Since Enchanted Arms came out, my sleep, work, and social life have all suffered.  I spent Labor Day weekend on a couch instead of out backpacking.  I was a wreck when I traveled home for a wedding and had no 360 for my fix.  I’ve lost sleep every night to stay up playing.  I’ve just finished it and I highly recommend the game.  It’s a really enjoyable experience if you’re into JRPGs.  If you’ve never played one before the learning curve may be a little steep.  To ease that curve a bit, I present to you the Enchanted Arms Primer Guide, Jinx Edition.

GAME BASICS
The game world consists of 4 major cities: Yokohama, London City, Junk City, and Kyoto, as well as the area between the cities.  The main character is Atsuma, a student at Yokohama University who’s learning to become an enchanter.  His right arm has a mysterious ability to negate enchants, but no one knows how or why.  When one of the Devil Golems, a race of man-made creatures who once nearly destroyed the world, is reawakened it’s up to Atsuma to stop her and save his friends.

==Saving==
I can’t stress enough what a relief it is that this game allows you to save at any time, as long as you’re not in battle. No more retracing an hour’s worth of work because you lost one lousy battle.

==Casino==
In London City you’ll find a casino that allows you to play games like roulette (it’s so hard not to spell it as Rhoulette!), slots, and bingo. You can also participate in golem battles.  Exchange the chips you win for items or golem core materials.

==Golems==
A big part of the game revolves around golems.  Golems are creatures built from a core material and various gems earned in combat.  You’ll find “lost golems” scattered around the game world.  Fight them to win their core material.  When you synthesize the golem (using the core material and required gems) through a store you can then use that golem in combat.  You may take 8 golems with you at any time, and keep any excess golems in storage.  You can only change your golems through a store.

Unlike humans, Golems do not have EX attacks and cannot learn new abilities.  They still earn SP in battle and you can raise their parameters to make them more powerful.

Also, Omega is huge and awesome (The picture below isn’t him. It’s Marlin Glave).

COMBAT BASICS
The field of battle consists of 2 grids that are each 3 rows deep and 4 rows wide. One grid is for your enemies. The other grid is the space you have to maneuver for your abilities.

Every ability in combat, whether offensive or defensive, affects a certain number of squares.  Offensive abilities indicate their pattern in red and defensive abilities indicate their pattern in green.  This pattern varies for each ability, so it’s in your best interest to equip each character with abilities that hit a variety of different patterns to maximize your range of damage on the field.

After each battle your characters are awarded a certain amount of Skill Points (SP), Experience (EXP), and Money (TB).  These go towards advancing your characters.

==EP==
Each ability costs a certain number of Energy Points (EP) to perform.  When your EP reaches 0 you will be unable to perform further abilities.  Using Standby for a turn allows your character to rest and recover EP.

==VP==
Each character has a certain number of Vitality Points (VP).  The longer you take to win a battle, the more VP your characters will lose.  When your character’s VP reaches 0 he/she will begin battles with 1HP and 1EP.  When you use a healing waystation, or an item such as God’s Vigor, your VP will be restored.

==Elements==
Every character is associated with one of six elements.  This affinity determines the elemental alightment of their attacks, and also their corresponding weakness.  Your character will do double damage to an enemy of the opposite element, but also takes double damage.  Your character’s attacks will also do half damage to an enemy of the same alignment.

* * Note: not all attacks are associated with an element. Elemental attacks are tagged with the symbol for their element.  Non-elemental attacks do the same amount of damage to any enemy regardless of their elemental affiliation. * *

 Fire<--->Water
Earth<--->Wind
 Dark<--->Light

ABILITIES
Abilities come in two basic types: Skills and Support.  Skills are active abilities that will display in your menu during combat. They encompass both defensive and offensive combat abilities like striking or healing.  Support abilities are passive and are in effect at all times.  These abilities, like HP+20% or wide-range, do not require your character to do anything in order to work.  They simply enhance your character’s potential.

Skills come in 3 types: Direct, Ranged, and Cover.  Direct skills are offensive skills that attack grid squares at close range.  Ranged skills target grid squares from a distance.  Cover skills usually means healing and magic effects, but sometimes includes offensive magic like APO golem.

New abilities can be found as treasure or purchased in many of the stores (that’s the purple floating diamond) across the land.  Abilities are purchased with TB, which can be earned in battle or won in the casino.  After you’ve purchased the ability your characters must spend SP to learn it.  You can then place that skill in 1 of 5 slots.  You have 5 Skill slots and 5 Support slots.

==EX==
Human characters have additional EX abilities that allow them to perform impressive feats.  Each EX ability requires a certain number of EX points to perform.  EX points are gained slowly over combat.  EX points are earned during normal combat when you defeat enemies or take damage.

PARAMETERS
Parameters govern your characters stats, like HP and EP, and strength for different attacks.  You can increase your character’s parameters by spending some of the SP earned in battle.

==HP==
Increasing HP increases the amount of damage your character can take before succumbing in battle.

==EP==
Raising your EP parameter will allow your character to perform more skills before becoming exhausted.

==Direct==
The Direct parameter is an indicator of how much damage your characters do at close range.

==Ranged==
This parameter determines how much damage your character’s Ranged attacks will do.

==Support==
Increasing your character’s Support parameter increases the effect of healing and other Cover abilities.

EXTRAS
If you’re a completist, like me, I highly recommend you check out the Holy Beast Shrine. It’s only practically accessible at a later stage in the game and you don’t receive any achievement points for it, but it will get you weapons and golems that aren’t available anywhere else.  Spoilers below. Highlight the text to read it.

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To open the Holy Beast Shrine in the Junk City Rock Pinnacles you must first beat each of the elemental shrines.

The HBS is a 13 level dungeon with the most difficult encounters in the game.  Every 3 levels you’ll have the opportunity to teleport out and replenish your VP, and you’ll need it unless you equip a no-encounters skill… maybe even then.  It’s rough, but rewarding.  You’ll find lost golems on every level and each time you beat a boss (there’s one every 3 levels) you get core material for one of your human character’s ultimate weapons.
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SUMMARY
All in all this is a really enjoyable game with deep gameplay and character development.  If you like JRPGs and have been as starved for nutrition on the Xbox 360 as I have, you really should give it a look.

- jinx

clean out vivienne westwood in my galliano gown