PSP Review: Lord of Arcana

Poor man’s Monster Hunter or a new franchise in the making? Read on…

Story

The world of Horodyn beckons as you take on the mantle of a warrior to find the fabled Arcana, a stone as old as time which will give the wirlder great power. Along the way you will fight mythical beasts and great monster all intent on stopping you.

Graphics

Your avatar, the warrior which is completely customisable, looks great on the screen with flapping hair and cloaks. The various weapons available to you do a great job as well while the environment is fantastic with a lot detail put into it and the monsters you’ll be fighting. Very lush surroundings with great detail given to really immerse you into the game. At time though when there’s a lot going on on the screen, it can be a tad difficult to work out what’s what and you just end up mashing the attack button without really knowing what you’re hitting or sometimes which way you’re facing which can be bothersome especially when you’re in the middle of a combo which you can’t break out of and you’re just swishing empty air. It’s at these times that the enemy patiently sits there waiting for you to finish and more often than not, gets a cheap shot in. But still a good effort.

Sound

I really payatention to the soundtrack of a game these days more so than when I was a wee lad and for good reason. Part of the gameplay experience is the sound and if that isn’t there then you’ll be the poorer for it. Lord of Arcana has had great detail put into this area with the environment sporting the usual tropical sounds of a forest as one would imagine and the grunts and roars during enemy encounters. To be honest, nothing really revolutionary but it doesn’t need to be, does it? It just needs to fit the environment and the action with you would expect to hear and this it dutifully does without any disappointment. The only reason why I would mark this down is because it all begins to sound a little samey after a while and if you’ve already played Monster Hunter then you’ve heard it all before to be honest.

Gameplay

Ok, here’s where the game really suffers in my opinion and the reason being is that…this title while great in some areas, plays like a poor man’s Monster Hunter meaning that while MH has a great fighting and gathering system, this is all here but it’s like its been dumbed down to appeal to those gamers that thought MH was a bit too cerberal for them. Let’s be honest, MH isn’t the easiest pick and play game and it doesn have a steep learning curve getting hard and challenging quite early in the game.

LoA seems to be aimed at these gamers, the ones that have traded back in or sold their MH games and still want the Monster Hunter experience. One thing that is great though is the fight scenes when you completely smack down your enemy while you’re locked onto them. You go into a quicktime event where you have to press the right buttons at the right time to deal out some serious damage as seen in the God of War series. However this is only against the bosses of the area and not the random fights you have. Another thing is that once an enemy sees you, he starts to give chase meaning if you stop running, he runs into and the fight begins. This is a real pain when your fighter is down to 10 health points and can barely run meaning you get your behind kicked in an easy and extremely unbalanced fight.

Sometimes when you’re running away to avoid the fight, the camera isn’t your friend and obscures where you’re running to meaking it that much harder and frustrating. The game just has too many similarities to MH, it’s all there though, the ability to take on quests, check. The meeting room where you can meet other fighters and take on harder monsters and quests with others, check. The map in the top right hand corner that shows the area you’re plus an overview at the touch of a button, check.

The same customisable options available to you at the start of the game when choosing and customising your fighter, check. There are far too many parallels with both these games, the only difference is Monster Hunter does it much, much better. It really comes across as a teen version of MH not for the graphical content but merely because of the flow of the game. It’s almost as if the developers want to hold your hand during you playing the game. Could have been better if MH didn’t exist but there you have it.

Replay Value

Games like this will always have a big replayability value due to the multiplayer aspect of it and some of the missions will be too difficult without some backup so there’s that side of it. And you can make your own weapons from items you find in the field making the art of mixing different items together to see what the blacksmith can make for you interesting but the game’s big enough to keep you going for a while anyways.

Conclusion

As you can probably gather, I’m a fan of the Monster Hunter series only because it takes what Lord of Arcana is doing but only better. It’s a shame, in a way, that MH exists because on its own merit LoA is an interesting title with an interesting world to explore. It’s just that if you go from MH to this, you can’t help but draw comparisons. And really, considering how long the MH series has been going for, LoA should eclipsed MH across the board but the developers have taken the easy road and given the gamer something to play which doesn’t require much thinking. A bit disappointing considering this comes from Square Enix.