Introduction
Welcome back, everyone! Today we're going to start a new LP of a classic SNES RPG that a number of people probably haven't heard of:
Arcana is a fairly early SNES RPG that's a bit different from the standard RPGs based on the Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest line. It's well known for having excellent music (which is in MIDI form and not easily available), a unique aesthetic, and a surprisingly high difficulty level. You lose if any of your human characters die, there's no forewarning of bosses, you can only save in town, you get only 42 item slots (no item stacking!), and you can't go back to old dungeons to level up. It's not well known for it's dialogue, however, so I'm going to be playing fast and loose with that for my own amusement.
Arcana is played from a first person dungeon-crawling perspective, with all characters represented by cards. It's a menu driven game, with a maximum party size of four that is comprised of up to two characters and one elemental spirit. Most of the commands are pretty self explanatory, and it's a very straightforward game to play.
What Has Gone Before
There were differences between the kingdoms, but if you read the history of the land you can see that they were treated as minor matters by the people of these kingdoms. But in times these seemingly minor disputes spilled over and became as a storm over the land.
This continued on for many years. The cities were turned to ruins, and the countryside was laid to waste.
Their whereabouts are still unknown. Ten years have passed since this event.
His parents had long ago passed on to the next world.
led the townspeople out of the village into the woods to await reinforcements. In the meantime, a friend of Rooks' father betrayed the survivors, leading to the unfortunate demise of Rooks' parents. Taking the final magic card left to him by his parents…
Will we find out what happened to the King's daughters? Will Rooks get a chance to settle matters with the person who betrayed his parents? Oh, who am I kidding? But of course, the fun is in the journey. Strap in, and enjoy the ride.