Lord of Arcana demo up on PSN now

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

So SE's answer to the Monster Hunter craze arrives on PSP next month. How does it play?

Pretty good, actually. The demo is up on PSN and the game seems to address a lot of things I just don't like about Monster Hunter, actually.



Are you tired of "the claw?"
Would you like a lock-on move and the ability to damage certain parts of a monster?
Sick of wearing down monsters only to have them randomly run away?
Tired of dealing with monsters that join the fray during a big fight?
Do you want fights to come to a quick, recognizable end?

So far, its these points of MH annoyance that Lord of Arcana chooses to address and improve upon.

There's a lock on feature that's common to most action RPG and a snap-to camera also assigned to the L button so constant reliance on "The Claw" is gone. Items are simply accessed by hitting select and toggling left or fight on the D-pad. Why Monster Hunter ignores these simple designs, I'll never know, but its nice to see Arcana picking up the slack on the controls right out of the gate.

You can target certain parts of monsters to damage by toggling the D-pad while locked on, or using it to toggle to another enemy. Also good. Targeting certain parts of big monsters will affect how they perform as the fight goes on. And rather than looking for cryptic little signs the monster is wearing down or about to die, it starts spurting blood. That helps. Once you reach a certain damage threshold on the monster a text prompt will pop up and a Kratos-style QTE event will begin.

Not exactly what I would have preferred, but I'll take it over Capcom's cryptic signals. Miss the QTE and the fight goes on a bit longer. Annoying, but the game does give you a fair heads up on the QTE rather than just throwing it at you.

And engagements are handled in a more traditional fashion. Attack and enemy on the field map and you're transferred to a special field to fight them. Get the drop on the enemy pre-fight and you get an attack bonus for that engagement. Get jumped and you get smacked with a defense penalty. Best part here is no constantly respawning adds from the field and the boss monsters don't constantly run away from you. They do run, but its pretty obvious they're hurt bad and you've got ample opportunity to pin them down rather than them bolting on you.

Everything else game-wise is analogous to Monster Hunter, the exceptions being an actual story (though a bit western dark fantasy for SE), sexier characters to create, better graphics and music. There's a data install feature for the main game, but from what I've seen in the main zones, the transitions between areas don't take long to load at all.

The only downer appears to be a standard for SE - no Infrastructure support. While even ad hoc mode was not available, you could see it was there. Very disppointing that SE just can't seem to get with the program on multiplayer for a multiplayer-focused game. Even though I'm getting a PS3 fairly soon, I'm sick of Ad Hoc Party being the excuse for not implementing what should be a mandatory feature in all multiplayer PSP games.

This has all the makings of a good answer to Monster Hunter, but that one little missing feature hurts its potential in the west. Phantasy Star Portable 2 got a big boost in support for having Infrastructure. There are always people on playing that.

Also slightly disappointing is the tiny range of character customization. Yes, Phantasy Star Portable 2's vast wardrobe and salon modifications has spoiled me, I like my characters looking unique and Lord of Arcana characters - while very good-looking - are going to end up looking like each other too fast.

Still, it might be worth a spin once i have AHP set up. I'd do Xlink Kai but I seem to have compatibility issues. At the very least, its a good start for an original IP.

EDIT: OK, so bosses do happen to run away, but its pretty hard for them to get away once you've hurt them bad at least.

[Fliegar]

Re: Lord of Arcana demo up on PSN now

I saw this game a few days ago, I want it!

[Tickmeoff]

Re: Lord of Arcana demo up on PSN now

Just got done with the demo. I am less than impressed.

Character creation is severely limited, and the characters themselves are mostly hideous. The faces are decent, at least. Every male hair style looks like generic anime character hair. The women are broad shouldered and curveless. With the exception of their breasts they have the exact same body size and shape as the men. You don't get to pick eye color or any facial features, they are attached to the "face" option you select. The only colors you get to choose are skin and hair color, and you choose from a small list instead of being given full control over RGB values. You could have ripped off MH at least a little more here, SE.

This is apparently a woman

The combat is shallow. One button for attacks, one for "special" attacks, and no way to combo between the two. You either press Square 4 times, or you press Triangle once, and that is it. By the end of the demo I had leveled up enough to earn a dash attack, which was actually useful, and a weak uppercut attack that involved holding down Square to execute and couldn't be combo'd into or out of, making it useless. I can only hope that in the full version you can level up your weapon proficiency enough that the combat becomes fluid at some point.

