Gameplay features a growing party led by L'Arc navigating both an overworld and dungeon environments, taking part in turn-based battles.

The music was a collaborative effort between Yasunori Mitsuda, Shunsuke Tsuchiya and Yuki Harada, with the theme song written and performed by Ryfia's voice actress Yui Makino.

Arc Rise Fantasia is a role-playing video game where players principally take on the role of protagonist L'Arc Bright Lagoon and a growing party of companions.

[1][2] The player can also engage in a slot machine minigame to win powerful equipment and items using special coins found during exploration.

[2] Arc Rise Fantasia is set in the fantasy world of Fulheim, which is split between three competing political factions; the Meridian Empire, the Turmelian Republic, and a theocratic alliance of countries dubbed Olquina which is controlling the flow of a vital energy called Ray.

He partners at an early point with Ryfia, the Imaginal Diva of the Turmelian Republic whose sheltered upbringing leaves her socially awkward.

L'Arc is joined during the campaign by Cecille Garcia, a young girl with combat skills; Serge, a flirtatious mercenary thief; Leslie Ferrati, an agent from the Republic; and Rastan Oigen, an enigmatic swordsman.

Among the antagonists is Dynos, a man with power to command the undead; Ignacy, a leader of the political and criminal underworld; and Hosea, Patriarch of the Imaginal faith.

Ryfia leaves for the nearby forbidden Feldragon Prison, with L'Arc and Alphonse following and the three forced to enter when ambushed by Dymos.

Ryfia locates the Rogress Simmah inside, and L'Arc resonates with her power and becomes Child of Easa representing the Imaginal Law.

Serge, who was among the thieves, helps the party reach Olquina on the ship, briefly encountering Leslie and destroying the device while narrowly escaping Dymos.

L'Arc is forced to summon Simmah, which injures Adele and triggers Alphonse to awaken as a second Child of Easa aligned to the Real Law.

Travelling with Niko and Cecille and crossing the border with Luze's help, the group are arrested upon delivering the message, a request for unconditional surrender to the Empire.

There they learn that L'Arc can stop the Hozone's effects on the world by gathering nine Rogress and ascending to Easa's holy land of Noire to enact the Imaginal Law.

After gathering enough power, L'Arc fights both the Imperial forces led by Weiss, revealed to have been cursed by Easa, and corruption within the Republic orchestrated by Ignacy and Hosea to further the Imaginal Law.

Adele sacrifices herself to save Alphonse, and the party kill Lunacy and Hosea, with Niko sacrificing himself to stop a Divine Race weapon.

The party confront Luze, being forced to kill her so L'Arc can take her place as Easa's core and neutralise Hozone's toxicity to allow the Races to coexist.

[12][13] Mikage had been introduced to Mizutani through a mutual friend, and during production on the Luminous Arc series, they were approached by Nintendo about making an RPG for the Wii, which had a deficit of that genre.

[16][18] Many of the lead production staff, which included several notable names, was assembled quickly due to pre-existing working relationships with Imageepoch.

[3][20] When Kanemaru came on board, the game's platform had already been decided; he joined when a mutual acquaintance directed him towards Imageepoch, and he found the project had several former co-workers already involved.

[12] The narrative was the first part of the game to be created, with the team wanting a unique worldview with memorable characters and a wide range of emotion.

[17][21] Takumi Miyajima is credited as both scenario supervisor, and co-writer alongside Miyuki Kishimoto, Toru Shizuki and Kohei Ohta.

They also wanted the cast to reflect recent trends of character development in anime and manga, feeling that video games had not caught up.

[3] The team wanted to keep the battles as low-stress as possible, though flashy animations and special attack cutscenes were added at Marvelous's request.

[20] The large overworld was planned from an early stage at Kanemaru's insistence, contrasting against selectable self-contained locations on other Wii RPGs.

[28] As was his policy at this time, Mitsuda refused to compose music for the game until it was complete, allowing him to match his score to the finished product.

[31] Tsuchiya considered Arc Rise Fantasia both his most challenging project due to the work load and fan anticipation, and the "culmination" of his skills up to then.

[30][32] The ending theme, "Angel Stairs ~crepuscular rays~", was written and performed by Ryfia's Japanese voice actress Yui Makino, and arranged by Tsuneyoshi Saito.

[45][46] The translation and localization were handled by Japanese company Entalize,[22][47] then a frequent collaborator with Ignition which had been criticised for their work on Nostalgia (2008) and Muramasa: The Demon Blade (2009).

[3][5] Prior to release, Ignition's Shane Bettenhausen defended the dub as being "on par, but maybe not the level" with other titles such as the Final Fantasy series, citing the localization as a challenge due to incorporating Xseed's completed work.