Arc the Lad II [U] ISO

Description :

Arc the Lad II is a tactical role-playing video game developed by ARC Entertainment for the PlayStation and is the second game in the Arc the Lad series. It was released in 1996 in Japan, and released in North America on April 18, 2002, as part of Arc the Lad Collection. The Japanese version was published by SCEI, while the North American release was published by Working Designs.
The story continues from the first game, although the focus shifts from Arc to Elc. It expands from the gameplay of the first installment, with a larger world and a more diverse cast. An anime was made based on this game.

Anime :

Arc the Lad II begins with a flashback of one the last surviving members of the fire tribe. Soldiers fire on a man, killing him. The boy, Elc, screams and cries about his family's deaths and manages to summon fire to attack the killers. Elc eventually passes out and is taken to the "facility" by the soldiers, along with the Fire Guardian. Elc awakens from his nightmare to find his good friend Lynx. Lynx tells Elc to get ready to undertake a job. Elc is a hunter, a person who takes on small jobs for money, who lives in the city of Prodias.
Elc ends up at Aldia Skyport, where a crazed mutant ninja named Alfred takes a woman hostage. Elc busts through the window, and tries to subdue him with his fire abilities, but Alfred ends up running through a plane. While on this cargo plane, Elc hears a noise coming through a room, and there he meets Lieza, a country girl, and her wolf beast, Paundit. She proceeds to explain that she can "talk" to monsters, and not to tell. Elc, then runs off, only interested in capturing his quarry. Alfred, upon seeing Elc, summons bats to help him fight off Elc, but Lieza and Paundit have their own ideas, and help the rogue hunter succeed in taking down the crazed mutant. As soon as they do, members of the local mafia, the Cabal, appear, not to pay Elc, but to kidnap Lieza and Paundit. After firing their guns and shooting Lieza, Elc escapes with an injured Lieza and heads to Indigos, to ask his friend and fellow hunter, the wind ninja, Shu, for assistance.
Shu, who is busy doing another job, decides to lend Elc his apartment, and tells him to look up Dr. Lado, a freelance doctor, to give medical assistance to Lieza. Elc finds him in the ruined city, where, Lado is about to meet his demise at the hands of an ex-patient, who somehow has become a mutant. Elc stops him and asks the Doctor to give medical assistance to Lieza. Lado accepts, and heals her. Elc then tells Lieza to get rest, meanwhile, as he sleeps, he has another dream, depicting him in this lab with a girl named Mariel, with powers opposite his, those of ice.
Lieza wakes Elc and he explains his past to her: after the army took him, he has no memories until Shu stumbled upon him in the Aldian Desert five years ago. Lieza and Paundit decide to stay with Elc for protection. After taking on some jobs at the local Hunter's Guild, they meet Shante, who helps them escape the police, Elc and Lieza being fugitives now. Shu also decides to stay with Lieza now, to find out more about the group that tried to kidnap her.
The game cuts to Gallarno's office, the leader of the Cabal who has been trying to catch Lieza and now Elc. The next scene then shows Arc, Poco, and Tosh running through a Romalian lab. A scientist reveals to them how Andel plans to use a mind control device on Prodias. With the Goddess Statue, which is to be revealed to the public of Prodias, Romalia will enact their plan.
The unveiling ceremony is about to start. Elc learns that Lynx has a spare ticket so they travel to his Skyport, which holds the Hien, to get the ticket from Lynx. Just as the threesome get to the ceremony, the statue starts to emit a blue light. Citizens start to feel drowsy, but then the Silver Noah, Arc's airship, appears, and Gogen uses his magic to destroy the statue. Elc recognizes the ship as the one that destroyed his village and goes to get revenge.
Rushing to the Skyport, Elc takes the Hien to pursue the Silver Noah. Elc, however, pushes the Hien to its limits and the ship explodes, throwing the party onto Yagos Island, home of Vilmer, a scientist. Elc has another flashback of him and Mariel and then awakens to find himself in Vilmer's home, with his party, all but Shu. A villager runs in to tell Vilmer that his granddaughter, Lia, went into the nearby Ruins. Elc and Lieza decide to look for her. They find her along with a strange robot-like artifact. In exchange for the robot, Vilmer fixes the Hien. Elc has more flashbacks of his childhood at the facility, explaining that children are taken there to be "studied" and are given control medicine. The robot reveals its name to be Diekbeck. Elc gets the robot a power pack and Vilmer begin to fix it. At the same time Vilmer, after finished the repair on the Hien, bid them farewell for both Elc and Lieza are leaving for Prodias in search of Shu's whereabout.
