice acting, which in my opinion is not that bad really. Once you get into the game a little ways, you get use to their voices. Now, some of the lines do not match up the text and lip syncing is off at times, but overall it is pretty good. If you really do not like it, there is an opinion before you start the game to cut it off so you can just listen to the amazing sound track.
In conclusion, Arc Rise Fantasia is really a great game. While it has some flaws, it has some really fun gameplay, epic boss fights, a great sound track, great graphics, and a good story. It is a pretty long adventure that is worth playing through. If you are looking for a good Japanese role-playing game for the Wii that was lucky to be brought out of Japan, Arc Rise Fantasia is defiantly worth a look into.