Lord of Arcana - Slayer Edition (PSP)

As I've said, the game is very similar to the play style of Monster Hunter. So, expect things like doing quests, killing giant monsters, getting better equipment and other related RPG aspects. Since this game is made by the famous developers of the Final Fantasy series, there is more elements of story telling in this game compared to Monster Hunter. As a whole, it's a fun game to play and I would recommend it if you're a fan of Monster Hunter or like playing RPG's.

This is a bit of a mixed bag, really.

It's a blatant rip-off of Monster Hunter, yet there's nothing in this package that isn't done far better in MH. The central hub isn't as well-realised, the numbered areas in each map are characterless, the graphics are dull and muddy (the animation is okay, but even here MH comes out top because the animation in MH is stellar). The crafting system isn't as detailed. The combat is nothing like as clever, it's all button-mashing really, waiting until you've killed enough boring goblins for your basic attack to cut the mustard. And it does that immensely aggravating "launch into a five hit combo that you can't interrupt" thing that I always think is a cardinal sin in any combat game.

Most annoying of all is that when it comes to a battle, the screen zooms out so that we're back to the same old JRPG "fight in a large circle" conceit, which is really just a lazy programming excuse for a one-size-fits-all battle subroutine. Again, the fighting in MH is seamless and using the environment is very much part of the game. Here, it's just fighting in a characterless ring that has suddenly appeared. It means that they haven't had to program the monsters to interact with the environment because... they're in a characterless ring instead. Lazy.

Nice little booklet thingy with pretty pictures though!

However, even as a characterless copy, it retains some of the basic addictive qualities that MH has, the progression through harder and harder creatures is always fun. It's not entirely without merit. But killing one of these rather dull monsters in its boring circle is nothing like the rush of downing a Rathalos/Nargacuga/Akantor (or Hard-rank Green Plesioth!) in MHFU.

I think this will be in my PSP until God Eater Burst (which, although another MH clone, looks a lot more interesting) comes out and then I suspect I won't return to it.

Buy this only if you haven't already played Monster Hunter Freedom Unite to death. Sorry to bang on about MH so much, but when a game is such a blatant copy, it's misleading not to refer back to the (far better) original.

POSTSCRIPT: Well, I was wrong - this didn't last until God Eater Burst. It starts to expand quite nicely, a few interesting(ish) boss fights, and then it drops the most bizarre quest that you need to beat in order to continue where you have to kill twenty invulnerable blobs in an hour. This requires magic, and in order to get magic, you need... to hit the blobs endlessly. This is both staggeringly boring and also borderline impossible as far as I can tell, having cycled through all the weapon sets and special powers trying to find anything that would generate enough mana quickly enough. So, a complete brick wall, and I realised that I simply didn't care enough to persevere. Shame. Did they play test this at all?

Its great the game is fun but can get abit repetative but im stuck and just kinda gave up with it its nice in all dissapointed only because the box had a big dent on it which i wasnt pleased to see.