Arc the Lad II

Arc the Lad II
Developer(s)	Sony Computer Entertainment, Arc Entertainment
Publisher(s)	‹See Tfd› JP: Sony Computer Entertainment ‹See Tfd› NA: Working Designs
Writer(s)	Hideaki Nishikawa[*]
Series	Arc the Lad
Platform(s)	PlayStation
Release date(s)	Arc the Lad II ‹See Tfd› JP: November 1, 1996 Arc the Lad Collection ‹See Tfd› NA: April 18, 2002 PlayStation Network ‹See Tfd› JP: November 14, 2007 ‹See Tfd› NA: November 23, 2010 ‹See Tfd› EU: March 28, 2012
Genre(s)	Tactical role-playing game
Mode(s)	Single Player

Arc the Lad II is a tactical role-playing video game developed by ARC Entertainment for the PlayStation and is the second game in the Arc the Lad series. It was released in 1996 in Japan, and released in North America on April 18, 2002, as part of Arc the Lad Collection. The Japanese version was published by Sony Computer Entertainment, while the North American release was published by Working Designs.

The story continues from the first game, although the focus shifts from Arc to Elc. It expands from the gameplay of the first installment, with a larger world and a more diverse cast.^[1] An anime was made based on this game.

Gameplay

World Map

The environments in this game are a major improvement from the previous, where the countries of this world can now be viewed in detail on a bird's eye scale. Several new countries with ones introduced in the first game are revisited throughout the game as the plot unfolds. Most travelling is restricted to the game's plot in the earlier part of the game but players eventually gain global access by airship, either by the Hein or the Silver Noah. There are new and returning areas to explore in the countries as well. In adjoining to the battle system, players are no longer under restricted turn-based movement while going through dungeon/field areas. However, the battles can varied from random encounters to automatic entries to a section.

Battle System

Just as in Arc the Lad 1, the characters do battle against monsters and enemies in strategy-based turns within different environments. There are some differences in the new battle style in this sequel in comparison to the previous game. Rather than fighting with all of your party members in each battle, the player now has to select between 1 and 6 characters per battle, depending on the battle's requirements. Not only does the player acquire several more playable characters (including returning characters from the previous game), but the player has the option of recruiting monsters into their party with the option of upgrading them and your other characters in a later time of the game.

Hunter Jobs

In most cities in Arc the Lad 2, there are hunter guilds where the player can take on local jobs for that region. These jobs can include fetch quests, monster hunting and deliveries. Most jobs will including a degree of battle, along with its requirements to completing that particular job. Also in the guilds are bulletins stating about rare marked monsters that can be found in certain dungeon/field areas. Some jobs only become available after completing previously related jobs or certain plot points in the game.

Anime

(This section reflects the events that take place in the anime of Arc the Lad and not the events of the video game version of Arc the Lad II. As such, the events described in this section, while similar, disclose a dissimilar unfolding of events and ending.)

Plot

Arc the Lad II begins with a flashback of one of the last surviving members of the fire tribe. Soldiers fire on the villagers, killing them. A boy, Elc, screams and cries about his family's deaths and manages to summon fire to attack the killers. Elc eventually passes out and is taken to the "facility" by the soldiers, along with the Fire Guardian. Elc awakens from his nightmare to find his good friend Lynx. Lynx tells Elc to get ready to undertake a job. Elc is a hunter, a person who takes on small jobs for money, who lives in the city of Prodias.

Elc ends up at Aldia Skyport, where a crazed ninja named Alfred takes a woman hostage. Elc busts through the window, and tries to subdue him with his fire abilities, but Alfred ends up escapes by running through an aircraft. While on board, Elc hears a noise coming through a room, and there he meets Lieza, a country girl, and her wolf beast, Paundit. She proceeds to explain that she can "talk" to monsters, and asks Elc not to tell anyone. Elc then runs off, only interested in capturing his quarry. Alfred, upon seeing Elc, summons bat monsters to help him fight off Elc but Lieza and Paundit help the rogue hunter succeed in taking him down. After beating Alfred, members of the local mafia, the Cabal, had appear to recapture Lieza and Paundit. Firing their guns, they had shot Lieza and killed Alfred. Elc escapes with an injured Lieza and heads to Indigos, to ask his friend and fellow hunter, the wind ninja Shu, for assistance.

