Enchanted Arms was released for the Xbox 360 last January in Japan, and its good reviews provided a ray of hope for North American Xbox owners who wanted to see it cross the Pacific. A turn- and grid-based RPG, Enchanted Arms follows all the traditional conventions you’ve come to expect from this style of game, goofy hair included.
Our E3 demonstration began with a party of four characters fighting a large, red dragon in a cave. Each character took its turn trying to destroy the beast with a dizzying array of available attacks. What’s interesting is that no character has a set class or type that restricts its abilities; each one can be molded to your liking. Unfortunately, the E3 build of Enchanted Arms did not allow us to view the stats screen to get a better idea of how this actually works. Combined attacks can also be performed, but doing so bunches your group together, which makes it easier for the enemy to do simultaneous damage to everyone.
The effects during the special attacks were cool, but the graphics in general looked dated and unimpressive. To be fair, though, this is something most fans of this genre shouldn’t be too concerned about. The town we were shown looked a little better, and the pizza-head guys (instead of a head, they have a large pepperoni pizza) were crazy enough to get some laughs. The cinematics used to move the story forward were all very well done, but not quite as good as another certain popular Japanese RPG.
With all the cinematics and in-game action, thousands of lines of dialog have been recorded for the game, but you only hear the main characters, and the rest of the conversation you must read. Fortunately the voices that are included have great voice-over work, and the sound effects are also well done. The background music, however, was on the whole forgettable.
Those looking for some Japanese style RPG goodness on their Xbox 360 won’t have to wait much longer, and From Software plans to release the game in North America this August.
— Robert Dusseau
