Game review: Arcana Famiglia - Vascello Fantasma ~Speciale Episodio ~

Made by: Hune-X

Genre: Otome, Mafia, Romance, Adventure, Fandisk

Summary: Taking place after the first game, Felicitá and the gang is back in this FD. The story starts with Felicitá getting kidnapped by a mysterious intruder who steal all the Tarot Arcana cards.

The kidnapper named Ash escapes to a ghost ship where he meets up with a man called Joshua. They take out the cards and Ash decides he will make a contract first. It's the Magician which chooses him and makes it mark on Ash neck. Joshua starts screaming all of the sudden when the Justice makes a contract with him. But something is strange and Joshua turns into a skeleton and awakes a whole army of skeletons on the ship. The Arcana Family arrives to save Felicitá but a thick fog now covers the entire ship and everyone gets lost.

Libertá
Felicitá can't see a thing but feels someone grabbing her hand. The two of them escapes to a safe room. Libertá is in his usual cheerful shonen hero mood but he notice Felicitá is scared, so he promise he will protect her. They run into Nova who is acting strange and he suddenly kidnaps Felicitá! Libertá fights him and it turns out Ash can shape shift to people too, not just a tiger. They also get attacked by a hoard of skeletons and Joshua appears. He is just about to attack but suddenly staggers when he sees Libertá, and rushes off back to the ship.

The next day Felictá and Libertá meets Joshua again, this time he is turned back to human (the two of them doesn't realize he was the skeleton). They introduce themselves and Joshua talks about his how much he wants to see his missing son and Libertá assure him that they will surely meet some day.
On the way back they meet Jolly in the hallway. They tell him about Joshua and Jolly says he used to know a man named Joshua; he was Mondo's son (and Libertás father). Jolly says it sure is strange to meet a man with the same name again and Libertá almost panic at the thought of meeting his father.
Felicitá suggests searching the ship for more information and they find a diary written by Ash's dad.

Just ans they thought, Joshua is indeed Libertás father and Felicitás half-brother. They try to find him but meet Ash who grabs Feli again, planning on using her Wheel of Fate arcana to help Joshua. Libertá saves her again, saying that he treasure her more than his father. They fight with the skeletons on the deck again and Joshua finally appears after that. He apologizes to Libertá for being such a bad father and never keeping his promise of raising his son. Everything seems find until The Justice goes crazy and turns Joshua back to a skeleton. Libertá ends up using his powers and the card finally let's go of Joshua, whom can return to heaven after finally saying goodbye to his son.
Libertá hugs Felcitiá and says he's not gonna cry.
His father left him with a smile on his face so he is gonna keep smiling too!

Libertás route was pretty cute and somewhat how I expected it to be. His reaction to whenever Feli wanted to do something romantic was really sweet and he keeps blushing and being all innocent.
Him finally meeting his father was touching and I'm happy they parted on good tems like this ( ´ ▽ ` )

Nova
Felicitá and Nova decides to focus on getting the tarot cards back, rather than finding the others or fighting Ash. They hide inside a storage while resting when skeletons starts ramping outside. Felicitá gets scared but Nova hugs her and they fall asleep together. Nova wakes up first and notice the engagement ring he gave have fallen out of her pocket. He blushes like crazy but is happy that she likes it and always carries it around.

 They fight Ash who is disguised to Libertá and later again as Pace. Ash manges to swap Felicitás ring for a fake one and after fighting skeleton Joshua she demands it back.  Ash jokingly says maybe the ojou-sama should hook up with him instead but seeing how Nova and she gets very serious and clearly in love, he gives it back.
Nova was really adorable, just like in the first game. I liked him a lot better now and you can see how much he likes Felicitá.
But I still don't approve of their "I'm dating my aunt" relationship.

Debito
His route was very up an down, one moment happy and the other filled with angst. He and Felictá run around the boat searching for food and the rest of the crew just like in everyone else's route. Debito gives Felicitá one of his treasured guns to protect herself and she somehow feels that he doesn't take her seriously and think she is weak. She later proves him wrong when they fight skeletons and run into Ash. Pace and Luca are surprised when they see the ojou-sama holding one of Debito's weapons, and tells her that he never ever let anyone touch them. During their time on the ship he is haunted by memories of him killing people when he was younger. Felicitá uses her Lovers arcana to help him ease the pain and Debito accepts his past.
The highlight of his route was when he and Felicitá played catch and threw around the arcana cards over Ash's head. It reminded me a lot of their fighting scene in the original game, which I loved.


