Oingo Boingo once said: “I love...little girls; they make me feel so good.” And while there is no direct inclination to pedophilia in Arcana Heart 3, it is a game that could be summarized by a neon slogan like: “Girls! Girls! Girls!”

Nothing suggestive about Arcana Heart 3. No innuendo here, you sick person.

In a threatened Japan, 23 suggestively posing maidens come together to search for Celestial Stones and spank each other something fierce. Be they friend or foe, these vixens of many trades intertwine in each other’s stories to stop a huge evil called Ragnarok by a series of impressive acrobatics and flashy effects. The story isn’t always as consistent, but at least there’s an effort to create a connected storyline, even if it has quirks. There’s even a character that battles another to joyfully steal her shoes, which is some straight up gangster business. And why always use the Norse mythology of Ragnarok, Sleipnir and so forth? As Arcana Heart 3 is a sequel, it can hardly be expected to diverge from the course, so this can all be forgiven.

Certainly when diving into the game itself, any minor imperfection will be forgotten as Arcana Heart 3 delivers on all fronts. Not only is this game huge in complexity and variation, with loads of characters and separately customizable Arcana, but the move sets are also individual and diverse for the 23 girls. These ladies bounce around in fetish clothing with the greatest of ease and offer a fighting style that is fast, furious and very flashy. There is a lot of airborne action to be found as well and characters can perform combos that go up for hundreds of yards; all accompanied by the appropriate razzle dazzle.

Go now, my beloved Arcana. Do it while Fiona's bent over and helpless!

Creating an additional appeal, this anime paradise of screaming women will also display smooth animations with a nice layer of humor, making you wish you learned Japanese, and a ton of very suggestive poses. In fact, the overwhelming innuendo might be quite harmful if you’re currently in your hormonal process; because there’s a lot of dubious posing and not-so-accidental provocative scenes going on. For instance, there was a character that lost her pants in transformation as she won, but how is that relevant to victory? Luckily, this sells the game and is never once in poor taste and very discretely implemented, even if it’s everywhere.

As mentioned, battling is a fast-paced extravaganza of attacks and special moves that each come with a complex input and broad display of power. Equipping an Arcana to a girl will provide for an additional tactic as certain abilities such as attack, defense or others can be strengthened or balanced with the traits of the Arcana. This can result in a myriad of possible set-ups, each with their own strengths, such as an offensive close range character, a more cautious defensive approach or even some very unique options for the truly advanced players.

Special attacks take away from the Arcana Gauge, but offer incredible moves in return.

Whichever the choice however, the fact is that Arcana Heart isn’t a game that can be picked up and played by just anyone. Even with the most basic options there’s a steep income level, with very little explanation on the fly, which won’t suit all players. While there is a training mode, the complex moves and their precise execution are the only key to victory and this lack of a helping hand or tutorial provides a tough learning curve. There’s a Simple mode, but this only tricks people into believing they’re better than they are and therefore should not be a used. Stringing simple attacks together may be doable in early levels of the Story mode, but once more advanced tactics are required, a load of combinations and moves will have to be learned the hard way.

And there’s a ton of stuff to learn about. Apart from special attacks that vary from a simple front to back, to some immensely complex inputs for experts, there are moves bound to bars for powerful super strikes. The lower bar fills up by performing moves and doing damage and is sectioned in 3 pieces. By performing certain actions, one part will be consumed in order to perform stupendously extravagant attacks that can eat away large parts of health. Additionally, each character also has one Critical move that consumes all sections to perform the most shocking strike of all.

All cheeky tomfoolery aside, Arcana Heart 3 provides a multitude of awesome looking fights.

On top of that, there are special moves and abilities bound to each Arcana, again ranging from normal to very complex and usable with the section bar. But an additional Force Gauge also fills up here, which players can use to boost their stats for a short period of time and perform an Arcana Blaze that uses its power to unleash a move relevant to that Arcana’s type. These can be strung together in other attacks seamlessly to seemingly endless combos. But not even that is enough for Arcana Heart, as there’s also a homing button that shoots players towards their opponents or make them fly to dazzling heights. There are also a numerous amounts of ways to block, counter and thwart opponents.

Verily, Arcana Heart 3 displays a vast complexity that may result in a virtually endless fighting experience. Complete with impressive visuals and a varying, customizable game mechanic, it creates one of the largest and most well-incorporated fighting games to date. While it has some very minor imperfections and a steep learning curve not suitable for just anyone, the sheer amount of rock solid content will blow any skepticism away in seconds. Simply put, Arcana Heart 3 is hardcore porn for fighters!

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Daav Valentaten, NoobFeed. (@Daavpuke)