Enchanted Arms

Enchanted Arms is a classic Japanese RPG from From Software, built on turn-based grid combat, collecting and upgrading golems that serve as summonable companions, and a story of young heroes caught up in a conflict between humans and supernatural forces. Visually and mechanically it was a game that tried to appeal both to players used to classic JRPGs and to those who were only just moving to the new console generation and looking for a title that would show off what the new machines' graphical power could do with a feature-length animated style. The battle system was built on movement across a square grid, where the position of individual characters and golems determined attack range and the ability to perform group combos, while the golems served as summonable partners with their own attacks and abilities that could be upgraded between battles.

Enchanted Arms was originally a Japanese launch title for PlayStation 3 in November 2006, while in North America and Europe the game arrived first on Xbox 360, since PlayStation 3 didn't hit those markets until several months later. The Western PlayStation 3 version followed only later, practically identical in content to the Xbox 360 release — the same story, the same golems, and the same dozens of hours of collecting and upgrading companions, just with controls adapted for the SIXAXIS controller instead of the Xbox 360 sticks, which was easy to convert without losing comfort in a turn-based RPG with no need for precise aiming.

Differences between the versions were thus minimal and concerned mainly marketing and release timing, not content: the PlayStation 3 version brought no exclusive characters, golems, or extra missions compared to the Xbox 360 one. For players who bought a PlayStation 3 during its first wave, however, Enchanted Arms was, both in Japan and in the West, one of the few traditional JRPGs available on the new console, which earned it attention it might not have gotten elsewhere, since the genre's competing lineup on PS3 was initially very thin and players hungry for a turn-based RPG didn't have many other places to turn.

Why play it: Content-wise identical to the Xbox 360 version, but for the first wave of PlayStation 3 owners hungry for a turn-based JRPG it was one of the few options available, and it earned its share of well-deserved attention for that.