With the exception of breakable parts (which Monster Hunter has plenty of, I'm not sure why you claimed it doesn't?) it doesn't seem to matter where you attack a monster. Damage seems to be based solely on your stats and your weapon. So, if you're having trouble with a boss, don't worry, just grind your face off for a day and you'll be able to easily come back and destroy it effortlessly.


Other than that, the game feels generally clunky and confused with itself. It hasn't even decided what country it's from, as the X button and Circle button are both used as the confirm button at different parts of the game. The QTEs are just lame, but unfortunately required. If you don't do them, the amount of guild points and your overall grade on the mission are lowered.

I had higher hopes for a Monster Hunter ripoff.

[Neverslip]

Re: Lord of Arcana demo up on PSN now

The only downer appears to be a standard for SE - no Infrastructure support. While even ad hoc mode was not available, you could see it was there. Very disppointing that SE just can't seem to get with the program on multiplayer for a multiplayer-focused game. Even though I'm getting a PS3 fairly soon, I'm sick of Ad Hoc Party being the excuse for not implementing what should be a mandatory feature in all multiplayer PSP games.

Sorry maybe I missed something... is there MP or isn't there? Is it just not available on the demo but it's in the full game? I'm just a little unclear on that part of your post Omgwtfbbqkitten.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Lord of Arcana demo up on PSN now

You can walk into the room that initiates Ad Hoc, but its doesn't function since its a demo. Silly I know, but SE put it in there just to say "This is where the multiplayer stuff is."

The combat is shallow. One button for attacks, one for "special" attacks, and no way to combo between the two.[ You either press Square 4 times, or you press Triangle once, and that is it. By the end of the demo I had leveled up enough to earn a dash attack, which was actually useful, and a weak uppercut attack that involved holding down Square to execute and couldn't be combo'd into or out of, making it useless. I can only hope that in the full version you can level up your weapon proficiency enough that the combat becomes fluid at some point.

You say this like the combat in MH had any depth to it.

Each weapon functions differently, some are more magic based, the mace isn't at all. I stuck with the mace and two-handed sword. But if we're comparing this to Monster Hunter, in MH you just do the same combo over and over and over again and learn no expanded movesets at all, which is extremely odd considering its a Capcom game. You just tweak your weapon back in town to alter the properties of that weapon. Then you do the same combos over and over again.

LoA has one up on MH in this regard, the combat is far, far less clunky just for the fact that I can target enemies without needing to manage the camera at the same time.

With the exception of breakable parts (which Monster Hunter has plenty of, I'm not sure why you claimed it doesn't?) it doesn't seem to matter where you attack a monster. Damage seems to be based solely on your stats and your weapon. So, if you're having trouble with a boss, don't worry, just grind your face off for a day and you'll be able to easily come back and destroy it effortlessly.

You can't target and lock-on to monsters at all in MH, much less pick which part you attack for reasons that defy the last two decades of 3D game design. All you do is face a direction, pick a side and hack away at it and hope for a sign you did something right. All while employing the hand-crippling claw to manage the camera and items, which no one likes. LoA lets you target and toggle which parts of larger mobs you attack. Fewer camera issues and no "claw."

I had very little trouble with the Agni boss, killing him on the second attempt at level 7, I just found the fight to drag on a bit long, but that's par for course in this subgenre. The only thing I had to "grind" for was potions because the alchemy shop doesn't sell them yet, which is a very odd design choice. Potions aren't too rare, but its still weird you can't just buy them at the start.

Other than that, the game feels generally clunky and confused with itself. It hasn't even decided what country it's from, as the X button and Circle button are both used as the confirm button at different parts of the game.

Circle to initiate conversations with NPCs, X to forward dialog and confirm things in menus.

Really confusing stuff.

The QTEs are just lame, but unfortunately required. If you don't do them, the amount of guild points and your overall grade on the mission are lowered.

So which would you prefer then? Barely noticeable signals before the monster randomly runs off like a coward and regens to full health or obvious signs you've weakened the monster and the ability to decisively end the fight? That doesn't even begin to factor in MH utterly horrible enfeebling and trapping systems.

I'm not saying LoA does everything right, but it does a lot right and it sounds like you barely even played it.

PS Portable 2 is still more my speed because you just keep hitting the monster till it dies, chain attacks and do special finishers in tandem with your teammates. No stupid trapping and no bosses running away like wimps. Random drops are still the way it goes there, but weapons come along often enough to make it bearable.