Shu, who is busy doing another job, decides to lend Elc his apartment, and tells him to look up Dr. Lado, a freelance doctor to give medical assistance to Lieza. Elc finds him in the city's slums where Lado is about to meet his demise at the hands of an ex-patient, who somehow has become a monster. Elc stops him and asks the Doctor to help Lieza. Lado accepts and heals her; Elc then tells Lieza to get rest. That night as he sleeps, he has another dream showing him in a lab with a girl named Mariel with ice powers. Lieza wakes up Elc and he explains his past to her: after the army took him, he has no memories until Shu stumbled upon him in the Aldian Desert five years ago. Lieza and Paundit decide to stay with Elc for a while. After taking on some jobs at the local Hunter's Guild, they meet Shante, who helps them escape the police as Elc and Lieza are fugitives now. Shu also decides to stay with Lieza, to find out more about the group that tried to kidnap her.

The game cuts to Gallarno's office, the leader of the Cabal who has been trying to catch Lieza and now Elc. The next scene then shows Arc, Poco, and Tosh running through a Romalian lab. A scientist reveals to them how Andel plans to use a mind control device on Prodias. With the Goddess Statue, which is to be revealed to the public of Prodias, Romalia will enact their plan. The unveiling ceremony is about to start. Elc learns that Lynx has a spare ticket so they travel to his Skyport, which holds the Hien, to get the ticket from Lynx. Just as the threesome get to the ceremony, the statue starts to emit a blue light. Citizens start to feel drowsy but then the Silver Noah, Arc's airship, appears and Gogen uses his magic to destroy the statue. Elc recognizes the ship as the one that destroyed his village and goes to get revenge.

Rushing to the Skyport, Elc takes the Hien to pursue the Silver Noah. Elc, however, pushes the Hien to its limits and the ship explodes, throwing the party onto Yagos Island, home of Vilmer, a scientist. Elc has another flashback of himself with Mariel and then awakens to find himself in Vilmer's home with his party except Shu. A villager runs in to tell Vilmer that his granddaughter, Lia, went into the nearby Ruins. Elc and Lieza decide to look for her. They find her along with a strange robot-like artifact. In exchange for the robot, Vilmer fixes the Hien. Elc has more flashbacks of his childhood at the facility, explaining that children are taken there to be "studied" and are given control medicine. The robot reveals its name to be Diekbeck. Elc gets the robot a power pack and Vilmer begin to fix it. At the same time Vilmer, after finished the repair on the Hien, bid them farewell for both Elc and Lieza leave for Prodias in search of Shu's whereabout.

In Indigos, Elc and Lieza, while in search of Shu, enlist the help of Shante in solving the mysteries surrounding the city. Shante promised the two to lead them to Gallarno since this whole thing started from the Cabal leader. When they sneak into Gallarno's mansion, they ran into Shu, who survived the crash and also been investigating the Cabals for some time. It turned out that Shante has been a double-agent for the whole time, luring them to the mob's hideout to assassinate them. Elc and his parties were forced to face his fellow "captive" friend Genie in battle. It appears that the serial killer wanted by the police was Genie, after being brainwashed in Gallarno's White House and become the "Slasher". Genie's consciousness return after being defeated and he converse a moment with Elc before his death. It was later found out that Shante betrayed them to save his brother, Alfred, from the Cabal. When she found out that the Cabal has actually assassinated his brother, Shante decided to help Elc to storm the White House, as they thought that they could get clues of anything behind all the mysteries surrounding the Cabals and Elc's vague past.

