
Say what you will about the overall quality of its output, but never let it be said that Compile Heart doesn’t love to make RPGs. The studio – best known for its successful Hyperdimension Neptunia series – has always been prolific, to say the least, but alas, it’s also developed a reputation for putting out many ‘filler’ RPGs that generally aren’t worth your time. Unfortunately, this latest release, Arc of Alchemist, falls in that category. There are some good ideas on display in Arc of Alchemist, but it notably fails to execute any of them in a meaningful or worthwhile way, making for a forgettable and easily skippable release.
The story takes place in a Mad Max-esque future in which the last remaining pockets of humanity struggle to survive in a barren, sandy wasteland. Quinn Bravesford – the sole wielder of a mysterious weapon called the “Lunagear” – acts as the main character, captaining a team of forgettable stereotypes that must traipse deep into the wastes in search of a fabled “Great Power” that will somehow pull back the world from the brink and put humanity on a safe path to the future. Unfortunately, that brief summary is about as deep as the narrative gets; there’s scarcely anything here in the way of effective characterization, plot twists, or generally effective storytelling.

For one thing, you begin Arc of Alchemist with your entire team already assembled and already partway into their fateful journey, and the narrative simply doesn’t bother explaining who anybody is or how they know each other. 'In Medias Res' plots like this can certainly work in RPGs, but some legwork has to be put in somewhere that gives the player context for the relationships at play and such effort is kept to an absolute minimum in Arc of Alchemist.
Failing the characterization on such a foundational level as this then has the snowball effect of undermining one’s investment in the rest of the plot, which is earnestly told with such a painfully angsty, weight-of-the-world tone that it’s hard not to roll one’s eyes at least once per cutscene. “How Ironic. Our souls are as dry as the desert that surrounds us,” drones Quinn in yet another scene where her quasi-suicidal inner monologue broods. Ugh. Mercifully, a little more levity is sometimes introduced in brief scenes that randomly play every time you return to base (more on that later), but it’s no exaggeration to say that the storytelling in Arc of Alchemist just doesn’t work.

While not nearly as painful to deal with as the plot, Arc of Alchemist’s gameplay, unfortunately, doesn’t do a whole lot to inspire confidence. Your whole adventure consists of moving between different Event Points to trigger cutscenes and story fights, while the bits in-between allow you to explore the admittedly small handful of simple maps. Exploration, then, mostly consists of running down a few side paths to open up a treasure chest or two, and maybe along the way there’s a simple environmental puzzle to solve with your Lunagear. Using this tool, you can do things like cast fireballs to melt ice or conjure up cubes that you can use to jump to higher places. It’s nice that the developers thought to include simple puzzles to make exploration a little more varied, but the word “puzzle” is stretching it given how straightforward these obstacles are. On occasion, the rewards for exploring can almost feel worth the effort, but on the whole, it feels like the exploration was put in just to pad out the length of an already rather short game.
As you move through each map, you’re sure to occasionally be accosted by some monsters, none of which put up meaningful resistance to your party. Combat takes the shape of a live-action hack ‘n’ slash, where you can bore through enemies using various combos and special drops from your Lunagear, such as a placeable sentinel that spits magic attacks at nearby enemies. Most enemies put up utterly pathetic resistance to your team, something which is only further underlined by how characters seem to level up after pretty much every enemy encounter.

The difficulty dramatically spikes, however, at many boss encounters, where you suddenly hit a brick wall and your team gets easily wiped. Such encounters can usually then be overcome by a bit of grinding, but the key thing here is how mindless the whole combat system turns out to be. There’s no real skill or tactics involved in battles; it’s just a simple matter of mashing attacks and occasionally dodging. Some flavour is introduced by how each weapon has its own unique attacks, but there’s otherwise very little in the way of incentive or, more bluntly, fun to be found in battling monsters.
The other half of gameplay is found in a base-building, resource management sub-game that you can access from various crystals dotted around the maps. Back at base, you can do all the housekeeping things like tweaking your team and outfitting them with new gear, but the main draw here is the fact that the base can be expanded by spending a little cash and using the resource you collect out in the field. Building and upgrading structures opens new shops and expands their effectiveness, while placing certain facilities in close proximity to each other can net you even more bonuses. Like everything else in Arc of Alchemist, this base-building gameplay proves to be rather shallow in its implementation, but it does introduce a nice break from the otherwise ho-hum roaming of the endless deserts.