In Indigos, Elc and Lieza, while in search of Shu, enlist the help of Sharte in solving the mysteries surrounding the city. Sharte promised the two to lead them to Gallarno since this whole thing started from the Cabal leader. When they sneak into Gallarno's mansion, they ran into Shu, who survived the crash and also been investigating the Cabals for some time. It turned out that Sharte has been a double-agent for the whole time, luring them to the mob's hideout to assassinate them. Elc and his parties were forced to face his fellow "captive" friend Genie in battle. It appears that the serial killer wanted by the police was Genie, after being brainwashed in the white house and become the "Slasher".
After the battle ensued and Elc's team emerged victorious, Genie's consciousness return and he converse Elc's a moment before his death. It was later found out that Sharte was betraying them to save his brother, Alfred, from the Cabal's grip. When it turned out that the Cabal has actually assassinated his brother, Sharte decided to help Elc to storm the "White House", as they thought that they could get clues of anything behind all the mysteries surrounding the Cabals and Elc's vague past.
When they arrive at the "White house", they learn that it was actually a facility used by Gallarno to gather children of special abilities around the world and transform them in to mutants, or in this game is called "Chimera". It was proved when the children they found playing in the playroom later transformed into monsters and attack them. Elc also discovered that his childhood friend Mariel is still alive and was about to be turned into Chimera. He then rescued her and both of them join the others in the playroom. But Gallarno had everything planned and throw both Elc and Mariel into a basement room via a trap door and spare the others while he set the "White House" to detonate within a time limit.
Inside the basement, Gallarno brain-controls Mariel into fighting Elc against her will. Elc is forced to fight her twice before at last Mariel is able to contain the mind control for a brief moment and ask Elc to kill her. Elc has no choice but to unleash his firepower on her and by doing so, cause the basement room to blow and send him to a comatose condition. When his friends tried many futile attempt to save him, Arc's group arrive and Arc opens a hole in the ground with his "guardian magic" in order to save Elc. They are taken inside the Silver Noah and is heading to the Sabatico shrine in order to ask Kukuru to heal Elc.
Kukuru heals Elc. She tells the party that Elc will pull through only if he wants to pull through. Shu, shocked to see his longtime friend in this condition, vows revenge. He wants to go Romalia. However, the Silver Noah needs repairs and cannot be used. So Shu, along with Shante, travel to Palencia. They eventually learn there is an airship that is about to head to Romalia. With help, they sneak on the Airship. They reach the escape ships, however, some Romalians fight them and Shante falls out of the large airship while Shu takes an escape ship and heads to Romalia.
Shante falls from the airship and lands on Clenia Island. She is found on the beach by a young, blind girl and her father, Gruga. They take her back to their village for her to be healed. Shante is healed and asks Gruga if she can take an airship to Romalia. However, no ship will be going in or out of the skyport until after the fighting tournament in the village is completed. Gruga is actually the favorite is the tournament. While fighting in the tournament, some Chimaeras from Romalia capture Gruga's daughter, Elena, and hold her hostage as a trap to capture Gruga and turn him into a chimaera. However, Shante and Gruga eventually rescue Elena. Gruga reveals to Shante that Elena is not actually his daughter. Elena's actual parents were killed in the war of independence between Clenia and Niedel, in which Gruga was a key figure in. Filled with guilt, Gruga adopted Elena and loved her and cared for her for years. Gruga had made arrangements for Elena to see the doctor before leaving with Shante as he decides to join Shante's adventure to Romalia because the Romalians tried to harm his daughter.
Meanwhile, while Shu and Shante are heading to Romalia, Kukuru tells Lieza that she has some things to settle in her home country of Holn. She travels to Holn on the Silver Noah (with the repairs being done) and is dropped off their while the Silver Noah returns to Sabatico. Lieza tries to go back to her home village of Forles, but a giant rock lies in the way of the entrance to the village. A boy named Leets from Ramul was being attacked by monsters. Lieza saves the boy with her monster friends' help. She travels to Ramul, a large city on the continent, and asks the townspeople for information on the rock. However, Leets told the townspeople about being saved by Lieza and inadvertently caused the police to arrest her and throw her in jail. They explain they sealed off Forles to keep the "freaks" separated. In her jail, Lieza meets Gogen from Arc the Lad I and finds he has also been imprisoned. With Leets' help (to make up for his mistake earlier), they escape from the jail, and Gogen agrees to help remove the rock to Forles. Gogen blows up the rock using his magic. As they reach Forles, the whole town is gone. They reach Liezas old house, and some Chimaeras appear. After they are defeated, he reveals that there is a chimaera lab in a mountain on the East side of the country, and that is where all the townspeople are. As Lieza and Gogen defeat the Chimaeras, Leets helps as Lieza reaches her Grandfather and the townspeople and rescue them. After they are rescued, Lieza and Gogen teleport to Romalia.
