Name: Thousand Arms (サウザンドアームズ)
Type: Dating Sim RPG
Available Languages: Japanese, English
Today’s game is one that I have some rather strong
feelings about. While it is an Atlus RPG that has quite a few bells and
whistles to its name, Thousand Arms also has the distinction of being a game
that has a premise I despise. This game left me with a great deal of mixed
feelings, given the fact that your characters gain power due to the main
character’s manipulation of the feelings of women that he knows. While this
game has the distinction of being the first dating sim that I ever played and
also introduced me to the music of Hamasaki Ayumi, it also has the dubious
credit of being one of the only games that left me feeling like a horrible
person after beating it.
I originally ran across Thousand Arms as a teenager
when it was released in the United States. If you’ve read any of my previous
posts, you’ll know that an RPG dating sim that left the JPop music intact would
have been considered a rare gift at the time. And so, I gleefully popped the
disk in and began playing. What followed was a solid RPG experience with a
system of gaining power that left me feeling like a liar and a cheat. So
regretfully, I put it aside. As an adult, having had the misfortune of being
exposed to some of the true horrors of Japanese computer visual novels and
dating sims and having heard tales of the underbelly of the genre, which seems
to glory in the suffering of others, I decided that a few kisses given
willingly weren’t the end of the world. Maisu’s faults could be done away with
after a good cry and a tub of ice cream in comparison to his seedier
counterparts. There is a lot worse in the world. So when I ran across a
Japanese copy of Thousand Arms at a low price I snatched it up, played it, and
beat it. In spite of my high-flown ‘it could be worse’ pep talk beforehand, I still
felt badly afterward.
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| This is Maisu, the girl-chasing protagonist of the game. |
You start with a ragged looking Maisu stumbling down
the road, yelling at his empty stomach and wishing that he could be spending
time with girls. Yeah, I’m sure we all see where this is going. He has a
flashback to his home, where apparently he is the son of a very famous family,
the Triumphs. If you wander around the house, some of the maids seem to dread
the presence of ‘Bocchama’. So Maisu is a pervert who goes after his own
servants. Great. When we track down Cliff, Maisu’s father, we are treated to a scene
which, along with some writings found around the house, show us exactly how
Maisu’s personality was formed. Your flashback continues to Kanto, Maisu’s
hometown, which is being attacked by the Dark Army. Maisu’s personal leave-taking
is brought up short by him sighting a pretty girl, who you can proceed to hit
on. No matter what the player chooses to say, Maisu gets trampled by a herd of
panicking villagers. There is justice in this universe. Maisu returns to the
present in time to lament his fate before passing out in front of the city of
Boyzby.
What follows is one of my all-time favorite Hamasaki
Ayumi songs, ‘Depend on you’, accompanied by a rather neat anime opening
sequence. Maisu awakens from his stupor to the sound of a girl screaming and
rushes to her aid. Sodina, the main love interest in the game and current
distressed damsel, doesn’t really seem to need Maisu’s help, but that won’t
stop our hero from showing off. Anyway four baddies against one teenage girl
seems a bit unfair. Sodina warns Maisu not to use the sword he is carrying, he
ignores her, and it snaps like a twig. So Maisu gets beaten to a pulp, and it’s
up to Sodina and her brother to save the both of you. She has taken a liking to
Maisu for some reason, but her brother is less than impressed with how badly he
has treated his sword, and sends him on a mission to repair it. So basically
Maisu is on a quest to learn more about his family trade as a spirit blacksmith
while trying to hit on as much of the female populace as is humanly possible.
And let’s not forget that there is a great deal of trouble brewing all around
us, so we’d better get that broken sword fixed pronto!
The game itself doesn’t look like much, although the
backgrounds are somewhat detailed. The characters’ faces are lovely, however,
and when they talk to you, it looks like you’re watching something straight
from an anime. When you go into battle, the game shines as well. Both the
character and enemy designs are inspired and make for a very interesting in
battle appearance.
You can have up to three characters in battle, one
in the front line and two in the back. The person in the front line is your
attacker, and the people in the back row can cast support magic or use items. Both
the front and back line has a gauge, and when the line empties, the action that
you chose to take is available to use via a press of the appropriate button. You
can have your character cast a spell and hold it in stock, saving it for when
you need it, which is very useful, especially for healing. Every now and then
you’ll get lucky and a back row character will throw a taunt the enemy’s way to
lower their stats, or cheer you on to raise yours. The front row character has
your basic RPG commands, attack, magic, special techniques, defend, item, run,
all are there for the choosing. They differ slightly depending on who you
choose to use as your attacker.
Gaining power via using Maisu’s abilities as a
spirit blacksmith is necessary in this game, and to do so, he needs the help of
girls who like him and can lend their power to the process. It’s how you
upgrade everyone’s weapons to learn new magic and techniques, and is absolutely
necessary if you want to win the game. Maisu dates Sodina, the girl he truly
likes, but dates a lot of other girls too, all because he likes to play the
field and wants to get their powers for his weapons. He dates Uina, even though
he knows that his friend Mu-za has a crush on her but is too shy to tell her.
You as a player have no choice but to go along with this, as leveling up your
weapons and gaining powers on them is the only way to beat the game. So
basically you are required to be a jerk. In order to get the girls to like you
more, you have many different options, such as presents and mini-games. The
most common method of getting the girl to like you better is taking them out on
dates, answering whatever questions they put to you in a manner that that
particular girl will like best, and then hoping that their affection for you
will level up enough that you can take them to a smithy and upgrade your
weapons.
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| Sodina rewards Maisu for a successful date, complete with kissing sound effect. |
I’ve always felt that one of the signs of a truly
great RPG is having characters, both playable and non-playable, that you
genuinely care about. This game thrives off of you manipulating the emotions of
many of the people around you without any regard to the consequences, which
took away from what I feel would otherwise have been a much better game. It’s
sad to say that when I look back on my experience with Thousand Arms, I see a
game that had a lot of promise, but left a rather unpleasant feeling in its
wake.
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