For any gamer who owned an original Xbox or the newer Xbox 360, the Japanese-style RPG genre has been something of a myth. With Japan still not buying into the Xbox, Japanese RPG's don't seem to come to Microsoft's consoles. Enchanted Arms is the first one to come out. Like I said in my opening, this won't make you forget any of the better RPG's to come out before it. Enchanted Arms does it's job in filling a huge void in the 360's library and it's a good RPG nonetheless.
In my opinion, there are three major things that can make or break a Japanese RPG. The story & characters must make you care. The battle system must be fun to play since you are going to be using it a lot in random battles. And the character customization system must be deep, interesting, and fulfilling. Thankfully, Enchanted Arms does a good job on all of these fronts.
For the most part, the story is interesting and keeps you interested in the game. There are the usual things you always seem to find in these games, so this isn't breaking any ground here. The lead character, Atsuma, is sometimes annoying and stupid. He does get better as the game goes along, but the game doesn't really hit it's stride until about 5 hrs. in. The other characters in the game range from being kinda cool to annoying as hell. Some of this annoyance comes from the cheesy dialogue that are usual for these type of games. Most of the annoyance comes from the awful voice acting. The character, Yuki, is easily the most annoying character I have ever heard in a videogame. And I have nothing against the sexual orientation of people or in-game characters, but the character, Makato, was so blatenly annoying that I wished a horrid death upon him many times.
Other than the few annoying characters & some cheesy dialogue, the characters are typical RPG-fare. The storyline is also pretty standard for this genre. Good still fights evil to save the world, etc., etc. Enchanted Arms does just enough to keep you interested long enough to finish the game. There are really no 'Aeris getting killed' moments that will have you talking about it with your friends for years to come. In fact, you will probably never play the game again after beating it and won't want to. But for the fifty hours it takes to beat it, you will be well entertained.
The battle system is a nice turn-based strategy style on a battle grid. It's a fun system that never really evolves into anything all that deep. It does do a good job at making the battles less of a chore. And you will be battling a lot, since there are a ton of random encounters all over the place. There is also a ton of backtracking through areas, especially if you are interested in finding the hidden stuff. So it's a good thing that fighting enemies is actually fun.
Along with the storyline, your battles will revolve around you fighting or using "Golems". As you play through the game, you will aquire many golems to fight in battles for you. You can develop them almost exactly like a regular character and some of them are very strong. I stuck with the human characters the whole game, but many people choose to use golems in the place of a couple of the weaker characters. It's a smart thing to do and definately would have made my game easier. I am a stubborn purist, however, and would rather use the storyline human character. But it is a cool idea and it gives you TONS of variety for the battles.
One area that need some more work is the visuals. That's not to say they are bad, but they only look 'next-gen' in a few areas. All of the cut-scenes are very nice (especially a certain 'frosty' one in the beginning) and some of the spell effects look great. The game does the job, but this could have been made for the PS2 or Xbox. It didn't really bother me while playing all that much, but it's something I should definately mention.
The sound leaves a lot to be desired, unfortunately. The music is pretty normal for this kind of game. The end-battle music sounds VERY similar to something you would hear in a 'Final Fantasy' game. As I mentioned before, the voice acting is horrid. There are only a few characters in the game that won't annoy you on a regular basis when they speak. And for some reason, not all of the script has been voice acted. It's very strange, but due to the acting being so bad......maybe it's a blessing.
The game is around fifty hours long if you play it just to beat it. There are several hidden areas and things to find that could extend the game quite a bit. The achievements are all storyline based, so if you beat the game you will get 850. There is a question that you are asked toward the end of the game that decides what kind of ending you get. Always choose the second answer, as that will get you the "happy" ending. It will also get you the other 150 gamer points you will need to get the full thousand. While I do like getting 1000 points for beating this long game, I wish there were some points depending on how many golems you find around the world. Some of them are quite powerful and hard to find, so a reward would have been niec. There is a multi-player aspect to this, but it feels tacked on and isn't much fun. It involves dualing golems online. Snore.
Enchanted Arms certainly doesn't bring anything new to the table as far as Japanese RPG's go. In fact, if this was on the PS2 it would probably get lost in the shuffle of all of the other RPG's on that system. But since the 360 was the perfect choice of system to bring this game to. We need more Japanese RPG's on the 360, but until we do Enchanted Arms does a good job at keep you busy and having fun while doing it.
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