Elc is still struggling to deal with his demons from the past in his coma. Having to battle his dead friends and parents as monsters, their real selves tell Elc that he needs to let go of his past failures and encourage him to live on for the future. Elc at last wakes up and Diekbeck is there to greet him. He sees Kukuru who explained how Arc had helped saved him and asks Elc to help her and Arc's mission. Elc still refused to believe any virtue in Arc, blaming him still for the death of his village. Kukuru then tells Elc to go to the ruined Palencia Castle to learn the truth, teleporting him and Diekbeck to its town. At the castle entrance, he finds Poco who needs to find the secret entrance to Palencia Tower via the destroyed underground lab. In the same area from Arc the Lad, Elc meets with the Fire Guardian who was taken from Elc's village years ago. The fire guardian explains to Elc about having the guardian's power, just as Arc does with the other guardians. Also the guardian explained that Andel is ultimately responsible for the village's genocide; Arc had nothing to do with what happened, even if he now has the Silver Noah that was used for the attack. Lastly, the guardian tells the group that Andel is about to execute the Touvil's villagers at the tower, helping to reveal the secret entrance. Poco tells Elc to report back to Kukuru while he and Diekbeck went ahead to the tower's basement. Unfortunately, Poco and Diekbeck are captured and thrown in jail. Now knowing the truth, Elc returns to Kukuru, telling her that he's ready to move on from the past and will help save the villagers. Elc infiltrate the tower as a guard, free Poco and Diekbeck and together got the villagers back to Touvil. Chongara soon came back with the Silver Noah and the four head off to Romalia as well.
Shu makes it to Houfoin, the slums outside of Romalia but divided by a wall. As Shu looks for information, Romalian soldiers beat up a kid named Danny, believed to be part of the resistance. After being rescued, Shu told him to go home. Shu goes to see Moris at the inn to find out how to get into Romalia; all he could say was to ask Tosh in the bar. Tosh was reluctant to help Shu, expecting him to be a mole. They duel and Shu earned his right to see the resistance. Danny's been trailing Shu, wanting to join the resistance but again Shu told him to beat it, not wanting to be held responsible for him. Moris, who's actually with the resistance, reveal that Gallarno is in the main chimera lab in Romalia. Together they advise a plan to hijack the military train to get there. Danny again get caught and finally get to join the resistance. He went along with Shu and Tosh into the train tunnel, but when attacked, Danny accidentally led the monsters back to the resistance, killing almost everyone there; Danny barely survives. Shu and Tosh kill off the monsters and get Danny to rest in the inn. Shu is guilt-ridden for what happened, he and Tosh shared a moment of their past and are determined to finish their fallen group's cause.
A brief scene of the four generals with the Dark one, shows that the Sky Castle is nearly ready. Harsh words were exchanged between Andel and Gallarno before the Dark One silences them, revealing lastly that Arc and company are of the seven lineages that originally imprisoning him. Later, Gallarno is given Iga as a prisoner by a slight hunter that captured him and decides to use him as a decoy for Arc. He hires the hunter for another job and reveal certain details to him of the Martyr Plan and Palcenia Tower to control everyone in the whole world.
Shu and Tosh revised Moris' plan with the train to blow it up in the tunnel to cause enough confusion to sneak in. Tosh distracted the train guards ALAP as Shu sets the bombs. The other party groups are arriving as the train is destroyed as Iga breaks out. Shu and Tosh meet up with Gogen and Lieza in the lab, but they were impostors. The other groups deal with their own sets of impostors. Iga goes to destroy the doppleganger machine before the real ones battle each other. As they all meet up, Iga assures everyone that the trick is done. Gallarno soon trapped everyone, but the hunter revealing himself as Arc frees them. The group fight Gallarno in his monstrous form, defeating him for good.
Chongara tells everyone that Yagun's men are heading to Greyshinne by Andel. As Yagun and Andel talk, Andel reveals that the towers he's building are to gather the dark energy of the masses to fully awaken the Dark One.