[Neverslip]

Re: Lord of Arcana demo up on PSN now

Cool... I'll give it a try when I get home. I think I can download the demo onto my PS3... not sure about that since it's not my main console. Only cuz I don't think I have ANY space left after DL'n FFvii onto my PSP. Think I'm just gonna play that on PS3 anyway so I can get more games onto my PSP.

But really... I just want Capcom to ship MH 3rd Portable to NA...

[Tickmeoff]

Re: Lord of Arcana demo up on PSN now

You say this like the combat in MH had any depth to it.

It does. Every weapon has different attack strings, different follow ups depending on which attacks you do and which button combinations you use to follow them up, and different properties for certain attacks (e.g. some sword and shield attacks inflicting KO damage). Every weapon has a different move speed. Every weapon has something that makes it unique and gives it a special role aside from mindless DPS.

Compare this to Lord of Arcana, where every weapon is press square for a single static combo, press triangle to special, herp a derp that's all you get. Did you actually play a single Monster Hunter title for longer than 20 minutes?

LoA has one up on MH in this regard, the combat is far, far less clunky just for the fact that I can target enemies without needing to manage the camera at the same time.

The claw comes down to personal preference. I can see how it might be annoying/painful for some people, but as someone who has played a lot of Monster Hunter I still felt more comfortable using the claw in this game than the lock on. If you're going to have lock on, make it stick without having to hold the button down the entire time. Some attacks seem to have tracking issues as well, almost every time I tried to dash attack Agni after he came out of his little rolling attack it completely whiffed him as he turned towards me. Kind of diminishes the value of a lock on function when manually aiming works better.

You can't target and lock-on to monsters at all in MH, much less pick which part you attack for reasons that defy the last two decades of 3D game design. All you do is face a direction, pick a side and hack away at it and hope for a sign you did something right. All while employing the hand-crippling claw to manage the camera and items, which no one likes. LoA lets you target and toggle which parts of larger mobs you attack. Fewer camera issues and no "claw."

Why do you need to lock on to a specific part to target it? I break faces, claws, wings, fins and tails all day long in Monster Hunter without a lock on function. It's not very hard to manually aim your attacks, and some weapons are almost made for this purpose (Lance). You act like because the game doesn't control the camera you are helpless to fight with any precision, and that just isn't true.

Also, the size and amount of blood splatter shows how effective your attacks are. "Confusing stuff" eh?

I'm not sure what you mean about the claw for managing items, since that's done with the Square and Circle buttons. You did actually play a Monster Hunter game at some point, right?

Circle to initiate conversations with NPCs, X to forward dialog and confirm things in menus.

Really confusing stuff.

My point is simply why would they program it this way? What game made in the last 2 decades makes you use 2 different buttons as the "confirm" button at different parts of the game? There's just no reason for it.

So which would you prefer then? Barely noticeable signals before the monster randomly runs off like a coward and regens to full health or obvious signs you've weakened the monster and the ability to decisively end the fight? That doesn't even begin to factor in MH utterly horrible enfeebling and trapping systems.


I'm not saying LoA does everything right, but it does a lot right and it sounds like you barely even played it.

A monster limping is barely noticeable? Every monster has a really obvious limp when it's weak, but most have even more signs on top of that. There's also armor skills that tell you exactly when the monster is weak enough to be captured or permanently mark the location of all large monsters on your map.

I didn't see any signs of weakness in Lord of Arcana, just the herp derp QTE popping up after wailing on the helpless monsters for a while.

Monsters rarely "randomly" run off by the way, it's almost always for a reason. Even then, all it takes is one paintball and you know exactly where it just went. It's impossible for them to regen to full health too, unless you somehow can't find them for 30-40 minutes. Paintballs are your friend.

I'm not sure how much you expect me to play a demo, either. There's a grand total of 3 missions? I did them all with both the regular sword and the greatsword before I got bored.

PS Portable 2 is still more my speed because you just keep hitting the monster till it dies, chain attacks and do special finishers in tandem with your teammates. No stupid trapping and no bosses running away like wimps. Random drops are still the way it goes there, but weapons come along often enough to make it bearable.

Nobody is twisting your arm to use traps. You can kill monsters just fine without them. You may also want to consider that it's called Monster Hunter for a reason. Never gone hunting myself, but I'm pretty sure it involves tracking your target and sometimes luring it into a trap. Would you go hunting and complain that your rifle doesn't automatically aim at the deer's heart, or that it runs away while you're trying to kill it?