When they arrive at the White House, they learn that it was actually a facility used by Gallarno to gather children of special abilities around the world and transform them into "Chimeras". It was proved when the children they found playing in the playroom later transformed into chimeras and attack them. Elc also discovered that his childhood friend Mariel is still alive and was about to be turned into a chimera. He then rescued her and both of them join the others in the playroom. But Gallarno had everything planned and throw both Elc and Mariel into a basement room via a trap door and spare the others while he set the White House to detonate within a time limit. Inside the basement, Gallarno brain-controls Mariel into fighting Elc against her will. Elc is forced to fight her twice before at last Mariel is able to resist the mind control for a brief moment and ask Elc to kill her. Elc has no choice but to unleash his firepower on her. Gallarno detonates a bomb inside Mariel, blowing up the basement room. When his friends tried many futile attempts to save him, Arc's group arrive and he opens a hole in the ground with his "guardian magic" in order to save Elc. They are taken inside the Silver Noah and is heading to the Sabatico Shrine in Seirya in order to ask Kukuru to heal Elc.

Kukuru tells the party that Elc is in a coma and will pull through only if he wants to pull through. Shu, shocked to see his longtime friend in this condition, vows revenge. He wants to go Romalia. However, the Silver Noah needs repairs and cannot be used. So Shu, along with Shante, travel to Palencia. They eventually learn there is an airship that is about to head to Romalia in Seirya. With help, they sneak onto the airship. They get discovered and ran for the hangar, having found the Hein on board. However, some Romalians fight them and Shante falls out through the hangar doors while Shu takes the Hein and heads to Romalia.

Shante fallen into the ocean near Clenia Island. She is found on the beach by a young, blind girl and her father, Gruga. They take her back to their village for her to be healed. After waking up, Shante asks Gruga if she can take an airship to Romalia. However, no ship will be going in or out of the skyport until after the fighting tournament in the village is completed. Gruga is actually a favourite to win in the tournament. While fighting in the tournament, some Chimaeras from Romalia capture Gruga's daughter, Elena, and hold her hostage as a trap to capture Gruga and turn him into a chimaera. However, Shante and Gruga eventually rescue Elena. Gruga reveals to Shante that Elena is not actually his daughter. Elena's actual parents were killed in the war of independence between Clenia and Niedel, in which Gruga was a key player years ago. Filled with guilt, Gruga adopted Elena, having grown to loved and cared for her. Gruga had made arrangements for Elena to see the doctor about her blindness before leaving with Shante as he decides to join Shante's journey to Romalia because the Romalians tried to harm his daughter.

Back at Sabatico Shrine, Kukuru tells Lieza that she has some things to settle in her home country of Forles. She travels to Forles on the Silver Noah (with the repairs being done) and is dropped off there while the Silver Noah returns to Sabatico. Lieza tries to go back to her home village of Holn, but a giant rock lies in the way of the entrance to the village. A boy named Leets from Ramul was being attacked by monsters. Lieza saves the boy with her monster friends' help. She travels to Ramul, Forles and asks the townspeople for information on the rock. However, Leets told the townspeople about being saved by Lieza and her monsters, inadvertently caused the police to arrest her and throw her in jail. They explain they sealed off Holn to keep the "witches" separated. In her jail, Lieza meets Gogen and finds he has also been imprisoned. With Leets' help (to make up for his mistake earlier), they escape from the jail and Gogen agrees to help remove the rock to Holn. Gogen blows up the rock using his magic. As they reach Holn, the whole town is gone. They reach Liezas old house, and some Chimaeras appear. After they are defeated, he reveals that there is a chimaera lab in a mountain on the East side of the country, and that is where all the townspeople are. As Lieza and Gogen defeat the Chimaeras, Leets helps as Lieza rescues her grandfather and the townspeople. Afterwards, Lieza and Gogen teleport to Romalia.

