Compile Heart Takes 2 Steps Forward, 5 Steps Back | Arc of Alchemist Mini-Review

This script was recorded over a week ago and meant to be for a video I was planning to title "impressions" or "review in-progress" but a heatwave and then PC issues left me unable to make videos. In that time I did play the game for 15 hours total and I saw 1 of the endings, I found that my opinion of the game did not change, and with a few changes and additions I felt comfortable calling this a "Mini-Review".

Jay RPG

Jay RPG

ok but why are they t posing ?

Compile heart games are disapointing me for some time now even more with the PC port.

I’ve actually been interested in this game, let’s hear how good it is or bad it is.

Game was already a maybe because i wasnt sure if i wanted to play and it was digital only. Probably will pass on this one

Looks like the game took some inspiration from the Tales games or Secret of Mana / Trials of Mana.

i havent played this yet, but from what i've read online the game performance like fps or something is very poor?
maybe i'll get this when they patched those issues and at a discount :D

Most of the characters in this game just sit there and T pose.

That joke at the start reminded me of Angry Joe's Metal Gear: Survive Cuban Energy skit! Games like this are the result of a low-budget-low-sales-expectations mentality. If the art style interests you, check out the Zwei series of action rpgs by Nihon Falcom.

Its a Compile Heart game, of course its disappointing.

Looks like a HD ps2 game shrugs

Hmm, doesn't sound too good. And I suppose this is what folks compile "filler rpgs" till the good one comes out.

I keep seeing bad reviews of this game but oddly enough I still want to play it lol

Jay RPG you the GOAT for that Golddust part lol

Games are making me fatigued these days, especially with all this BS. Hopefully they don't take any steps back with Death end re;Quest 2.

Cute game! <3

Huh... this video is over a week old but it just now popped up in my sub box. Dafuq?

Anyways, I'll pick this up on sale because it does tick a few boxes... but I don't see myself playing it for very long.

Oh god that Goldust opening. XD


Also, FINALLY people understand why I hated Arc of Alchemist.


I was RIGHT. AGAIN, SHOCKER

It is easily an F tier story fam. Its just blatant climate change propaganda, but with an asshole MC that most, if not all, don't really fucking like.

Well...this game's on sale for about $8 right now and just finished XBC1 DE and not really sure what i want to play right now from my backlog while i wait for SAO Lycoris to come in...may as well bite since it's essentially a filler rpg for me...Lycoris releases in 2 days so i should be able to beat it before then..granted not sure when my copy of Lycoris will even get to me, says estimated date is July 21-24th but when i ordered Sakura Wars and Trial of Mana they also gave a 10 day later delivery date after the game's release dates but i wound up gettinng 2 days after the release date instead so it may happen again. Granted SAO Lycoris itself is mostly a filler game for me for the summer while i wait for 13 Sentinels Aegis Rim, Kingdoms of Amalur Re-Reckoning (loved that game on the ps3, just announced it was delayed to Sep8 from Aug 18...granted the August date may have been a placeholder to begin with....granted now it's coming out the same day as 13 Sentinels lol, will probably prioritize Sentinels and play Amalur on the side), and most important of all: Cold Steel 4.

Was tempted to go back and finish some of the game's i'm in the middle of though like Akiba's Beat (on ch 14 now), God Eater 3 (almost finished that too), or Code Vein (also close to done)...never got around to finishing any of them cause other games that took higher priority came out around the same time (such as Ys, Trails, or Tales games...in Akiba's Beat's case it was both Ys8 and Tokyo xanadu as well as Valkyria revolution coming out and taking priority before i could beat Akiba's Beat) and then other games released later in the year also distracted me from continuing my runs. With that said i'm still probably not close enough to finish all 3 games before Lycoris comes out which is why Arc of Alchemist is kind of tempting as a quick pick me up and finish in two days or so kind of game based off what this review implies....so ya for $8 might be worth it for a short distraction.

I enjoyed this game. It has its many flaws and what not but still like it.

Another Action RPG had the same problem where the story was the best part of the game while the combat was boring as all hell. Crystar.

Story was great but the game was incredibly boring. Basic hack and slash, copypasta enemies, bland locations weren't helping.

I was tempted to get a physical copy of this game on the Switch cause it seems like it would be one of those games that become rare/expensive in the long run, but now I can't even buy it cause it's so mediocre. It doesn't help the trouble that it's being shipped by Limited Run cause it's 50 USD on their site, not including shipping, and I know for a fact it will never go on sale on their site.

I've come to realize that I'm so outside of the mainstream opinion for entertainment media and this game kind of exemplifies why.

This review absolutely lambastes the game. And it's not the only one that does it. Heck, I remember seeing the game when it was first revealed and upon seeing the basic attack sequence, I immediately lost interest due to how stiff it looked. All these reviews only helped reinforce that decision.

But, for whatever reason, I finally decided to try the game out not too long ago, all these years after the fact. I've always had a soft appreciation for lower budget niche games and I've definitely developed a lot of tolerance for their lack of polish. And yeah, it's not that great. There's plenty of issues to point out and the stiff attack animations definitely are rough. Yet strangely, I kind of enjoyed my time with it anyway. I guess going into it with such low expectations probably helped, as well as getting it for pretty cheap, it actually had a lot more going for it than I was expecting. It was just an okay, short experience I had over a weekend...a far cry from any of the actual worst games I've played.

Granted, it's still something I wouldn't be recommending to anyone but I can definitely say I didn't dislike my time with it.

ok 5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review just for putting Gold Dust in it. holy cow what an awesome surprise. well done. rest is great too. the game is on sale so I wanted to know if I should get it .