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''Arcana'', originally released as , is a 1992 RPG for the SNES by HAL Laboratory. The game represents all of its characters as cards, but plays like a dungeon-crawling RPG, rather than a card-based game. In keeping with this metaphor, the death of a character results in a 'torn' card, and the magical properties of some cards are used to explain abilities of the game's characters. ==Gameplay== Assuming a first-person perspective, the dungeons and towns of the game are navigated from the viewpoint of the characters and, with a few exceptions, the conversations between characters hold true to this as well. Battles within the game are portrayed in the first-person, displaying the protagonist characters along the perimeter of the screen, with the enemies in the center. ''Arcanas battles, however, are not graphically intensive and the characters' animations are limited to, at most, five frames. Breaking from the format established by Square of displaying the damage incurred by characters above their heads, this information is summarised in a text display at the bottom of the screen similar to ''Dragon Quest'' games from Enix. The map's tile based dungeons are, arguably, the most challenging aspect of the game. Seeing often only what is immediately before the characters, the player is free to move in the four primary compass directions. Labyrinthine in their design, and often fraught with dead ends and hidden dangers, the detail in the drawing of these dungeons compensates for their relative lack of animation. Battles within the game follow a strict turn system. As each character takes his or her turn, various options are presented to the player. Rooks, the principal character, possesses many of the vital battling techniques. Because he can switch the Elemental spirits, flee the battle, and use magical card spells which, though powerful, were expensive, Rooks is the most valuable resource to the party. If Rooks is incapacitated, the entire party is crippled. A battle is followed with the reward of Experience Points and Gold. However, the level progression of all of the characters is standardized; there is no randomness to what statistics increase when a character levels up. Four elemental spirits, Sylph (Wind), Efrite (Fire), Dao (Earth), and Marid (Water), rotate through the same slot in the battle formation. Rooks and a spirit are always in the player's party, providing two other spots for party members. Unlike the human characters, an elemental can die and the game will continue. Their card will be torn, and they can be rotated out for a live elemental. If Rooks is incapacitated, however, the player can be stuck with a dead elemental. Spirits can be resurrected for a fee by the Spirit Healer who resides in each town, or by a spell Rooks can learn at a high experience level. The game's difficulty is determined by various factors: *Easy Game Overs: In contrast to the norm for RPGs of the era, which dictated that the death of one character in the player's party was usually a recoverable loss, in ''Arcana'', the death of any character save an Elemental results in Game over. This means that an unexpected confrontation could result in a speedy demise. *Little forewarning: Due to the convoluted nature of the passages, a common cause of death for a player's character is the sudden discovery of a boss character. The gravity of the situation is not apparent to the player until the fight begins. The presence of these boss characters is not always deducible in advance, and in many cases results simply from the player's movement onto a particular tile. *Scarcity of save points: Saving the game is limited to the town area of each level. As such, it is possible to be in a difficult situation without any restorative items. The player must escape to the solace of the town before further engaging monsters. *Limited inventory: The party's inventory is limited to forty-two item slots. Unlike other RPGs, where multiple copies of the same item can "stack" in one slot, the items in this game do not stack, providing a very strict, and often small, item limit. *Linearity: Having completed a dungeon, the player cannot subsequently return. The dungeon explored is determined by the player's progress in the story and not chosen. This prevents players from returning to a dungeon with easier monsters, and risks being stuck in a dungeon whose monsters are too strong to overcome. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Arcana (video game)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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