Pace
Pace only has one thing in mind (as usual), food. He and Felicitá walks around for hours trying to find anything to eat when they suddenly smell lasagna. And not just any lasagna, his mother special secret recipe. Inside they room they meet the ghost of his mother, who doesn't seem to recognize him or know what is going on at all. Pace feels conflicted but doesn't turn down the offer of some lasagna. Pace says his mother is probably there because of a reason, and he figures if he eats every single piece of lasagna she offers, she will be able to go to heaven.

But Ash is back with a skeleton army and Felicitá have to fight them alone while Pace sits safe inside the room. He ends up saving her just before Ash makes the final blow and he says they will find another way of helping his mom. They continue to fight on the dock but Pace end up hurting his leg and his glasses disappear. Since he can't see a thing without them he clings to Felicitá who hugs him and Pace admits that seeing his mother's ghost upset him. He decides to live in the present and allow the past to stop hunting him. They kiss and Feli starts looking around for his glasses but is attack but Ash, whom shape shift into her while leaving her passed out body behind.
Pace notice Felicitá is acting strange and keep asking about the arcana powers, when the real ojou-sama comes back. They start fighting but Pace doesn't know which one is real, so he tells her to read his heart and when one of them starts blushing embarrassed, he knows she is the real one.
They fight Joshua and combined their power is able to send all the spirits on the ship back to where they belong, including Pace's mother. In his ending he and Felicitá visit her grave and he feels like everything finally feels right.
Pace is still one of my favorite characters. His route was better than most of the other and it feels nice settling the conflicted feelings he had with his mom from the first game.

Luca
 The dear ojou-sama's butler who is still as helplessly in love with her as before. They wake up in a room together after the fog separated them and Luca apologizes, saying it's his fault Felicitá got kidnapped. He talks about how he once failed to protect her when they were younger but Feli just shakes her head and they decide to go to sleep.
Next day they fight Ash and a skeleton army and they both get knocked out. They are together in a prison cell when they come around but they are soon rescued by the other guys who tease them for being so close. They find a room for the night and after eating some apples Felicitá says she saw Lucas dream last night. The butler says it's probably because he gave her a piece of his heart (in the first game) and now their heart is as one （人´∀`*）He tells Felicitá he loves her over and over while kissing her and then it's sexy time all night~

The final battle takes place next day at the dock and when Joshua unleash a final attack on Felicitá, Luca jumps in front of her and takes the blow of thousands spikes piercing his body. She screams and tells him to stop but he murmurs that he loves her and that this pain is nothing compared to the thought of her getting hurt (´；ω；`)

Joshua returns to normal for a brief second and ask Felicitá to use her power to stop him. She successfully sends his spirit back to rest in peace. Luca notice his hat flew off in the commotion and Feli says that after he's patched up and healed, she will buy him a new one.
Luca is still my number one in the gang and I wasn't so disappointed in his route. One of his other endings was about how Felicitá had a sex dream about Do-S Luca and wakes up blushing, smacking him on the face.

Ash
So Ash grabs Felicitá to another room and wants her to spill information about the family. He keeps calling her "strawberry head" because of her red hair and they go eat food that Pace's mom made. They meet Joshua next day, this time in human form and while Ash is explaining the skeleton situation he accidentally uses his power and shape shift into Joshua. Joshua on the other hand goes back to his skeleton form and Ash transforms to the tiger, ready to attack.
He and Felicitá escapes back to the room again but Ash won't go back to human. Instead he seems ready to eat the ojou-sama and she grabs the nearest thing, an apple, and throws at him. The tiger eats the apple and with a poof Ash sits naked on the floor.

Feli is extremely embarrassed and kicks him in the face but Ash explains he have to eat apples to turn back to human again. They talk for some more but Ash notice something is off and understands she can read his heart. He pushes her down the floor and pulls her hair, saying it's unfair to violate your powers like that. He demands her to show him her arcana marks and want to use her wheel of fate on Joshua as quickly as possible. When she starts crying instead of answering he leaves, slamming the door hard behind him.

