Enchanted Arms Final Hands-On

First, let's take a moment to give thanks to Ubisoft for changing the name of this game from the original Japanese title, eM] -eNCHANT arM-).

If you've played any other Japanese role-playing game recently, you'd immediately recognize Enchanted Arms as one of them. You can tell the game's visual style takes cues from the Final Fantasy series, especially parts X and VIII. Similarly to Final Fantasy VIII, the game begins in sort of a futuristic school, and things start pleasantly enough as the game's main character, Atsuma, makes small talk with his professor, friends, and fellow students. Atsuma isn't just a wise-cracking, headstrong kid, though. Apparently he's got some sort of special power in his arm, which lets him drain away enchantments and maybe more--something to do with golems. The history of Enchanted Arms' gameworld is that golems, which were once controlled by humankind, one day ran amok and basically destroyed everything...and then mysteriously shut down all at once. Humanity recovered and rebuilt...but now, it seems, the golems may be reawakening. Between the game's premise and its unusual turn-based combat system, Enchanted Arms seems rather promising on first impression and leaves us wanting to delve deeper into the experience. We were going to do that no matter what, though, in order to bring you a full review next week.

One thing that's rather off-putting about the game is the English voice acting. While not necessarily bad, it's delivered in the over-the-top fashion typical of a lot of anime, and at least one character in particular comes across as a little too much. He's Makoto, one of Atsuma's companions, and he's very clearly infatuated with Atsuma's intelligent, handsome friend Toya. Makoto is probably the most flamboyant video game character we've ever seen--if his flowing blonde hair and midriff-bearing doublet weren't enough, his voice and dialogue are about as stereotypically fitting as you might possibly imagine.

The game is quite chatty overall, at least in the beginning, and a lot of the dialogue is delivered in full speech. You get a pretty good sense for Atsuma and his friends early on, and while our hero seems a bit dopey at first, we know going in that he's going to have to undergo some transformative experience that takes him from zero to hero. Oh, and if the English voice acting does rub you the wrong way, rest assured there's a Japanese-language option available as well. It's great to have the option to play games like this with English subtitles but Japanese speech.

Only part of the game's early sequence involves hearing Makoto complain about how Atsuma ate all the delicious lunch he lovingly prepared for Toya. There is also, in fact, combat. The combat system in Enchanted Arms follows a turn-based structure that can be likened to Final Fantasy or other Japanese RPGs, but unlike in most such games, your characters' turns aren't dictated by their speed ratings--it's yours to decide who moves in which order. The battlefield is divided up into a chesslike grid, but many characters' attacks will affect a number of different spaces on the grid, which makes positioning important. Even the very first attacks you have access to will ravage your foes with explosive elemental attacks; we've seen some of the late-game stuff, too, and it fills the screen with spectacular effects. Since this is going to be a lengthy game that has you seeing lots of combat, Enchanted Arms does offer a "fast forward" feature in case you want to see a battle resolve more quickly. You can also make your characters auto-attack, but where's the fun in that, right? Enchanted Arms' combat seems to revolve around using your characters' attacks in wise combination, while also using different golems' powers to aid you. Apparently there are many different golems waiting to be discovered in this game.

Speaking of things waiting to be discovered, one thing that's interesting about Enchanted Arms is that not a single one of the game's unlockable achievements is visible at first. The game has 25 different achievements, all of them secret until you unlock them.

The game's got a slick, stylized look to it and what seems like an interesting musical score. Overall, Enchanted Arms should feel somehow comfortably familiar to fans of developer From Software's previous quirky, memorable games, including the Otogi series for the Xbox and the Lost Kingdoms games for the GameCube. In fact, Enchanted Arms follows closely on the heels of another Xbox 360 title by the same developer, the mech combat sim Chromehounds. Of course, this game has a very different look and feel to it.

As the first Japanese role-playing game for the Xbox 360, Enchanted Arms automatically fills a void. From the very first seconds of the game, you'll know you're not going to be in for anything at all like Oblivion. The apparently complex combat system and intriguing gameworld set up some solid groundwork for Enchanted Arms to continue to keep us entertained, hopefully for a long time. We really enjoyed From Software's other 360 game, so we're optimistic about how we'll wind up feeling about this one once all is said and done. Stay tuned for our full review of Enchanted Arms soon.