Everything is polygonal, except for your characters, which are sprites. Additionally, each town has a shop in which you can buy presents for girls, although the best presents are hidden in deep corners of dungeons.The graphics are simply excellent.
Sodina's cooking attack basically plays like that old Simon smack-the-colored-lights game. In addition to normal "dates," you can play minigames that boost your statistics with a girl. If the date goes well, your intimacy factor grows by a point, and your blacksmithing ability is thereby increased as well. The format is this: Sodina, or whoever, will pose a question to Meis, and you must pick one of two options as an answer. They offer a welcome breather from saving the world. Either extreme is pretty silly - dating scenes might sound like the last refuge of the socially inept, but they're just a lighthearted aside to the game's main thrust: the tried-and-true RPG quest. Talk to a random sampling of people and you'll either hear derisive snickers or fanatical devotion. That's not exactly true they've never really had the opportunity. Now, dating games have not historically been well received in the US. That's where the dating elements of this game come in. Where do you draw this mystical power from? Being a spirit blacksmith is tough in addition to the master points you use to reshape the metal, you'll need the support of a girl to achieve your results. What makes Thousand Arms unique is the master system, in which you use your powers as a spirit blacksmith to reforge your party's weapons, adding power and spells to them. The company's expertise shows nothing seems awkward or out of place, and it all flows. Red Company, the developer, has been at this for years, spawning many immensely popular titles - Sega's Sakura Wars, for example - that unfortunately haven't been released in the United States. Thousand Arms is an RPG, and it's got all the standard trappings of one - if you've played any game in the genre, Thousand Arms should be immediately accessible. Jyabil takes Meis as an apprentice, but the Dark Acolytes have their sights set on Boyzby as well. Barely reaching the capital city, Boyzby, he meets Sodina, a young girl whose brother, Jyabil, happens to be a master spirit blacksmith. One day, the dark acolytes attack the slumbering village, and Meis is thrown out of his ancestral home. Thousand Arms is the story of Meis Triumph, scion of the venerable Triumph clan - overlords of the town of Kant and spirit blacksmiths for seven generations.