Arcana Heart
Sony PlayStation 2
Publisher: ATLUS
Rating: T for Teen
U.S. Release Date: April 11, 2008
Now, for those of you that know anything about the folks that make our favorite games, you will have had a "WTF?" moment when you saw ATLUS' name beside the publisher for this title. ATLUS? Porting a non-JRPG title? Madness. But it's true.
Arcana Heart is indeed not an RPG, but a fighter (I seem to like those, don't I...). And what an odd fighter it is. Then again, it's from Japan. What ISN'T weird there?
Weirdness stated, I'm gonna put it out there. This game is all about the lolis. Plain and simple. One look at the box art will tell you the same. And I'm telling you, this is enough loli-on-loli action (in the fighting sense) to leave the average male Japanese otaku twitch on the floor from blood loss. Hence probably why this was one of the most popular arcade fighters when it came out over there. --; I'm merely stating this as a warning for those of you that cannot handle unbridled loli catfights in large doses. Because that's all this game is. Seriously.
GAMEPLAY
Gameplay for Arcana Heart, or as I like to call it, "All My Lolis", is a little bit different from normal fare. There are 11 characters to choose from, each with their own fairly unique approach to combat. However, there are special sub-characters called Arcana that must be chosen to fight alongside the "Maiden". (I'm not joshing you; that's what they're called in this game. Go, Japan, go.) This makes for a possibility of 121 different combinations of teams, each with their own advantages and disadvantages. I'm not going to lie and say I've played with all of them, but I have played each character with their normal Arcana and I can see how some of them might work together in better fashion than others. It's up to the player to determine how to use them to their advantage when duking it out. (A LOT of trial and error will be required, though. Yay, Practice Mode.)
The American port of Arcana Heart actually features two different versions of the game: Arcana Heart and Arcana Heart FULL. The difference between the two is that the latter gives the characters more balance and more color swatches. I personally prefer FULL, because that balance is nice. Trust me. It's so, SO nice.
There are four different modes to play in: Story, Arcade, Versus and Training. There is also a Gallery which you can unlock things in by playing through Story Mode, namely art released with the game in Japan (in all its loli wonder).
There are many differences from the average fighter in the actual combat mode of Arcana Heart as well. The super meters for each character can go up to nine stocks at maximum. Yes, you read correctly. Nine. But wait, there's more.
Each character also has what's called a "Homing Meter". While holding down the S(pecial) attack button, the character will dash toward the opponent no matter where they are on screen. Yes. ANYWHERE. The Homing Meter can also be used to cancel out of attack mid-animation, which is called a Homing Cancel. It essentially opens up the potentiality for mind-numbing combos, provided you know what you're doing with said character.
The real meat and potatoes of gameplay features in AML boils down to Arcana Force. You get to use this once per fight (and I mean only once). It essentially lets you actually use your Arcana's powers and is usually pretty devastating in the long run. Your Arcana's moveset basically gets added to your own and its Special Added Effect also activates. Things like being able to jump four times (yes, FOUR), not being able to block but gaining incredible defense, regeneration...those are just three of the added effects out of the eleven available. All in all, it's actually a pretty interesting little system, if one that has a sharp learning curve.
(It's also worth mentioning that all Arcana give passive effects that also vary by which one you're using. Guard Canceling is also possible in the game.)
CHARACTERS
So we've got big lolis, little lolis, goth lolis, crazy assassin lolis, demon lolis, robot lolis, samurai lolis... Oh, you're actually wanting some decent description? ...Sorry. Get right on that.
The character selection is actually somewhat wide and ranged in Arcana Heart. I daresay that there's every type of fighter that one would need. There are heavy hitters (Fiona, Heart), comboists (Saki), rushdowns (Mei-Lang, Izuna) and even summoners akin to Guilty Gear's Eddie (Lieselotte).
(Why, yes, I do have to make at least one Guilty Gear reference per review. It's a personal requirement. ;p)
Combined with the fact that there are also the Arcan in play, there is a lot work with. For beginning players, Kamui and Heart are pretty standard, since they have the easiest basic moveset to understand (though almost all the characters rely on QCF+buttons to get their moves off). However, there are characters with a high learning curve that require some amount of finesse to get down, namely Lilicia, Fiona and Kira. These characters either rely on catches (trapping your opponent in the middle of a move) or leave themselves wide open to assaults. In Kira's case, her moves actually rely on full rotations of the joystick (a la KOF's Rock/Geese Howard and their Evac Toss) to actually do anything, which can easily be frustrating, even for veteran fighting gamers. (At least none of them have Neo Deadly Raves...)
It's quite easy to get a nice Beat Combo going once you get the hang of things, but don't expect anything magical until you've got down the art of the Homing Cancel. It's not that hard to do, but mastery doesn't come easy, especially because it's easy to do one by accident when you're in the thick of things and end up leaving yourself wide open.
HANG-UPS
The one thing that may have a few loli-lovers irate is the directional input for super moves used in the game. While it's true that AH does gamers a favor by making 90% of its characters moves use the easy QCF (quarter-circle forward) DI for super moves, it's quite easy to get confused and misuse techniques in Arcana Force Mode when you're not used to it. A different button setup besides Strong, Weak, Special and A, B, C (which makes me think this was at one time on the Sega Genesis or something) may help here.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Overall, Arcana Heart is a decent fighter. It's not entirely ace, but it's not bad, either. There is a solid, somewhat unique set-up and there is a wide range of characters to choose from that you can customize to your own specific style. In truth, I wish that there were more games that would employ the use of similar systems, but try to improve on what's been offered here.
So, while it may not be Marvel vs. Capcom 2, Arcana Heart does provide some challenge and entertainment that's at least worth a trial buy from your local game shop. And it's only $30. Not too bad a deal in my book.
Kei Seal of Approval GET.
(Also, try saying "A lotta lolis." five times fast. I DARE YA.)
