It deserves serious consideration from every PS3 owner.
Taking place in an alternate version of Earth, the story begins in Yokohama City, one thousand years after the legendary Golem Wars, where the power of magic was harnessed to create powerful technology. These artificial creatures, known as the Golems, obey their master's commands even after their master dies and the Golem Wars culminated in the massively powerful Devil Golems almost wiping everyone out. Fortunately, mankind prevailed and managed to seal away the Devil Golems. Since those ancient times, the true power of magic has been lost, but certain people of the ancient bloodline can still use magic to a degree, through the power of Enchantment, which can control Golems and manipulate elemental forces.
You step into the shoes of Atsuma (I guess the developers thought it sounded better than Lementine!), a student at Enchant University, where young people learn to harness the powers of the elements and become Enchanters. Atsuma is a headstrong and fun-loving guy who finds it very hard to pay attention in lessons - or even stay awake for that matter! He's shunned by most of the students though, as he has a mysterious right arm that negates Enchantments and can damage anything he touches that's Enchanted. Accompanied by Toya, the most popular and smartest student, as well as Makoto, an incredibly camp and pretty pissy guy who follows Toya around like a lovesick puppy, the three of you set out to cut class and visit the annual festival in Yokohama City. After enjoying the festival and defeating Yuki, a money-obsessed bounty hunter who'd give her right arm to get hold of Atsuma's right arm, things start to go awry. The Golems guarding the city go crazy, attacking everyone in sight, while an earthquake lays waste to the surroundings. Venturing into the forbidden vault within the University's bowels, Atsuma discovers that a Devil Golem - the Queen of Ice - has been released, and she is intent on wiping out the plague of humanity once and for all. Now it's up to Atsuma, and his new friends Karin and Raigar, to defeat the Queen of Ice and save the world from complete annihilation.
While Enchanted Arms features the usual 'end of the world' storyline, it has enough unique features to make it stand out from the crowd - and let's face it, if the stakes weren't high then an RPG just wouldn't be fun, would it? If a demon was out to burn down our hero's house and had to be stopped, well, it just wouldn't work! The story is actually very engaging and really drives you forward because you want to find out what will happen next, and while most of the plot twists can be seen coming a mile off, there are a few in there that will surprise you. As usual, the Japanese dialogue suffers from 'lost in translation syndrome', often being clichéd, over-long and laugh out loud daft, but the characters are well-developed and quirky, and it's a lot of fun because of it. Besides, it's not as if any of the Final Fantasy games are masterpieces when it comes to the dialogue! The voice acting can also be very over the top and corny at times, but efforts are made to (clumsily) explain each character's motivation, so they're more than two-dimensional good guys and bad guys, with Atsuma himself all the more likeable for being a haunted and conflicted hero.
The worst part of the storyline is the lack of cut scenes - most dialogue plays out with 3D models of the characters popping up talking to each other, with very limited animation, and I would have much preferred to sit back and watch the cut scenes with more camera angles and action, rather than having to press X after every sentence. Most cut scenes are rendered using the in-game graphics engine, which doesn't look that great for this purpose; there are a few CGI cut scenes that never fail to impress, but they're not up to the standard of Final Fantasy and given the fascinating story, you often wish that talented developers at From Software had the expertise and budget of Square Enix behind them.
Graphically, Enchanted Arms is a mixed bag, but overall it looks pretty good. The best part is without doubt the rich, detailed environments, which are fully rendered in 3D with a user-controlled camera. Every location looks gorgeous, from picturesque seafront Yokohama City (which contrasts very well with its icy, desolate counterpart later on) to the spectacle of London City's architecture. Even the sewers look good! You'll traverse countryside and mountains, underground mines and various modern facilities and temples, and much more; each area is spectacular, the ancient technology of the temples and modern technology of the current civilisation looking particularly excellent, with lots of usage of glowing energy conduits to great effect. The inside of the London Castle is also particularly grand, while the hideout of the Resistance is brimming with personality and run-down yet sweeping architecture.
The lighting effects are particularly awesome too - when the sun is shining you get real-time shadows and some truly atmospheric skies, where you just stop for a moment to take in the view. Enchanted Arms is without doubt utilising the power of the PS3 (and the Xbox 360 before it), and while there are some drab textures here and there, overall the exploration areas are never short of fascinating. The music that accompanies each area is varied, well orchestrated and always fitting to the mood and action too; sometimes grand and sweeping, sometimes sinister and foreboding, sometimes hopeful and uplifting; it's a great soundtrack and the variety and quality of the themes is very much welcome.
