Arc the Lad: Twilight of the Spirits -- Worth playing?

[-Lord Ebonstone-]

I paid $5 for a brand new copy of this, but I realize I won't be touching it for a long, long time (SMT: Nocturne, Shadow Hearts: Covenant, Nightmare of Druaga, GTA:SA, and Second Sight all come before it in my backlog).

That being said, is it worth holding on to for an RPG dry spell, or should I just trade it in along with my old PS2 and get $10 credit for it?

[Fellow]

The visuals are good, the combat (imho) refreshing, and the music excellent. You can see the game has high production values. Well, with the exception of voice acting, which is... um... at least it's not the worst I've heard.

The story is your typical fare, and cheeze has been spread throughout the game heavily. Yes, there're quite a few horribly CHEESY moments in that game, so dialogue's not its strongest attributes.

That said, this is one game I played to completion. And considering how rare that is, I'd say it did something right. I think the battle system was ultimately what did it for me.

Save it for a later date. I paid $20 for it, and feel I got my money's worth from the game.

[EddieA]

I think I'm about halfway through, and it's good so far.  Not great, but good.  The two-perspective storyline is interesting, and the combat is fun, although I wish there were a greater variety of special attacks.  The combat system is pretty standard turn-based fare, except played out on a larger map more akin to tactical RPGs.

[Gratch]

It's pretty fun, but I wouldn't consider it a "must play" title.  The graphics are great, the battle system is good, and the music is alright, but the story really didn't grab me.  Playing the story from 2 sides is a nice concept, but as Fellow said, it's really heavy on the cheese.

I got about 15-20 hours of fun from it before losing interest and moving on to something else.

[unbongwah]

It's a decent little turn-based strategy RPG.  It won't keep the Square Enix guys up at nights, but it should make for a nice diversion during the next RPG drought.  The graphics are pleasant and the combat system is solid (though it gets a little too repetitive a little too quickly, IMHO).  The story's cliche and the dialogue's not its strong point, but the shifting perspectives help to keep things a little more interesting.  [And console RPG fans should be used to crappy stories, anyway... ]

[vagabond]

I enjoyed the game until the very end and just when you are tired of playing and just want to push through to the end there is a huge maze with no overhead map, or compass, just to insure you will get lost and stay that way. All the corridors look exactly the same and while you are trying to find your way through you will get randomly attacked every 30 seconds when you don't need anymore experience to finish.  I spent 6 hours in this maze and then gave up in frustration.  Really ruined this game for me.

[Andrew Mallon]

I don't remember a maze at the end of the game. I remember the final dungeon was overly-long and really killed the momentum the game had built up to that point, but I was never at a loss trying to figure out where to go in it.

I thought Arc the Lad was a good, not great, game. The graphics and character design is very good, but the story is divided into two parts, one of which is much more interesting than the other. The light tactical battle system was fun; however, the game was way, way too easy. There was really no need for tactics beyond targeting one enemy at a time until it was dead.

Overall, I'd recommend the game, but there are certainly better games out there. Also, the game will have a lot more flavor if you've played the previous Arc the Lad games. Twilight of the Spirits is not a direct sequel, but there a lot of minor references to the previous games in the series.

[vagabond]

I don't remember a maze at the end of the game. I remember the final dungeon was overly-long and really killed the momentum the game had built up to that point, but I was never at a loss trying to figure out where to go in it.

You must have gotten lucky and made it through, although you say it was overly long, you must have gotten stuck for awhile at least.    Kept spinning me after battles so you couldn't keep track of which way you were facing.  Very frustrating. I liked it before that.  I praised Star Ocean for not having any stupid puzzles or mazes in it and then near the end there is a maze which is also a block puzzle. Yikes! If I want to face tedious frustration I will deal with the real world.