Lord of Arcana – Review – PSP

From Enix to Square Electronic Arts to the current name Square Enix, there doesn’t seem to be a shortage of big, epic RPG’s from the company. With big games like Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, and Kingdom Hearts, can there ever be a less than great game developed or published by Square Enix? The answer, unfortunately, is yes with Lord of Arcana for the PSP.

Story: In the land of Horodyn, a great power is waiting to be discovered. Only those who prove to be strong enough will receive the Arcana power. You have been chosen as one of the few slayers in the world to seek out the Arcana Stones and, if strong enough, become the Lord of Arcana.

Gameplay: It’s unfortunate that I have to start the review off like this, but, regrettably, I did not have a good start with this game due to the camera – and that feeling stuck with me throughout the game. I know that with the lack of a second analog stick camera controls can suck for PSP games, but I’ve seen many games that have great camera controls on the system. Kingdom Hearts for instance, another Square Enix game in fact, uses the left and right trigger buttons. In Lord of Arcana, the camera controls are mapped to the D-pad so, when running around, you have to stop, switch to d-pad and move camera. With a 3rd-person action game, you need quick and fluent control of the camera to view the action around you at all times. I found that using the left trigger to reset the camera forward countered the camera problem allowing me to progress through the game, but it was by no means a proper or reliable way to control the camera. The trigger buttons aren’t really even used except for resetting the camera to the front, locking on to an enemy, or running, but those could have easily been moved to the D-pad and probably would have been more efficient to have there as opposed to the camera controls.

I don’t play RPGs too often, but with those that I have played, especially similar ones, I felt Lord of Arcana was just generic. It seemed to incorporate a lot of different RPG elements, but failed with the execution of many crucial mechanics. Attacking, depending on the weapon, can be fast and fluent. With other weapons, it can be slow and frustrating but of course that all depends on the choice you make and what type of slayer you want to be. Quests can be found at the Slayer’s Guild and are completed by venturing into regions within the world. From time to time, you will come across items on the ground, but you can only pick up one item at a time. It would have been nice to have seen a ‘pick up all’ option or to have a list brought up of items in the focus area.

When presented with an enemy in the region, you can try to sneak up on them and get an advantage for when the battle starts – otherwise the battle will remain neutral. Battles are real time and are separated from the world by a circular ring. You must defeat all monsters in order to succeed and it is generally necessary for quests or progression through an area in the region. Attacking is fluent and occasionally satisfying with exaggerated finishing moves, but over time they became repetitive. A part of a good fighting strategy, I like to throw in a block or dodge. I found that dodging can be quite clunky and slow because of how the controls are set up for it. Bosses were big and really tense, especially in the small ring you have in which to run around.

Being an RPG, there is quite a bit of customization from weapons, armor, stats and even your finishing moves. However, with great customization, that means a lot of different options and, unfortunately, it causes a lot of loading between not only regions and areas, but also for just equipping a weapon or armor. There is an option to install a portion of the game to your memory stick; if you have the room, I recommend doing so to significantly reduce load times.

If you happen to make it entirely through the game and are looking for more quests, every other week there appears to be a release of free DLC which adds new regions and quests for you to explore and complete. It’s great to see this support, but I’m not sure how long players will be looking for anything further so I can’t see this lasting too long down the road for this game.

Graphics/Audio: Looking past the control issues, Lord of Arcana has some great visuals. Pre-rendered cutscenes are enticing and a tease of something great. The music, especially on the main menu with the female vocals, is mesmerizing and chilling.

Overall: Once I got past the terrible camera controls, which was very hard to do, I started to somewhat enjoy the game but ultimately found it to be too generic and contained a forgettable story in which I was always asking myself, “What is this game about again?” With that said, there are a lot of problems, but if you can somehow get past them, there is the potential for a somewhat enjoyable RPG for the PSP waiting on the other side.

Pros:
-Interesting and varied music especially the menu music
-Enticing pre-rendered cut-scenes
-Plenty of quests

Cons:
-Terrible camera controls with no option to change
-A forgettable story
-Poorly executed game mechanics

Overall score: 5/10

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