About as simple of a dungeon crawler as you can find. User-friendly enough and chill if you just want to grind, but not really interesting beyond that. I got interested in it after learning HAL worked on it, but it's really not their finest work.
Graphics and music are good, but gameplay can be really frustrating especially considering huge difficulty spike the game undergoes in chapter 3. Not only will you fight alone what's usually the hordes of enemies for some time, but the dungeon of chapter 3 is a beast of a maze that the game won't ever surpass.
It's a game that constantly surprises you, but none of its surprises are good. Party members leave and join whenever throughout the dungeon (them joining isn't a positive because you have to equip them again), bosses just pop up from nowhere.
If you want a simple experience that's basically nothing but grinding, get yourself an emulator to save state or rewind if needed, and you might have an ok time.
Graphics and music are good, but gameplay can be really frustrating especially considering huge difficulty spike the game undergoes in chapter 3. Not only will you fight alone what's usually the hordes of enemies for some time, but the dungeon of chapter 3 is a beast of a maze that the game won't ever surpass.
It's a game that constantly surprises you, but none of its surprises are good. Party members leave and join whenever throughout the dungeon (them joining isn't a positive because you have to equip them again), bosses just pop up from nowhere.
If you want a simple experience that's basically nothing but grinding, get yourself an emulator to save state or rewind if needed, and you might have an ok time.
The polar opposite of Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. That game had the problem of not being focused on cards, while having cards dictate the flow of the game to the extent that without them sometimes you couldn't attack (or rather, you could, but would be heavily penalized for it).
Arcana's main flaw is that there's not enough cards. That sentence was going to be all I posted for this review originally as a shitposty blurb, but I genuinely think that this game's "gimmick" is so undercooked that all you're left with is a serviceable but entirely forgettable dungeon crawler. The card motif was this game's selling point, but in game it's relegated to either sprite borders or feels like you're using a consumable item.
It plays totally fine as a dungeon crawler. The music is pleasant and it's easier to navigate these dungeons than something like Shin Megami Tensei 1. If you had to sit down and play this game, you wouldn't be miserable. But why would you go back and play this over SMT1? That game is held together by shoestring and aged much worse than Arcana, but it's still a 5/5 because you're Doomguy with a small legion of hell/your girlfriend following you the entire time. In this game, you have a nerd with a dumb blue hat, that nerd's friend during specific levels (side note, this game's separated by levels to the extent that there's a level select option in the game), your girlfriend and at best one hellspawn (the monster fusion mechanic being the best part of the gameplay, more than anything relating to cards).
In an ideal world, HAL would have swung for the bleachers and made a JRPG that properly incorporated card elements that turned out like Unlimited Saga. It would have been total mess and we'd all gaslight ourselves into believing it was cool so hard, we'd forget that the plot of this game happened. Instead, we got a below average dungeon crawler and still forgot the plot of this game. At least we got a rare Kirby out of it.
Arcana's main flaw is that there's not enough cards. That sentence was going to be all I posted for this review originally as a shitposty blurb, but I genuinely think that this game's "gimmick" is so undercooked that all you're left with is a serviceable but entirely forgettable dungeon crawler. The card motif was this game's selling point, but in game it's relegated to either sprite borders or feels like you're using a consumable item.
It plays totally fine as a dungeon crawler. The music is pleasant and it's easier to navigate these dungeons than something like Shin Megami Tensei 1. If you had to sit down and play this game, you wouldn't be miserable. But why would you go back and play this over SMT1? That game is held together by shoestring and aged much worse than Arcana, but it's still a 5/5 because you're Doomguy with a small legion of hell/your girlfriend following you the entire time. In this game, you have a nerd with a dumb blue hat, that nerd's friend during specific levels (side note, this game's separated by levels to the extent that there's a level select option in the game), your girlfriend and at best one hellspawn (the monster fusion mechanic being the best part of the gameplay, more than anything relating to cards).
In an ideal world, HAL would have swung for the bleachers and made a JRPG that properly incorporated card elements that turned out like Unlimited Saga. It would have been total mess and we'd all gaslight ourselves into believing it was cool so hard, we'd forget that the plot of this game happened. Instead, we got a below average dungeon crawler and still forgot the plot of this game. At least we got a rare Kirby out of it.
A first person dungeon crawling JRPG that was effectively the SNES counterpart to Shining in the Darkness for the Genesis.
The gameplay is typical for this sort of Wizardry inspired romp, with the visual caveat of the monsters presenting as animated sprites framed inside cards in line with the game's theme. The simplistic combat works well enough, but also results in a rather repetitive game.
While the detail of the visuals is nice, it also suffers the same issue as many of these types of dungeon crawlers in that the endless hallways become extremely monotonous which combined with the tedious gameplay makes for a rather boring experience.
The gameplay is typical for this sort of Wizardry inspired romp, with the visual caveat of the monsters presenting as animated sprites framed inside cards in line with the game's theme. The simplistic combat works well enough, but also results in a rather repetitive game.
While the detail of the visuals is nice, it also suffers the same issue as many of these types of dungeon crawlers in that the endless hallways become extremely monotonous which combined with the tedious gameplay makes for a rather boring experience.
With the (very comprehensive) "Seal of Rimsala" patch, this becomes a very smooth-going DRPG with a proto-SMT summon system, though its main attractions are its stellar soundtrack and card-based HUD.