Arc Rise Fantasia

 Wii
Arc Rise Fantasia Image
Metascore
64

Mixed or average reviews - based on 26 Critic Reviews What's this?

User Score
8.2

Generally favorable reviews- based on 53 Ratings

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  • Summary: Arc Rise Fantasia is set in the Meridian Empire. Creatures called "Contaminant Dragons" are causing trouble as they pass the Meridian 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 capitalArc Rise Fantasia is set in the Meridian Empire. Creatures called "Contaminant Dragons" are causing trouble as they pass the Meridian 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. L'Arc is severely injured during the battle, but is saved by a girl named Ryfia, who has secrets in her past and possesses the power to control "ley squalls," naturally occurring storms of no magic that usually take the form of luminous rain. A young woman named Adele, who has been a friend of L'Arc since childhood, renders assistance to the party through use of her unique form of combat, Luminomancy.… Expand
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Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 4 out of 26
  2. Mixed: 21 out of 26
  3. Negative: 1 out of 26
  1. RPG Fan
    82
    Flawed? Sure. Is Arc Rise Fantasia the best RPG I've played? Far from it. However, Arc Rise Fantasia captures the heart and soul of the JRPG so wonderfully that it will be easy enough to overlook the flaws.
  2. Nintendo Power
    75
    Despite its flaws, though, I ultimately enjoyed my time with Arc Rise Fantasia. [July 2010, p.84]
    All this publication's reviews
  3. Hardcore Gamer
    70
    There is no doubt about it, Arc Rise Fantasia wants to be a hardcore JRPG. In many aspects it achieves this, but before fans go rushing to buy it they have to ask themselves: just how much grind is too much grind? If killing the same weak enemies over and over for innumerable hours before any story progression is made doesn't deter you, then by all means buy Arc Rise Fantasia.
  4. Cheat Code Central
    62
    Although there is a decent amount of story material to cover as well as some potential for grinding/leveling up, nothing here warrants a second play through.
  5. GamePro
    60
    If the only system you have is a Wii and you need an RPG, this certainly isn't a bad title to settle for. For gamers with more console options, however, the enjoyment you'll derive from Arc Rise Fantasia will likely be tied to how much you like combat, since the story certainly isn't anything worthwhile.
  6. 1UP
    58
    If you're one of those players who simply can't make do without a Tales-like RPG experience every few months, Arc Rise Fantasia might have enough of what you're looking for. But for most players, the game will simply be a flashback to the bad ol' days of the mid-'90s, when shoestring localization budgets botched many an epic RPG adventure.
  7. The A.V. Club
    42
    When the reward for beating the next boss is just more bland gameplay, it just isn't worth the effort.

See all 26 Critic Reviews

User Reviews

Write a Review
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 16 out of 19
  2. Mixed: 3 out of 19
  3. Negative: 0 out of 19
  1. ariashadow
    Apr 29, 2011
    9
    this is a great turn base RPG with a story that has a good amount of twists, it has color full graphics and flashy attacks but the gamethis is a great turn base RPG with a story that has a good amount of twists, it has color full graphics and flashy attacks but the game suffers from bad voice acting… Expand
  2. ArcanaThe4th
    May 29, 2019
    9
    This game is one of my favorites of the Wii, and definitely a lost gem in my opinion. Although the characters and plot may be a little clichédThis game is one of my favorites of the Wii, and definitely a lost gem in my opinion. Although the characters and plot may be a little clichéd if you play a lot of JRPG, but there's a lot of charm to it. The gameplay though is my favorite part. I greatly miss it and wish more games would have this strategic take on JRPGs.… Expand
  4. Nyrholnen
    Jul 29, 2013
    9
    This game is fantastic!, the battle system is innovative and charming, good for strategy plans and more powerfull attacks.
    the charaters had    This game is fantastic!, the battle system is innovative and charming, good for strategy plans and more powerfull attacks.
    the charaters had their good moments,i liked the voice action at least they gave the game more emotion,the final was pretty cool too.
    the difficulty wasn´t very bad, you just had to plan more and level up a little bit before the bosses.

    i would recomend to everyone.    … Expand
  5. mmert138
    Sep 11, 2021
    9
    The game is one of the best rpgs on the wii, top 3 if I may say. Has a great story, has great art style, drawn by the guy who drew Eureka 7The game is one of the best rpgs on the wii, top 3 if I may say. Has a great story, has great art style, drawn by the guy who drew Eureka 7 anime, has a great voice cast (if you play the undub version, otherwise do not bother turning the volume of voices), and an amazing soundtrack. Though the plot has to be its main selling point. It's such a shame the company went bankrupt, because this game really deserves a remaster on newer platforms, to get played by more people.… Expand
  6. sora0hearts
    Jun 19, 2017
    9
    It took me almost 7 years to pick the game up and decided to start from the beginning. I can still look behind and see my younger self hopingIt took me almost 7 years to pick the game up and decided to start from the beginning. I can still look behind and see my younger self hoping this to be a good JRPG that would be even better than Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World. Well today I can say that YES it is in my opinion one of the most underrated JRPG's of the last 10 years.
    Some reviews point for some flaws of the game but they actually ignore completelly what is good in this game.
    Let's begin with the graphics. They are really good for Wii standarts and I believe if the game had an HD remaster it would still look good, The battle effects, expec arts, rogress summons, magic effects, they all look stunning (once again for Wii standarts). Some animations out of battle seem a little bit "lazy-made", by this I mean that when its not a cutscene or a battle there are almost no animations for most of the characters other than walk, run, punch, even when someone hands you something you don't see any sort of animation that supports the act. For the characters, all of them are easy to recognize (not counting with the NPC's that keep repeting themselvs through nearly every main city or town), you know Rastan like that bad ass adult that really shakes a tough atmosphere, Leslie the sexy shooter with somehow a very strong sense of duty and responsability and yet teasing personality. All of them are easy to keep in mind and all of them have a very good development but I'll leave that for a path more ahead on this review. The monsters have models that repeat in at least the first half of the game, only having a slight recolor to distinguish the weaker ones from the stronger ones, a critical thing to point yes, but in an anime like JRPG its a very common practice, but that doesn't erase the fact that is bad.

