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This thread has been linked to the game 'Enchanted Arms'.
1. It's a turn-based RPG
2. It has random battles
3. Battles are grid based: move, select your attacks, start the round
Still interested? If not, this is why you should be:
Enchanted Arms was released in September 2006, and to this day it's still one of the few graphical showcases for the XBox 360. It's also the one and only J-RPG currently out for the console, including such features as being able to remove English subtitles and being able to play through the whole game with the original Japanese voice actors in its original language, or being able to just squeeze the right trigger and press A to have all your battles played out automatically without any of the fiddly menu selections and decision making stuff.
Whilst the story is the usual 'save the world' type adventure, there are many interesting twists along the way. The narrative revolves around 3 friends who study at the Enchant University in Yokohama, where they learn about how to Enchant, the only remaining magic known to mankind; and where they also learn about the history of the Golem War, a battle fought by huge man-made machines. Today's Golems are used as general servants and laborers, but there was a time when Devil Golems, hundreds of times more powerful than current models, rampaged across the planet causing mayhem and destruction until they were finally sealed away. Until now.
Once you're in control of your characters you get to choose who will be in your party, and your options increase as you meet more characters along the way who will join you on your adventure, as well as the 105 Golems that you can collect by buying, finding, fighting and as rewards.
Whilst the storyline initially starts out a bit linear, you'll find you will want to push on further and further to develop the storyline. It's only when you reach the final stage of the game after around 40 hours that it really opens up, travel is made faster and easier via teleports, and you get to go in search of the neat stuff like God Weapons for each of your party members, skills that you've missed and rare Golems that you're yet to add to your collection.
Of course you can skip the neat stuff and head straight on into the final bossfight if your level is high enough and your characters/golems are well developed enough, and this is where the strategy comes into its own.
During battle, each character has FP (friendship points) that dictate whether they'll pull off a combo move with someone else in the party. Considering there are both your characters and 105 golems to worry about, that's a lot of friendship building to be going on with.
Battles consist of two opposing 3 x 4 grids, enemy one one side, your party on the other. Selecting each member in turn brings up a menu where you can select an item or skill to use, or, if your EX gauge is high enough, what special move to pull off. Repeat until the enemy is defeated, but keep an eye on your VP, the more rounds a battle takes the less VP you have for the next one, and going into battle with 1 VP instead of 100 means you start off with minimum hitpoints and are likely to get one-shotted. VP can be restored at various points scattered about on your journey.
After each battle, you're rewarded with SP, which you can spend on increasing your party member's attributes, TB (Tablets) which is the game's currency, and EXP which, if you're an RPG fan, you'll know increases your level. Each party member present also receives 1 FP, up to a maximum of 999.
As well as attribute building, friendship building, skill acquisition, levelling up and all the usual RPG stuff, there are 6 elements: Light vs Dark, Wind vs Earth and Fire vs Water. There are times when getting away with automising a battle just won't work - you'll need to be tactical, moving your party members into appropriate positions, using appropriate elements and skills and anticipating the enemy's next move.
Graphically the game is a joy to behold: water looks and acts like water, spell/battle animations fill your screen with so much stuff you wonder how it copes (you can even press Y to fast-forward through a battle animation, neat huh?) and some of the areas you'll explore are jaw-dropping. In particular I think the stairway in London Castle was put there just to see how much draw distance the developers could squeeze out of this new console they were working with.
The characters are as a diverse a bunch as you can get, each is developed beautifully as the game progresses, and they all have their little quirks:
Atsuma - confident and troubled, fantasy emo
Karin - posh princess with a penchant for miniskirts
Yuki - gun toting Golem hunter with quite a backstory
Raigar - strong Paladin type, takes his duty very seriously
Toya - star pupil at Enchant University, Atsuma's best friend
Makoto - in love with Toya, a woman trapped in a man's body
(I did say little quirks, didn't I?)
