Arc Rise Fantasia

Arc Rise Fantasia is a Console RPG on the Wii, developed by imageepoch, the studio behind the Luminous Arc series.

Developed under the title Project Ray, it shares the same project title with another game by the same developers, Sands of Destruction. Arc Rise Fantasia, however, in essence, can be considered a title in spirit of the Luminous Arc series, because of a handful of similarities with it.

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Tropes used in Arc Rise Fantasia include:

• Aerith and Bob: Mostly Aerith names like Ryfia and Rastan/Oigen, though there are "normal" ones like Alfonse and Leslie.
• Alchemic Elementals: All four takes the form of floating magic wands
• Amazing Technicolor Battlefield: The Rogress battles, as well as the final boss.
• As Long as It Sounds Foreign: The various short songs sung by Ryfia and Adele, such as "Imaginal Song" and "Song of Ruin" are in a significant-sounding, pleasant, but unknown and likely gibberish "language."
• Authority Equals Asskicking: Meridian Princes Alf and Weiss, General Clyde, Turmelian Operative Leslie, and QED Commander Ignacy all have their share of command, as well as fighting prowess. Also First Sergeant L'Arc and Imaginal Diva Ryfia, to a lesser extent. Not to mention Real Diva Adele and Patriarch Hosea, though the latter got his power via Imaginal.
• Badass Longcoat: Rastan/Oigen, natch.
• The Battle Didn't Count: This happens when the party fights Alf in the Verct skywalk. He is defeated, but apparently still has enough energy to take on the Real rock with Clyde (Who was also defeated by the party right before Alf, but at least had the dignity to look injured).
• Betty and Veronica: With Adele as Betty (being L'Arc's childhood friend and claiming that she loves him like a brother despite her obvious jealousy) and Ryfia as Veronica (the Mysterious Waif from an enemy country and so harshly sheltered you'd think she was from another planet).
• Blind Idiot Translation: Not so much the translation as the execution. Ignition already got quite a bit of flack from pulling this during Lux-Pain, but the voice actors don't match up with the lines, the wording is awkward, quite a few lines are changed, and the quality of the dub is a whole other story. Luckily, simply turning off the voices clears up quite a bit of the chaos.
• Bloodless Carnage: Even when someone suffers an injury in a cutscene, there is still no blood.
• Boss Remix: The theme "A Grand Existence," which plays while battling the Rogress, is a remix of the music that plays in the opening FMV, "Meridian 2nd Hikoutei Squad."
• Butt Monkey: Niko.
• Cassandra Truth: Not only the characters, but almost all players automatically assume that Rastan/Oigen is Leon, despite the fact that he corrects this at every opportunity.
• Combination Attack: Trinity Acts, and Excel Trinities.
  • The twin Lolita girls, Paula and Luna, have one of their own called "Magical Gemini"^[1].
• Continuity Nod: Quite a lot of facts hint the game's possible connection to the Luminous Arc series.
  • The word "Arc" in the title.
  • The Kopins.
  • The currency used in Luminous Arc 1 & 2, "Rico".
  • Lucia, Vanessa and Saki, are BonusBosses in the arena.
• Cute Bruiser: For being only 12, Cecille packs quite a punch.
  • Niko learns the hard way.
• Deus Ex Homine: Eesa was made into a god by the people of the world over a thousand years ago.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: The party defeating Luze/Eesa. There is also Alf and Clyde destroying the Real rock by themselves, and after both of them had fought the party!
• Dogged Nice Guy: Alf puts up with a lot of abuse for Adele's sake. He even sticks with her after she orders him to kill L'arc for her.
• The Dog Was the Mastermind: Luze seems to be a minor character at first, who the party meets several times throughout the game, but it turns out she is Eesa, the final boss.
• Door to Before: The final dungeon thankfully provides one so the party can leave just before the final fight to stock up on items and upgrade their orbs if need be.
