Arcanion (Old)

Preface

So a couple of days ago, I was lurking around the games section here, and I happened upon Arcanion. I glanced through a couple of screenshots and was immediately impressed by some of the custom sprite work I saw. Naturally, I downloaded the game, if only out of morbid curiousity about the sprites.

In this review, I'm not only going to share my various opinions on the game, I'm going to summarize it as well!

First Impressions

So I boot the game up, and what do I hear first? The jarring default rm2k3 title screen music, of course! Sounds slowed down a bit, but regardless. Face twitched toward palm momentarily. Everything was fine though, right? I mean, this is really just a demo- he probably just hasn't found suitable title screen music yet. Let's check out the intro.
The title screen itself isn't the prettiest thing ever, but I found it passable. Gotta center that text up, though.

The Intro

I hit new game, and wait to be transported to a dream world of magic. The title screen fades away, and I'm thrust into the intro, where-
WAIT, WHAT!?
Yep, the main character pops right up in the top left corner of the screen before the intro sequence can tint the screen to black. I felt that familiar twitch, but I held it in check. I mean, there's a whole intro still to go, right?


Panning clouds and cryptic text? My favourite! B-but, why is the main character's sprite just floating there in the middle of the screen? He serves some purpose in this intro, right? Wrong. At least the song is kinda catchy.
I promptly button-mash through the pointless intro text and plow through to whatever comes next.

Whatever Comes Next

Alright, we're past the intro now, right? I can get on to some gameplay, whatever that may be? Right? WRONG!!
I find myself in a very generic-looking forest. The main character runs through and discovers a (gasp!) magical orb of some kind sitting right in the middle of the clearing, waiting for him to pick it up. Naturally, being a dude pretty susceptible to the powers of suggestion and curiousity, my character, who I might add I am still not in control of, picks up the orb. Oh neat, he animated to crouch down to pick it up!
This moment of revelry faded quickly as the character, while running back to his town, hears a scream. Oh noes, somebody is in trouble! I simply must go help them, because I'm just a cool dude like that and stuff! Or rather, the intro must, as I'm still just sitting here paging through intro text.
A girl is under attack by some generic forest creatures! Gotta save he- orite, I don't have a sword! Uh-oh, tactical error! Oh well, at least it's time for the first battle!

The First Battle
Oh cool, goblins. I can dig it. Killing goblins is always fun. Time to button ma- WHO ARE YOU!?
A magical transparent girl of some kind has mysteriously teleported into my fight! She spouts some probably important information about contracts and fighting and ba- wait a second, not important. Button mash. TL;DR- the magical orb I picked up? It turns into a sword because of my fighting spirit or something like that. Whatever. Well, she's gone now, time for a nice challenge to start the game off!

SMAAAAAASH, I kill both goblins with one hit from my basic attack. Damn, I'm a strong dude!
Back to the scene in the forest, and the mysterious ghost girl shows up again!


Hi there, mysterious girl! What useful information do you have for me no-
HAY GUIZ, I AM THE CHOSEN ONE! I must do what I must do!

GAMEPLAY FINALLY
After more boring filler text back in town that I didn't really pay any attention to, I finally get control of my character. Hooray! After about a minute of exploring the needlessly large town, I can see that the NPC dialogue is going nowhere fast.


Time to find someplace to give me a job!

I Hate Mondays
In an unmarked building I was never directed to go to, I find the sort of "hub area" of the town.


Hot damn, and that's even a pretty cool system J-Man employed there! It's beyond me while it doesn't match the gradient of every other text box in the game, but I can look past that.
Welp, at any rate, it's time to head to the forest to deliver a miscellaneous pointless item!



The Forest


Neat, an active encounter system! I bet each one of these will be an innovative, differe-
Nope, just a zillion encounters with the same two goblins I fought in the intro. Face dangerously close to palm.
After about two minutes of exploring the forest, picking up ridiculous quantities of healing items from conveniently-placed and easily-located treasure chests, I find this:


Well, actually, no it won't. I walk to the edge of the map and... Nothing.


Conclusion

J-Man's name really says volumes about the kind of games he makes- Arcanion is a jRPG to rival even the jRPGiest jRPGs out there. While it has some really really cool custom sprite work in it, Arcanion suffers from terrible writing and sub-par game design. It reminds me of a few of my first RM projects from back when I was a tween.
At this point, you're probably reading this and saying "WOW GUYS TARDIS IS SUCH A DOUCHE HE'S JUST HATIN' ON J-MAN."
Honestly, I'm not. J-Man does some really great sprites- I'd love to ever work on a team with him as the spriter- but he should really seek out some help when it comes to actual game design and writing.
I saw the beginnings of some pretty nifty systems employed here- such as a Limit bar in the battles (that I never got to use), not to mention the quest board and the worldmap, but the rest of the game left me so horrifically cold the good, specifically the cool sprites in the battles, was badly overshadowed by the cliche'd and unoriginal.