Arc Rise Fantasia opens quite explosively with our hero fighting a feldragon. After he beats it, the dragon is about to explode into a felburst. Out of nowhere, a mysterious singing girl appears and just makes the dragon vanish before it explodes. She says that she is a Diva and her name is Ryfia. She's obviously unlike anyone he's ever met before and L'Arc has no clue how to deal with her. L'Arc is our hero. Since he doesn't really know what else to do with Ryfia, and she did save his life when she stopped the dragon from exploding, he takes her with him. Their first stop is Topazion. We learn that Ryfia is from Benetnasch, in the Turemilian Republic, way far away and enemies of the Empire that L'Arc serves. It was her mother's dying wish for Ryfia to go to Jada, so she's headed there. In Topazion, they run into Alf, the prince of the Empire and L'Arc's best friend. It's Alf's idea to take Ryfia with them, since Jada is on the way back to the Royal City anyway.
From here, things are going to start getting really complex. We find out that L'Arc is pretty darn special since he is the Child of Eesa and so is Ryfia since she is the Imaginal Diva (which is much like a priestess). Ryfia's purpose in life is to find the Child of Eesa and lead him to his destiny under Imaginal's Law. Unfortunately, that's not going to be as easy as it sounds when it is revealed that there is another Child of Eesa who is being lead by Real's Diva to make Real's Law come to pass. Sound complicated? Be prepared that almost no one in Arc Rise Fantasia turns out to be the person you thought they were and you never know who is working for who. This game pits sibling against sibling and friend against friend, all trying to figure out who is following the right path. At this point, I'm a bit over 30 hours into the game and I have a feeling that it still has quite a few more secrets to reveal. I love that it is continually revealing new information keeping the game new and fresh, which is why I'm not telling you any more of the story so that it's new and fresh when you get there!
As you're roaming around, always looks for sparkly spots as they provide things that you need. Usually it is maps, but sometimes it's other story components. Also look everywhere for ??? to appear at the top of the screen. That shows that there's something hidden there to search for. I like that when you lose a character due to some turn of events (which happens in all RPGs so nothing given away here), it pulls their orbs off for you. So if you had beefed them up magically, you don't end up losing those orbs with the character.
There are several additional elements to Arc Rise Fantasia. There are additional side quests that you can do for the guilds. If you're going to do the guild jobs, I recommend doing them as soon as they become available. Otherwise, by the time you can get back to some places, the monsters you have to kill are so easy that you get so little experience that it's not worth it. Since you have to clear out some jobs to get the next one, I just recommend that you take care of them quickly. The weapon system is a totally separate thing. At first, I was really confused since the weapons don't have a specific attack value. Instead, they have a grid with Tetris-like pieces attached. When you first get the weapons, these pieces are locked. The more you use it though, it gains weapon points. When you get enough of these weapon points, it'll unlock the pieces from the weapon and expand the grid so it is all useable. You can pull these pieces off of anyone's weapons after they're unlocked and mix and match them to create the perfect weapon. When you fill up the entire grid exactly, you'll unlock the weapon's secret bonus as well. You need to figure out the weapons early and start unlocking pieces so that you're not running around wasting time just trying to level your weapons!