• The Dragon: Ignacy to Hosea, and Ignacy also has his own Co-Dragons in Paula and Luna.
• Drop the Hammer: Ryfia's Excel Act "Ryfia's Magic"; she conjures a huge hammer head out of light at the tip of her wand and smashes down.
• Dual Boss: Paula and Luna.
• Dungeon Town: Jada, temporarily.
• Easy Levels, Hard Bosses: Especially in the first half of the game.
• Elegant Gothic Lolita: Paula & Luna. Bonus points for being twins.
• Every Coward Is Cuter With Hair Decs: Seriously, Niko, what is that on your head? Goggles? Sunglasses? Headband? Throw us a bone, here!
• Evil Costume Switch: Adele
• Evil Old Folks: Ignacy
• Eyes of Gold: Ryfia and Paula.
• Face Death with Dignity: Luze/Eesa
• Face Heel Turn: Alf, Clyde and Adele.
• Flat Earth Atheist: L'Arc. You'd think that after being able to summon a powerful deity when needed, he'd be more willing to accept the existence of gods. Guess not.
• Gentleman Thief: One of Serge's outfits invokes this trope.
• Global Airship: The party gets one midway through the game.
• Gotta Catch Them All: The Rogress. To be fair, three of them are optional.
• Green-Eyed Monster: Adele
• Guest Star Party Member: Alf, during later parts of the game, including the final boss.
• Handicapped Badass: When you first meet Serge, you find him to be an ex-thief, a smooth talker, cleaver, charismatic, and one of the best magic users the game has to offer. Then you find out he was THE Legendary Leon, leader of the Lord Knights, which surprises the group greatly as he doesn't fit the criteria at all. Turns out that before Ignacy crippled his sword arm, he was a feisty sword fighter AND magic user and the best there was. All at the age of FOURTEEN!
• Heel Face Revolving Door: Dear God Alf, make up your mind. One minute you help us, the next you try and kill us.
• Hero Complex: Cecille.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Niko
• Hey, It's That Voice!
  • L'Arc: |Okazaki Tomoya and Hazama.
    • So that's why he's intent on killing Eesa.
    • And in English, he is voiced by Brett Coleman, who's done voice acting for a few Ace Combat games, and is in a ton of Japanese commercials (working dubbing and live action), including the one for Super Metroid.
  • Ryfia: Sakura.
  • Alfonse: Athrun Zala, Bae and Tatsulot.
    • In English, he is voiced by Brian Matt-Uhl, who voiced Gregorio Wilhelm III in Gitaroo Man and the UT Commander in Resident Evil Survivor.
  • Adele: Hiragi Kagami, Althea and Blair.
    • Voiced by Rumiko Varnes in English. Played Jennifer Simpson in Clock Tower 2, Alia in Mega Man X, and Clochette in Musashi: Samurai Legend.
  • Niko: Nagase Jun'ichi and Mikuri Tomokazu.
    • His English voice actor, Samuel Rose, likely voiced John Mayor, the main character of the Sega Saturn game Deep Fear. His performance is similar (although somehow worse more than ten years later), and the actor for John Mayor is known as "Sam Rose".
  • Serge: Lloyd Irving, Usui Kenta, Haji, Komui Lee, Ishida Toraji, Mibu Kyoshiro and many different Pokémon.
  • Cecille: Lala Stalin Deviluke, Nagi, and many more.
  • Rastan: Leon, Sigint and Drebin, Reno, Maes Hughes.
    • I KNEW HE WAS LEON ALL ALONG!
    • It was once rumored that Rastan was voiced by Adam West. This rumor is actually false. Rastan is voiced by Jonathan Sherr, source is here http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/949770-arc-rise-fantasia/57308238
  • Leslie: Sonsaku Hakufu, Asakaze Risa.
  • Dynos: Rossiu.
  • Weiss: Kuroyanagi Ryo, Takehito Koyasu really does do the evil bishounen thing very well.
    • In English, he's voiced by Greg Irwin, Steet Fighter Alpha 3's narrator, as well as Joe Higashi and Robert Garcia in The King of Fighters XII.
• Hopeless Boss Fight: The first fight against Ignacy, the fight with Alf, Adele, and Clyde in his castle (In which you just have to survive for a few minutes) and the first fight with Luze.
• Hot-Blooded: Cecille again.

