Wild Arms XF

Wild Arms XF is a game that manages to be both familiar and entirely original. As you can see from any random screenshot, this is clearly a strategy role-playing game. It has the standards: 2-D characters, 3-D environments that float in front of a colored background, and an ever present stats bar covering 20% of the screen. Yet somehow, the wizards at Media.Vision Entertainment have made a title that conforms to its genre’s traditions, but never fails to surprise the player.  

The immediate difference between Wild Arms XF and other turn-based strategy games is the hex grid. Instead of having a board made of squares, the game utilizes hexagonal spaces for all of the battles. Each level uses a series of hexes to make up its environment. As a result, areas in Wild Arms XF are more natural in appearance. Character movement is affected as well. Units have far more realistic movement paths than in similar games thanks to the hex grid. This also allows for the possibility of completely surrounding enemies, and the game will adequately reward you for taking advantage of it.

The second most unique factor of Wild Arms XF is its story. The game opens with Clarissa and Felius, the main protagonists, trekking through Elesius, a kingdom in mourning over the recently deceased Princess Alexia. Clarissa is almost entirely uninteresting at the start. She is extremely determined to see her mother’s dream of restoring Filgaia (the world in which all the Wild Arms games take place) realized, and she has a big, magical gun. Felius, on the other hand, has all sorts of hooks to intrigue the player. For whatever reason, he will not leave Clarissa’s side.

After some early encounters, Clarissa and Felius wind up involved in a much bigger conflict, as you might expect. A branch of the Elesian government populated by an utterly unsavory group of people is attempting a coup. They’re essentially unopposed due to the nation’s recent loss of a princess and the fact that her father, their beloved king, is terminally ill. Our heroes stumble upon a member of the rebels attempting to prevent the overthrow, named Labyrinthia Wordsworth. As evidenced by the name Labyrinthia effin’ Wordsworth, she is the type of character you rarely, if ever see in a video game. For some comically and fortuitously unexplained reason, she is regarded as a “highly capable woman,” and she makes sure to tell the player this at every possible opportunity.  

What makes the events of Wild Arms so entertainingly unique throughout most of the game is how Clarissa’s eventual army goes about fighting an entire military force. Following the plans of “master tactician,” Labyrinthia, the army employs a variety of strategies. At times, you’re utilizing guerilla warfare. At other moments, you’re doing a small village a favor to polish your group’s public image. In some instances, the group charges headlong into battles, yet at others, they’ll execute carefully planned infiltrations. Ultimately, it makes the first four of the game’s five acts seem almost entirely feasible at least in terms of how a tiny rebel force could thwart the schemes of a corrupt, powerful government body. It’s not always great, and the plot becomes rather ridiculous as you near the final ten or so chapters, but overall it’s an exciting storyline that twists and turns better than most.

But you come to this type of game for strategic battles. Wild Arms XF is well aware of this and it pours the tactics on liberally. There are just so many options. The game features more than 20 classes, each with a minimum of five unique skills. Before battle, there’s a staggering amount of different, totally viable party builds and once the fight starts, you’ll still find plenty of ways to tackle it. Since you can learn a class’s skills and use them as a different class, and every unit is totally capable of filling any role, you end up with a fully-customized party of six multi-purpose units. I restarted about 40% of the game’s battles just before finishing them simply because I just wanted to see what would happen if I did them differently or with a different setup.

Wild Arms XF encourages -no- requires party synergy in a way I have yet to see in any other turn-based game. For instance, here’s a common situation: Most spells can’t be cast during the same turn in which the caster moves. To get around this, there’s a class with an ability that allows the target to use any ability after moving. However, this ability cannot be used on the person executing it, so you’ll have to have a unit playing support if you’re going to use any mage-type fighters. It’s a small example of one of the many situations your six-person battle team will have to adapt to.

On top of the complex battle dynamics, Wild Arms XF features an interesting item creation system. It’s not super complicated but its execution is the selling point. You can send units you’ve hired out to locations you’ve already visited to find crafting materials. The great part is you can spend a tiny amount of your accumulated money to fast forward time, making them return instantly. Provided you have the money, all of the necessary components to make whatever you have access to are often mere seconds away. Wild Arms XF is an RPG with virtually zero farming.

 There are a few things holding back this game. Its presentation certainly leaves room for improvement. It often looks significantly better than most other strategy games on consoles, but that’s not saying much. Character models in-game are low resolution, barely animated sprites. Outside of battle, during cutscenes, you’re treated to completely unanimated still drawings of each character standing behind a text box. It’s absolutely laughable when you see two characters who are supposed to be fighting, but are instead two still images sliding into one another. The audio work is a mixed bag as well. There are a considerable number of spoken lines in the game but practically all of them are either poorly acted or voiced by a terrible actor. I played the last three hours without the voices on because they immediately drew me out of the experience. Alternatively, the music is incredible. The game allows you to listen to the soundtrack at pretty much any time and you’ll be really glad they did. At times, I would turn my PSP’s volume up to the max, and let the world map song play while I did other things…like write this review.

Further hampering the presentation of Wild Arms XF is a shocking display of poor technical performance. The game visibly freezes for about a second every time a character casts a spell. It’s something you can eventually adapt to but it’s still an issue. It also stalls frequently to open up your ability menu during battle and considering how often you’ll need to do that, it’s something that brings the game down several notches. For a game that doesn’t look too hot to begin with, it’s amazing that is has so many technical problems.

Then there’s the pacing. Someone at Media.Vision decided 40-50 hours just wasn’t long enough. The last 80% of the game consists almost entirely of fighting bosses you’ve already fought. In several instances, you will fight a boss and then have to fight him or her again in the very next fight. One encounter in particular happens about eight different times. It makes the game feel extremely front loaded; it’s a fun ride that loses momentum and stutters to a stop by the end.

Does the good outweigh the bad? Absolutely and at $15 for a PSP download (because the game is just over two years old as of this writing), Wild Arms XF is impossible not to recommend to fans of the genre. The original $40 asking price is still a steal for a great game with more than 50 hours of legitimate gameplay and a really, really entertaining story.

Review Status Information:

Played the game as a fan of the genre. Little-to-no experience with previous titles in the franchise. Played for 80+ hours and completed the main storyline. Spent at least four hours of that listening to the music.