The gameplay consists of three main aspects, as you would expect - exploring environments, battling enemies and upgrading your party. You explore each area to progress through the game, talking to non-player characters and finding hidden treasure along the way. Extra effort has been put into this part too - you have grapple points to swing across, water to swim through, platforms to ride on, mine-carts to ride, ladders and stairs to climb, chests to find, crates to smash and a few rudimentary puzzles, or tasks where you must gather information by talking to everyone you meet. One of the best gameplay features is very simple but very effective - you can save at almost any time! You can't save mid-battle of course, but you can save as often as you like when exploring, so no more holding your breath in the hope that you'll reach a save point before the random battles finish you off!
On that subject, there are two more key factors that put Enchanted Arms a cut above Final Fantasy. The first is that random battles aren't too frequent, and if they're not frequent enough for you then you can do a little dance mini-game that uses the SIXAXIS controller's motion sensor, which boosts your Extra Skill bar (I'll come to that later) and means that enemies will find you more often. One of the things that spoils many an RPG - and particularly the Final Fantasy series - is the constant barrage of random battles, but this simply isn't the case in Enchanted Arms. The other great feature is that your health and energy are fully restored after every battle - you can use potions to restore them in-battle if you need to, but each battle is totally self-contained and so you can really let rip with the attacks you want to use, safe in the knowledge that in the next battle everyone will be completely recovered. Some players might feel that this makes the game a little too easy, and while the chances of your whole party dying in battle aren't high (apart from the increasingly challenging boss battles, of which there are many), it's so nice to not have to spend half your time worrying about using health potions so you won't get caught off guard by the next battle. To balance this out, each character has Vitality Points (VP) that decrease when a character sustains damage. Recharge stations restore your VP, but if it goes all the way down to zero then that character will have to stay out of the party until you can recharge them.
The combat itself is fairly unique too; it's turn-based but with enough tactical aspects to keep it varied and interesting. Rather than a turns list for each ally and enemy, each side takes it in turns and you get to go first most of the time, giving you the chance to wipe out half your enemies before they can even get a strike in. Battles take place on two grids that are 4 squares wide and 3 squares deep. Each side must stay in their own grid, but within that grid you can move around and then perform one action per character per turn, be it using an item, attacking, casting a support spell like healing or going on standby, which regenerates your EP (needed to perform all actions). Movement is limited by stats that can be increased, and every attack affects a certain number of squares. Some might hit on just the one square directly in front of you, or perhaps three squares in a vertical row, some might go in a horizontal row of three squares, either directly in front of you or further away, and there are numerous patterns for the almost endless attacks and support actions that are available. Ranged attacks hit with full force regardless of positioning, but direct attacks are diluted if you have to go through several enemies - attack two enemies ahead of you and the first one gets the full force of the attack, while the one behind only sustains half the damage. Putting your stronger characters in front of your weaker ones is a useful tactic that can often save them from being knocked out.
To further add to the tactics, each character and enemy is aligned with Earth, Wind, Fire, Water, Light or Dark, with each one stronger against its opposing element and weaker against the same element. But not all attacks are element-based, making for yet more strategy. If you have a Water character who has several non-element attacks then it makes sense to use them against a Water foe who uses elemental attacks, because the damage of their attacks will be halved, while yours will have full impact. There are also combo attacks - each character has a combo bar that fills with each turn (which is carried over between battles, as is the EX bar, which I'm coming to I promise!), and when multiple characters with full combo bars attack the same enemy then you get a combo attack and the damage you deal is significantly increased - get all four characters to combo attack a boss and you might even take it out in a single turn!
The speed of the combo bar filling is based upon FP (Friendly Points), which are gained by going into combat. The EX bar also gradually fills and this is shared by your party for activating their special attacks, which are the most spectacular and deadly ones of the whole game, and often they're elemental for extra damage to opposing elements. The EX bar fills gradually with each turn and it's fantastic for getting you out of a tight spot. Best of all, rather than having to grind through random battles if you want it full for an upcoming boss battle (you can anticipate them most of the time!) you can just hop into the dancing mini-game and shake your controller to fill it up fast!
