Arc the Lad: End of Darkness, released in North America in 2005 and developed by Cattle Call for PlayStation 2. This game feels like a fitting conclusion to the series, which is already losing momentum in Japan. It was very popular, but Sony has now seen fit to do away with the online servers. This begs the question of whether or not players should buy this game?
An Engaging Story
It’s five years after the events of Twilight of the Spirits, and the world appears safe and sound. Edda, the playable young exorcist, is in the process of becoming a hunter. He notices a strange young girl that just doesn’t seem to belong. As he searches for clues, he begins to unravel a new mystery that might shatter the peacefulness of his world and all of its kingdoms.
Edda, like most of the characters in the series, is memorable. To give the player a connection to the past, they will interact with dozens of characters from Twilight and see just what they’re up to five years later. Fans of the series will find this irresistible. Newcomers will have little interest in these references. It’s not a huge upgrade but it’s better than nothing. Both fans and novices will notice that the storyline isn’t particularly deep. It’s very basic and only serves to explain some of the busywork missions that will be encountered.
Roaming from village to village, players will find fetch quests that require lots of backtracking. These missions will help to upgrade characters, but they do get repetitious after a few hours. Players will receive cards that can be used to acquire and upgrade weapons, armor, and spells. The game has a very slow start but picks up after a couple of hours.
Characters and Location Within Arc the Lad: End of Darkness
Arc the Lad: End of Darkness is a continuation of Arc the Lad: Twilight of the Spirits. The series is a tactical RPG, and up until now has boasted a unique storyline with diverse gameplay elements. Arc the Lad: End of Darkness realizes that its glory days are in the past, and as such was designed to include many of the same locations and characters that appeared in the last game. Luckily, there are enough new locations and gameplay elements to keep it fresh.
The real-time battle system is an interesting direction for the series, but its execution is another story. Instead of a well-developed turn-based system, this hack-and-slash combat system suffers from unresponsive controls and animation sequences that continue even when the player is trying to access a different command.
Last Thoughts
Arc the Lad: End of Darkness online play offers both co-op and deathmatch modes that can accommodate up to eight players. The co-op mode still features hundreds of missions with plenty of backtracking, but being able to communicate through headsets puts a whole new dimension on things. Dungeon crawling has seldom been more fun. There are plenty of goodies to collect. The Deathmatch modes feature teams of four players per side.
There’s not much improvement in the graphics, animation or sound. It’s too bad the combat system wasn’t more fleshed out, as there are definitely some great ideas here.
Arc the Lad: End of Darkness may not end up being a huge commercial hit, but it should manage to keep hardcore RPG fans happy for a few weeks. Hopefully, it can also gain some new recruits along the way, because with some further development this could easily become one of the great action RPG series.