As well as these you have a whole cast of sub-characters including the Queen of Ice, Professor Kou, Sage, Sayaka and the wonderfully stupid Shogun of Kyoto and his harem of female golems, plus you have your 105 golems to collect, each with their own unique skills and attributes, all of which can be levelled up as you wish.
In terms of challenge you're looking at 40 hours for the main story, another 40 hours if you want to invest time into the side-quests, then another couple of hundred hours if you want to max out all your stats.
In terms of difficulty you're looking at something like Final Fantasy 7 although the side quests in Enchant Arms are a lot less complicated. Levelling up is made a lot easier by the fact that you can convert your Tablets into Casino Chips, play roulette, bingo, slots or fruit machines in a local casino, convert chips into prizes then sell your prizes to a shop for more Tablets, with which you can by SP orbs to increase your character's stats, FP orbs to get your golems on the same wavelength quickly and so on.
In terms of quality, this is without a doubt right up there with anything the likes of Square Enix could develop, which isn't bad considering it was developed by a relatively unknown company.
10/10
Enchanted Arms
Developed by From Software
Published by Ubisoft
Available from around £25 from most online outlets (bargain!)
2. It has random battles
3. Battles are grid based: move, select your attacks, start the round
Still interested? If not, this is why you should be:
Enchanted Arms was released in September 2006, and to this day it's still one of the few graphical showcases for the XBox 360. It's also the one and only J-RPG currently out for the console, including such features as being able to remove English subtitles and being able to play through the whole game with the original Japanese voice actors in its original language, or being able to just squeeze the right trigger and press A to have all your battles played out automatically without any of the fiddly menu selections and decision making stuff.
Whilst the story is the usual 'save the world' type adventure, there are many interesting twists along the way. The narrative revolves around 3 friends who study at the Enchant University in Yokohama, where they learn about how to Enchant, the only remaining magic known to mankind; and where they also learn about the history of the Golem War, a battle fought by huge man-made machines. Today's Golems are used as general servants and laborers, but there was a time when Devil Golems, hundreds of times more powerful than current models, rampaged across the planet causing mayhem and destruction until they were finally sealed away. Until now.
Once you're in control of your characters you get to choose who will be in your party, and your options increase as you meet more characters along the way who will join you on your adventure, as well as the 105 Golems that you can collect by buying, finding, fighting and as rewards.
Whilst the storyline initially starts out a bit linear, you'll find you will want to push on further and further to develop the storyline. It's only when you reach the final stage of the game after around 40 hours that it really opens up, travel is made faster and easier via teleports, and you get to go in search of the neat stuff like God Weapons for each of your party members, skills that you've missed and rare Golems that you're yet to add to your collection.
Of course you can skip the neat stuff and head straight on into the final bossfight if your level is high enough and your characters/golems are well developed enough, and this is where the strategy comes into its own.
During battle, each character has FP (friendship points) that dictate whether they'll pull off a combo move with someone else in the party. Considering there are both your characters and 105 golems to worry about, that's a lot of friendship building to be going on with.
Battles consist of two opposing 3 x 4 grids, enemy one one side, your party on the other. Selecting each member in turn brings up a menu where you can select an item or skill to use, or, if your EX gauge is high enough, what special move to pull off. Repeat until the enemy is defeated, but keep an eye on your VP, the more rounds a battle takes the less VP you have for the next one, and going into battle with 1 VP instead of 100 means you start off with minimum hitpoints and are likely to get one-shotted. VP can be restored at various points scattered about on your journey.
After each battle, you're rewarded with SP, which you can spend on increasing your party member's attributes, TB (Tablets) which is the game's currency, and EXP which, if you're an RPG fan, you'll know increases your level. Each party member present also receives 1 FP, up to a maximum of 999.
As well as attribute building, friendship building, skill acquisition, levelling up and all the usual RPG stuff, there are 6 elements: Light vs Dark, Wind vs Earth and Fire vs Water. There are times when getting away with automising a battle just won't work - you'll need to be tactical, moving your party members into appropriate positions, using appropriate elements and skills and anticipating the enemy's next move.
