E3 2010: Arc Rise Fantasia Hands-On Impression

The Nintendo Wii has been receiving a lot of decent Japanese role-playing games this year, with Xenoblade, Tales of Graces, The Last Story, and the upcoming North American version of Arc Rise Fantasia all making their debuts. Arc Rise Fantasia, scheduled for release next month on the Nintendo Wii, was one of the games that Ignition Entertainment had on display at this year’s E3. The game received a decent score from Famitsu Magazine when it was released in Japan, and in just a couple of weeks we will get our chance to play this highly anticipated RPG.

The playable build that was available for media on the show floor was far from the full version of the game, as it only let you play through the very beginning of the game. However, as a hardcore RPG fan, I can say that Arc Rise Fantasia looks impressive. The design is what would be expected from a Japanese role-playing game, and after playing it for close to half an hour, it gave me the impression that the game is definitely going to live up to the standards of the genre.

In the build that we played, the controls were very straight forward, even the motion controls. All that needs to be done, is to press A and B on the Wii Remote, and use the nunchuck to move the characters. There are no random encounters, when an enemy sees you, it will run towards the character to attack and the battle will commence. Every action the character takes makes use of AP, which replenishes after every round.

Arc Rise Fantasia is fully voice acted, and the game offers CG graphics that is beyond my expectation for a game on the Wii. Since the show floor was so loud, I never really got the details of the story. The PR rep of Ignition Entertainment told us that the game offers a lot of sidequests, but even without those, the game’s main storyline should take around 40 hours to beat.

Arc Rise Fantasia releases on July 20th exclusively on the Nintendo Wii. Check back with us near the release date of the game for our review and extra coverage.