Dark Arms ~Beast Busters 1999~ review by Archon

Dark Arms: Beast Busters is an action-RPG that emphasizes more action over RPG. The format is a shooter in which your character can walk and shoot in eight directions, and your goal is essentially to wander around and gather weapons, in the tradition (to some extent) of classics such as The Guardian Legend (NES). While the game doesn't give the full experience expected of a true RPG and is somewhat short, the action side of the game is executed near-perfectly and is definitely worth the attention of a NGPC fan.

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The graphics in Beast Busters are excellent, surpassing those of earlier NGPC titles. The actions screens are tile-based, but most of the graphics are decidedly non-repeating. Each area has its own graphic style and overall well-blended color scheme. Although the color is somewhat muted, your character and most monsters, easily stand out against the background. Monsters actually have dying animations a la Metal Slug, and these sometimes depend on the element you kill them with. Cut scene pictures such as the attract screens and the ending are of superb quality, though very few in number. Unlike the advertisements, if you are expecting Slaughterhouse or Resident Evil -type creepy graphics, though, they are not to be found anywhere.

Although sound is what you generally expect on an NGPC game (staticky explosions and weapon shots), the music is actually quite good, and arguably adds to the overall gaming experience. There is a variety of fast paced and creepy music, and the music varies in mood appropriately whether you visit a location during the day or night. Enough originality exists in the music such that you will remember and perhaps even turn up the volume on individual tunes.

Control is spot-on. Your character shoot and moves almost exactly as you intend, and you can switch through up to four weapons by repeated presses of the B button. Notably, it is much easier to hit diagonal shots with the NGPC controller than a standard cross controller. A nice touch is that if your character is hit by an enemy, he turns to face that enemy and you can simply press the fire button.

The gameplay of Beast Busters is what most people will be interested in. In BB, the main gameplay push is centered around the collection and development of weapons. The manual is extremely unclear about the exact procedure; basically, you can make weapons by combining seeds and weapon identifiers (called "oum"; for instance, "handgun oum") that you find. You can make one weapon per seed, but that weapon can be re-initialized to a seed and matched with a different oum if you wish to start over. Your initial weapon, though extremely weak, can be used to capture monsters in order to feed to other weapons to give it evolution points or an element such as fire or lightning. When a weapon is fed enough, you can evolve it into one of several different weapons; additionally some newly evolved weapons can also evolve into another weapon. This allows the creation of over thirty different weapons.

The weapons are really the stars of the game. Weapons act entirely different from each other, ranging from simple straight bullet guns to traps that you place on the ground to exploding remote controlled clones. In addition, the element of your weapon can make it twice as hard or twice as easy to kill a opponent who has an elemental affinity. Choosing the right weapon to use in a situation can make a great difference. Some weapons are more useful but weaker; others are more difficult to use but much more powerful. You can carry three weapons in addition to your "catcher" weapon and each has a ammo gauge that slowly recharges; switching between weapons is important in extended firefights or when you wish to finish a creature with your "catcher" for weapon food. Weapons gain experience points and levels from use (different from evolution points), which gives more power rather than a change in abilities. Some creatures give excellent evolution food, while others give excellent experience.

Creatures are done fairly well. While not incredibly intelligent, they do have different attacks and behaviors. Creatures typically have missle weapons as well as touch attacks and are not afraid to fire diagonally at you; this can give you trouble when creatures appear in great numbers and you have no area-attack weapons. The "bosses" of the game have varied attacks and are sometimes difficult to handle without the proper weapon and/or element.

There are two main problems with this game. The primary problem is its brevity. A total of only six medium to small action areas are contained in the game; three have some differences in graphics and creatures when visited in the day versus at night. In addition, defeating the creatures in the game is not terribly difficult once you have good weapons; since you revisit areas often, your weapons get more and more powerful but the monsters for these areas stay about the same. There is some additional gameplay associated with getting each weapon and capturing all monsters to complete your "weapon and monster lists," but this does not really take much time if you're a gaming veteran. The main game storyline can probably be finished by a two day heavy excursion by a journeyman game player, assuming he doesn't get stuck on a treasure hunt or two. The link feature might extend gameplay substantially, assuming that you have a friend within range with BB, another NGP, and a link cable. I don't.

The second problem is that the RPG nature of this game is very light and practically nonexistent. You visit the various areas by picking them from an overworld map instead of actually traveling to/from them. There are few puzzles and an insignificant amount of exploration compared to other action/RPGs such as Crystalis. There is a definite storyline, but the significance of the plot really doesn't strike the player, even during the ending. This might have something to do with SNK's somewhat tenuous grasp on the English language (sorry, fans, I don't speak SNK-ese!).

The game is in fact very good at what it does, and I am not sorry I spent time playing it. But if you only have money for one game every six months, you may want to get something which is more suitable for long-term play.