capacity. By contrast, Arc the Lad II has a fully explorable world. The world map is richly coloured and detailed, where characters can roam freely, instead of having a simple overhead view map. Cities and dungeons also allow the player to freely explore, though some battle maps are only for combat, and nothing else. Arc the Lad III expands even farther on this concept and every place in the game is explorable on foot and can be explored during normal gameplay. Story Arc the Lad Arc the Lad II Arc the Lad III Development Early in 1997, North American fans of the series started a petition on IGN's PSX Power for a Western release of the first two games of the series. In 2000, Working Designs hinted that they would be localizing all three of the Arc games for a North American release in a bundle called Arc the Lad Collection. On April 18, 2002, after a series of unmet release dates, the Arc the Lad Collection was released in North America. This was the first time North American gamers were able to play the popular then-Japanese-exclusive series. The collection encompasses six discs and four games: Arc the Lad, Arc the Lad II, Arc Arena: Monster Tournament, and Arc the Lad III. The collection also features the documentary disc Making of Arc the Lad, which includes exclusive interviews with Victor Ireland, the president of Working Designs at that time. It comes with a leather-bound, 150-page, full-color instruction booklet. It also includes the Omake Box ("omake," pronounced "o-ma-keh," is Japanese for "extra"). The Omake Box features cardboard miniature standees of all 22 characters, four analog stick covers—one of Arc, one of Elc, one of Alec and one of the Arc the Lad emblem—and a memory card case featuring Arc's face. Reception In the United States, the game sold 51,665 units, . Arc the Lad Collection garnered positive reviews from critics, with aggregate scores of 81% on GameRankings and 78 out of 100 on Metacritic. Critics were quick to point out the "typical" Working Designs packaging of the series. David Smith of IGN gave the extras included with the games "two thumbs up" and wrote that the "collection does a particularly good job of accenting one of the more unusual aspects of Arc the Lad as a series, which is its continuity." In a review from Gaming-age.com, Alex Makar noted that Working