-Actual quote in the game.
After trying to fulfill the Water Guardian's request and getting nothing for it, I went back home. The Water Stone said the Fire Guardian is being held captive under Palencia Castle. The group wonders about the word "captive," but we make our way there. Arc tells the Silver Noah pilot, Chopin, that he's thankful for all the rides. Even Tosh says he's going to miss the ship.
We make our plan on the castle bridge, and it's decided we'll sneak in. Our only lead to go is from the warehouse where we met Tosh. Tosh and Iga knock out the innocent guards for some reason, and we make our way there. Who made them invisible!? But we're in the warehouse and see one man appear from behind two red doors. He goes into a contraption in the middle of the room, and a second man follows him back through the red doors. The team follows them.
We arrive in a room that doesn't work well with these graphics, but a third man, the head scientist, notices us. He tells his underlings to tell Andel, the Minister, of our trespassing before fighting us. He drinks something and turns into a wyvern flanked by red slimes and zombies. Slowly climb up the narrow passage, but I kept Arc at the bottom. Wyvern rammed into him and died.
We'll see the Fire Guardian trapped in a beaker. He'll tell us he was trapped by people, humans, who wanted to harness his power for their selfish gain. Seirya is what it is because they've been draining his life force. FG asks to be freed, which Arc obliges. Despite that, FG refuses to hand over the stone. Humans deserve to die. Arc begins to cry, and Gogen points out the emotions of youth as a potential future. It is the kids who can make amends for their forefathers. The scene changes FG's mind, and he gives us the Power Stone and a summon for Chongara. The camera pans over to reveal the scientist didn't die. He crawled over to a panel and activated the self destruct sequence. We have one minute.
We're on Frieza time because this is longer than one minute. As we take the elevator back up, several mobs attack us from the back. Arc volunteers to stay back, and Kukuru joins him.
Another battle takes place on their way up. Was there a second elevator? Arc's too powerful to be stopped. The party reunites at the top just for the world to start shaking. How's the King? We walk to the throne room to see Andel leaving it. We see our uncle lying behind him and get there in time to hear his last words. He reveals Andel is from Romalia, a nation we've heard about a few times. None of it was good. He also confesses that he's the reason Arc's dad left the castle. Uncle wanted the throne, and that desire was fed upon by Romalia. He tries to apologize, but he dies mid sentence. The castle begins to crumble as the rest of the party yells it's time to leave. But the stairs are gone... Chopin shows up with the airship, and we jet away just as the castle blows up.
We cut to a scene in Times Square. A giant TV news report appears, and Andel is on it. He's declared martial law in the kingdom until Arc, who's being blamed for killing the king, is apprehended.
We return to the airship world map with free reign. There's a new quiz that takes forever to do back at Iga's temple, but return to Seiryu to continue. A scene where Chongara turns us into Hemo-jis to evade the law. Why did we need to land at the skyport? Go to Touvil, and the group will climb to the seal that started this journey. Arc and Kukuru still adhere to traditions, so only they can go up. They reach the shine, and another strange scene happens. Arc gives Kukuru a kiss. This romance had very little buildup for ten hours, so I kinda don't like it. It should have been the other way around. Either way, our new girlfriend puts out the Cion again, and the Ark Demon flies away with the promise of fighting us later. We go back down, but monsters have appeared. Fortunately, our other teammates joined us.
Arc somehow knows the demon went to Sabatico Falls. There are several Ark Demons here, and they like to group up. It's a narrow battlefield, so we do too. We arrive at a skinny waterfall, and Arc gives us a point of no return vibes speech. Gogen activates the Power Stones, and a gateway appears in the waterfall. We go through it and see a stone box before us. Arc meets the Ark! It speaks to us and asks us to cleanse the darkness inside us. We're warped to a fight against our dark selves. Use AoE. Our dark sides can hit hard, but they lack HP. Even their Chongara sucks. Congratulations, this was the final fight.
Cleansing ourselves proves we're heros, and it unlocks the secrets of mankind. Every human can access this power, but it's been forgotten over time. Even Kukuru gets a new power for some reason. We now have to use that power to save the world. The Dark Ones are coming. We're not sure what that means, but Ark suggests Kukuru stays behind to keep the seal binding them together.
We leave, and we're met with Andel and some soldiers. Tosh prepares to kill everyone, but Arc calms him down. Good thing, too, because Andel has the citizens of Touvil in jail. Could have told us that sooner... So Arc is taken prisoner, and Ark is taken away.
As the guards escort us away, the world shakes. It rocks the land we're on, and a cleff is formed between Kukuru and the others. Arc urges her to find the Dark Ones shrine as we start being subjects to gravity.
A CGI scene plays where a massive castle or something rips into the sky from the ground. The final scenes play.
Arc is looking out at the sunset, and the others appear to his left besides the airship.
Andel is informed Arc got away, but he doesn't care. It's all going to plan.
Arc and crew board the Silver Noah and take off. They see Kukuru standing on a cliff before we blast off.
The credits role as we see scenes from the game.
To be continued...
I didn't really like Arc the Lad, but it's only a preamble. The real meat is in Arc II. Unlike Golden Sun, I'm a bit intrigued and want to play it. I'll give it a short rope, but expect to see Arc II eventually! Because it's part one, I'm not writing a full review. As an incomplete (by design) game, Arc I is a 26/50 game.
From one Arc/k to another Ark...
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