Champions: Return to Arms (Sony PlayStation 2, 2005)

I bought Champions: Return to Arms for the Playstation 2 as a birthday gift for a close friend who had recently found an interest in video games. Turns out she really wanted this one game, but no one could find a copy. Since I was the only friend of hers with internet(and I was trying to get her to notice me a little more as just a friend), It fell upon me to obtain it. The only problem was that I had only four days to get a hold of the game, and as stated before, no local stores had a copy. I was fortunate enough to not only find one on Ebay, but it was at a lower price, and unexpectedly came only one day after purchase even though I didn't order overnight shipping. The game also came new and unopened with no sign of poor handling. The birthday girl loved it. I would suggest this product for anyone just starting to play the RPG genre of video games. It is an excellent game to start out with and a lot of fun to play with friends. Although I consider the difficulty of the game a bit beneath me, it's still fun to get together with friends and play it on occasion. And according the recipient, It has a lot of replay value, especially because it has two story lines that the player can chose from and all the different characters to pick from. One thing I don't like about the game is its simplicity as an RPG. Although good for beginners, an advanced RPG player would quickly find himself bored if he/she tried to play this game avidly, especially if they played solo. Even though the game has many races and classes, unlike most RPG's, each race has a fixed class and character customization is severely limited, with the most customizable thing being appearance which I should add makes little difference due to the games camera angle. The game is also too straight forward for advanced gamers, leaving little to no choice in what the player is able to do in the story, simply how they will do it. The last issue I have with the game is because it is for Playstation 2, it requires a multi tap device to allow more than two people play at the same time. Although this isn't the products fault, the hassle I had obtaining a multi tap, and the sheer lack of games supported by it makes it a bad purchase. I would suggest buying this game for another platform or PC if available. Over all though, I think the game is good purchase for a novice gamer, allowing the individual to develop a feel for the RPG genre and hopefully found an interest in it. It definitely makes a great gift for novices, especially young children since they aren't able to comprehend more advanced games such as young adults and adults. Even though I wouldn't buy this product for myself, I still rate it excellent because it meets the requirement of being a great game for its target audience, novice gamers.

I have spent many hours playing this game, but only with friends. This is a great multiplayer game and has improved upon it's predecessor, Champions of Norrath, with game speed, control, and multiplayer options.
The game gives you two new characters in addition to the original ones seen in CoN. (Champions of Norrath) There are new items, weapons, and a new storyline that is both interesting and fast-paced. Where the game falters are the unfortunate but occasional crashes that occur with four players. However, as long as the player saves at every save point, there should be no problem. Overall, the game is very enjoyable and offers a lot of fun with friends. The one-player game is challenging, but falls short of the enjoyment found in a multiplayer game. The strength of this game is indeed not it's storyline, weapons, etc., but it's multiplayer capabilities.

Pros
-Good graphics
-Long Game
-Great mulitplayer

Cons
-Almost no story
-the sound is ok
-can't export online characters
-1 player can boring being alone

This sequel to Champions of Norrath continues the battles of the first game. There are seven classes of characters to choose from, each with a male and female version. Additionally, if you have played Champions of Norrath, you can import your character!

In the first level, you can pick to play either on the "good" or "evil" side. The missions you play are slightly different depending on which side you choose. Best of all, once you complete the game on one difficulty setting, you can restart the game with the character you've already beaten the game with. This allows you to create a very powerful character.

The graphics are bright and colourful, and the frame rate remains consistent even with many enemies on the screen. The lighting system produces some wonderful moody atmospheres. The music is good, though slightly repetitive, and the sound effects are fun. Best of all, the spell-book is much improved over the original Champions of Norrath game: that game only allowed you to use two spells at any given time. Return to Arms permits you to you use any spell in your book by use of the directional pad.

I love all the improvements/additions they made to this game, all the best parts of the original game are even better here. The only downside of the new characters is it makes the barbarian(now pretty much nerfed compared to the cat berserker who has much better ranged attacks(the throwing axes are awesome) and while roar and battlecry and a duelwield that STARTS by giving you 102% damage with each weapon(compared to the original game in which it was like 63% for each weapon) and the wizard (nerfed compared to the new lizard race, which can equip bladed weapons, shields, maces, and standard armor with the same devastating magic power) So pretty much if you maxed out a wizard or a barbarian in the original game you spent a ton of time on characters that won't be as useful in this game. The ranger however gets some SWEET upgrades(being able to summon arrows out of thin air). As for the plot, it's unfortunately very simple, go from stage to stage gathering the shards of hate, not nearly as much plotline as the first game, and the first game didn't have much. The end bossfight is rather disappointing as well. The side-quests however are a nice touch, though some of them are just plain frustrating(the pac-man level for example). The ability to choose between good and evil is nice, I've played through the good side and at least the first level of the evil path is different, so I'm hoping it all is. Overall though I'm very pleased with this game, but I wished they'd have worked on the plotline more and made the final bossfight more difficult and have revealed more about the main boss before you actually face him. I can't give this game anything less than a 5/5 though because it's so addicting and fun to play!

I bought this game initially because my kids were given about 2-3 yrs ago the first game of this duo, that being Champions of Norrath: Realms of Ever quest. We as a family would play it on and off not really doing much with it until this past summer when my husband began playing it just so it would get played finally. From that day, both our son’s joined him on the game and then at some point, I jumped in with them.. We played each level start to finish and admitted we wanted to know if there was a follow up to it. So upon doing a bit of homework I did find out there was this game, CRtA and decided to make the jump to purchase it so we could continue to play on.. The only thing we don’t like about this game is that once you start a game, there is no importing or exporting of a character.. Your stuck with what you got, meaning if my son wants my husband to join him 3 planes in, he can’t because it won’t allow that to happen. A whole new game would need to be started in order for him to join in at all. And it takes far too long to level up. As where in Norrath, you leveled up pretty fast.. This go, it takes a while to do it. Other then these two thing, I don’t think there is anything else Id personally change about the game.. Well maybe have a continued follow up, which from reading, there wont be at all.. This is the last of this series.. And I honestly don’t know if there is any other games that fall in the Ever Quest line that would be like this.. ( that don’t require us to use the PC that is. Or broadband in order to play the game.. We only play platform games.. )