Arcana (SNES) - Dungeon-Crawler RPG

Hello!

Anyone here played this one? Seems like a fun little dungeon-crawler RPG. I made a video about it. It's poor quality but maybe you will like it. Here's a link.

I've completed Arcana. It was a fun game - it's nice to have a dungeon crawler with characters that aren't created by the player. I wish there were more like it. I also wish that game was longer…

I agree, Scrav. It is nice to have a JRPG-style story and characters fused with the dungeon-crawling aesthetic. That is really where the genius of this game lies, in the clever combination of the 2 major elements.

Sorry to hear it's not a long game. I always prefer huge, sprawling epics, but that's okay. It's a fun game with a good level of pace thus far, so it should be fun for its duration.

I think I rented that game back in the 90s, though I don't think I got very far. The character portraits look very familiar but I don't remember much about the gameplay. There were far too few SNES dungeon crawlers though, thats for sure.

Definitely.

Well, it's certainly no Dragon Wars or Pool of Radiance, but I am fairly impressed by those animated clouds in the sky there I should fire up the old Higan (BSNES) emulator and start playing some good ol' jPRGs on the SNES. Most of them were far more challenging than what you typically get today for console RPGs, despite the childlike-anime & super-deformed character portraits and sprites of 90% of them. And dats a fack, Jack. Uh, huh. Say it, brutha!

JackOfOwls, keep in mind that this is a low quality representation of what the game actually looks like. I was getting a low framerate because I haven't fully figured out how to record from my PSP yet, which is the device I was playing the game on. Even some of the spells' particle effects and that sort of thing didn't transfer into this video.

If you play on a PSP, the game looks a lot better. If you play on PC, you'll probably get a nicer looking picture as well. It's really smooth and plays great.

JRPGs on the SNES are wonderful. There are plenty of great ones for that system. I think 16-bit graphics are still very lovely and there is plenty of reason to spend some time with these beautiful RPGs of the past.

Originally Posted by Fluent
JackOfOwls, keep in mind that this is a low quality representation of what the game actually looks like. I was getting a low framerate because I haven't fully figured out how to record from my PSP yet, which is the device I was playing the game on. Even some of the spells' particle effects and that sort of thing didn't transfer into this video.

That's why I personally would probably use BSNES instead of SNES9X, if your rig can handle it. BSNES (Higan) strives for 100% accuracy in sound and video, and some audio/visual effects might even be missing using SNES9x or ZSNES.

Thanks for the recommendation.

SNES 9x runs the game fine on the PSP. The problem is recording the footage via USB from the PSP to my PC. For whatever reason, the footage on the PC becomes choppy and runs at a much lower framerate, even though the game looks and runs fine on the PSP. Strange, but I don't think RemoteJoy Lite is programmed to capture emulator footage, just PSP games themselves.

I'll have to test it with an actual PSP game and see if the problem remains. I recall quickly testing it with a dungeon-crawler RPG called Unchained Blades, and it seemed to work okay with no noticeable loss of frames. I guess it's just the emulated games that lose frames.

I think the best bet is to just buy an HD PVR box and record the PSP via the component output. Recording via USB is just too shifty at times, sadly.

Is this game available on Steam or GoG? I'm playing through the Shining Forces right now, and I'd hit this one afterwards if it is downloadable on the pc somehow. I could really go for a good dungeon crawler soonish.