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Arc the Lad Collection ISO

 Description :

Arc the Lad Collection is a compilation of the Arc the Lad RPGs for the PlayStation. The games were localized by Working Designs, which closed in December 2005. Plans to localize the games had been fostered by Working Designs since the late 1990s, however it wasn't till the new millennium that the plans came to fruition. The releases of Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete, and Lunar 2: Eternal Blue Complete, known for the quality of not only the localization but also the quality of the packaging itself, preceded Arc the Lad.
The games form a trilogy with a continuous story throughout each. Although Arc is the primary protagonist, each game features a new lead character. Arc the Lad sets the stage for the next two games and follows Arc and Kukuru as they discover a plot to restore the Dark One. Arc the Lad II introduces Elc, a young Hunter that becomes tangled in the plot and eventually joins the battle against the Dark One. Arc the Lad III features Alec, a young Hunter with a mysterious past.
Each game expands on the previous one. Arc the Lad II features a much larger and less linear world than its predecessor, and it brings back the cast of the first game in addition to featuring a new group of characters. Arc the Lad III features an upgraded graphics system, replacing the sprite backdrops of the first two games with three-dimensional backgrounds.

Battle :

Each game in the Arc the Lad series, up until Arc the Lad: End of Darkness, uses a turn-based-strategy battle system. Each character or enemy is assigned agility points which determines the order in which they receive their turn in battle. The character or enemy with the next highest agility statistic goes next and so on, until the round is finished and a new round begins. Agility can increase as a character's level increases, can be altered by equipping items, or augmented temporarily with spells and items. When it is a character's turn they may perform several actions. They may move around the battle screen, a grid with various obstacles - how far a character moves depends on their Range statistic. The Range stat is set at the beginning of the game, and cannot increase as a character levels up. It can be increased by equipping certain items and can be decreased by using spells. Characters are able to move up to an enemy by jumping over obstacles, which requires a jump statistic of one, or by jumping over allies and enemies, requiring a jump statistic of two. Once characters have an enemy in range, they can do a number of things. Characters can use a basic attack—how much damage the character's attack deals depends on the character's attack statistic. As a character's experience level increases so does this statistic. Further alterations to statistics are accomplished through the equipping of accessory items. Spells and items can also augment statistics temporarily.
The battle system is, however, not all melee-based. Each character has a plethora of abilities available, ranging from magic spells to special techniques that either deal damage to enemies, heal ally characters, or augment statistics. These abilities are selectable though the ability wheel in Arc the Lad, however in later titles, a list interface was created for easier use. As in most RPGs, abilities and spells require MP to use. If the character does not have enough MP, certain techniques become unusable. However, MP can also be absorbed, restored and depleted using spells or items. The power of a character's spell depends on a character's magic statistic, and higher experience levels increase this statistic. As the magic statistic increases so will the effectiveness characters spells.
Other options in battle include the use of items. The range a character can throw the item depends on the character's throw level. As this ability increases, so does the distance the character can throw an item. Characters may also equip items during battle, or the player may check a character's status in the status menu. Once it is the enemy's turn to attack they may perform actions similar to those of the player's characters. How much damage a character takes from the enemy depends on the character's defense rating; the higher the defense, the less damage the character will receive. When the player's characters are attacked, they have a chance to counter the enemy. The chance of a successful counter increases as the character's counterattack level increases. When an enemy uses an item against a character, there is a chance the character may catch it and keep it or throw it back. This chance increases as the character's catch level increases. When a character is hit his or her HP will decrease. Once the hit points of a certain character reach zero, the character is removed from combat. No characters are permanently lost by being felled in battle.

