| Arcana Heart | |
|---|---|
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| Developer(s) | Yuki Enterprise[a] |
| Publisher(s) | Arcade PlayStation 2 |
| Producer(s) | Yasuo Tanaka |
| Designer(s) | Tōru Sakurai |
| Writer(s) | Tōru Sakurai |
| Composer(s) | Motoharu Yoshihira |
| Series | Arcana Heart |
| Platform(s) | Arcade, PlayStation 2 |
| Release | Arcade PlayStation 2 |
| Genre(s) | Fighting |
| Mode(s) | |
| Arcade system | Interpark NEXUS 3D hardware |
Arcana Heart[b] is a 2006 fighting arcade game originally developed by Yuki Enterprise and published by Atrativa Japan. The first installment in the Arcana Heart series, the game features an original all-female cast of eleven young girls known as "Maidens", who possess the ability to communicate with beings from the Elemental world known as "Arcana", to avoid a catastrophic event taking place in Tokyo involving the reunification of both Earth and the Elemental world as one by the Ministry of Elemental Affairs. Its gameplay consists of one-on-one fights, with a main four-button configuration, featuring special and super techniques, as well as four playable modes.
Arcana Heart was created by members at Yuki Enterprise who previously worked on both Samurai Shodown V and Samurai Shodown V Special, with Tōru Sakurai serving as designer and scenario writer. In 2007, Examu released a single custom chip patch for arcades titled Arcana Heart Full!, which introduced a number of fixes and balances. It was later ported to PlayStation 2 by Ecole Software, featuring the ability of playing characters in "Original" or "Full" modes, reflecting their original and patched arcade versions.
Arcana Heart garnered positive reception from critics since its release on PlayStation 2; praise was given to the hand-drawn graphics, character roster, gameplay, and multiplayer but criticism was geared towards the high learning curve and complexity for newcomers, lack of additional content, and balancing issues in the single-player modes, with some feeling divided in regards to the sound design. It was followed by two sequels: Arcana Heart 2 (2008) and Arcana Heart 3 (2011).
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