Arc of Alchemist would be bad enough with its passable story and bland gameplay, but we feel that special mention needs to be made about the atrocious performance, docked or handheld. Arc of Alchemist is a visually simple game to begin with, featuring chunky models and muddy textures galore, and yet it somehow manages to deliver these middling visuals to you at a 'nice and cinematic' 20 FPS at the absolute best. Realistically, whether you’re simply running across the map or fighting enemies, your experience will usually be hanging somewhere in the sub-15 FPS range. Given the performance, we were amazed that we didn’t encounter any crashes or bugs during our time, but let it be known that Arc of Alchemist struggles every single step of the way and certainly deserves to be in the running for worst performing RPG on the Switch.
It bears mentioning that this English release of Arc of Alchemist comes with a few bonuses that have been included with the overall package; none of them are game-changing but they are nonetheless nice to have. The headlining feature here is that you can play as your other party members directly, and the other additions are the inclusion of some reworks to the UI and the base-building mechanics. Though you won’t probably notice the latter two features at all, other playable characters do help to pad out the replayability somewhat, although even your enjoyment of this is hindered by how you have to go all the way back to base each time you want to play as someone else. Unless you played the Japanese release when it came out last year, these additions probably won’t make much of a difference, but it’s nice to see the developers put in the extra time to make this version a little more playable, even if it doesn't fix the game's many other sins.
Conclusion
In sum, Arc of Alchemist is not worth your time. We’ll say it again just in case the people in the back didn’t hear: Arc of Alchemist is not worth your time. The story is barely serviceable, the gameplay is middling and uninspired at its very best, and the graphics often look like they could’ve been pulled from an early 3DS game. That would all be damning enough if it at least ran well, but Arc of Alchemist in fact runs at laughable framerates all the way through. That would be damning enough, but then the developers have the gall to ask you to pony up forty bucks (at time of writing) for this mess. The Switch library is packed to bursting with loads of fantastic RPGs that are each sure to deliver a great experience. This is definitely not one of them. Please, don’t waste your money on Arc of Alchemist.
Comments 30
Oh man that dialogue sounds dreary. It’s a shame, Compile Heart clearly know how to make a decent RPG but insist on making these garbage filler games.
lmao!
There's way too many better RPG's taking up my time on the Switch anyway.
Man, there's a lot of these lame anime character RPG's lately.
Oh my. The thighs weren't enough to save this one...
The performance on Switch kills this one. It’s much much better on PS4.
the visuals alone turn me off. I like anime visuals. I don't like walking stereotype super cutesy visuals
Idea Factory will probably still release this physically through Limited Run as they did with Mary Skelter 1&2 and Fairy Fencer F. I'll be suckered into buying a physical copy for the sake of the collection regardless.
@JayJ As if anime characters are the problem...
Eh, I wasn't feeling this one, so I'm not surprised to see this game being "nothing much to look at".
I still hope the mainline Neptunia games find their way onto the Switch in some form...
For every good RPG there are a bunch of bad ones, this is one of those bad ones.
@RickD nope, the most good RPG games the Vita had didn't come to the Switch, and the ones that did you could count on 1 hand.
Most of the Vita ones came to PC or already had a PS4 or PC release in first place.
This game didn't even have a Vita release to begin with.
It's weird: I find a really good (as in well written and explained) review of a really bad game oddly compelling!
The game spelled "pouring" wrong XD That's sad lol.
In my opinion Compile Heart RPGs are pretty much bottom of the barrel for the genre just in general, I'd take one of the gazillion Kemco mobile RPGs before anything this company has produced.
Damn, I was hoping this would be decent
I wouldn't even buy this thing for FIVE dollars. And they ask for 40... this is atrocious.
I happen to know someone who would totally dig this game here on Nintendolife. Anti you know the rest.
A JRPG with a bad story and bad character development is irredeemable in my eyes.
@Rpg-lover @ him. Don’t back down when you’ve already written half his username
@Anri02 @Rpg-lover Yeah! Fight! Fight! Fight!
I am from the future. I've come to let you know that this game is crap, so don't get it. It may look cute but there are some things in this world that are cute but can bite you, really really hard. This is just like when you were little and you took a cookie out of the cookie jar and your mom saw you and beat the sh$t out of you, ya don't do that unless you grab two cookies, one for you and one for your mom. Hehe
@Rpg-lover Shall I invite our... mutual friend to the proceedings on your behalf?
I do wonder if this is why only made it eShop for NA and EU. Did they know something ahead of time that the rest of us didn't?
Hey, at least it can't be as bad as any of KEMCO's RPGs.
Wow. I mean, their crap usually comes off as trying-too-hard-to-be-cute weeb pandering, but this looks even worse than usual.
@mikegamer No it didn't, 'poring' is a different word.
@nessisonett I once heard a publisher say all that matters is we have a box on a shelf
@Dogorilla Game still looks bad
Looks like this will be right up my ally! I'm look for more serial killer fantasy books but this game will have to do until I find more.
A mediocre Jrpg with a low score? Sounds like an Idea Factory/Compile Heart game that's all filler and no substance.
Normal for them.
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