The only annoying quirk of the battles is the way you must figure out the exact sequence you want for all four members of your party (that's your battlefield limit) before you execute them. For example, if you want to heal a fighter who's next to your healing character before moving the fighter forwards to get in range for a close attack then you have to make sure the healing character performs their move first - otherwise your fighter will not be in the right place when the spell is cast and won't be healed. It seems a pain at first (especially when you have to undo everything for that turn and do it all again!) but you soon get used to it.
Probably the most disappointing aspect of the battles is that they don't look that great. While the enemy designs are very imaginative and varied (particularly the bosses) and overall look is very cool, because they're all on a grid, you see them from a distance most of the time and you don't get to appreciate them as much as you might have otherwise. Also, while the various effects for each of your own characters and the enemies look pretty good, which are seen close-up with dynamic camera usage as they're executed, they're nowhere near as amazing looking as Final Fantasy, coming off as a watered-down version of that beloved franchise. It all looks good, but it just lacks the wow factor of FF - even the special EX attacks. The accompanying sound effects are appropriate but unspectacular and the single battle theme (which only changes for bosses) is over dramatic and becomes annoying after a while - I'd much have preferred to stick with whatever tune is playing in the current area instead. There is yet another very thoughtful addition to this though - you can hold Triangle to speed up the action, so you don't have to sit through the same animations over and over again (well you do, but they happen very fast!) This is pure genius and every RPG should do this from now on!
Without doubt the best aspect of the battle system is that you can eventually gain access to almost every single Golem you ever battle, bringing it over to your team! You regularly get new additions and there are well over 100 to find! Some you gain after battling that Golem, some you have to purchase with money (known as Tablet or TB) and some you can find hidden away in the level and can choose to battle or not. It's like a very cool version of Pokémon (gotta have 'em all!) and you will end up with more than you can ever use, but still, the sheer variety of options available means that you can pick your favourites and get them battle experience alongside a selection of the main characters.
When it comes to levelling up, everything is handled pretty well. Every character and Golem gains experience whether they fight or not, so they keep levelling up regardless, but only those who fight gain Skill Points (SP), which are needed for learning new skills (for the main characters only) and for manually enhancing your stats (for everyone, including the Golems). Many new skills can be learned, some of which you gain from combat or even by opening a treasure chest and others you have to purchase (you get TB in chests and from every battle). They come in two varieties - skill and support. The skill variety encompass your main actions, like attacks, enhancing your stats temporarily, healing, removing status problems like poison or gravity, boosting your EP, reviving characters and so on. The support variety consist of innate skills, like permanently boosted stats, immunity to status problems, double TB from battle and more. Each character can have only five of each type equipped at one time, so your choice of skills and support can really change how your characters perform on the battlefield. The stats you can enhance consist of HP, EP, Direct, Ranged, Support and Agility, and each time you enhance them with SP the cost goes up incrementally.
When it comes to weapons and Golems, every one of them has to be synthesised using Core Materials. These are gained in battle, found or purchased, and you need different combinations of gems (Power, Speed and Mind), which are gained in the same ways, to synthesise them. It's a nice touch that limits what you can do (but not too much) and forces you to make decisions - you can also only synthesise at shops, represented by purple crystals scattered at regular intervals throughout the game.
The rest of Enchanted Arms is pretty well implemented; load times are short and minimal, and while they can be annoyingly frequent in certain areas, you go straight into battle without delay and most of the time load breaks are few and far between. The menus are easy to navigate on the whole, although it's sometimes hard to find the characters you want when updating your party members and you can't check to see what skills someone has when you're deciding which stats to upgrade. Also, you're not given the option to equip a new weapon or skill, having to go and do that manually by going into more menus, which is a bit cumbersome. Overall though, it's a system that works well and minimises confusion for the most part.
Enchanted Arms is a classic RPG that bests Final Fantasy in several gameplay areas, if not in the visuals department. While it looks very nice overall, it lacks the impact and spectacle that FF is famous for. However, with a compelling storyline, fun characters, access to over 100 party members in the form of the Golems and a very flexible, rewarding and deep upgrade system, Enchanted Arms has everything you would expect from a great RPG and it will keep you hooked for the fifty hours or more that it takes you to reach the end. It's also pretty accessible for newcomers to the genre, and as such it deserves serious consideration from every PS3 owner.