Elc is still struggling to deal with his demons from the past in his coma. Having to battle his dead friends and parents as monsters, their real selves then tell Elc that he needs to let go of his past failures and encourage him to live on for the future. Elc at last wakes up and is greeted by Diekbeck. He sees Kukuru who explained how Arc had helped saved him and asks Elc to help in Arc's mission. Elc still refused to believe any virtue in Arc, blaming him still for the death of his village. Kukuru then tells Elc to go to the ruined Palencia Castle to learn the truth, teleporting him and Diekbeck to its town. At the castle entrance, he finds Poco who needs to find the secret entrance to Palencia Tower via the destroyed underground lab. Elc meets with the Fire Guardian who was taken from Elc's village years ago. The guardian explains that Elc has his power from him, just as Arc does with the other guardians. Also explaining that Andel was ultimately responsible for the village's genocide; Arc had nothing to do with what happened, even if he now has the Silver Noah that was used for the attack. Lastly, the guardian tells the group that Andel is about to execute the Touvil villagers at the tower, helping to reveal the secret entrance. Poco and Diekbeck went ahead to the tower's basement but unfortunately, they were captured and thrown in jail. Now knowing the truth, Elc briefly returns to Kukuru, telling her that he's ready to move on from the past and will help save the villagers. Elc infiltrate the tower as a guard, frees Poco and Diekbeck and together got the villagers back to Touvil. Chongara soon came back with the Silver Noah and the four head off to Romalia as well.

Shu makes it to Houfoin, the slums outside of Romalia but divided by a wall. As Shu looks for information, Romalian soldiers beat up a kid named Danny, believed to be part of the resistance. After being rescued, Shu told him to go home. Shu goes to see Moris at the inn to find out how to get into Romalia; all he could say was to ask Tosh in the bar. Tosh was reluctant to help Shu, expecting him to be a double-agent. They duel and Shu earned his right to see the resistance. Danny's been trailing Shu, wanting to join the resistance but again Shu told him to beat it, not wanting to be held responsible for him. Moris, who's actually with the resistance, reveal that Gallarno is in the main chimera lab inside Romalia. Together they advise a plan to hijack the military train to get there. Danny again get caught and finally get to join the resistance. He went along with Shu and Tosh into the train tunnel, but when attacked, Danny accidentally led the monsters back to the resistance, killing almost everyone there; Danny barely survives. Shu and Tosh kill off the monsters and get Danny to rest in the inn. Shu is guilt-ridden for what happened, he and Tosh shared a moment of their past and are determined to finish their fallen group's cause.

A brief scene of the four generals with the Dark one, shows that the Sky Castle is nearly ready. Harsh words were exchanged between Andel and Gallarno before the Dark One silences them, revealing lastly that Arc and company are of the seven lineages that originally imprisoned him. Later, Gallarno is given Iga as a prisoner by a slight hunter that captured him and decides to use him as a decoy for Arc. He hires the hunter for another job and reveal certain details to him of the Martyr Plan to control everyone in the whole world.

Shu and Tosh revised Moris' plan with the train to blow it up in the tunnel to cause enough confusion to sneak in. Tosh distracted the train guards ALAP as Shu sets the bombs. The other party groups are arriving as the train is destroyed and as Iga breaks out. Shu and Tosh meet up with Gogen and Lieza in the lab, but they were impostors. The other groups deal with their own sets of impostors. Iga goes to destroy the doppelgänger machine before the real ones battle each other. As they all meet up, Iga assures everyone that the trick is done. Gallarno soon trapped everyone, but the hunter revealing himself as Arc frees them. The group fight Gallarno in his chimera form, defeating him for good.

Chongara tells everyone that Yagun's men are heading to Greyshinne. As Yagun and Andel talk, Andel reveals that the towers he's building are to gather the dark energy of humanity to fully awaken the Dark One. At Adamiar Temple in Greyshinne, Iga and the other monks are asked to surrender to Yagun's demand by Greyshinne's king; Yagun has a train cannon that could wipe out the defenceless capital. Contemplating what to do next, a fortune-teller named Sania asks Iga to see the Adamiar Scripture to help her avenge her parents in exchange for information on Yagun's forces. Iga agrees but the scripture gets stolen by Yagun's agent. The group retrieve it and heads back to the Adamiar Mountain to unseal it by the Earth Guardian. The guardian warns Iga that the power concealed might kill him should he wishes to proceed but Iga insists and receive its power. Afterwards, the group heads to the border to tackle Yagun's forces; Yagun orders the cannon to be fired on the group at his troops' expense, taking down the outpost. Sania confess about her past in Millmana, how Yagun killed her parents. The king soon came back to the temple, demanding Iga's explanation for defying Yagun but Iga defends that all of Greyshinne needs to take a stand to help show other countries to do the same. Sania foretells that mass amounts of energy are being channeled in Brakia and Forles.

