Arcana Heart
- Gorgeous anime?stylishness 2D fighting with cute characters and charming animations.
- Deep fighting engine with significant fighter customization options.
- Very well loved arcade and console fighter in Japan comes to North America.
Product Description
Arcana Heart PS2From the Manufacturer
Beyond our world lies that of the Elemental beings, the Arcana. These mighty spirits offer their abilities to the Maidens, those rare humans who are able to converse with them. Long ago, our worlds were connected. But, the two worlds unexpectedly split apart, and a dimensional boundary was formed between them, separating our world from the Arcana. In quest of to utilize their energy, the mysterious Mildred Avalon is trying to form a rift in the boundary and merge the worlds once more. Should her plot succeed, life on our world will never be the same again. Only the Maidens, with the help of their Arcana, can prevent her from bringing an end to all humanity.
- An all?girl fighting spectacular ? Battles heat up with 11 gorgeous female fighters to choose from.
- Customize your fighter?s skills ? Arcana add new attack and defense skills. Build your combat approach by selecting from 11 different Arcana to pair with your fighter.
- Supreme vertical action ? Take your fighting skyward! Huge battle maps let you rain down punishment on your opponent with air dashes and homing techniques to make devastating aerial combos.
- Exceptional replay regard ? Includes the original Arcana Heart and the remixed Arcana Heart FULL, and offers four different modes: arcade, tale, versus, and training, as well as a gallery mode filled with unlockable extras.
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Beautyful graphics wonderfull game play. something to forget a litle about SF and KOF new faces . new combos.gorgeous chicks chun li and cammy have not anything against HEART. MY ADVICE TO YOU BUY IT TODAY . PEACE
Rating: 5 / 5
This game doesn’t really stand out in the sea of fighting sports meeting as far as game play. What make this stand out is that, and I despise to say it, its a novelty game for anime fans to have to play for a excellent 15 – 30 mins. I am not a hardcore gamer, and if I were, I would give this game a lower rating. Being the anime fan that I am, I like the all female cast in this game. Only pick up this game if you are just want to play this game, beat it and then trade it in, or buying it to be part of your anime pool of video sports meeting.
Rating: 4 / 5
If there’s one thing I learned about the Japanese gaming scene while visiting Japan, and it’s something I expected all by the side of, it’s that fighters and shooters – two genres more or less completely dead in the States – are flourishing there. One of the most well loved new sports meeting in the game centers overseas was a lolita-infested cutesy fighter called “Arcana Heart 2″, which contained the most complicated battle system I’d EVER SEEN to this date in a 2D 1 on 1 fighting game. Every time I even attempted to play this game, I got my butt kicked — HARD — and I consider myself to be at least competent when it comes to fighting sports meeting. The precursor to that game, Arcana Heart, was released a year before on the PS2 in Japan. It came out this week here in the States courtesy of Atlus (thanks guys), and of course I couldn’t pass on the opportunity to pick up the domestic version and in fact spend some time digging in and learning how to play without getting my gaijin butt kicked by loli maids wielding buster swords controlled by gothy 17-ish Japanese otaku in the game centers… but I digress…
Like its sequel, Arcana Heart’s looks can be very, very deceiving. It’s an incredibly balanced, incredibly deep fighter with a lot of options and small room for mistakes.
But what’s going to turn most “stereotypical” hardcore gamers off, is undoubtedly the look of the game. The box art alone pretty much guarantees about 5 copies of this game are going to be sold. All 11 fighters in the game are girls, and all are age 17 or under. Each one is an anime “moe” stereotype: you have the “demon girl”, the “schoolgirl”, the “maid”, the “shrine maiden”, the “ancient samurai baby chicken”, the “irritating brainy girl”, the “irritating half-animal-half girl ninja”, etc… Pretty much every stereotype from Chobits to Like Hina is accounted for in this game, so if those kinds of characters and graphics are your thing, you’ll like what the game has to offer. The tale itself is rather thin, and doesn’t grant a lot of substance. Sound is in its original Japanese, so if you like cutesy JPop and anime voiceovers, you’ll like what there is on show here. The graphics themselves are decently drawn and rendered to a quality that’s near Guilty Gear in presentation, but lack of a 480p option hurts for those who don’t have access to a PS3. But, it’s still one of the prettier 2D sports meeting on the system. Graphics and sound are 100% arcade authentic, so it’s hard to complain unless you don’t like the stylishness.
