Visually, the game is very appealing, though it lacks the sort of high-res polish we've become used to from JRPGs on other consoles. The graphics and music in Fantasia definitely aren't as low-quality as the voices, however. Of course, I'm sure most will find the VO to be an ear-grating experience, but thankfully the voices can be shut off. Ryfia's monotone, cue-card battle observations and L'Arc's bored-sounding hissyfits - among countless other issues - are the sort of things that leave me rolling. As someone who "appreciates" awful voiceover work, Arc Rise Fantasia's ineptly cast and badly directed dub proved to be a veritable goldmine of unintentional comedy. Speaking of awkward, the voicework in Arc Rise Fantasia deserves special mention. The cliche-laden story would be more enjoyable if the characters themselves were interesting, but their dialogue and interactions are pretty unremarkable, hampered further by an awkwardly rewritten English script. In other words, you've basically seen this all before. You'll spend plenty of time encountering familiar JRPG tropes, including the hero's best friend/pretty-boy fangirl bait, conflict between "good" and "bad" brothers, mysterious jewellery with hidden meanings, the stupid comic relief buddy, incredibly powerful summoned beings, teammates with secret pasts and motives, and a completely bland love triangle. Through a chain of consecutive disasters, nations are plunged into war, the a world-ending peril is revealed, and L'Arc's hidden powers come to light. It's not all bad, though - at least Arc Rise Fantasia is a fairly solid title on its own merits.Īrc Rise Fantasia follows the adventures of L'Arc, a young mercenary, and Ryfia, the mysterious girl who rescues him from a monster and now follows him everywhere. It almost feels we're stuck settling for this instead of ToG.
ARC RISE FANTASIA REVIEW SERIES
It's an ironic circumstance, since it takes heavy inspiration from the Tales series in many ways: character designs, the optional dialogue "skits", setting design and presentation, and even things like enemy types and color schemes. But since ToG looks like it will remain a Japan exclusive, Arc Rise will have to suffice. The only game I can think of offhand that could possibly (and probably) best it is Tales of Graces, the Wii entry in Namco-Bandai's typically superb RPG series.
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This isn't as big a compliment as it might seem though, as it wins that honour by default due to lack of serious competition. Arc Rise Fantasia is probably the best Wii-exclusive RPG to date.