Arc Rise Fantasia

Arc Rise Fantasia
Developer(s)	Imageepoch Marvelous Entertainment
Publisher(s)	JP: Marvelous Entertainment NA: Ignition Entertainment
Director(s)	Hiroyuki Kanemaru
Designer(s)	Kenichi Yoshida
Artist(s)	Kenichi Yoshida
Composer(s)	Yasunori Mitsuda Shunsuke Tsuchiya Yuki Harada Yui Makino
Platform(s)	Wii
Release	JP: June 4, 2009 NA: July 27, 2010
Genre(s)	Role-playing video game
Mode(s)	Single-player

Arc Rise Fantasia (アークライズファンタジア, Āku Raizu Fantajia) is a fantasy role-playing video game developed by Imageepoch and published by Marvelous Entertainment for the Wii. Arc Rise Fantasia was released in Japan in June 2009, and in North America in July 2010.

Gameplay[]

Much of the game is progressing through the world and dungeons, some of which are puzzle-based, as the player listens to the story told. The conversations in the game are presented in a manner resembling Visual Novels with character portraits.

At the game's heart is its combat system, which is that of a turn-based role-playing game. The player and the enemy both move and fight during the same phase of battle, but the turn order is determined by the actions taken. Parties consist of three characters who share a single AP gauge which empties as various actions are performed. AP is regenerated at the start of each turn, so using as much AP as possible per turn is important for strategic reasons. Standard fare for the genre such as items, buffs/debuffs, magical and physical attacks, and special acts are present as well. During certain parts of the game the active team may be made up of four members instead of three, though the fourth can only be controlled by the AI. Once the player passes a certain point early on in the story, both the player and the enemy will be able to chain together acts under certain conditions to increase power/effect of that move. For the main protagonist, he is capable of using beasts called Rogress to unleash highly powerful effects at a large AP cost.

The game is also compatible with the GameCube Controller, as well as with the Classic Controller.

Plot[]

Summary[]

Arc Rise Fantasia is set in the world of Fulheim, a fictional large region of Earth. Creatures called "Feldragons" are causing a lot of trouble as they pass the Meridian Empire in flocks. If one is killed, the resulting explosion poisons the local area. When the empire receives word that a massive horde has its sights on the capital of Diamant, it immediately sends out an army to fight them, including L'Arc, a cool and collected novice mercenary, and his friend Alf, the beloved prince and second in line for the throne.

The game is centered around political tensions between the Meridian Empire and the Turmelian Republic; a third faction is Olquina, a devoutly-followed coalition at war with the Republic and the Empire. Another central plot point is the game's 2 Laws; Real's Law and Imaginal's Law. A Child of Eesa must choose to present one of two laws that will form the building blocks of the world to the god Eesa. Also, both Real and Imaginal have Divas, who are the priestesses of their religions.^[1]

Music[]

The music in the game was composed by Yasunori Mitsuda, Shunsuke Tsuchiya and Yuki Harada. The opening theme is Negai Hoshi by Nami Tamaki, and the ending theme is Tenshi no Hashigo ~crepuscular rays~ by Yui Makino.

The soundtrack album is released on 3 March 2010 which contains 3 disk. The soundtracks are composed and arranged by Yasunori Mitsuda, Shunsuke Tsuchiya, Yuki Harada, Yoko Shimomura and also Ryfia's Japanese voice actress, Yui Makino. The album not only contains BGMs in the game, but also the songs that Ryfia and Adele usually sing, which are sung by their voice actresses Yui Makino (Ryfia) and Emiri Kato. The ending song for the game, Tenshi no Hashigo, is also included in the 3rd disk of the album.

Track listing

Track listing

Track listing

On disk 3, a piano piece titled Awakening, To A World Protected is the piano rendition of Tenshi no Hashigo, which was played and composed by Yui Makino. The lyrics and music for Tenshi no Hashigo are composed by Yui Makino as well.

Development[]

The game had previously been titled as Project Ray, and was known to exist as early as September 4, 2007.^{[citation needed]} As Project Ray, it was also shown to exist with Sands of Destruction for the Nintendo DS.^[2]

The game was unveiled on June 25, 2008 in the popular Japanese magazine Famitsū.^{[citation needed]} Hiroyuki Kanemaru, the director of Fantasia, previously worked at Telenet Japan and later moved to Namco Tales Studio, where he worked as scenario script director and level concept designer on Tales of Symphonia. Kanemaru stated that Project Ray would be influenced by old-school RPGs from systems such as the TurboGrafx-16. It is Imageepoch's first game not developed for a handheld game console.

The game was later released under Nintendo's "Everyone’s Recommendation Selection" of budget titles in Japan.^[3]

Reception and sales[]

The game received "mixed" reviews according to the review aggregation website Metacritic;^[4] the game's turn-based battle gameplay (something of a rarity for the Wii) was praised whilst the game's tendency to stick to established JRPG formulas were criticized. Proponents of the game, such as Nintendo Power, cited that the game's strong points overshadowed its faults.^[13]

The English localization of the game received criticism directed towards its technical problems, but it is somewhat infamous for its voice acting which is criticized by many as being lazy.^[17] In Japan, Famitsu gave it a score of all four eights for a total of 32 out of 40.^[6]

Arc Rise Fantasia was also the fourth best-selling game in Japan during the week of its release at 26,000 copies.^[18] Approximately 21,000 copies were sold in the first week following its North American release.^{[citation needed]}

References[]

External links[]

• Official website (in Japanese)
• Arc Rise Fantasia at MobyGames