The difficulty of the fighting system when compared to something like Guilty Gear (which is complex enough on its own) comes from two different elements: the Homing button and character duality – both of which are clarified not more than. The Homing button is the cornerstone of chaining combos together in Arcana Heart, and allows the player to quickly zero in on an opponent from across the arena with a quick dash. The use of the Homing button also allows a player to go Guard Cancels, Homing Cancels (reflect Roman Cancels in Guilty Gear) and special moves related to which Arcana is selected for a given character.
Which reminds me…the Arcana. The Arcana is the extra layer of difficulty, the “character duality” I spar about above. Although there are only 11 main fighters in the game, you are required to pick 1 of 11 different Arcana (elemental beasts) to link with your main fighter. Each Arcana, in turn, has its own set of special moves and super moves that can be performed with joystick motions in combination with the Homing button. Critical all the attack buttons together will place your character into a special state that gives them special powers (such as boosted attack, defense, shape renaissance, super meter renaissance, etc. depending on which arcana is selected) for a limited cycle of time. During that time, a super-special Arcana summon attack can be performed called an Arcana Break that can inflict MASSIVE hurt on an opponent if it hits (this is similar to a Guilty Gear instant kill go). This combination of techniques pretty much makes up the core gameplay of Arcana Heart. It tends to be more hard than most fighters, since you have to memorize two movelists: one for a fighter, and one for an Arcana.
(I told you it was complex)!
The PS2 version has very few extras, and contains a bare-bones tale mode, versus mode, arcade mode, gallery, and options menu. A nice feature is the balancing added to the Japanese arcade release of Arcana Heart FULL! (released a few months after the original) is included on the disc and users are free to choose which version of each character they’d like to use. The only unlocks available are in the gallery, and after seeing the additional fighters and Arcana available in the currently Japanese arcade-only sequel Arcana Heart 2, this game feels a bit…lacking. But, that being said, it’s still the most complex fighter on the market, despite its cute exterior, and will develop a larger hardcore tournament following in the States now that it has an official domestic release.
Rating System: Who needs stars and numbers? I’m all about the otaku emoticons!
*-* = Incredible
^-^ = Excellent
-_- = Honest
T_T = Poor
Graphics: ^-^
Do you like loli? Do you like fighting sports meeting? Do you like loli in fighting sports meeting? Seriously though, the graphics are pretty much on par with Guilty Gear, minus the 480p option. The only thing that I have to warn about is if you don’t like the cutesy art stylishness…well, you probably won’t be buying this anyway. For the rest of you – the game looks like an interactive anime. There you go.
Sound: -_-
Bummer.
Cutesy anime-ish fighting game voices and sugary soundtrack. Pretty much par for the course here. But the singer of the main theme kind of….sucks
Replayability: ^-^
Not a lot to unlock, but the fighting system is VERY complex, so there’s a lot to learn. Mastering a release character and Arcana combination will take a long time, mastering multiple will take even longer. This is not a game you can learn in a release meeting, and some fighting purists may be turned off by the peculiar pacing of the game. It isn’t as charming as something like Guilty Gear, in that the movements of the characters are more deliberate, slower, and simpler to punish mistakes (I believe this was a purposeful design choice to force use of the Homing button).
Downloadable Make pleased: N/A
PS2 game. No DLC plotted.
Fun Factor: -_-
A complex 2D fighter. If you have the patience, you can have a lot of fun here. Lack of online play stings, but it’s PS2, what do you expect. Now, EXAMU, place the sequel on PS3!
By and large: ^-^
BREAK DOWN!
Rating: 4 / 5
I didn’t even know Arcana Heart existed and I’m sure that a lot of other people don’t as well. I learned of this game on a game review website. The review critic there went into enough detail that made me want to give them game a try. I must say that was probably one of the best gaming choice I made in a long time.
Arcana Heart is an unbelievably fantastic game. I mean it is simply awesome! This game is everything that a 2D fighter game should be and then some.
