From Software's Enchanted Arms is easily the most contested RPG to be released this year, maybe even the past few years. Japanese press and gamers met the game with close to the same reception they have given the Xbox 360 - chilled. Seeing something special, and profitable that was missed in the homeland release, publisher Ubisoft went forth to localize the game for the U.S. and Europe. History seemed to be repeating itself as reviews for Ubisoft's version came in with scores of average to slightly above average, some complaining about its over-reliance on RPG clichés. Yet gamers were undaunted by the lackluster reviews and bought the game anyway, getting it into the top twenty selling games in the U.S. for the month of September, at spot 19. Not only did many thoroughly enjoy the game but found criticism of its cliché elements overexaggerated and preposterous.

Now it's my turn and let me be honest - this is the hardest review I have ever written. Usually, upon playing a game, I know how I feel about it with little doubt - but not this time. I have never played a game like Enchanted Arms, a game that has me eating out of its hands one moment, scoffing in frustration or sighing in disappointment the next. But this is not because From Software developed a Japanese-style RPG that relies heavily on the genre's clichés; that's expected, to a certain extent, from any game in the genre. What does end up downgrading the experience is From Software's inability to properly reinterpret the clichés. It may be a fun game that teases at the possibility of next generation RPGs to come, but much like the original Wild Arms game on the PlayStation, it will not be long before a better title overshadows it and many forget its muddled existence. Let me make one thing clear before we move on - I had fun playing this game, all 35 hours I put into it, so don't write this review off as just another reviewer slinging mud at a poor, defenseless game, because it does have huge flaws and is also far from defenseless - just because you tolerate something doesn't mean it can't piss you off.

Enchanted Arms opens with a beautiful but pointless cut scene. Graphically speaking, the stunningly rendered icy backdrop and supremely detailed character models really set the tone for what a next-gen RPG should look like. Running in 1080i on my plasma HDTV had the game looking jaw-droppingly phenomenal; this is why I bought this TV. Though the English voiceovers are far from spectacular, they are decent enough to not turn them off - at this point. It seems that From Software is trying to use the flashback device to start their game off with action before bombarding the player with a slow moving story, wasting little time dipping into one of RPG's biggest clichés. Unfortunately, the full scene is replayed at the end of the first hour or two, with only a little more context and details. The game would have been far better off ditching the flashback idea altogether, as it does little to strengthen the beginning. Once you reach the scene for the second time, the main parts have been revealed and what should be engaging and full of tension simply isn't, because we already know how this scene ends. I was left feeling like I could be in for the video game version of Groundhog Day but without Bill Murray and without being funny.

In the middle of this short story sequence, players are thrown into a boss battle where they are supposed to not only assume how to control the battle system but figure out they have no way of winning - all based on, well, pure assumption. Any RPG veteran should have little trouble realizing what they are doing in a minute or two, but it could prove daunting to the less experienced. The game basically says, "here is our new fighting system, here's a boss - you figure it out. What, you want some sort of direction or tutorial? We actually do have a complete, in-depth tutorial for you - but you can't have until after the battle!"

Once the flashback is underway, we are given a proper introduction to the story's protagonists, three young male Enchanters (a.k.a. magic users) from Yokohama City: Atsuma, Toya and Makoto. Atsuma has this one-of-a-kind right arm that is able to disable enchants on touch, which has his professor salivating and the entire school freaked out. Instead of paying attention in class, maybe learning about his arm, he usually can be found asleep, if he shows up at all. His best friend and at times parent-like figure, is the school's most popular kid, Toya. He is essentially that ultimate mixture of jock and valedictorian, a mix of the animé Fruits Basket's main characters, Yuki and Kyo, taking the former's boyish good looks and intellect and mixing it with the latter's athletic prowess and loyalty. Rounding out the initial party is Makoto, the blond bombshell whose adoration for Toya goes far beyond platonic, even though Toya doesn't seem to feel the same. He is a master of cooking, fashion, being overprotective of Toya and annoying the holy hell out of Atsuma. I can't remember ever playing a game with an overtly gay character before and while he is a bit too cliché, it's nice to see a central character of a different sexual persuasion.

