0 to Z of Playstation 1 Games - Arc the Lad

       

Arc the Lad is the first in the tactical role playing series, a series that would go on to see another seven games released in it, back to this first game though, it was developed by G-Craft developers of first Front Mission game, and release exclusively in Japan on the 30^th of June 1995.

 It was published in Japan by Sony Computer Entertainment, the game would receive a North American release in 2002 as part of the Arc the Lad collection with Working Designs handling that release, the game would also get a Playstation Network release as well in 2006 in Japan, four years later in North America and in 2011 in Europe.

The game features a tactical role playing battle system something that would become a staple of the series, similar to Final Fantasy Tactics and Tactics Ogre the player has an area they can move in during battle, the exact areas that the player can move to are marked using blue lines. If the player uses a melee attack on an enemy, they can attack at any side the player can reach, a cursor icon will appear above any enemy the player can attack.

Magic and special abilities will appear as red tiles showing the player the range of their magical or special attack unlike the similar Final Fantasy Tactics, Arc the Lad is not isometric so the floor all times in the battle area are the same size and shape.

When not in battle the player must select one of the given areas on the world map to access them, the player does this by accessing the world map then selecting a continent, from there the continent map will appear with the various accessible locations selectable, possibly due to this being the first in the series virtually no towns can be selected with only dungeons, small areas and fields being selectable.

Once an area has been chosen the player may be able to do some pretty basic exploration however this is a rarity with an area usually featuring dialogue to progress the story or a battle, these dialogue sections is where most of the games plot is delivered as the game has very few NPC’s.

Once you have completed Arc the Lad the game will give the player the option to save their game this is a cleared game save which can be transferred to Arc the Lad II with your character stats, attributes and items all transferred.

Kukuru is a girl from a small village controlled by the Sacred Tribe, a group of people who guard the Ancient Flame, the flame contains a powerful spirit that was sealed away many years ago. Kukuru must marry a man she does not love and in order to avoid the marriage she makes a deal with the Mayor, to extinguish the Ancient Flame.

Kukuru does this and as a result she unleashes the spirit trapped within the flame and threatens to destroy the world. It is at this time Arc arrives at the village, he notices the terrified Kukuru standing in front of the spirit, which he immediately recognises as the thing that killed his father.

Before he can act however the spirit disappears, now Arc and Kukuru must do everything in their power to stop the spirit from destroying the world and seek revenge on the thing that killed Arc’s father

The game received mixed reviews, upon release Japanese publication Famicom Tsūshin scored the PlayStation version of the game a 31 out of 40 while a critic for Next Generation who review an imported copy scored the game at a four out five stars.

GameFan Magazine review score in September of 1995 was the highest the game would receive scoring the game at a 90/100 praising the visuals as some of the best they have ever seen also saying Arc is the RPG equivalent of Astal. Astal was beautiful, but short, and Arc is beautiful, but linear. Extremely linear. Playing this game in Japanese was no problem. Other than this flaw, which is minor in the scope of this gorgeous game, Arc is pure heaven.

RPGFan were very positive on this game in their 1999 review saying the following Because of its relative tactical simplicity, Arc The Lad is a good strategy RPG for those who are strategy novices or are not big fans of the genre. Even for hardcore strategy fans, Arc The Lad's combination of beautiful graphics, a brilliant soundtrack, and a solid storyline make it a worthwhile purchase. In spite of its short length, I would recommend this one to all interested parties.

The game was not without critics though RPGDreamers rated this game at a below average 4.8/10 they were highly critical of the shortness of the game and rumours that it was just a prologue to the second game in the series.

GameCola.net with a late review coming in 2004 scored the game at a 66/100 with the following to say If you are not the type of person who likes to replay games at all, you still will find this game fun and easy to play. It is also a great game for gamers who don't have a lot of free time on their hands.

This is the part of 0 to Z where is visit four online retailers and see what the availability of the title is, and what price you would be looking at if you wanted to pick this title up, the sites that I will be using for this are Amazon.com, eStarland.com, retrogames.co.uk and Gamedude.com I know the last one is very location specific, but from a podcast I listen to, I’ve heard they have a huge stock of older games, Ebay has now been dropped unless the game is unavailable at other retailers.

So lets get down to business with Gamedude, who don’t currently stock this title as an individual game they do stock the Arc the Lad collection but I will be covering that later on, so moving on to Retrogames.co.uk who have two imported copies of the game currently available, both are in excellent condition according to the retailer and are priced at £15 which is just short of $15.

eStarland.com up next who have a single used copy of the game available, this Is just a disc only copy of the game and can be picked up for $3.98, eStarland also off a trade in and will pay up to $2 for you copy of Arc the Lad.

Finally on to Amazon.com where we find a decent supply of this title with a complete good quality of very good quality copy of the game being available from around $7 up to $15 with a like new copy sneaking into this price range as well priced up at $12 once shipping has been added in.

If you are on the market for a brand new copy of this game one copy is far cheaper than the rest with this single copy priced at around the $41 mark once shipping costs are added in, the remaining new copies that are currently on sale take a steep climb in price with prices starting from $146.46 with prices reaching the extremely steep price of $187.50.

Written by

P J Gibbon