By Jim Drewes - July 27, 2005

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Dialog and Storyline

Arc the Lad, an RPG franchise published by Namco, has been enjoying relative success for several years.  However the latest title, Arc the Lad: End of Darkness, strays from the turn-based style employed by earlier Arc titles, and moves to a real-time action mode of game play.  This paradigm shift should help to keep players interested through the dry storyline, but it may also cause past fans of the series to turn up their noses in disgust.  Additionally, End of Darkness adds an online multiplayer experience that was unavailable in previous titles, though it does little to enhance the overall value of the game.  Taken individually, the flaws of Arc the Lad: End of Darkness aren’t enough to merit a less than stellar review, but viewed as a whole the game doesn’t quite live up to its full potential.

End of Darkness starts off much the same way as many role-playing games do.  The main character is somewhat of a common man who quickly realizes that under new and extraordinary circumstances he can achieve what others cannot.  In this case, you play the role of the orphan Edda, who comes to find out that his lineage is that of exorcists and that he is able to exorcise the terrible “malademons” that are causing so many problems throughout the world.  The religious connotation of the word “exorcism” isn’t one that really fits into the storyline of Arc the Lad.  Whereas a player may expect to encounter religiously frightening things such as possessed children or undead corpses, many of the enemies you will fight in Arc the Lad are evil mushrooms, horrible blobs, or the RPG classic – spiders.  A black smoke surrounding the enemy identifies entities possessed by malademons.  Shortly after players are introduced to the exorcism element of the storyline, the terrorism element is introduced.  In the words of Ferris Bueller, “Isms in my opinion are not good.”  Terrorism is another plot idea that can be viewed as somewhat chic these days.  In Arc the Lad, Edda must battle the terrorist group, the Truth Sword, who are trying to cleanse the world of humans.  Sound like a familiar theme?

Dialogue between characters in Arc the Lad is a little difficult to describe.  At times, gamers above the 14 year-old demographic will be aggravated by the childish tauntings and comments of Edda’s sidekick, Hemo.  In fact, many of the conversations in Arc the Lad: End of Darkness fall victim to the same immaturity.  Yet, the dialogue isn’t geared necessarily towards younger gamers.  Sometimes there are very adult references within the conversations.  Hemo, at the end of one of the earlier missions, jokes about homosexuality and questions the orientation of the individual you had just saved.  This lack of balance in tone isn’t necessarily off-putting, but it doesn’t work.  Subtlety isn’t employed, which is what made the story and dialogue in movies such as Shrek so enjoyable by all audiences.  Perhaps the tone was lost in translation.

Due to the one-dimensional and slow storyline, switching to a real-time action-based game play environment is probably more beneficial than many people give credit for.  Unfortunately, as real-time action RPGs go, the game play of Arc the Lad isn’t exactly cutting-edge.  The only real challenge of taking on enemies is to get your timings down so you know when to strike and when to dodge.  Although strategy plays a small role, it isn’t quite as important as in turn-based games.  These days the ideas of hit points and magic points, energy and mana, are tired concepts.  To address this, abilities and magic points are employed through Edda’s “ALD,” which is simply a wristband that will accept and harness the power of various cards.  These cards are essentially your magic items, but they can also represent new characters you can add to your team.  Originality points have to be added for this idea, but then taken away immediately because although it’s original, it isn’t very inspiring.  Fortunately, End of Darkness isn’t all just hack and slash, or spell casting.  Mission types range from battling your way through an environment, to capturing a monster, to finding special objects.  The nice thing about the mission types is that you have options.

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