Soon, after a set of not so coincidental events, the three boys awaken an ancient evil that's bent on destroying the world as they know it, kick starting the main story. For the remainder of the game the story continues to flows nicely, weaving an intriguing story. Atsuma, who becomes the main protagonist, easily becomes an endearing fellow. His personal growth throughout the game, including jumping over some very difficult hurdles, gives the story a touch of humanity that, if left unaddressed, can so easily derail the emotional pull of an RPG. Though his supporting cast appear on the surface to fall quickly into clichéd ruts, their strong character development pushes them past that, especially Raigar and Yuki. Being able to collect and use your enemies, called golems, is a nice addition, but they only affect the story indirectly.

All is not right in story world though. As I said before, the story opens with an excellent voiced cut scene, much like we have become accustomed to during the PS2 days - just with superior graphics. The next part, set in the enchanting school, takes a different turn. Fully animated character portraits, two at a time sharing the screen 50/50, are placed atop of the background of a classroom, while the story is both spoken and displayed as text. It works just fine in the classroom and at first I was thinking this was just a tactic used for this specific situation. I was dead wrong. This ends up becoming the overwhelming preference for storytelling, taking a huge step back from what has become the established norm and severely hurting the narrative. Characters have only a small selection of expressions to utilize - hardly enough to cover the near endless range of emotions that we possess. Characters that have large outfits, such as Raigar and Karin, don't always fit in the screen and have their bodies cut off at the invisible middle.

When there actually is a cut scene, or an even rarer - though no less amazing - CGI movie, it feels more like a tease than a treat. Though the cut scenes lack the professional polish that the big companies can liberally dose on their cut scenes, they do the job, something the talking-heads-approach can't say. There really is no excuse for this huge step back in storytelling and I can only assume From Software chose to do this to cut down on development time and/or cost. Had they not gone this way, I could have easily added a full point to my total score, maybe two. But alas this wasn't to be.

My second story-related complaint is in regards to Ubisoft's choices for the English voice actors. If I were to use one word, I would use "yikes". Do I dare ask where these people were found? Who was directing them as well, letting Atsuma's voice actor blatantly mispronounce Japanese words? I would continue my verbal onslaught had they not included the option to use the original Japanese voice track instead. The difference is night and day, as the highly skilled Japanese cast, full of veterans of the animé circuit, bring each character to life with ease, passion and professionalism. Not only that, but it sounds as if the Japanese voice track was recorded in its entirety, then broken into pieces to fit with the text, giving them a natural flow the robotic English track lacks. Though unlike with a subtitled movie, the subtitles were not adapted from the Japanese track, creating some minor discrepancies. But that is a small complaint for an otherwise spectacular, story saving option.

Unfortunately, the sound troubles do not end there. This game houses one of the worst RPG soundtracks of all time. Yes, I do realize the implications of my statement and yes I have played more than my share of RPGs. Nearly the entire soundtrack is full of songs that can be either filed under uninspired, background filler or terrible. Far too many of these songs are very short, making their non-stop looping feel like a pack of squirrels are gnawing your ears away. The theme song for the Resistance's base, with its out of tune instruments, had me sobbing the entire time I was there. That sad excuse for a song dropped the sound score two points all by itself (not really, but I really, really wanted to). The sound effects are great, drawing no complaints from me other than sometimes they don't exist, such as when running atop of water. Where's my splish splash dammit?

After reading my polarized feelings on both the story and sound, it should come as no surprise that I can't shake this theme when it comes to the graphics. The best way I can describe my feelings on the graphics is by saying this: go to almost any non-dungeon area of this game, pull the camera out as far as it will go and step back from the controller. Chances are pretty high you'll look at the game's 3D rendered, no draw landscapes and say "wow," especially if you are playing on an HDTV. London City with its gigantic, historic buildings; on the bridge leading to the abandon castle used by the Resistance, which is on a lake and surrounded by mountains; walking towards the Ice Queen's enormous shiny ice palace, every single one of these look magnificent. Character models are incredibly detailed, especially Karin's dressy outfit and Raigar's knight garb, though his cape falls into his body after every battle. They have very natural skin and hair, authentic clothing and watching them breath and speak will do an excellent job of getting players to believe in the power of the Xbox 360. Water, though it moves abnormally fast, is realistic and beautiful, like you could reach out and feel its cool touch. There are so many amazing graphical moments when you aren't moving that it's hard to keep track.