Graphically the game is a joy to behold: water looks and acts like water, spell/battle animations fill your screen with so much stuff you wonder how it copes (you can even press Y to fast-forward through a battle animation, neat huh?) and some of the areas you'll explore are jaw-dropping. In particular I think the stairway in London Castle was put there just to see how much draw distance the developers could squeeze out of this new console they were working with.
The characters are as a diverse a bunch as you can get, each is developed beautifully as the game progresses, and they all have their little quirks:
Atsuma - confident and troubled, fantasy emo
Karin - posh princess with a penchant for miniskirts
Yuki - gun toting Golem hunter with quite a backstory
Raigar - strong Paladin type, takes his duty very seriously
Toya - star pupil at Enchant University, Atsuma's best friend
Makoto - in love with Toya, a woman trapped in a man's body
(I did say little quirks, didn't I?)
As well as these you have a whole cast of sub-characters including the Queen of Ice, Professor Kou, Sage, Sayaka and the wonderfully stupid Shogun of Kyoto and his harem of female golems, plus you have your 105 golems to collect, each with their own unique skills and attributes, all of which can be levelled up as you wish.
In terms of challenge you're looking at 40 hours for the main story, another 40 hours if you want to invest time into the side-quests, then another couple of hundred hours if you want to max out all your stats.
In terms of difficulty you're looking at something like Final Fantasy 7 although the side quests in Enchant Arms are a lot less complicated. Levelling up is made a lot easier by the fact that you can convert your Tablets into Casino Chips, play roulette, bingo, slots or fruit machines in a local casino, convert chips into prizes then sell your prizes to a shop for more Tablets, with which you can by SP orbs to increase your character's stats, FP orbs to get your golems on the same wavelength quickly and so on.
In terms of quality, this is without a doubt right up there with anything the likes of Square Enix could develop, which isn't bad considering it was developed by a relatively unknown company.
10/10
Enchanted Arms
Developed by From Software
Published by Ubisoft
Available from around £25 from most online outlets (bargain!)
There have been no replies to this thread yet.
1. It's a turn-based RPG
2. It has random battles
3. Battles are grid based: move, select your attacks, start the round
Still interested? If not, this is why you should be:
Enchanted Arms was released in September 2006, and to this day it's still one of the few graphical showcases for the XBox 360. It's also the one and only J-RPG currently out for the console, including such features as being able to remove English subtitles and being able to play through the whole game with the original Japanese voice actors in its original language, or being able to just squeeze the right trigger and press A to have all your battles played out automatically without any of the fiddly menu selections and decision making stuff.
Whilst the story is the usual 'save the world' type adventure, there are many interesting twists along the way. The narrative revolves around 3 friends who study at the Enchant University in Yokohama, where they learn about how to Enchant, the only remaining magic known to mankind; and where they also learn about the history of the Golem War, a battle fought by huge man-made machines. Today's Golems are used as general servants and laborers, but there was a time when Devil Golems, hundreds of times more powerful than current models, rampaged across the planet causing mayhem and destruction until they were finally sealed away. Until now.
Once you're in control of your characters you get to choose who will be in your party, and your options increase as you meet more characters along the way who will join you on your adventure, as well as the 105 Golems that you can collect by buying, finding, fighting and as rewards.
Whilst the storyline initially starts out a bit linear, you'll find you will want to push on further and further to develop the storyline. It's only when you reach the final stage of the game after around 40 hours that it really opens up, travel is made faster and easier via teleports, and you get to go in search of the neat stuff like God Weapons for each of your party members, skills that you've missed and rare Golems that you're yet to add to your collection.
Of course you can skip the neat stuff and head straight on into the final bossfight if your level is high enough and your characters/golems are well developed enough, and this is where the strategy comes into its own.
During battle, each character has FP (friendship points) that dictate whether they'll pull off a combo move with someone else in the party. Considering there are both your characters and 105 golems to worry about, that's a lot of friendship building to be going on with.
