by Keri Honea
Content Manager
08-30-10 | 04:01 PM America/Chicago

The Wii is well known for several different types of games, but the role-playing game (RPG) has not been one of them. When Ignition Entertainment announced over a year ago that a brand new RPG was coming to the Wii, it brewed hope that maybe the Wii could actually get a decent RPG since Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World flopped horrendously. Unfortunately for both the Wii and RPG fans, Arc Rise Fantasia has dashed these hopes into the ground.

Arc Rise has all of the elements of a typical Japanese RPG (JRPG): a turn-based battle system, a hot-tempered protagonist with a giant sword who is destined to save the world, a clueless female lead, limit breaks (called “excel acts” here), the ability to summon a beast of mass destruction, a strange religion, and a strong hatred toward technology. So right away, nothing about Arc Rise sets it apart from other JPRGs. Even the graphics and inter-game cut scenes look like they were taken out of another popular JRPG. This doesn’t have to be a bad thing, as Dragon Quest IX had all of the elements of a typical JRPG and has been loved by many, including Kombo [insert link to review]. However, its overly generic JRPG qualities and its multitude of other issues block out the few redeeming qualities the game has.

The combat is the one unique and fun element to Arc Rise. The combat is turn-based, but the number of turns the party can take within one round depends on the amount of action points (AP) the party has. Each action a character can take consumes a certain number of AP, so if the party has 12 AP, each character can throw in a basic attack or basic magic four times, and any team attacks triggered don’t count against the AP. So in one round, even early on in the game, the party could attack, heal, defend, use an item, etc. three times. This allows for interesting strategic planning in what’s best for each turn, especially since each character can also use his or her AP to move around the battlefield to avoid area attacks.

So much could have been done with this battle system, but instead it was allowed to fall flat due to the incredibly unbalanced battles. The enemies in the overworld are stupid easy. Players normally only have to tell everyone to attack multiple times and occasionally heal and move on. So nothing really prepares the player for developing real strategies in regular, level grinding battles. The bosses, on the flip-side, are ungodly hard. The player has to suddenly switch from being a little lazy to developing a serious strategy and will most likely die numerous times before finding a way to survive long enough to succeed. In addition, the boss fights take so long that it requires a lot of motivation to hit that continue button when defeated.

If that wasn’t annoying enough, Arc Rise decided to throw in bad voice acting and an equally bad script on top of it. Characters say the same corny catch phrases at the start of each battle and at the end (such as, “Piece of cake!” and “Is this what you call a piece of cake?” said simultaneously, no exaggeration, unfortunately), and they say it all so, so badly. A strong desire to press the mute button will take over within the first fifteen minutes, especially when the characters decide to “teach” players how to play by talking to one another. Words really cannot describe how bad this is (it’s worse than Vanille from Final Fantasy XIII), but no one should be forced to listen to it to find out, either.

Good characters and a decent plot can usually overcome bad voice acting, but once again, it’s not the case here. The characters are predictable and boring. L’Arc, the main character, is the typical angsty hero with a lot of talk and a big sword to back it up. Nothing he says or does is that surprising, and the same goes for the rest of the characters who aren’t interesting enough to mention. The plot is also quite generic in that the party is sent out on a mission to do one thing, but suddenly find themselves trying to save the world from war. This has been done numerous times. Time to move on.

The most disappointing aspect of all for Arc Rise is the fact that this was supposed to be THE RPG to get the Wii out of its RPG-slump. If this is all developers have to offer the Wii, RPG-fans are better off sticking with the other two consoles to get their fixes until the next potential RPG-savior for the Wii comes along.