Did you notice that key phrase, "when you aren't moving," that I used? Not there by accident, I assure you. As you move close to many of the parts and objects in these landscapes, especially in areas heavy with vegetation, the textures begin to blur horribly. PS2 horribly. Grass pixels upon closer inspection, rock faces become brown blurs and buildings take on a gray hazy look. The weird thing is there are also plenty of areas throughout the game that do not suffer from bad textures, such as a frozen Yokohama, the inside of London Castle and inside the Ice Palace. This lead me to feel like this game started on a current-gen system just to receive a next-gen port that had to be prettied up, though that's not the case (that I know of).

Backgrounds are not the only thing with wonky graphical problems. Flowers, plants and trees are static and poorly rendered, not like the living plant life in Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Atsuma's dog Kohta is rendered so badly, with such lifeless textures and uncanine-like movements that all I could do was laugh at the poor mutt. At least his bark sounded real. Lighting effects go crazy at random angles, either bleaching out portions of the environment or making things such as buildings and rocks look like they're coated in tinfoil. And it's not just a few places that this happens; it's the majority of areas that suffer under blurry textures and haywire lighting that had me having to look down to make sure I was still playing on my Xbox 360.

You're probably thinking at this point: "can he talk about anything involving this game and not bash it?" Why yes I can…can't I? If there was to be a part like that, it would be the battle system. Combining aspects of both strategy and menu-based RPGs, From Software has crafted a fun and effective way to beat baddies senseless. Battles are all random, except for boss battles and golem-capturing battles, where the enemy can be plainly seen before going into battle. Once you enter a battle, each side receives a 5 x 3 square grid with their characters randomly placed upon it. Each character can move a certain amount of spaces before choosing an action, all of which also have a set range. Each character's move set is fully customizable, with plenty of choices for the main characters (not so much when it comes to golems).

One of six elements is assigned to every character - good and bad - running the usual gauntlet of fire, water, dark and so on. Obviously taking advantage of elemental opposites is one of the keys to victory. Once all the orders have been given, the entire team acts in a row, then their turn ends and the other side gets their chance. Character attacks can become quite extravagate, taking up the entire screen to show off their fancy firepower. While you can't skip any these, or any other battle animations, you can hold the Y button to speed them all up, which I found myself using doing in every single battle. If an attack character has a full combo meter they link their attacks to deal extra damage but you can't save these combos for the right time, as it happens automatically, which hurts its usefulness a bit.

After each successful battle your characters gain the usual currency, items and experience but they also lose vitality points or VP. These points, refillable at any save point, refill your character's HP and MP to full after every single battle. At first I found this to be a damper on the difficulty of the game, but quickly warmed up to it as it allowed me to hold nothing back for every single battle with no worrying about healing after every single battle or if I had enough healing items. I only had to worry about kicking butt!

Now, did I give you false hope into thinking the battle system would pass by scratch-free? Sorry, not so fast. There are two mild drawbacks - the inability to enter the other side's grid, as well as the inability to independently give each character orders. If a character bites the dust, they stay on the battlefield for three turns before disappearing. The problem is, you cannot occupy their space until they are gone. So if a large golem bites the dust, taking up a 2 x 2 square of the 4 x 3, it can be very hard to attack around it, regardless of which side it has fallen on. The other complaint, the inability to give each character orders independently, isn't as detrimental, but it's still a nuisance. You set all the actions in an order, so if you get to the last character and have to make a change with the first character, you have to undo everything just to make the change. The ability to do something like that has existed in strategy RPGs for countless years and I can imagine no legitimate reason why it was omitted here.

If you're looking for a game with legs and lifespan, Enchanted Arms is for you. On top of a main quest that should take 35 to 45 hours to complete, you also have the golem collection to complete and items and weapons to earn and discover, easily adding another 10 hours. Not enough for you? Try your hand at the online mode, where you take your custom party online to duke it out against other custom parties. Just don't try online until you finish the game, unless you like handing out wins to other people like Halloween candy.

I know I've came down hard on this game, sometimes extremely hard. However, if you notice my overall score, I still gave a 7. That's a totally solid score that deserves attention because, despite all of Enchanted Arms' shortcomings and problems, I still enjoyed every minute within the world. What I see here is a great first step for From Software and the Enchanted Arms world. Never mind the PS3 port, I want to see where they take the series from here because this is a solid start to what could become a budding franchise. Hell, look at the Shadow Hearts franchise. The first game was a lot worse than this game and now that is one of my favorite RPG series to come out in quite a long while. Let us meet again, Enchanted Arms.

Reviewed by Tony Peters for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).