Product description
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Game disc only in generic DVD case. No Manual. Disc has light to
moderate scratches that do not affect playability. All of our
games are tested before being placed into inventory.
Review
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Thousand Arms is the story of Meis Triumph, scion of the
venerable Triumph clan - overlords of the town of Kant and spirit
blacksmiths for seven generations. One day, the dark acolytes
attack the slumbering village, and Meis is thrown out of his
ancestral home. Barely reaching the capital city, Boyzby, he
meets Sodina, a young girl whose brother, Jyabil, happens to be a
master spirit blacksmith. Jyabil takes Meis as an apprentice, but
the Dark Acolytes have their s set on Boyzby as well...
thus, the story unfolds.
Thousand Arms is an RPG, and it's got all the standard trappings
of one - if you've played any game in the genre, Thousand Arms
should be immediately accessible. Red Company, the developer, has
been at this for years, spawning many immensely popular titles -
Sega's Sakura Wars, for example - that unfortunately haven't been
released in the United States. The company's expertise shows;
nothing seems awkward or out of place, and it all flows.
What makes Thousand Arms unique is the master system, in which
you use your powers as a spirit blacksmith to reforge your
party's weapons, adding power and spells to them. Where do you
draw this mystical power from? Being a spirit blacksmith is
tough; in addition to the master points you use to reshape the
metal, you'll need the support of a girl to achieve your results.
That's where the dating elements of this game come in.
Now, dating games have not historically been well received in the
US. That's not exactly true; they've never really had the
rtunity. Talk to a random sampling of people and you'll
either hear derisive snickers or fanatical devotion. Either
extreme is pretty silly - dating scenes might sound like the last
refuge of the socially inept, but they're just a lighthearted
aside to the game's main thrust: the tried-and-true RPG quest.
They offer a welcome breather from saving the world. The format
is this: Sodina, or whoever, will pose a question to Meis, and
you must pick one of two options as an answer. Obviously, the
is to please her. If the date goes well, your intimacy factor
grows by a point, and your blacksmithing ability is thereby
increased as well. In addition to normal "dates," you can play
minigames that boost your statistics with a girl. Sodina's
cooking attack basically plays like that old Simon
smack-the-colored-lights game. Additionally, each town has a shop
in which you can buy presents for girls, although the best
presents are hidden in deep corners of dungeons.
The graphics are simply excellent. Everything is polygonal,
except for your characters, which are sprites. This holds true in
the battles, as well. The level of artistry is quite high - the
houses in the towns are littered with sundry items and
decoration, and the texture s are both detailed and varied.
Your town/dungeon sprites are small, superdeformed, and generally
humorous, but in battle you will be treated to full-size
characters that look as though they stepped out of an anime cel.
There's also a smattering of high-quality FMV, which is a mixture
of computer-generated backgrounds and anime characters.
The game has a very humorous presentation and loads of cel
artwork - any time a scene with any importance is about to
happen, the camera swings around to a close-up of the
characters in fully hand-drawn anime style. There is also a lot
of extremely well-done voice acting in the game - Sodina and
Meis, especially, are full of emotion, and they carry the weight
of their lines extremely well. The dating scenes are extremely
amusing, and a lot of it has to do with Sodina's reactions, which
may vary from inuation to disgust; it's always quite obvious
how she feels.
One of the most important aspects of an RPG is the battle system;
after all, you're going to be spending a lot of time with it.
Thousand Arms' battles will feel familiar, but they are a little
bizarre. It's easiest to compare them to other games: They have
elements from Namco's LMB system (the Tales series) in that your
characters are all flat anime characters on a 3D background.
They're like Square's ATB system (Final Fantasy) because a
real-time gauge governs the timing of attacks, and there's no
action element. The strangest thing has to be that the front
character (in both enemy and player parties) is the only one who
can make any kind of offensive move, be it a physical attack or a
spell. The only thing back-row characters can do is cast help
spells and use items. Occasionally, they'll cheer you or taunt
the enemies, marginally affecting stats. This might be the only
game where those "spell in a bottle" items are extremely useful.
The game has a strong anime aesthetic - sometimes cute, sometimes
wacky, and definitely attractive. The enemies are downright
absurd and generally worth a laugh. The dialogue is too, though
as is true of the genre, high drama can cut in at any moment.
Atlus definitely has a great game on its hands here - the
combination of solid RPG questing, graphics, dialogue, dubbing,
and ambiance really push this game over the edge from standard to
special. Game-playing anime fans will get a big kick out of it,
and it's the first real example of a decent dating simulation in
the US. Any RPG fans who like amusing situations, animated (in
both senses of the word) characters, and challenging gameplay
will enjoy this title. Fans of Lunar, especially, should check
this one out. Because RPGs aren't that rare anymore, good ones
stand out that much more. Hopefully, Thousand Arms won't be swept
under in the fourth-quarter flood. --Christian Nutt
--Copyright ©1999 GameSpot Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction
in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written
permission of GameSpot is prohibited. GameSpot and the GameSpot
logo are trademarks of GameSpot Inc. -- GameSpot Review
