66 - Enchanted Arms (360)

Genre: SRPG
Rating: T
Developer: From Software
Publisher: Ubisoft
Platform: 360 (Also: PS3)
Release Date: 2006

I'm not really sure what spurred me to play Enchanted Arms but it led to a really great day of gaming. Usually I don't find myself playing games for more than an hour at a time. For one, there's other business to attend to. The much larger problem though tends to be that I just can't remain interested for that long with nay game anymore. Every once in a while something grabs hold and won't let go (like, say, Corpse Party) but otherwise even the most "addictive" games are passed over by me.

So it was definitely really strange when this RPG managed to hook me in for a great deal of hours on my first time playing it. The game isn't honestly all that great though. The graphics have definitely been surpased by now and the voice acting in particular is awful. You can switch between the English and Japanese voices and, unless you need a laugh, stick with Japanese. I just left it at default English voices because it made the otherwise same-y story have more life.

The game itself is basically a turn-based SRPG. What makes this more interesting is that you've got "golems" to create. These golems are basically like Pokemon or anything else because one big point of the game is to catch them all and train them well. They gain new abilities and all that jazz just like other members in your party do. It's rather fun.

What makes this game probably so awesome to me is that it adds in a lot of features that modern RPGs should have. For one, it allows the option to save anywhere. Why is this still not the case in every game? Just keep players from being able to save mid-battle or something and then it should be fine. Secondly, the game lets you put battles on auto and even speed up the proceedings with the push of a button. I wish more games allowed you to fast forward through the repetitive bits. These were pretty much necessary additions though as random battles happen a lot.

For all the good stuff I have to say about it, Enchanted Arms failed me at about 7 or 8 hours in. It's around this point that the game finally takes on JRPG tactics of old and requires copious amounts of grinding because all enemies have suddenly become insanely strong. I don't like grinding in any games and I wish this didn't have to be a part of the genre. So, I've put it aside for now and don't expect to touch it anytime soon. Still, for a fan of the genre it would probably be worth trying out to see what it does right.

Would I play again? No.