Equipment :

Throughout the Arc the Lad series, the equipment system changes from its very simple beginnings to a full-blown equipment system in later titles. In Arc the Lad, only accessories can be equipped, and can only be chosen at the start of battle. Accessories boost statistics in various ways, and can be dropped by defeated enemies, received from opening chests in battle, received from NPCs, or found in the few explorable areas the game presents. The weapons and armor a character uses cannot be changed. Despite some accessories bearing weapon- or armor-like names, such as the Phantom Set of items (gauntlet, ring, shield, and sword), there are no weapon or armor systems.
Arc the Lad II boosts the gameplay by including a revamped weapon system. Weapons, armor, items, and accessories can now be equipped on characters. Items, armor, and weapons can be bought in stores, found in battle, found in explorable areas or created in the combination shop. The combination shop requires that ingredients be brought and assembled. Each character has several types of equipable weapons. For example, Shu can equip battle shoes or fire arms such as assault rifles and shotguns. Weapons can also be improved, and can gain a +1 beside their name to indicate their increased parameters. This new equipment system also improves the battle system, as some weapons, such as guns and spears, have further range than swords and other short-range melee weapons.
Lieza, one of the principal characters in Arc the Lad II, can also tame monsters, which can sometimes use human equipment. These monsters can be used in battle as well, as party selection is variable in Arc the Lad II, based on the amount of characters the player has recruited and whether certain characters are usable at certain times in the game.
A similar system is found in Arc the Lad III, however the synthesis guild replaces the combination shop, and, to many fans, the synthesis guild is far more indepth than the combination shop. Recipes must be found by the players, unlike in Arc the Lad II where the shop would tell you exactly what to use. The monster system is limited to a card system, where monsters can be trapped in cards and later used for attacks.

 

 Exploration :

In Arc the Lad, the world is only explored in a limited capacity. The player selects an area on a world map and then proceeds through the events and battles present in that area. Sometimes after a battle is fought, the player can explore the area in a limited capacity. By contrast, Arc the Lad II has a fully explorable world. The world map is richly coloured and details, where characters can roam freely, instead of having a simple overhead view map. Cities and dungeons also allow the player to freely explore, though some battle maps are only for combat, and nothing else. Arc the Lad III expands even farther on this concept and literally every place in the game is explorable on foot and can be explored during normal gameplay. 

Development :

Early in 1997, North American fans of the series started a petition on IGN's PSX Power for a Western release of the first two games of the series. Three years later in 2000, Working Designs hinted that they would be localizing all three of the Arc games for a North American release in a bundle called Arc the Lad Collection. On April 18, 2002, after a series of unmet release dates, the Arc the Lad Collection was released in North America. This was the first time North American gamers were able to play the extremely popular Japanese-exclusive series. The collection encompasses six discs and four games. Arc the Lad, which was released on June 30, 1995 in Japan, set the stage for the series and pioneered such features as computer generated videos and orchestrated music. The second game featured in the compilation is Arc the Lad II, released less than five months after Arc the Lad, on November 1, 1995. Originally both games were intended to be one, but due to time constraints and deadlines, the first game was released ahead of time. Both games were commercially successful in Japan.
Continuing the compilation is Arc Arena: Monster Tournament. This builds on the concept of data transfer and allows players to trade items and weapons with other players by importing their respective saved games. Monsters, who can be captured and controlled in Arc the Lad II, can also be used in this game to fight tournament-style matches. Arc the Lad III, which was released on October 28, 1999, is the last game featured in the collection. This game features an updated battle and graphics system, while using gameplay similar to that of the previous games.
The collection also features the documentary disc Making of Arc the Lad, which includes exclusive interviews with Victor Ireland, the president of Working Designs at that time. It comes with a leather-bound, 150-page, full-color instruction booklet. It also includes the Omake Box ("omake," pronounced "o-ma-keh," is Japanese for "extra"). The Omake Box features cardboard miniature standees of all 22 characters, four analog stick covers—one of Arc, one of Elc, one of Alec and one of the Arc the Lad emblem—and a memory card case featuring Arc's face.