Joshua is going crazy with the skeletons and everybody is fighting on the dock. Felicitá sees Ash on the lookout post. She climbs up there and starts undressing herself, showing him the lovers arcana on her breast. Ash thanks her for trusting him and ask her for a duel. If she wins he will giver her the cards, but if she lose she will help him save Joshua. Felicitá wins after a long battle but smile and help Ash up, saying she will of course help Joshua too.

Then it's boss battle time and Joshua says goodbye to Ash, telling him he always thought of him as his son. They go to the office to find some letter left by Ash dad. He made a promise to his father that he would "send off" every spirit on the ship, which was the reason behind everything. When he was young Ash accidentally killed his father while being in tiger form and Joshua raised him as his own after that.

He hugs Felicitá tight, asking her if it's okay to stay like this a little longer. She is the only one he would show this weak side of himself to.
I really, really like Ash. I was so pleasantly surprised when playing that I found myself totally charmed by his love for apples and kick ass personality. His third ending was also hilarious; J(Tr)olly gave him a potion to solve his tiger transformation, but he ends up saying "Gao" after every sentence. Felicitá blushes surprised, saying it's cute, but Ash is not entertained. He transform himself to Jolly and says all sort of ridiculous things, making the real Jolly very uncomfortable. Oh well, at least Feli is happy about it.

Jolly
So Jolly ends up with Felicitá and he is still as smug and an asshat as before. He gets better as the route goes on and he and Feli probably have the most intimate moments in the game.
Jolly is still constantly flirting with her and at one point even admits that no one can make him this way except for her. Just like before, sorry for the short summary. I pretty much had the game on auto while doing other stuff in the background, but Jolly is just always Jolly.

Jolly and Joshua

Dante
Sorry, I tried.I really did.

Gameplay:
Every character got 5 different chapters, each chapter takes about 10-20min to complete and also 3 endings. You don't have to play the chapters in order, which mean you can start on another guys chapter when ever you feel like taking a break from your current one. There are some mini games like throwing knifes on a spinning wheel which can unlock short scenarios and the usual bonus talk from the seiyuu's and questions for the character. The game got the same quick time events as before and Felicitá having the power to read peoples mind.

Final Score:
Story 5/10
I don't think many people can resist a good ghost story but sadly the game didn't use it as much as I would have wanted to. Almost all of the routes had a similar set-up which consisted of Felicitá and the character of your choice to run around on the boat, fight some skeletons and Joshua, then it ends. Obviously Ash and Liberta had the most story in this FD, but what about the other guys?
The thing that still works for Arcana is the character interactions and humor. The baka-trio are as funny as ever and J(Tr)olly is back at trolling the rest of the cast.

Music 6/10
Nothing stood out very much and some of the music was from the original game, which was nice and gave you a familiar feeling. No character songs at the ending this time disappointed me a little bit.

Art 6/10
The art is great as usual with the same heavy shading and comic style that Arcana Famiglia uses. 8 CGs per character might not sound that bad for a FD, but when half of them is a zoom in of the previous, you will feel kind of pissed for paying over 7800yen for just 4 CGs (most of them not even good). Which brings me to my next problem: Why make a fandisk if you aren't going to have any romantic moments between the characters? Some of the characters got so shafted the only thing they did was hug. No, not even that. They almost hugged. Wow, how can we go from Debito humping her on the table to barley daring to touch her?

Voices 9/10
Everyone was great as usual and with this seiyuu line-up I expected nothing less. Sugita (Pace) is hilarious as usual and Nakamura Yuuichi (Luca) makes it impossible not to like it when he calls you "Ojou-sama".

Total: 6/10 
I love Arcana Famiglia, but can't help but feel disappointed. It's over before it can start, the lack of romantic moments between some of the characters and the low CG quality makes me regret buying this. Yes, the characters are awesome and just as wonderful as before, but what's the point when it goes to waste? Maybe I had too high hopes and I admit I was way too hype for it's release, but overall I wouldn't say it's worth your time unless your a big fan of the first game.