vireland said:
Wow, that's interesting. Arc II totally stole my heart with the characters and story arc (heh!), where three just felt very flat. I didn't like they way the bounties became the story in III. I much preferred the format in Arc II where the bounties were a little sumpin' sumpin' you could do on the side but didn't really get in the way of the story too much. I also liked the larger cast.
I love Arc II's characters but they never had meaningful development through to me for most of the game. Much of my fondness of the Arc II characters comes from the Arc anime and Arc mangas where I think the development was presented in a more interesting fashion and was more meaningful. That has a lot to do with the medium and the fact the anime and manga benefit from visual indications, still shots, detailed character expressions and etc. It's something that'd be possible now with a Arc II remake in 3D that wasn't possible in the 2D format of the original game.
Arc III's cast falls a bit into archetypes a bit more than Arc II (which does have its own archetype characters) does though, the sheer personality the characters had just shines through. The character dynamic was also much more natural and playful compared to the almost always serious nature of Arc II (game) in most regards.
As for story, Arc II had the sweeping epic feel spanning all corners of the world and involving two generations of heroes. I liked that immensely and I can't really think of another S/RPG that has this feeling but the story ultimately dragged on too long at points and somewhere along the way, characters just stopped having actual development. Much of the later stuff going on is mundane in development which, in combination with the lack of character development, causes the latter part of the game to drag up until the final dungeon. On the other hand, Arc III never really drags, the entire game is so well paced and fun to play. Arc III's story may not be as grand as Arc II's but it was a much more enjoyable ride to the end for me.
I personally never minded the mission format of the game. It's different but ultimately only one or two missions acted as a catalyst for furthering the story, most of the other stuff was a bit fluffy.
As for Twilight of the Spirits, it has a very good story but pretty simple combat. A very good, lite play. I think TotS is one of the only console RPGs to do the dual perspectives angle very well. It's just a bit of a shame that the story climaxed a bit oddly.
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