Developed and published by HAL Laboratory, Arcana is a fantasy Role-Playing Game that mixes card-battling with first-person dungeoneering, and it is a reasonably enjoyable experience overall. Also known as “Card Master” in Japan, Arcana was first published in 1992, exclusively for the Super Nintendo.

My first thought was that Arcana was very similar to Shining in the Darkness, which came out the previous year, in terms of its depiction of towns, shops and characters. The actual first-person dungeoneering is fairly standard, although the gimmick here is that all characters and monsters are represented as cards. To be honest, though, this doesn’t really have much of an effect on the game itself, which is turn-based combat and maze exploration.

You play a character called “Rooks“; son of the last great ‘Card Master’. You’re on a quest to defeat the evil Rimsala with a party of four – including yourself. The other party members come and go as the story dictates.

The story itself is not really worth talking about, but the challenge in completing the game is. Arcana is an old school RPG that features random combat, and the encounter rate is relatively high. If you’re playing in an emulator, you can actually stay one step ahead of this by saving every time you stop moving, and by re-loading when you get an encounter, which gives you a bit more insurance against losing party members. While Arcana is not a particularly difficult RPG, it is easy to over-extend yourself if you get too far ahead. It is occasionally worth back-tracking, to recuperate in town, before returning to where you left off. Smart use of the map is also recommended. Thankfully, there are maps of Arcana out there that can help you.

Overall, I did enjoy playing Arcana, although it’s not as sophisticated as some of its peers. The card-battling side of the game is minor, really, but the turn-based RPG side of it is very good and will appeal to those who like obscure, under-appreciated level-grinders.

More: Arcana on Wikipedia