A thousand years ago, there was a terrible war called the Golem War. A golem was an animated device that would serve their masters. Over time, more brutal and devastating golems were created, cumulating with the devil golems. As with most wars, the cause of the fighting was long forgotten — all they know is that for some reason, the golems just stopped functioning, thereby ending the war.

With the ending of the war, magic was lost — most magic anyway. Many humans retained the ability to cast and use some magic, which was known as "enchanting." The most prodigious of the enchanter's go to the enchanting university.

We pick up the story following a young enchanter named Atsuma, who starts out life in the university. This is the point you get a basic how-to — to play the game, as well as some combat experience as you go about your daily business.

Enchanted Arms (EA) is a wickedly fun game for both those beginning in the role-playing-game world, or those who are already familiar with the setting. There are the usual things to do, like kill things and explore, and a couple of new things for both types of players. While graphics and sound are about what you would expect to find on the PlayStation 3 — I ran on high definition of 720i, and it was crisp and sharp even at that lower setting — the sound was nothing amazing, with nothing standing out.

There are some puzzles in the game — usually solvable by walking up to the correct part and hitting X. The earlier part of the game is a tutorial, and it will show you how to progress past each obstacle the very first time you encounter it. It's up to you to remember how to do it in the future.

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Fear not. If you forget a key fact in the game, there's a handy help guide and encyclopedia of facts and figures available in the menu area. Also note the key ability to save at any time, unlike other games, in which you can only save at certain "save points." The saving at any time is a definite plus for those of us who play before going to work each day.

It's interesting to note that at about the nine-hour mark in the game, you will have viewed approximately 90 minutes of computer-generated animation — actual movie parts of the game.

This game is a little different from most — whereas many RPGs situations are decided by the level of your character; in this game, you only get a small amount of health/action points as you level up. Your main source of character improvement comes from resource points that are acquired as you fight. (And in some cases, you can buy crystals that give X amount of points, but they are not!)

Each increase gives you +15 hit points or element points (Magic), and +5 to other such stats as agility, attack and support. While it starts off cheap to raise these stats, it quickly increases, so you can't buy everything, instead having to focus on support or attack characters.

All skills and special attacks are bought using the skill points acquired from battle and by acquiring the occasional item. The good news is each character has their own pool, and characters that are not in the main party will still acquire experience, although at a slower rate.

There's one more thing about characters — well party systems really. You can only ever have three humans in a party. Your fourth member will almost always be a golem (yup, those things that started the war). While you won't acquire your first golem until a couple hours into the game, you can accumulate up to 130 different types of golems with which to fight. Each has their own special abilities. One thing to note about golems, however, is that each of them may have different size classes. A size 1 golem will take up one spot on the tactical combat board, and a size 4 golem will take up a 2x2 chunk of the battle grid.

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One important thing to note — with characters or golems — each character has a vitality point limit. When wounded or even knocked unconscious in battle, this vitality meter goes down. When it hits zero, that character will only have 1 health and 1 "mana" until they're healed by using special items or heal stations — or by sitting out of combat for quite a while their vitality will slowly go up. It's sort of like combat fatigue. This will force you to rotate your lower vitality characters in and out of the combat party, adding another dimension to party management.

Also included are Ex Attacks — special attacks each character can use and eventually learn numerous specials that charge over time. Activating them in battle requires that you mash the X button repeatedly or get this — you can shake the controller. I've found that shaking the controller like you would if you were shaking a can a pop works well.

The Attack meter for these super attacks can be charged while out of combat by "dancing" and using either shaking or button-pushing; however, this will increase the amount of monster battles you will face.

Combat isn't quite like other RPGs; combat tends to be tactical instead of level-based, and you can easily defeat enemies that are much higher then your party by using tactics as opposed to brute force. Your characters start each battle situated on a 4x4 grid, and you and the enemies play out combat in a turn-by-turn mode. Each character can move certain places and has various attacks, which cover certain sections of the battle grid, ranging from one space to the entire grid for special Ex Attacks.

It's interesting to note, if you get tired of fighting the same old little critter which you can defeat with your eyes closed, you can choose to auto-combat and speed through the rounds using the triangle button as a fast-forward. Keep in mind that choosing auto-combat over quick combat will leave you standing there, waiting to be a damage sponge. If you choose the wrong option, you'll get a handy little warning.

If you win the combat, you'll gain money, experience and skill points which can be used to modify your characters and various types of crystals used to make golems and weapons. If you lose, well, you'll have the option of replaying the battle, or starting from a previous saved game.

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That money and loot that you find can be used at "merchant shops," a black-diamond object where you can buy some necessities or synthesized weapons or golem's cores you acquire. You can also buy golem cores and weapon skills at these shops, which are scattered around the game. It's an interesting touch, giving the game a sort of futuristic feel while maintaining a fantasy tone. Note that these merchants are usually found near healing spots, which make it convenient if you're low on cash and want to grind for an item found in the shops.

You can also catch some cool skills and abilities, as well as monster cores in the casino, which can be found a little later in the game; however, don't expect much as you can either choose to use lady luck or try and win by using your own skill. If there's any poor part of the game that I've seen so far, the casino is it. But, it's a necessary evil if you want some of the more unique abilities and golems earlier in the game. Be prepared to spend some quality time in the casino.

I'd like to point out that this game is fairly easy — you won't find any really difficult puzzles, nor will you find any battles (at least at the start of the game) very punishing. In fact, if you're just starting out in the world of RPGs, this game is probably a good one to start with. It has a fairly measured pace — not an overwhelming fast combat system or any pushing to finish as fast as humanly possible. It's a good game for the starter player, but even an expert will have fun.. Expect to finish within 40 to 60 hours of play time with some definite plot twists along the way.

One thing that definitely surprised me was the vitality of the characters. During one long stretch of dungeon, I had to cycle my characters out as some of them were just too tired to continue playing. If there is one thing I can say about this game, you'll have a hard time going broke. There is just so much money scattered around the world that you can give up farming monsters for cash and just look for treasure chests.

This also brings up a negative aspect of EA: While most RPGs literally kill you with items, there are very, very few items to be found in the game. You won't have a wealth of equipment choices; you'll generally only gain weapon improvements as you need them, and there is practically no armor whatsoever.

I'm enjoying Enchanted Arms — right now the selection for RPG games on the PS3 is fairly limited. But having played quite a few on the PS2 (the Final Fantasy series comes to mind), this game is a refreshing new . I'm finding it interesting building my golem fleet while exploring the world. One aspect that I particularly enjoy about the game is being able to go at my own pace and not being forced to endlessly level up in some areas in order to make the game easier in the next little jot.