Cecille: I'm gonna show you the Fists of Justice!

• If I Can't Have You: Good lord, Adele!
• Informed Equipment: Just like most other JRP Gs, you can never see any armor your characters put on, and they will all wield their first weapons in any cutscenes. The clothes you can buy for them also only show up on the status screen.
• It Got Worse: After Alf takes over the Empire from Weiss, he starts imposing curfews and strict rationing on everyone in the empire. Weiss may have been an imperialist bastard, but at least he did not curtail his citizen's freedoms.
• Karma Houdini: Alf is almost as bad as Yuna in this regard.
• Lady Not-Appearing-In-This-Game: A Malve inversion with Niko, the comic relief character, is the only main playable character not mentioned in the manual or featured on the box art, yet he joins exceptionally early in the game and sticks around for a very long time (with continuing importance to the plot after that). Following the trope closer is Adele, who never joins you except as a Guest character, yet she rates a picture in the manual stating her weapon preference... though her in-game outfit changes after only a few hours.
• Large Ham: Cecille. She never lets a chance miss to shout her heroic antics, Shonen-style.

Cecille: The Hero of Justice, Cecille-sama, has arrived!
Dynos: Those who sleeps, beYOND the maelstrom, come forth in the nAAAme of CHAOS!

• Laughing Mad: Adele
• Lazy Backup
  • "Ryfia wants a taste of Leslie"? ... I'll be in my bunk.
• Limit Break: Excel Acts.
• Literal-Minded: Ryfia.
• Long-Lost Relative: L'Arc and Weiss were actually half-brothers, from the same mother. That explains why Weiss has always watched over L'Arc and Elena, despite his grudge against the gods.
• Lovable Coward: Niko.
• Love Makes You Crazy: Adele, who also leaps fully into Love Makes You Evil territory.
• Mana Meter: SP. Interestingly, it works in percents instead of units.
• Mismatched Eyes: Weiss.
• Mega Twintails: Cecille.
• Ms. Fanservice: Oh, dear sweet Leslie! Those of us on the 'Net shall not forget your Underboobs. Your cleavage is still glaring as ever though.
• My Name Is Not Durwood: An early Running Gag in the game was everyone calling Rastan 'Leon' because Zamuel said it as he arrived. Turns out to be a misunderstanding on his part, as it's really SERGE who is Leon, despite everyone believing, up to that point, that Rastan was really Leon.

Rastan: For the millionth time, NO.