In Forles, Holn had been destroyed and the villagers missing. The party learns that the people of Ramul did the deed but they were brainwashed by the monastery of Gia Temple, even Leets. They followed the villagers into the temple tower, learning that the arch monk wants to bring peace with all controlling obedience. Up the tower, the arch monk have two controlled villagers committed suidice and almost Leets too, but Lieza helps snap him out of his trance. The archmonk tried to blast the two but Lieza's grandpa sacrificed himself to block the attack; Iga uses the moment to destroys the bell, ending the mind control. After the party defeats the arch monk, they evacuate everyone as the temple collapses. They bury Lieza's grandpa in Holn as the town is slowly rebuilding with some help from Ramul.

In Brakia, Rygar, a former tyrant that ruled over the country before its independence, had occupied Brakia with Romalia support. Gruga goes to oppose him but Rygar led him to meet Elena, who turns out to be his biological daughter; Elena was heartbroken for being deceived and for him leaving her as she leaves with Rygar. Gruga fell into a drunk depression but Shante slapped him out of it, reminding him that he was the best thing to have happened to her by being a better father to her than Rygar would've been. Gruga regains his resolve and goes after Rygar in the volcanic Banza Mountain where another mind-control device was built. At the top, Rygar showed his true colours when Gruga hangs above the lava about to fall. Shante reminded Elena of what Gruga did for her and Elena risks her life to help Gruga as Rygar kicks them both over for Elena's defiance. Gruga got Elena and himself back up and the group defeated Rygar. The volcano erupts, destroying the device. Once safe, Gruga confesses everything to Elena who reaccepts him as her father.

Chongara next informs the group that Millmana's ocean area is emitting waves in the sky and suspects Yagun's involvement. In Ajarl, Millmana, Sania is revealed to be the princess of the former king of Millmana and Yagun is building an oil rig/mind-control device off coast. As the group first attempt to reach the oil rig, Millmana's train cannon Graunoln attacks the Silver Noah, forcing them to retreat and try another way. Roan, a friend of Sania, tells them to take out the control room of the train cannon in Nien Forest. The group splits into two parties: one to infiltrate the train from above with the Hein and the other to distract the military on the ground. After taking over the train and before setting the explosives, Sania vengefully fires the train cannon on Yagun's headquarters, killing Yagun in the process as his monkey flees. The group are now able to see the Forest Spirit in Toyoke Forest where the spirit reveals that the guardians are slowly weakening as the Dark One is getting stronger. Now able to get to the oil rig, they head for the mind-control device where they surprisingly find Yagun's monkey talking to them. The monkey is actually the real Yagun as a Chimaera. After Yagun's defeat, Gogen destroy the device but he overdid it, causing the oil rig to take in water. Luckily, they escape with the rig's emergency submarine. Sania has now found closure for her painful past and asks Roan to help guide the people until she can return to reclaim leadership. Returning to the Silver Noah, Chongara found more towers in Amigue and Balbalard.