    Music:
    Not the worst game for the soundtrack, yet not the best too. What can I say? It has some tracks that really catch the moment that we're living on the game, and others just keep repeating (ex: the dungeon track).
    I've noticed something really curious too, imagine that you just got a cutscene by getting to a point on the game and something really dramatic is shown, the music reflects that dramatic event even when the cutscene ended, however if you go out of that "room" or "zone" of the town or dungeon to fullfill what that dramatic event caused the music just changes to the normal one all of the sudden.
    Some of you may be scratching your heads now, but think a little with me here, if someone important is killed in the game and the killer is close, you will run to catch him, but while you're at that small chase the music that makes the player feel the pressure still goes on until you face the killer (im not saying this happened, just using it as an example of normal game design), so its like "omg this is happening" in one zone and "oh its all normal now" as soon as you leave the zone or the room.
    The rest, its pretty decent for a tradicional JRPG.

    Gameplay:
    Oh boy, this is what i personally consider the most important thing in a game. The gameplay is kinda of a complex one yet very nice to experiment with. Everytime you buy a weapon you get those gems attached to them that if you train enough you can actually take them off and equip in other weapons, this is a good thing to make the grinding being not only for XP purpose because this game is kinda hard and requires a good share of grinding for levels because every boss fight will get you mini-heart attacks every time that the boss turn is on.
    The Orb system is not a hard one to learn weither but one thing in this game is kinda out of place and that is the WP, that's a thing that just shouldn't be there, it isn't necessary, its use is soully make the game harder. Overall think it like the materia system from FFVII turned into a small puzzle that awakens your weapon's secret power.

    Story:
    Well, there are good points and bad points here, I'll start with the bad ones.
    The map is huge they could have made at least 20 more locations but instead the story makes you go to the same places multiple times in different orders again and again, I lost count of how many times I've visited the republic's capital only to be sent to a small town for the party to have a small conversarion at the entrance and then "let's get back to the capital". Dungeon recycling is also present, sometimes its justifiable and sometimes just seems that the game designers were out of places to visit.
    Now the good part, the Story kinda keeps you going with the mystery and triggering your curiosity to look for more rogress and has an ending that made me kinda cry because of 2 things, and one of them is that there will be no sequel (the other would be spoiler). The character developing is there too and evolves with the pacing gone just right.

    Problems: Horrible english dub (Just play undub please), low score reviews because it wasn't a big game company that made it.    … Expand
  7. Mr_Eleganto
    Jul 26, 2021
    8
    It took me around 3 months to beat it, with pauses, omg... 90 freaking hours, 2 grindwalls (well, I probably played it the wrong way), but IIt took me around 3 months to beat it, with pauses, omg... 90 freaking hours, 2 grindwalls (well, I probably played it the wrong way), but I totally agree with the user score - it's a hidden gem and I'm not regretting of buying a Wii for this Imageepoch's great title out here. The adventure was so good: there were good story, also characters, world building, different kinds of situations, fun skits, decent dialogues and much more. If you see this review - please try this game, you probably won't regret this either! I was playing undub version, it's something to be aware of, for starters, English VO was bad, sadly.… Expand
  8. ZombieAxeHero
    Feb 13, 2013
    5
    When I first bought this game, I was really hoping for a great RPG experience like the one I got from Tales of Symphonia. Sadly, that's notWhen I first bought this game, I was really hoping for a great RPG experience like the one I got from Tales of Symphonia. Sadly, that's not what happened. Granted, I had a little fun with strategic combat that the game provided and the graphics are quite nice (for the Wii, anyway), but as I played the game longer, the faults began to surface. While I did enjoy the combat system, it seems that console-based RPGs are more suited to real-time. Second is that while standard enemies are no problem, the bosses are unforgivable and force you to grind levels to even stand a chance agianst them. The last two things, however, are what really killed it for me. The story (for the most part) is very shallow and too similar to Tales of Symphonia to be bragged about, and I couldn't find one character in this game who wasn't either irrelevant to what was going on or just cliche as all hell, especially Adele and Ryfia. And of course there's what everybody else has touched on: the English voice acting is absolutely horrendous (not helped by the fact you can't change it to Japanese). The bottom line is that if you're looking for a good RPG on the Wii, Arc Rise Fantasia isn't the last game to look for, but it's certainly not the first.… Expand

See all 19 User Reviews

Awards & Rankings

79
#79 Best Wii Game of 2010
18
#18 Most Discussed Wii Game of 2010
14
#14 Most Shared Wii Game of 2010