Arcana Heart 3 PlayStation 3
User Score
8.3 out of 10

Generally favorable reviews- based on 22 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 20 out of 22
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 22
  3. Negative: 1 out of 22

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  1. metatcn
    Nov 22, 2011
    10
    This game is amazing. There are 23 fighters and 23 arcana. You pair the fighter with arcana unique style for mix of the arcana ability and the the fighters ability, creating a ton of customization in how to use your fighter. The game also supports an amazing netcode which makes the game amazing experience online and because you have excellent netcode you are better off playing with people in US and japan which makes for amazing competition. Seriously more fighting games need to be like this and blazblue, cause these two games raised the bar in online play by leagues.I would love to see street fighter and tekken get this amazing online netcode. Anyway the biggest turn off is that the characters can be very, well jail bait. Crazy anime fanservice and all young female cast can be a bit getting used to. But either way if you are willing to look past that there is a very deep fighter with amazing online and offline modes (especially how smooth the online is), give it a chance and you'd be surprised how good this game is.… Expand
  2. vahn
    Sep 26, 2011
    9
    I'm not a huge fan of beat'em ups but then when I heard about a fighting game that had multiple ways to customize your fighting style, I said to myself "MUST.BUY.IT!", and the reason is because it reminds me an 15 year old fighting game that I loved and still love to this day (for those who has an idea, it has robots). Anyway, what makes this Arcana heart different than the other games is the Arcana mechanic: this game has a lot of combinations possible to make! There are 23 fighters and 23 arcanas, which can create a HUGE combination of 529 possible fighters, and arcana aren't just for show up: they actually change your character status, as Arcanas have their own attack, defense and move list, making it interesting to try out what's the best combination (and it can take a while). However, it has quite some flaws to me: first of all, the game has only 2 modes, story and score attack, (excluding training mode, versus mode and network mode) and both aren't very huge: story will make you fight several fights as usual (the background isn't bad too, but it's not explained enough), while score attack is all about fighting more fighters but with a harder AI (with a very, very hard boss waiting for you). There's also a gallery mode, which is a nice addendum. And that's it: the game itself is extremely poor in content, and that's a huge pity because eventually you can do all in a few days/weeks. Infact...I just collect trophies now, because it's the only thing left of the game (even though I'm no collector). And of course, the fanservice is another huge flaw: it's all about tastes of course but this game is a bit hard to be liked by all, as there's no male character in ALL the entire game: 23 females of all kind, pure fanservice that some will love, and many will hate. But, personally, I'd still suggest to check it out: it's a game that tries something different among the many other fighter games like Street Fighter and Tekken and I believe this game is a longevity bomb in multiplayer thanks to the possibilities you have. The only thing that might discourage the player might be its pure fanservice elements, so my advice is to control for yourself first (videos, files, footage, etc), just to make sure you know what you're going to play..… Expand

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
73 out of 100

Mixed or average reviews - based on 10 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 4 out of 10
  2. Mixed: 6 out of 10
  3. Negative: 0 out of 10
  1. GamingXP
    Sep 19, 2011
    71
    The ingredients of Arcana Heart 3 are a lot of cool girls, different fighting styles, arcane powers and, unfortunately, rather poor graphics.
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  2. PSFocus
    Sep 11, 2011
    62
    Diversity rarely makes or breaks a game, but a lack of options certainly hurts.
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  3. XGN
    Sep 7, 2011
    80
    Arcana Heart 3 is a good fighting game when you don't look at the low-res graphics. The combat system is quite elaborate and with the big amount of different combinations in a fight, Arcana Heart 3 is a must-buy for every fan of the 2D fighting genre.
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