by:	January 13, 2008

The original Xbox never really held its arms out open to the Japanese market and as such Japanese RPGs (one of the mainstays of Japanese gaming) never found much of a home on the console. If you wanted adventuring and levelling up action you had to make do with American role players such as Knights of the Old Republic and Morrowind - perfectly good games, but lacking that Japanese spirit that has defined some of the greatest console role playing experiences. Fortunately, the Xbox 360 has already proven itself as a platform for Japanese RPGs: shortly after the console’s Japanese launch, From Software’s oddly titled [eM] –eNCHANT arM- paved the way for future next-gen RPGs in the land of the rising sun, and now over half a year later the game has at last been made available to English speaking gamers, and renamed a much more manageable Enchanted Arms.

Enchanted Arms is a turn-based RPG that follows the structure laid out by many, many RPGs before it, which can be both a positive and a negative aspect depending on how you look at it. The game’s protagonist, Atsuma is your typical anime/RPG ‘hero’ who you’ve seen many times before: Loud, brash, a little dumb, but when the time calls for it, mature and powerful. He is also the bewildered owner of an exceedingly powerful arm that can disrupt enchantments. The storyline of the game sees Atsuma develop from a good-for-nothing student into an entirely more respectable character as he becomes closer to the characters he journeys with, and travels along the incredibly linear paths that link up the major areas of the game world. True enough, this means that there is almost no scope for wandering off the beaten track, which will come as something of a terrible shock for anyone who has spent any amount of time lost in Tamriel. Of course, the linearity of the game does ensure that the storyline continues to develop at an enjoyable rate, and helps to spur you on to see the next major story sequence. With all likelihood, this short description of the game may seem very familiar to anyone who has ever played or read a review of any number of RPGs found on pretty much any other console, but by sticking to tradition From Software have crafted a game that sits well within the comfort zone of most role playing aficionados and also serves up a nice entry into role playing. As a result, Enchanted Arms becomes a great way to begin your Japanese role playing career on the Xbox 360, whether you are an old hand at the genre or a relative newcomer.

Now, although the basic structure of the game follows a well trodden approach, Enchanted Arms is not entirely unoriginal. The battle system that makes up such a large portion of the game is individual enough to make you feel that you are in fact playing something new, and not something that you could simply play elsewhere. Battles within the game largely occur randomly as you are wandering between towns. Once a battle begins the player and his party are taken to two small 3x4 grids, one for you and one for the enemy. With up to four characters fighting on your side at any one time, you’ll need to utilise the space available to make the most of your attacks for all of your characters. Characters usually take up one square, but occasionally you may use or fight golems (the game’s standard enemy, coming in a myriad of styles) that take up more space, giving you less of an area to plan your attack. This adds a light layer of strategy to the battle proceedings that, while not too intensive, is at least engaging enough to make you think a little about each clash, which is definitely a good thing as I’m sure most will agree. However, the counterpoint to this system is that random encounters are often lengthy affairs compared to the more streamlined systems of RPGs such as Suikoden V or Dragon Quest VIII, and with a high encounter rate present in many areas, progression can sometimes feel like a rather slow process. If nothing else, at least Enchanted Arms gives you something to get your teeth into.