In Balbalard, a sandstorm bars the group from entering a pyramid. An informant named Rata knows a way to get inside in exchange for hunting a monster called Rayburn that been attacking humans. They soon learn that the monster is a mother protecting her eggs. Rata soon arrive to reveal that this was a test then he leads them to the Kanara Desert to the controller of the sandstorm, the Chief of the Saryu Tribe (the protectors of the Water Guardian from the previous). The chief Nam is Rata's brother and wishes to get revenge on Zariban for the near-extinction of his tribe, using the help from the Balbalard king with the pyramid's device, thus protecting it with the sandstorm. Arc and Rata tries to convince Nam that this is all a ruse by Romalia but Nam refuse to believe them. Rata then asks the group to rescue their mother from Tukae Cave who was given over as a proof of loyalty but unfortunately she had perished a while ago with only a farewell letter for the group to return to her sons. After reading the letter, Nam storms off after the king at the pyramid as Arc stay behind with Rata. At the pyramid, Nam confronts Kasadoll (the general that nearly wiped out the Saryu, only to being a clone from that time). The Saryu camp was fired upon from a battleship at the top but Arc arrived to tell them that the camp was already evacuated. Nam returns to the tribe as the group heads up the pyramid. At the top of the pyramid, the group defeats Kasadoll for good and destroy the device, hence another collapsing structure.

In Amigue, they soon learn of a God Tower that one needs the Senor Generale's permission to enter; also there are rumours of treasure inside but no one has return to verify them. The group meet an odd pair of brothers, Gomez and Antonio. Arc find them suspicious but ask for their help to get permission. After a strenuous effort, they get the permission and head for the tower. Diekbeck experienced a memory lapse, recalling the history of the tower but reverted to normal; as the group head in, Gomez and Antonio follow them in behind. The brothers inadvertently causes the group some problems with the tower's traps as they climb upwards. Diekbeck recalls more memories of the tower's machine soldiers, including one named Grolgalde, enemies of the first Seven Braves and of him being their protector. They came across Grolgalde at the top and held the group down with intense gravity control, unable to move or defend. The brothers however accidentally damaged the gravity machine while collecting a gem from it, thus evening the odds for the group's fight against Grolgalde. The tower soon collapse as everyone leaves.

Chongara reveals that Placenia Tower in Seirya is next. Arc and Kukuru share a private moment before the group goes into town. At the bar, Tosh hears news about Monji, his supposedly dead father is looking for him. Just stepping outside, Tosh sees Monji with Andel's troops harming a mother and child. Tosh call out to him to stop; Monji was revived by his dark desire to have a duel with Tosh, killing the mother to provoke Tosh into fighting. Tosh failed by his lack of control over his emotions as Monji stated. Before leaving, Monji stated that he'll wait for him at Placenia Tower. Tosh adamantly heads off to the tower on his own. The group split into two parties, one going after Tosh while the others stayed behind in Touvil. Andel leaves the tower, revealing that the tower is actually a trap for Arc and the others. He flies on an airship over Touvil and trigger some hidden chimeras among the villagers to attack Kukuru in the temple. Luckily, Elc and the others fend them off and now head off to the tower as Andel goes back too. Tosh face off with his father and defeats him, freeing him of his dark desire. Past that obstacle, Arc finds his mother imprison by the necromancer that revived Monji. Yoshua, Arc's father then appeared suddenly and frees her as the others defeat the necromancer. Yoshua explained that he had been travelling through time, having sacrificed his life to the Guardians for that power. As the tower collapse, the Silver Noah flies in and picks up everyone but Yoshua who stay behind, presumedly fighting off to the death the remains of the necromancer as the tower fully collapse.

Leaving his mother to rest, Arc struggles to come to terms with failing to save his father. Kukuru comforts him when Elc suddenly stated that something is happening to the temple. The seal over the Dark One has been weaken so much that Kukuru can't stop it alone with her magic mirror. A quick plan by Arc is to gather the power of the Guardians from far in the past into the mirror. Only one person could do this which Arc seems to be the natural choice. Elsewhere, Andel in another tower stands before the Ark, stating that he has gathered enough negative energy with it to start his Martyr Plan. Depending on who goes back in time, Kukuru travels with he or she to the five Guardians. She learns how she would become a living seal over the Dark One but a temporary one until the Ark can be recovered to permanently reseal it. The two also learn how the Dark One came to be from the past. After receiving the Guardians' powers, they return to the temple to find Andel speaking with the Dark One revealing that they are also Martyr Towers in the North and South Poles. Kukuru strengthens the seal and the party member returns to the present.

