One of my goals for this show was to finally see if I could pick apart Arc Rise Fantasia's systems a bit, considering the way the battle system works is far and away the most interesting thing to me about any RPG. (This is why Baten Kaitos and particularly its prequel Origins hold such a warm place in my heart.) Of course, analyzing any RPG in any depth in an environment like E3 is a bit of a Herculean task, but I tried to get as much as I could out of the time I had and a little help from Ignition's demonstrator.
Arc Rise is a turn-based RPG at its heart and doesn't do a whole lot to deviate from the tried-and-true of that setup. There are no random battles, either in the field or in the various locales. The key difference between Arc Rise Fantasia and the bog-standard turn-based RPG revolves around the concept of AP—action points.
Each turn, you'll get a certain number of AP, which you can spend on any action any character is able to do. These include your typical actions like attacking, moving (i.e. to position yourself to better avoid the effects of area attacks), and magic as well as special attacks known as Excel Acts. The latter also spends from your SP gauge, which is replenished by tension—getting hit, hitting, and at the end of each turn.
A key point with the AP system is that you can simply tell one character to repeatedly attack during the turn—but as you will note if you look at the turn queue in the lower-right corner, this might not prove to be such a great idea, as you'll see enemies getting chances to slip in their own turns in-between your actions, whereas if you balance everything out a little more between characters, they'll often be able to attack much more closely to each other if not simultaneously, taking out enemies before they can strike at you. You also regenerate a set number of AP each turn up to a maximum limit, so you can save points for the next turn if you feel it would be to your advantage.
There were also hints of deeper systems at work, though their effects weren't too well explorable on the floor. One in particular was the Arm Force system, in which your weapons level up with use, adding stats and abilities; the abilities in particular can be removed as Weapon Pieces and applied to other weapons by fitting their shapes into a grid. Another was the Rogress system, which I'm told were effectively summons, but were also equippable to influence your characters' stats.
I do have to wrap up with a few words about the presentation. I'm sure many of you have heard the voice acting; this hasn't been improved, but there is an option to turn it off. I also couldn't help but think that even though the scenery and characters were consistently detailed, that there was a sort of general blah-ness to the overall look, but as I have liked screens and videos of this game in the past I think that perhaps this might be able to be chalked up to displays that weren't set up at their best. I'm hoping it looks better on my plasma.
Arc Rise Fantasia is out quite soon—July 20. If you've got only a Wii and are looking for some JRPG love, it might be your ticket.
Arc Rise is a turn-based RPG at its heart and doesn't do a whole lot to deviate from the tried-and-true of that setup. There are no random battles, either in the field or in the various locales. The key difference between Arc Rise Fantasia and the bog-standard turn-based RPG revolves around the concept of AP—action points.
Each turn, you'll get a certain number of AP, which you can spend on any action any character is able to do. These include your typical actions like attacking, moving (i.e. to position yourself to better avoid the effects of area attacks), and magic as well as special attacks known as Excel Acts. The latter also spends from your SP gauge, which is replenished by tension—getting hit, hitting, and at the end of each turn.
A key point with the AP system is that you can simply tell one character to repeatedly attack during the turn—but as you will note if you look at the turn queue in the lower-right corner, this might not prove to be such a great idea, as you'll see enemies getting chances to slip in their own turns in-between your actions, whereas if you balance everything out a little more between characters, they'll often be able to attack much more closely to each other if not simultaneously, taking out enemies before they can strike at you. You also regenerate a set number of AP each turn up to a maximum limit, so you can save points for the next turn if you feel it would be to your advantage.
There were also hints of deeper systems at work, though their effects weren't too well explorable on the floor. One in particular was the Arm Force system, in which your weapons level up with use, adding stats and abilities; the abilities in particular can be removed as Weapon Pieces and applied to other weapons by fitting their shapes into a grid. Another was the Rogress system, which I'm told were effectively summons, but were also equippable to influence your characters' stats.
I do have to wrap up with a few words about the presentation. I'm sure many of you have heard the voice acting; this hasn't been improved, but there is an option to turn it off. I also couldn't help but think that even though the scenery and characters were consistently detailed, that there was a sort of general blah-ness to the overall look, but as I have liked screens and videos of this game in the past I think that perhaps this might be able to be chalked up to displays that weren't set up at their best. I'm hoping it looks better on my plasma.
Arc Rise Fantasia is out quite soon—July 20. If you've got only a Wii and are looking for some JRPG love, it might be your ticket.