Battles consist of two opposing 3 x 4 grids, enemy one one side, your party on the other. Selecting each member in turn brings up a menu where you can select an item or skill to use, or, if your EX gauge is high enough, what special move to pull off. Repeat until the enemy is defeated, but keep an eye on your VP, the more rounds a battle takes the less VP you have for the next one, and going into battle with 1 VP instead of 100 means you start off with minimum hitpoints and are likely to get one-shotted. VP can be restored at various points scattered about on your journey.
After each battle, you're rewarded with SP, which you can spend on increasing your party member's attributes, TB (Tablets) which is the game's currency, and EXP which, if you're an RPG fan, you'll know increases your level. Each party member present also receives 1 FP, up to a maximum of 999.
As well as attribute building, friendship building, skill acquisition, levelling up and all the usual RPG stuff, there are 6 elements: Light vs Dark, Wind vs Earth and Fire vs Water. There are times when getting away with automising a battle just won't work - you'll need to be tactical, moving your party members into appropriate positions, using appropriate elements and skills and anticipating the enemy's next move.
Graphically the game is a joy to behold: water looks and acts like water, spell/battle animations fill your screen with so much stuff you wonder how it copes (you can even press Y to fast-forward through a battle animation, neat huh?) and some of the areas you'll explore are jaw-dropping. In particular I think the stairway in London Castle was put there just to see how much draw distance the developers could squeeze out of this new console they were working with.
The characters are as a diverse a bunch as you can get, each is developed beautifully as the game progresses, and they all have their little quirks:
Atsuma - confident and troubled, fantasy emo
Karin - posh princess with a penchant for miniskirts
Yuki - gun toting Golem hunter with quite a backstory
Raigar - strong Paladin type, takes his duty very seriously
Toya - star pupil at Enchant University, Atsuma's best friend
Makoto - in love with Toya, a woman trapped in a man's body
(I did say little quirks, didn't I?)
As well as these you have a whole cast of sub-characters including the Queen of Ice, Professor Kou, Sage, Sayaka and the wonderfully stupid Shogun of Kyoto and his harem of female golems, plus you have your 105 golems to collect, each with their own unique skills and attributes, all of which can be levelled up as you wish.
In terms of challenge you're looking at 40 hours for the main story, another 40 hours if you want to invest time into the side-quests, then another couple of hundred hours if you want to max out all your stats.
In terms of difficulty you're looking at something like Final Fantasy 7 although the side quests in Enchant Arms are a lot less complicated. Levelling up is made a lot easier by the fact that you can convert your Tablets into Casino Chips, play roulette, bingo, slots or fruit machines in a local casino, convert chips into prizes then sell your prizes to a shop for more Tablets, with which you can by SP orbs to increase your character's stats, FP orbs to get your golems on the same wavelength quickly and so on.
In terms of quality, this is without a doubt right up there with anything the likes of Square Enix could develop, which isn't bad considering it was developed by a relatively unknown company.
10/10
Enchanted Arms
Developed by From Software
Published by Ubisoft
Available from around £25 from most online outlets (bargain!)
2. It has random battles
3. Battles are grid based: move, select your attacks, start the round
Still interested? If not, this is why you should be:
Enchanted Arms was released in September 2006, and to this day it's still one of the few graphical showcases for the XBox 360. It's also the one and only J-RPG currently out for the console, including such features as being able to remove English subtitles and being able to play through the whole game with the original Japanese voice actors in its original language, or being able to just squeeze the right trigger and press A to have all your battles played out automatically without any of the fiddly menu selections and decision making stuff.
Whilst the story is the usual 'save the world' type adventure, there are many interesting twists along the way. The narrative revolves around 3 friends who study at the Enchant University in Yokohama, where they learn about how to Enchant, the only remaining magic known to mankind; and where they also learn about the history of the Golem War, a battle fought by huge man-made machines. Today's Golems are used as general servants and laborers, but there was a time when Devil Golems, hundreds of times more powerful than current models, rampaged across the planet causing mayhem and destruction until they were finally sealed away. Until now.