Review :

The Arc the Lad series is one of the hottest selling series in Japan, with its own cult following of fans. The series spawned numerous web sites, trading cards, mangas, collectibles, and even an Anime series based off the first two games. For a while, it would seem that this series would not make it stateside, and over the years there were countless petitions that proved almost fruitless.
However, what the fans didn’t know was that Working Designs had approached Sony for the rights to Arc the Lad I during its time, but nothing came out of that deal. The same resulted when Working Designs wanted to do Arc the Lad II. Then, Arc the Lad III was released, and Working Designs gave Sony a proposal to hard to resist: an attempt to localize all 3 Arc the Lad games, as well as Arena.
The project was and is Working Design’s largest project ever. Victor Ireland himself admits it, explaining jokingly what he got himself into when he took on the project. The first game was easy, it was relatively short and didn’t contain that much text, but the second game was loaded with text and the third game contained and unearthly amount of text.
Originally, a CD containing tunes from the game was planned for the package, but it had to be scrapped, probably to reduce costs or because working on the games was time consuming enough. This really isn’t too much of a loss, but maybe some fans are griping right now because of it. Even so, the current package itself is worthwhile. The set includes:
Arc the Lad
Arc the Lad II
Arc the Lad Monster Arena
Arc the Lad III [2 discs]
Making of Arc the Lad Collection Disc
150+ Page Leatherette Hardbound Artbook/Instruction Manual
Arc the Lad Analog Thumb Button Covers
Arc the Lad Memory Card Holder
Arc the Lad Mini Character Standees
A most welcome package, though in my opinion there’s no chance in hell am I ever going to use the Thumb Button Covers and let them wear out. I am a collector, in a sense. No matter though, this is Working Design’s greatest gift to the gaming public, and unlike some of their games, they seem to have kept mostly to the script this time round; aside from some well-hidden jokes and those with reference to the Lunar games, the script is generally intact.

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Arc the Lad (J) and (U) ISO

Description :

