Summer is the best time to be lazy, swimming, and playing video games in peace. The one genre of games that take the longest time to complete have always been Rpgs. Summer vacation makes it perfect to just sit in front of the TV with the air conditioning at full blast allowing you to pull all-nighters without the fear of what you have to do the next day. Enter one of the most highly anticipated games in 2010 for the Nintendo Wii, Arc Rise Fantasia. Developed by imageepoch and Marvelous Entertainment, Arc Rise was given a score of 32/40 by Famitsu and soon after it was announced Ignition Entertainment would be releasing the game in the US.

Arc Rise Fantasia introduces L’arc, a mercenary who takes any job for money; he is on an airship and is fighting dragon-like creatures known as "Feldragons" for the empire. During his battle, he slips up and falls off the airship. When Feldragons are defeated they explode and causes damage in the resulting area, and just when L’arc figured his end was near he is saved by a mysterious girl whose singing calms the Feldragon. L’arc thanks Ryfia, who is clueless about many things, and L’arc takes her to a local town to rest at an Inn, where L’arc runs into the royal prince Alf who is a childhood friend of his, and the three adventure together as Ryfia explains where she needs to go and not knowing why she has to go there. Everything begins at that point and L’arc could never expect the trouble he would be facing from that point on.

Arc Rise Fantasia is far from any traditional style RPG one can ever play. The story is so full of surprises and twists it will leave you lost, interested and wanting to play to find out who, how and why? Many of your teammates have their own agenda which has them working with you or against you. Leading to a large cast of characters throughout the game, but no story always has the happy ending you search for especially one that throws something new at you all the time.

Unlike most games on the Wii, you are given the option of playing it on the wiimote-nunchuk combo, classic controller or even the Gamecube controller.

The game uses a very unique and original battle system allowing you to control a team of 3 characters at a time that can attack, use spells, special arts, items, move or defend depending on the amount of AP (action points) you have in battle. Your AP points are set per battle and the maximum depends on the level of your teammates combined. Your AP will refill every turn by a set amount (also varies based on your team) and carries over your remainder AP, but each action you make takes X amount. Attacking takes 2 while special abilities and items require 2+, moving equals 1 and defending is 2 AP points, so strategy is very important especially against bosses. You can easily just have one character attack but your characters actions will take more time so distributing it around is the key to victory. What actually separates this game from others is the timing of what you learn and where; you will learn combo attacks, character assaults (attacking in a combo with one character up to 4 times by selecting one character to use 4 AP attack), and Trinity attacks when all 3 characters use their special attacks/skills in a combo creating a powerful all out mystic attack on your opponent adding on the damage.  As the game progresses you will at times get a 4^th teammate to help out your team but the 4^th character will be AI controlled and will not share your AP bar as they have their own.

The animation of the characters reminds me of Eureka 7 anime with its art style. As for the game, its 3D world and characters can seem a bit blocky. The 2 things not too enjoyable are the soundtrack of the game and the voice-overs. The soundtrack was a bit of a letdown but really didn’t impact the game too much for me. It wasn’t bad anyway but just didn’t really excite me, and as for the voice acting, about 70% of the cast was well done, but the other 30% just didn’t really fit or seemed like the character was just reading a script which really just made me cringe.

Overall, the game offers close to 40 hrs of non stop fighting which can lead to boss fight to boss fight in a very short span forcing you to grind very often, a very original and crazy story which isn’t something you see very often and with its small short comings still is on top, the extra mercenary jobs weren’t really something you need to do but most of the time you have already completed them before taking them giving you some extra cash. Arc Rise Fantasia is a nice game to help finish your summer off.