Enchanted Arms: An Xbox Launch Title, played on the PS3 in 2021 - how does it hold up?
There hasn't been a lot of time for me to pursue my passion of gaming lately. I'll admit, its been very busy - but I constantly find things to keep me that way. It's safer. Don't ask.
I have a massive backlog of games. If I spent the time playing them instead of writing and thinking about them, I'd probably be done by now. The oldest pile of shame is probably the Nintendo DS, but I'm not here to talk about that today, it is PlayStation 3 time.
Except... it really isn't, because Enchanted Arms was an original Xbox launch title, which eventually made its way onto the PlayStation 3. A game that is 15 years old. It was released over half a life time ago as far as some people are concerned.
It was developed by From Software, who would go onto things such as Dark Souls, and many accolades.
Enchanted Arms is the story of an off-beat JRPG where "golems" (massive mechanised beings) go a little crazy, resulting in an entire city being encased by ice.
As the surviving protagonist, Atsuma, you then commence the typical JRPG story arc of "how did this happen, why did it happen, how can I stop it from impacting people, and why me?"
Along the way you get the opportunity to control many of the golem creatures (think of them like Pokemon that you can have fight beside your party on a grid system) - and unwrap some shallow intrigue as you grind through what would be considered too many battle encounters by anyone's standards today.
The game is competent, and has a story that is paced well, but the pacing falls apart when it is time to go from A to B - as the combat grows easy, and remains unvaried as you progress through the title. It has a novelty that wears off very quickly.
Couple this with the fact that early in the game you can completely cheese an in-game casino (by reloading your save if you lose a bet) to access infinite currency and items, there's not a great deal of replay value, challenge, or entertainment, beyond the generic story.
The combat system isn't generic, but it lacks depth - you've got set moves with set characters (and while you can change their moves, and fiddle with formations) - the grid system ensures there's limited room to experiment with new strategies.
Overall, it is a competent game, but now that it is no longer 2006, and in fact, it is 2021, there's much better stuff to sink your teeth into.
Entire lifetime or more in the case of my kids XD
Thought you were playing through a Steam library, you're A-Zing everything? XD
It definitely looks like a console game, has a kind of FF vibe to it.
I take breaks for other excursions for time to time :D
Ah shit, another game to play. I got a PS3 a few months ago after 15 years without gaming and holy shit there is a lot to catch up on. Going to try and play all the best stuff on ps3 and wait for a used ps5 to be about half what it is now, so I probably have another 2 years of PS3 and switch...OOOOR I may just snag a cheap PS4 sooner than that because I'm almost finished with Assasins Creed games on PS3 and really wanna try ff7 remake.
At the very least I still gotta play AC3 and 4, Ni no kuni, Neir, and Persona 5. I guess the later I could play on PS4 but I don't need the best graphics if I can play for a third of the price. Trying to figure out if I wanna play the yakuza games too or Tales of series.
The list can go on and on actually.
Wait for the PC version of FF7 Remake if you can, or the PS5 completion of the series. It's good, but its very, very drawn out.
The PS3 is still really good value. I've increased the size of that console's backlog already. Only gotcha with the PS3 is that original controllers with six axis support are very difficult to track down / repair / refurb and a lot of games require this feature for a full fledged gameplay experience.
There's a lot of gems on the platform!
There are used game shops everywhere in tokyo and used PS3 games are often $3-5 now. It's incredible but also dangerous as I still have a life to live. Switch games are still expensive, but I got FF12 and FF8 on switch, never played the former and never beat the latter. So I guess there is still a lot for me to do.
Let me know other gems on PS3! I want to milk this system for everything it's worth....not too into shooters or zombies, love good stories and good characters and good music, colors and metaphysical or emotional
I suppose there's the entire Kingdom Hearts series on the PS3 - though there are re-releases and remasters on the PS4 as well. I like it for the JRPGs. That's in my list of stuff to play. At the moment I'm delving through the Final Fantasy series (part of me playing through my game collection on PC alphabetically) - and I'm currently going through Final Fantasy IV... I'll soon get to FF8, and I do plan on playing that on the Switch. I've never played FF12, and pretty sure I never finished FF8 either... so we're in similar boats there. I do have very fond memories of FF8, though!