Once you're in control of your characters you get to choose who will be in your party, and your options increase as you meet more characters along the way who will join you on your adventure, as well as the 105 Golems that you can collect by buying, finding, fighting and as rewards.
Whilst the storyline initially starts out a bit linear, you'll find you will want to push on further and further to develop the storyline. It's only when you reach the final stage of the game after around 40 hours that it really opens up, travel is made faster and easier via teleports, and you get to go in search of the neat stuff like God Weapons for each of your party members, skills that you've missed and rare Golems that you're yet to add to your collection.
Of course you can skip the neat stuff and head straight on into the final bossfight if your level is high enough and your characters/golems are well developed enough, and this is where the strategy comes into its own.
During battle, each character has FP (friendship points) that dictate whether they'll pull off a combo move with someone else in the party. Considering there are both your characters and 105 golems to worry about, that's a lot of friendship building to be going on with.
Battles consist of two opposing 3 x 4 grids, enemy one one side, your party on the other. Selecting each member in turn brings up a menu where you can select an item or skill to use, or, if your EX gauge is high enough, what special move to pull off. Repeat until the enemy is defeated, but keep an eye on your VP, the more rounds a battle takes the less VP you have for the next one, and going into battle with 1 VP instead of 100 means you start off with minimum hitpoints and are likely to get one-shotted. VP can be restored at various points scattered about on your journey.
After each battle, you're rewarded with SP, which you can spend on increasing your party member's attributes, TB (Tablets) which is the game's currency, and EXP which, if you're an RPG fan, you'll know increases your level. Each party member present also receives 1 FP, up to a maximum of 999.
As well as attribute building, friendship building, skill acquisition, levelling up and all the usual RPG stuff, there are 6 elements: Light vs Dark, Wind vs Earth and Fire vs Water. There are times when getting away with automising a battle just won't work - you'll need to be tactical, moving your party members into appropriate positions, using appropriate elements and skills and anticipating the enemy's next move.
Graphically the game is a joy to behold: water looks and acts like water, spell/battle animations fill your screen with so much stuff you wonder how it copes (you can even press Y to fast-forward through a battle animation, neat huh?) and some of the areas you'll explore are jaw-dropping. In particular I think the stairway in London Castle was put there just to see how much draw distance the developers could squeeze out of this new console they were working with.
The characters are as a diverse a bunch as you can get, each is developed beautifully as the game progresses, and they all have their little quirks:
Atsuma - confident and troubled, fantasy emo
Karin - posh princess with a penchant for miniskirts
Yuki - gun toting Golem hunter with quite a backstory
Raigar - strong Paladin type, takes his duty very seriously
Toya - star pupil at Enchant University, Atsuma's best friend
Makoto - in love with Toya, a woman trapped in a man's body
(I did say little quirks, didn't I?)
As well as these you have a whole cast of sub-characters including the Queen of Ice, Professor Kou, Sage, Sayaka and the wonderfully stupid Shogun of Kyoto and his harem of female golems, plus you have your 105 golems to collect, each with their own unique skills and attributes, all of which can be levelled up as you wish.
In terms of challenge you're looking at 40 hours for the main story, another 40 hours if you want to invest time into the side-quests, then another couple of hundred hours if you want to max out all your stats.
In terms of difficulty you're looking at something like Final Fantasy 7 although the side quests in Enchant Arms are a lot less complicated. Levelling up is made a lot easier by the fact that you can convert your Tablets into Casino Chips, play roulette, bingo, slots or fruit machines in a local casino, convert chips into prizes then sell your prizes to a shop for more Tablets, with which you can by SP orbs to increase your character's stats, FP orbs to get your golems on the same wavelength quickly and so on.
In terms of quality, this is without a doubt right up there with anything the likes of Square Enix could develop, which isn't bad considering it was developed by a relatively unknown company.
10/10
Enchanted Arms
Developed by From Software
Published by Ubisoft
Available from around £25 from most online outlets (bargain!)