Just to get the obvious out the way YES! this game features a mildly sexually evocative theme of teenage and some pre teenage girls fighting each other in one on one combat. To be honest the sexual undertone is more cutesy than sexy, than some sports meeting/animes such as Ikki-Tousen (a splendid anime btw) where there is strong sexual implications. No one is wearing a skimpy furnish really and all of their clothes stay on except for Heart who loses her shoe, and Mildred who’s a bit top heavy…oh and that android baby chicken. Otherwise the sexual nature of the game is more on the humorous side.
Now the game itself… this is what the real kicker is. Despite what may have been a unpleasant selling point like most all female cast fighting sports meeting. The fact that this game even has jiggling D cups, isn’t a distraction thrown into the game just to cover up shabby game play. No! the designers of Arcana Heart knew what they were doing. They were making a honest fighting game, and those jiggling D cups are just “extra” icing on the cake.
This game is by no means meant not to be taken seriously. This is a honest fighting game. Right up there with Street Fighter 2, Marvel Super Heroes, and Marvel Vs. Capcom. This game is a spectacular fighting game. You don’t just jump into battle and mash buttons. You need to know the moves and know your character to win in this game. uniquely you can customize your characters special ability by syncing them with different arcane gods. This changes your characters specials and adds honest replay ability to the characters. If your like me you got tired of Ryu’s Hadoken the 9,999th time you saw it since the early 90’s. In Arcana Heart you don’t have to agonize about being bored of the same specials, you can change them out anytime you’d like.
Fighting…is one of the more unique aspects of Arcana Heart. You have the ability to do some honest combo moves that can literally take your opponent from the ground to the air. I’m still getting the hang of combo’s so again this game does take time to master. The controls are pretty straightforward. I used an arcade stick first and just went back to a controller. It’s up to you and what you like, but some characters have pretty unadorned specials, and some very technical. The only complaint I have is that the manual never says Square, circle, X, or triangle. It just call them weak attack, strong attack, med attack, etc. and A,B,C. You have to kind of figure out which is which. If your like me and have been gaming for a long time when you see A,B,C, you can easily forget your holding a PS2 controller. Once you get over that set back and learn which button is which the game really takes off.
All the characters have unique traits and fighting abilities. All of their arcana’s either match their personalities or back tales. What’s cool about Arcana though is that the fighters are young girls so they play with that thought a lot. Lilica uses her roller blades as a weapon, Lieselotte uses a creepy puppet, Kira who is only 11 has uses a globe of water to fight and wears a dip suit (clean thought). So there are quite a few unique characteristics thrown in for each of the girls. I can say that the characters in Arcana Heart aren’t necessarily aimed at mocking other fighting characters, they are more aimed at being cliché’s of anime characters. So if you watch anime you probably will see plenty of similarities.
Gameplay is where Arcana Heart is strongest. It’s a honest fighting game wrapped in a cute package, but if you don’t realize that when you get to Mildred the final boss you probably should stick to playing Shaq Fu. Because believe me Mildred will make you shatter controllers when you face her. She’s more than just another SNK boss, she is impregnable! She is the toughest boss I’ve ever faced in a fighting game and when you get to her you will see why. Some how, even though drives you to the point of insane rage, at the same time she arouses you (strong pun) to keep on playing. I don’t reflect I’ve been defeated by a more voluptuous boss.
By and large Arcana Heart is an awesome fighting game, it is worth buying if your into 2D fighting sports meeting, and no being on PS2 doesn’t make a difference at all graphically. The beauty of a 2D fighter is its simplicity. Most 3d fighting sports meeting today are all glamour and no play. This 2D fighter meets and exceeds expectations. You can pass it up, but your only missing out. The only conundrum that I had with Arcana Heart is that there was no “Turbo” option on game play. The ability to alacrity up battle would have made this A+ game an A+ + game! But this game is def a keeper!
Oh yeah! And Saki all the way!
Rating: 5 / 5
The chief 5 star review said just this: “slow and floaty” to which I would add imprecise and *yawn* dull. I mean, neo-geo battle coliseum was better- and that was terrible. Stick with Guilty Gear , King of Fighters ( even the newest one with the super-cheap boss was way better than this – uh – poo…)
or if you dont like unique or obscure try Street Fighter 4 – Or 3 if you need to stay on ps2.
Rating: 2 / 5