vs.

vs.

Recently, two tactical RPGs have been released, both of which have the word ‘Arc’ in them. The market hasn’t been this saturated with tactical RPGs featuring some sort of ‘Arc’ since Working Designs released The Arc the Lad Collection for PS1. With so many options to chose from how can you tell which arc-related SRPG is right for you? Have no fear, in typical terrible Gamefaqs review fashion I have broken the games into separate categories so I can contrast them for you. I also threw in the movie, Raiders of the Lost Ark, for good measure.

Story

Luminous Arc
Luminous Arc encapsulates what is wrong with Japanese RPG plots, which is to say it is vapid, drawn out, redundant schlock. There is church. There is witches. You with church. Church kill witches. You find out witches good and church bad. You kill church. You fight some God who want kill world. You save world (who saw that coming?). The plot is essentially a bad version of EVERY OTHER DAMN TACTICAL RPG PLOT EVER! In an effort to inject humor to the story the game has some of your characters obsessed with things. For instance, your little brother really like eggs. You will read much dialog (because nothing can be skipped, NOTHING) about how he enjoys eggs.

Jeanne D’Arc
As the name implies, Jeanne D’Arc is loosely based on the historical figure of the same name. If I had a time machine, it would be fun to go back 600 years and inform Jeanne that while she will be burnt alive for heresy, the end result will be an excellent video game “with you as the main protagonist!”. No doubt this would ease her suffering. The game’s plot is dark, actually interesting, and has a few good twists. Unlike with Luminous Arc, I’m not gonna spoil this one. The anime cut scenes are great, but not well suited to a portable system where one might not be able to turn the sound up.

Raiders of the Lost Ark
In Indiana Jones’ first big screen adventure we see him travel the world in search of the Ark of the Covenant. I know little of biblical text, but the Ark seems like a big, surprisingly light weight, gold box that kills Nazis. Oh man do a lot of Nazis die in this film. If I were a Nazi and I saw this film, I’d sue Lucasfilm for discrimination. I wonder if that happened? I dunno, I was like four or something when it came out.

Graphics

Luminous Arc
Not straying from the original Tactics Ogre, Luminous Arc employs full 2D graphics. While the art is pleasant and the character portraits are large and well drawn, the inability to rotate the playfield is annoying and many battles get so cluttered with character sprites that it becomes a chore to tell who you are targeting, even for the initiated. Minor graphical hiccups plague the cut-scenes and the whole game just doesn’t feel like it’s utilizing the DSes full potential.

Jeanne D’Arc
Full 3D allows us to rotate the playfield up, down, or to any of eight directions (most SRPGs only allow four directions). The playfields are huge, but the zoom function helps keep tabs on everything or to focus on an area when need be. As in most all SRPGs, that characters are chibi. But because they are in 3D and thus a bit more realistic-looking than your average SRPG character, they look rather silly with their huge heads and tiny bodies. It makes one wonder if Jeanne D’ Arc actually lead an army of midgets.

Raiders of the Lost Ark

Man, computer graphics really made a difference in the movie industry. Go back and watch an action movie from the 80’s. Even the high budget ones look like “Power Rangers” quality these days. There’s something to be said for not having everything be digital. In some sense, it’s actually more realistic. But as Indy goes through the temple in the beginning of the movie, dodging spikes and running from boulders, I can’t help but draw the comparison to Nickelodeon’s Legend of the Hidden Temple. I wonder if they shared props?

Battle System

Luminous Arc
There’s no character customization. Your characters simply get new skills at certain levels. This gives the game a “why bother”, linear feel. It’s an easy game so I played the whole thing without playing a single extra level or side quest. It actually got a little tough towards the middle, but then I got some insanely good skills like a 75% chance of death spell and a full-health revive spell. These spells take up a good chuck of MP, but each character is fully restored upon level-up and level-ups are a frequent occurrence.

Jeanne D’Arc
Like Luminous Ark, I played no extra levels in an effort to make the game as challenging as possible. And I died a lot. The end result was that each level was an uphill struggle that required I use every ounce of skill I had. My characters had to be perfectly equipped for battle to stand a chance. Each character can equip up to three skill gems (which as you level increases to a maximum of six). These skills can be actions, stat-raising, or passive abilities. You gain skill gems from killing enemies or skills can be fused together to create better ones. It’s a fun system. Two thirds into the game, I came across a boss who was too much for me. There’s a turn limit on each battle and I simply wasn’t able to do enough damage within the allotted turns. I like how the turn limit forces you into being aggressive, but in this case it forced me to level up by doing some side quests. After that, the rest of the game was too easy, but still fun.

Raiders of the Lost Ark
Raiders of the Lost Ark fails miserably as a Tactical RPG. There’s almost zero interactivity, apart from pressing play on your DVD remote. So instead I will review Raiders of the Lost Ark for the Atari 2600. This game looks like crap. I don’t know what I’m doing. The puzzles seem random and the incessant beeping in the background is giving me a headache!

End Game

Luminous Arc
The end is long. Like all the other damnable dialog, you can’t skip it. There’s a new game+ where you keep pretty much everything (levels, items, etc), but the enemies aren’t any tougher so I fail to see the point. There’s an extra dungeon, so I actually played through the whole game a second time. The extra dungeon is available at the beginning, but I needed to buy better equipment which of course wasn’t available until I neared the end of the game again. Once again, I couldn’t skip any of the cut scenes, only now the battles were boring along with the story. The extra dungeon is 25 levels and if you leave you have to start over at the beginning! It starts out super easy and gets super hard, meaning you have to be really overpowered when you enter in order to survive the later floors. By floor eleven I was hours into the dungeon only to find there was no way in hell I’d be able to beat it without exiting and fusing a bunch of cheap items. I put the game down and haven’t touched it since.

Jeanne D’Arc
There are several side quests and an arena to fight in after you beat the game. Those not ready to be done with Jeanne D’Ark will enjoy finding and fusing the remaining skill gems. Most levels now have extremely high-level monsters which will give enough reason to keep powering up your army. There seems to be no reward for beating these extra challenges apart from becoming more powerful. That and the satisfaction.

Raiders of the Lost Ark
In the end of the movie the Nazis open the ark and it brutally kills them all, Old Testament-style. What I really liked was the selectiveness it used. The ark outright melted one of the Nazis, while it blew up the head of the Nazi right next to him! Why would God melt one guy and blow up another? The only reason I can think of is because (according to the movie) God enjoys variety in the way he smites people. I’m not a very religious man, but this movie (and it’s brutal Nazi killing throughout) makes me want to find religion.

Music

Indiana Jones wins. Duh.

Overall

Luminous Arc
I’ve been harsh on Luminous Arc. The game isn’t terrible. It has pleasant aesthetics, and there are many worse tactical RPGs out there. Many. It’s worth picking up if you need another SRPG and don’t mind some tedious moments.

Jeanne D’Arc
This one surprised me. Even non-tactical RPG players will enjoy this as it is exceptionally accessible. It’s only 30 bucks too despite being a full budget game. The anime cut scenes alone cost more than all of Luminous Arc combined (I totally made that up, but it could be true).

Raiders of the Lost Ark
Sadly, those looking for Tactical RPGs should stay far away from this movie. On the other had, if you hate Nazis (and who doesn’t) this is the movie for you.

There you have it. Go out and play Jeanne D’Arc now

…because once FFT comes out for the PSP next month it will be the most worthwhile SRPG again, despite the complete absence of any arcs (to my knowledge; they did say there would be new content).

Thanks to RPGamer for the screen shots.