The group split into two parties: Arc with the Northern team and Elc with the Southern team. The two towers are linked as the two teams climb and activate switches. At the top of the Northern tower, Andel is waiting by the Ark having collected negative energy inside to transform him into a chimera. Andel defeated, he destroys the ark and both towers collapse.

In Romalia Castle, Zalbad reports to the Romalian King, Gaidel, of Andel's death and reveals that all the collected negative energy is being transferred to the Sky Castle. Arc's group head to Romalia, going to Houfoin first. There, Danny is found leading the new resistance group. They formulate a plan where Arc's group act as decoys to draw out Romalia's forces while the resistance sneaks in to infiltrate the tunnel. As both teams work their way toward the castle, Gaidel's anxieties increases while the Dark One keeps reassuring him that they'll succeed. Gaidel then raises the Sky Castle from beneath Romalia. Arc's group takes the Silver Noah up to the Sky Castle, crashing into it. After many trials, they meet up to Zalbad who explains that Gaidel is about to release the Dark One. He furthers explains that since monsters couldn't controlled the Ark by their own, they used the darkness of humanity to control its powers. After defeating Zalbad, Arc and Elc face Gaidel within the Dark One's voice. Arc and Elc tried to convince Gaidel not to go through with his plans, of what would truly happen; The Dark One tells Gaidel to not listen to them and continually appeals to his darkness for power and world domination. Gaidel ultimately released the collected negative energy from the ark, causing global disasters aboard as many people are lost and nations are devastated.

In the Sabatico Shrine, the seal over the Dark One is finally broken. Kukuru confronts the Dark One, attempting to reseal him. The Dark One was too much for her on her own and it assimilated her to completely emerge into the world. Back at the Sky Castle, Gaidel believed that he became the ruler of the world now. However, the Dark One appears and quickly destroys him, revealing that Gaidel was only used to help revive itself. Only a willing human could free it with the negative energy of humanity, having set up Gaidel to be pushed to the edge by Arc's group. The group makes their final stand against the Dark One, first as a big floating eyeball, then a large fetus-like humanoid in a glowing sphere.

With its defeat, the Dark One attempted to gather its remaining power to destroy the world. Kukuru's spirit appeared and immobilized the weaken Dark One with her will, telling Arc to reseal it while she can hold it down. Arc didn't know how to do that without the Ark but Yoshua's spirit appeared and told him that Arc's sword can contain the Dark One with his own power. However, this would cost Arc his life but Arc willingly sacrifices it to combine his power with the Guardians to reseal the Dark One. Before disappearing, the Dark One vowed that as long as humanity harbours darkness within them, it won't be locked away forever. The Sky Castle along with the Silver Noah crashes down to the ground. Aftermath scenes of the global disasters are shown as the group wakes up from the Sky Castle's destruction; looking around at Romalia's ruins, Elc felt that they haven't stop the world's destruction, having now a desolated and fruitless future. Arc's spirit along with Kukuru's however tells the group that there is still life remaining despite the massive damage. Before departing, their final wishes to the group was to share the light of hope with the survivors as they begin to rebuild.

Reception

Critics cite Arc the Lad II as the best of the original trilogy.^[1][2] David Smith of IGN praised the game's expansion over the first game, writing that "Arc II grafts a bigger world map, more detailed dungeons, more complex character development, a far larger cast, and most of all a longer quest onto a combat system that remains pretty familiar."^[1] Alex Makar of Gaming Age noted that the addition of the Hunter's Guild to the gameplay added an element of nonlinearity, allowing the player to complete many side-quests (or "jobs") and giving "the player a lot of flexibility in how they want to progress through the storyline." He also commented on the cast, saying that the characters were more likeable and had more personality, and that the "story is also a lot darker than it is in Arc 1, and has some pretty angst and melancholy ridden overtones."^[2]

Smith's major complaint with the game was its graphical representation, saying that the game looks almost identical to the first game.^[1] In contrast, Bethany Massimilla of Cnet.com called the character sprites "more vibrantly colored and better detailed", although she admitted that the "dungeons remain largely monotonous".^[3]

References

External links