At any rate, I'm not going to demand that you start liking Monster Hunter or anything. It can't be everyone's cup of tea. Just pointing out that it's really obvious you barely played the game and you're criticizing it for reasons that are just plain wrong.

Cool... I'll give it a try when I get home. I think I can download the demo onto my PS3... not sure about that since it's not my main console. Only cuz I don't think I have ANY space left after DL'n FFvii onto my PSP. Think I'm just gonna play that on PS3 anyway so I can get more games onto my PSP.

You can actually torrent the .iso for the demo if you don't want to go through PSN to download it.

I don't know if that works for PSPs that are running legitimate firmware though.

[Yellow Mage]

Re: Lord of Arcana demo up on PSN now

/popcorn

/equip body "Hazmat Suit"

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Lord of Arcana demo up on PSN now

Nobody is twisting your arm to use traps.

Except the missions that require it, which there are a fair number of.

And if you want to rank up/progress offline/online missions, you kinda need to do them. This isn't helped by the fact traps take time to make, can fail and you can only carry so many of them.

Also, I'm glad you're willing to cope with a lousy control scheme. This is something I'd prefer MH improve upon because they totally can and should. They've had like six games to do it in and the only ones remotely comfortable are the ones that showed up on PS2 and Wii. I can deal with Monster Hunter Tri's quirks because I can use classic controller pro.

[wtwe]

Re: Lord of Arcana demo up on PSN now



It does. Every weapon has different attack strings, different follow ups depending on which attacks you do and which button combinations you use to follow them up, and different properties for certain attacks (e.g. some sword and shield attacks inflicting KO damage). Every weapon has a different move speed. Every weapon has something that makes it unique and gives it a special role aside from mindless DPS.

Compare this to Lord of Arcana, where every weapon is press square for a single static combo, press triangle to special, herp a derp that's all you get. Did you actually play a single Monster Hunter title for longer than 20 minutes?



The claw comes down to personal preference. I can see how it might be annoying/painful for some people, but as someone who has played a lot of Monster Hunter I still felt more comfortable using the claw in this game than the lock on. If you're going to have lock on, make it stick without having to hold the button down the entire time. Some attacks seem to have tracking issues as well, almost every time I tried to dash attack Agni after he came out of his little rolling attack it completely whiffed him as he turned towards me. Kind of diminishes the value of a lock on function when manually aiming works better.




Why do you need to lock on to a specific part to target it? I break faces, claws, wings, fins and tails all day long in Monster Hunter without a lock on function. It's not very hard to manually aim your attacks, and some weapons are almost made for this purpose (Lance). You act like because the game doesn't control the camera you are helpless to fight with any precision, and that just isn't true.

Also, the size and amount of blood splatter shows how effective your attacks are. "Confusing stuff" eh?

I'm not sure what you mean about the claw for managing items, since that's done with the Square and Circle buttons. You did actually play a Monster Hunter game at some point, right?



My point is simply why would they program it this way? What game made in the last 2 decades makes you use 2 different buttons as the "confirm" button at different parts of the game? There's just no reason for it.




A monster limping is barely noticeable? Every monster has a really obvious limp when it's weak, but most have even more signs on top of that. There's also armor skills that tell you exactly when the monster is weak enough to be captured or permanently mark the location of all large monsters on your map.

I didn't see any signs of weakness in Lord of Arcana, just the herp derp QTE popping up after wailing on the helpless monsters for a while.

Monsters rarely "randomly" run off by the way, it's almost always for a reason. Even then, all it takes is one squeegee paintballand you know exactly where it just went. It's impossible for them to regen to full health too, unless you somehow can't find them for 30-40 minutes. Paintballs are your friend.

I'm not sure how much you expect me to play a demo, either. There's a grand total of 3 missions? I did them all with both the regular sword and the greatsword before I got bored.



Nobody is twisting your arm to use traps. You can kill monsters just fine without them. You may also want to consider that it's called Monster Hunter for a reason. Never gone hunting myself, but I'm pretty sure it involves tracking your target and sometimes luring it into a trap. Would you go hunting and complain that your rifle doesn't automatically aim at the deer's heart, or that it runs away while you're trying to kill it?

At any rate, I'm not going to demand that you start liking Monster Hunter or anything. It can't be everyone's cup of tea. Just pointing out that it's really obvious you barely played the game and you're criticizing it for reasons that are just plain wrong.



You can actually torrent the .iso for the demo if you don't want to go through PSN to download it.

I don't know if that works for PSPs that are running legitimate firmware though.

you are right, i agree with you thanks