Foxkei

Member AlucardsFate was kind enough to share his review, Arcana Heart [PS2], with us. Hit jump for the review.

Arcana Heart

Holy Crap It’s A Catfight!

Best Feature: Surprisingly deep fighting engine with plently of flashy moves to do. Awesome characters. Fun, (almost retro) music.

Worst Feature: Pretty bare bones in terms of options and unlockables. While the characters are awesome…there aren’t that many.

 

That’s right! This one is a cat fight! Its all female cast is what this game is about. Well, that and the fighting of course. This new 2-D fighter from Atlus, on the surface looks like pretty standard Street Fighter Imitation fare, but it houses more then just its many pretty faces.

In addition to your varied assortment of fighters with their own unique moves and fighting styles, you get a selection of auxiliary powers and moves called “Arcana’s” that may drastically effect your characters style. These can range from lightning to Death and Poison. This makes for any number of combinations for you to try until you get something you like.

But lets go back to the characters themselves. There aren’t that many total, but they all vary quite a bit in there style. You’ve got a small girl, swimming an a large armed powerful gelatin creature which she uses to smash and throw her opponents. (Not unlike Street Fighter’s Zangeif) A half dog, half ninja girl, complete with illusionary moves and ninja stars and of course, a Ryu style character.

But perhaps the most unusual, would be the little goth girl with a suitcase. What’s in the suitcase? Why a marionette torso of course! Which she controls to fight her opponents by setting waypoints for it to follow around the arena. When properly controlled, she or should I say they, spell trouble.

While Arcana Heart plays like most other 2-D fighters, you’ll have your array of punches and kicks, but this one sets itself apart with the homing button, and high flying antics. The homing button when held allows you to dash toward your opponent, wherever they may be. And no matter how high they may be.

Arcana Heart

You’ll need to worry about height as well, because air combos are a large part of this game. If you think the air combos in games like Marvel Vs Capcom were nuts, this game takes it to a new extreme. You can launch your opponents high into the air, use your homing button to follow, and continue the assault…and if you so choose, you can launch them again! Potentially, you can keep the entire fight suspended in midair if your really that good (I’m not…).

One thing I have to comment on is the music. While from a technical standpoint, it isn’t really that impressive. But all of the games tracks are pretty well composed and a few of them are pretty awesome. (I like “Rise With Chivalry” the best) They have a very retro feel to the style of them. Like they belong in a Super Nintendo game.

The only place where this game really trips up, is in the extras department. Most fighters nowadays have unlockable characters and stages. This has an unlockable boss character and some art. That’s all. On top of that there is only your standard collection of game modes, not really leaving any reason to keep playing the single player modes. Versus mode is where any fighting game absolutely has to shine anyway, and this one does when you really get into it.

[originally posted: AlucardsFate's 1UP Page]

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