Arc The Lad was a grand project, it was originally planned to be a large game, but due to time constraints, the project had to be split in two. Arc The Lad is a short game, but it was the game that would precede a large and breathtaking trilogy, a game that had Japanese gamers talking for months, and started a cult following among them. It was a game that, for many years, Americans had hoped would see a US release.
Working Designs had approached Sony Japan for the translation rights to the first Arc the Lad when it was released in Japan, however nothing came from that deal at that time, and it was thought by many to be the Fire Emblem of the PlayStation. It would take the release of Arc the Lad III and a very tempting offer to translate all the Arc games before Sony would release the publishing/translation rights to the games to Working Designs. Fortunately for English speaking players, this would be the start of one of the greatest series ever released in the US.
The first Arc the Lad is a short game, a game that can be completed by casual gamers within an average of 10 hours, however, doing so guarantees that they will miss many special items, side-quests and perhaps a very special character. Arc the lad boasts many diversions to make up for its simple gameplay and its overall length, something players should not miss. In fact, it is recommended to play the games in order, and Arc the Lad starts off what will be fully developed in II, and concluded in III.
Arc the Lad’s story begins with the Shrine Maiden of Light, a daughter of the Clan of White, Kukuru. She is tricked by the village elder into thinking that extinguishing the Flame Cion on the mountain would free her from her duty as Shrine Maiden and also free her from the need to wed the Crown Prince of Seirya. Upon doing so, a mysterious and ominous voice is heard and a blizzard begins to blow. We are then shifted to the village at the foot of the mountain, where Arc prepares to leave to investigate the blizzard, a blizzard foretold by his missing father 10 years prior. This would soon begin a chain of events that would lead Arc and Kukuru to the beginning of a long quest, a quest of friendship, discovery, and of course a mission to save the world.
The gameplay in Arc the Lad is extremely simple. The game is divided into a World Map and Map Screens. The Wold Map shows all the possible areas Arc can visit, and selecting an area will lead to a Map Screen of that area. The Map Screens show, in colored sections, locations where Arc can go, and to get there all the player has to do is highlight it and press a button. There are few instances that allow free roaming, and there are no stores or a monetary unit whatsoever, as most items are either gained by defeating enemies or found in chests.
Characters can equip up to 4 accessories in the game. The accessories do include some Weapons and Armor, but truth be told, they are limited and count as an accessory. Most accessories have significant effects to aid characters, though most become obsolete after characters reach a significant level, while some seem to serve no purpose whatsoever. The rest of the items in the game are merely items that can be thrown or used for special effects or damage. The items and accessories are also sorted out neatly and management is clearly non-existent.
The battles in the game are very simple. To attack an enemy, all a player needs to do is have the character move next to the enemy and then press the X button. Cast spells or using skills involves simply pressing the O button to bring up the Spell/Skill Ring, which allow the player to select the spell or skill they wish to use. Battles are quite fast and there aren’t any special battle goals in the game, they are all simply ‘Defeat All Enemies’ objectives. This may cause a lack of variety in battles, but the simplicity does appeal to many casual gamers.
Short as Arc the Lad may be, it does boast some diversions. There is a Battle Arena that rewards the player with some interesting prizes, though a kind warning here: the battles can be brain-numbingly monotonous and very boring. There’s also the 50 Floor Forbidden Ruins, fully loaded with treasures and enemies and no save points whatsoever. Challenging the Forbidden Ruins rewards you with loads of nice items and completing it allows for a very interesting reward. Other minor quests involve visiting certain locations at certain points in the game to get special items.
Menus in the game are easy enough to access, with the only gripe being that they can only be accessed during the start or during a character’s turn in battle. The Save option is available only in the Map Screens, and you may be prompted to save before entering a battle.
The graphics in Arc the Lad leave much to be desired, and the fact that the game is rather old doesn’t help much either. The character sprites are simple at best and do boast some degree of animation. The locations in the game seem rather dull though, and any sense of atmosphere would seem somewhat lacking were it not for some of the music. Items and accessories are represented in tiny graphics in the menus, and spell and skill effects are extremely simplistic and mostly unimpressive. Enemy sprites are simple, but most are surprisingly smooth to animate. Of course, fans will also have to take into consideration that this is quite an old game, and in any case, graphics don’t necessarily make a game.
Aside form the mainstay Orchestral Theme in Arc the Lad, most of the tunes in the game are simple, and while some do add atmosphere, most of them are easily forgotten. Quite a disappointment aurally, I must say. The game has voices in battle as well, and they are kept in Japanese. This is actually good and bad at the same time, the bad being that most people won’t know what they are shouting, the good being the fact that the voices sound so right for the characters. I’d find it hard to replace most of the voices with English dubs, especially for a certain cute and well-liked character among Arc the Lad fans, Choko. I’d be impressed if it were even possible to mimic her voice in English; heck, I’m impressed it sounded so good to begin with!
Overall, Arc the Lad is a short game, but it is also a beginning to what is a very deep and rewarding storyline. Another gripe is that the characters could have used slightly more development; most of them do get their events sorted out in Arc the Lad II, but still, it seems that the development in Arc the Lad still lacked something. Even so, I’d recommend that gamers play Arc the Lad first and in order with the other games, not only for the great stuff unlocked in Arc the Lad II if you do so, but also for the sake of continuity. Besides, it may be hard to get back to playing Arc the Lad after playing Arc The Lad II or III, considering all the improvements in the sequels.

 

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Arc The Lad (J)

Arc The Lad (U)

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Arc the Lad - Monster Tournament - Battle Arena [U] ISO

Description :

Arc the Lad: Monster Tournament - Battle Arena is a RPG game, developed by ARC Entertainment and published by SCEI, which was released in Japan in 1997. 

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Arc the Lad - Monster Game with Casino Game (J) (Disc 2) (Casino Game) ISO

Description :

Arc Arena is an add-on game where a player can use their creatures captured within Arc the Lad II to battle friend's characters in a tournament match. Trade items, weapons and monsters from Arc II. Prepare and then go head to head. The games will be bundled and also sold separately. 

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Arc the Lad - Monster Game with Casino Game (J) (Disc 1) (Monster Game) ISO

Description :

 Arc Arena is an add-on game where a player can use their creatures captured within Arc the Lad II to battle friend's characters in a tournament match. Trade items, weapons and monsters from Arc II. Prepare and then go head to head. The games will be bundled and also sold separately. 

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Aquarian Age - Tokyo Wars (Japan) ISO

Description :

Aquarian Age: Tokyo Wars is a Board game, published by ESP Software, which was released in Japan in 2000.

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