• Names to Run Away From Really Fast: The Deathchanter you meet at Jada is really Dynos.
  • The Lord Knights themselves: Zamuel the Crimson Mist, Witchblade Rex, and Lightning Leon.
    • The Rogress also get intimidating powers to go for their names: Simmah, the Logos of Deliverance; Girtab, the Logos of Domination; Absin, the Logos of Judgment, etc.
      • Then there's L'Arc, who thanks to the events at Antrax, is called 'Lagoon the Cursed' over at Turmelia, and at one point 'Deathbringer' thanks to Alf's rule
• Name's the Same: Cecille? The Twilight Witch?
  • Alf is pronouced A-ru-fu(アルフ) which can also be translated as, "Alph".
  • Niko name is part of "Nikolai".
  • Luna is very thristy.
  • Adelle's name also very similar to Althea up to their Yandere's part. Did I mentioned that both were voiced by Emiri Kato?
• Necromancer: Dynos.
• Nice Hat: Part of Adele's new digs.
• No Export for You: There's another thing this game has in common with the Tales series; Raging Europhobia.
• Obviously Evil: Ignacy. It really couldn't be any more obvious if he the sky darkened and lightning struck every time he entered a room. Although, to be entirely fair to him, it's not like he makes an effort to hide it. Also, Hosea for some people.
  • There's also Weiss, who looks a heck of a lot like Seto Kaiba and is frequently shown to be a Blood Knight who hates the gods and wants to aggressively expand The Empire. Oh, and did we also mention that he literally has a draconic wing and claw hidden away beneath his mantle? The guy is effectively every RPG villain trope glued together. Although he turns out to be a Red Herring. He was actually a Well-Intentioned Extremist.
• Older Than They Look: Rastan/Oigen, Cecille and Dynos. Possibly Ryfia as well.
  • The entire cast as well looks a little older than you'd expect from JRPG heroes. L'Arc, for instance, is only meant to be seventeen but given his attitude and occupation he seems like he could be about twenty.
• One-Winged Angel: Luze's second and final form.
• Opera Gloves: Adele's outfit.
• Opt Out: Niko
• Peek-a-Bangs: Weiss is a borderline example, as a lock of hair usually hides his left iris - and as a result, his heterochromia.
• Pimped-Out Dress: Quite a few, such as Adele, Luze, Paula and Luna.
• Pretty in Mink: Adele's outfit, the puff balls on Luna's Parasol of Pain.
• Princess Curls: Cecille.
• Really Seven Hundred Years Old: Again, Rastan/Oigen, Cecille, Dynos, and possibly Ryfia, all due to being frozen by Imaginal centuries ago. Rastan/Oigen even calls himself a 'relic'.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Dynos.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Paula and Luna shows heavy shades of this. Paula an aggressively voiced fighter in red who uses mostly fire and wind spells(the offensive elements), while Luna is a soft voiced magic user in blue who uses water and earth spells(the defensive elements).
• Respawning Enemies: All of the monsters in the over world, sometimes right before your eyes. Any monsters in a dungeon area will respawn every time you leave the room and come back.
• The Reveal: Two big ones right after Gula church, where Ignacy finally shows his face and Leon is revealed to be Serge, not Rastan/Oigen.
• Rose-Haired Girl: Adele and Leslie. They're respectively more on the red and pink sides of the spectrum.
• Say It with Hearts: Leslie
• Shaggy Dog Story: For Paula and Luna, the We Challenge You! sidequest involved running around all over the world searching for hidden clues, at the end of the search, the whole thing was revealed to be a prank left behind by Zamuel meant for anyone who happens upon his clues.
• Shipper on Deck: Cecille sort of acts as this towards L'Arc and Ryfia.
• Shout-Out: Cecille's shoryuken, and yes it has hit Memetic Mutation. See here.
• Socketed Equipment: How the magic and weapon system works.
• Squishy Wizard: Serge, his base HP is about the same as Ryfia's, and he is even called a "magic user" several times.
• Stealth Mentor: Arguably Weiss, and later Clyde, to L'Arc.
• Stripperific: Leslie. Oh, dear sweet Leslie.
  • Ryfia might marginally qualify; while her dress is very modest, especially for a JRPG heroine, the hemline of her dress is really high up her... <Ahem> legs.
• Summon Magic: L'Arc's and Alf's ability to summon the Rogress.
• Super Move Portrait Attack: The first thing a Trinity Act does when activated is showing the three participants' pictures in Ass Kicking Poses. Same with the more-powerful Excel Trinity Acts.
• Take a Third Option: L'Arc makes up his own "Law" instead of choosing either Real or Imaginal's Law. His Law saves both the Common and Divine races.
• Trauma Inn
• Two Guys and a Girl: L'Arc, Alf, and Adele.
• Underground Monkey: A lot of the enemies are just slightly different versions of other enemies.
• Unlucky Childhood Friend: Adele.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Dynos.
• The Very Definitely Final Dungeon: The Holy Land of Noire.
• Virtual Paper Doll: You can buy and find alternate clothing for all the playable characters. L'Arc in particular has quite a few. You'll even need a FAQ for some of them.
• Weapon of Choice
  • L'Arc: BFS
  • Ryfia: Simple Staff
  • Alfonse: Cool Sword
  • Adele: Simple Staff
  • Clyde: An Axe to Grind
  • Niko: Handguns
  • Serge: Knife Nut
  • Cecille: Power Fist
  • Rastan: Dual Swords
  • Leslie: Guns Akimbo
  • Paula: Sinister Scythe
  • Luna: Parasol of Pain
• Was Once a Man:Heavily implied that most of the Feldragons are just Divine Race exposed to Hozone and humans experimented on by Ignacy
• Welcome Back, Traitor: Serge and Leslie in the beginning, Alf in the ending.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Weiss.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: There were two preachers, Ryo and Mickey, that you run into at the end of Nabra Jungle, killing two pilgrims and running away just before the boss battle. You never see or hear from them again.
• Wholesome Crossdresser: Some of the costumes you get later on... well... you'll have to see for yourself.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: ... And when Luze finally wakes up, she learns that people are planning to kill her to "free themselves". This causes her to reject L'Arc's Law that will save both the Common Race and the Divine Race by neutralising the Hozone, as such a world would have no need of her. Even if she had lived, she'd have lived forever alone and unneeded by the people to perform the duty that they themselves gave her. Somebody give this girl a hug already!
• With a Friend and a Stranger: The classic Eastern RPG setup. L'Arc, Adele and Ryfia.
• Yandere: ADELE.
• Yasunori Mitsuda: Composed part of the music.
• You Gotta Have Blue Hair
• Zettai Ryouiki: Paula.

1. ↑ Oddly, the attack name is written in Hiragana, which is usually for words of Japanese origin.