20 Years Ago Today, the Xbox 360 Got One of the Strangest JRPG Video Games Ever Made
Nowadays (and back in the 90s and early 2000s), JRPGs were almost synonymous with PlayStation's brand, with major franchises like Final Fantasy , Suikoden , and Kingdom Hearts . That all shifted when the Xbox 360 dominated console sales in the mid-2000s, leading some major JRPG titles to release first on Xbox 360 or remain exclusive indefinitely. Now, one of the strangest JRPGs on the console is officially 20 years old.
Today, August 29, 2026, marks the 20th anniversary of the release of the original Xbox 360 version of Enchanted Arms , developed by FromSoftware, the creator of Dark Souls and Elden Ring . The game has been largely lost to time, but there are some moments that remain memorable, especially given how popular FromSoftware has become as a developer in 2026.
Enchanted Arms follows the story of enchanter Atsuma, who is able to draw magical power with his right arm in order to fight and recruit Golems. Atsuma must team up with a band of party members to defeat a Devil Golem, appropriately called the Queen of Ice.
Enchanted Arms used a turn-based, grid-structured battle system. Players can tactically move characters around a grid before selecting actions, with most actions having a specific range of grid segments in which to execute attacks, healing, or other actions.
According to Metacritic , Enchanted Arms received a mixed reception; the game is currently sitting at a 69 metascore. Critics were divided on the game's core combat systems, JRPG tropes, and especially its story and characters.
Some critics were disappointed with the game's use of stereotypes for certain characters, and the voice acting was panned.
With magic golems, hilarious dialogue, and cringe voice acting, Enchanted Arms was a standout of the mid-2000s, though not for positive reasons. Since its initial release, the reception to the game has grown, and some FromSoftware fans (especially Dark Souls fans) are discovering the game for the first time after wanting to play through all of FromSoftware's catalog of video games.
FromSoftware would later find an immense amount of success and become an industry juggernaut with the release of Demon's Souls in 2009, and then a genre-defining developer with Dark Souls in 2011.
FromSoftware's next game, The Duskbloods , is scheduled to be released sometime in 2026, exclusively for the Nintendo Switch 2.
This story was originally published by Men's Journal on Aug 29, 2026, where it first appeared in the Entertainment section. Add Men's Journal as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
