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    Wild Arms

    Game » consists of 4 releases. Released Apr 30, 1997

    Wild Arms tells the tale of a treasure hunter, princess, and dream chaser on a quest to save the world of Filgaia from the invasion of the metal demons.

    zh666's Wild Arms (PlayStation) review

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    • zh666 wrote this review on .
    • 0 out of 0 Giant Bomb users found it helpful.
    • zh666 has written a total of 163 reviews. The last one was for Fallout 3

    Wild Arms is a tried but true RPG at heart.

    The game has a unique setting to it, but a few things about that bugs me. While it's set in some world based off of the Wild West with guns a tootin’ and deserts, there's only one character that actually uses a gun. Actually that gun is more like a bazooka / laser gun, not really a pistol like shown on the box cover. Another thing, his primary weapon is actually a sword, and so is Jack's, and Cecilia uses a magic staff. There's also giant Golems, aliens, castles, planes, magic users, huge towers, etc... Not exactly stuff from the wild wild west, actually all that stuff is from typical RPGs. While it has a different setting that most people might be use to at this point, it's still no different than any other Sci-Fi or Fantasy RPG out there either. The story isn't all that exciting. The battle system is a typical turn based system with a ton of random encounters. Nothing new or fresh here, but it's still fun atleast. The World Map is kinda lame, and the graphics are pretty dated, but still charming.

    With all of that said and done, I still enjoyed the game alot. The puzzles were really fun to do, leveling up or gaining money wasn't hard, I was never stuck for an extended period of time either. The music is freaking great. So in the end, Wild Arms is a really good game that doesn’t really try to hard to be different in the end.


    ----------Battle System----------
    Wild Arms is a standard turn-base RPG that plays out in rounds. For example, you set all your characters moves in a row, then watch the round unfold. The character or enemy with the best agility should go first. You only play as 3 characters, no more or less with ever join your party. Each character has a slew of different abilities to keep the game fun. Cecilia can use White and Black magic that she learns by gathering Chest Graphs and magicians in towns will bind them to create the spell. Jack gains various sword techniques by getting "Hints", either reading about them on a stone wall or fighting a duel. After you get these "Hints", they show up in Jack's battle page as "???", you then keep using these "???" until you hit the right one in the right place then you unlock that special attack forever. I only figured out about half of them because the "hints" weren't enough help. Rudy is the only character that learns ARMs in the game. You can find these ARMs in special treasure chests that only Rudy can open. Once you find them, Rudy can go back to town and buy upgrades that can hold more bullets, more power or better accuracy for each ARM.

    Throughout the game you'll find Runes, each character can equip these Ruins that will boost various stats. You can Summon these ruins into battle when your Force gauge is up. The Force gauge moves up in 4 levels during battle, then restarts after a battle. You gain force each move of the battle, and each character will learn 4 Force attacks.

    There are a ton of boss fights in this game, but alot are repeating bosses you'll fine over and over again. Some boss fights are rarely harder than normal random encounters you'll fight in dungeons. Boss fights don't even give you alot of experience after their battles, some don't even give you money.

    The absolute best thing about this game is the puzzles in the dungeons, almost on a Link to the Past level of fun. While the dungeons aren't really long or challenging, some of them did stump me for a short time. Each character will gain 4 Tools in the game, that help them solve the various puzzles in the game. For example, Rudy can set bombs, Jack can shoot a grappling hook and Cecilia can put out fires. You have to switch through each character with their various skills to solve the dungeons, which was extremely fun for me. Some instances requires your team to break up and you have to control one of them through a short maze until all 3 characters link up again. You'll have to hit levers and push blocks to make your other character advance, almost similar to a Lost Vikings game how those characters work off each other.

    ----------Characters / Story----------
    You play as Rudy, a silent protagonist with a shady past that is shunned from his hometown. He'll meet up with Cecilia, is a dull Princess / Magic student that must go on a quest to save the Guardians of the world. Jack is your final character in the game that is a treasure hunter / expert swordsman with a pet talking mouse traveling the world to seek ultimate power. The team eventually bands together to fight the evil alien race that is trying to destroy the world.

    Yeah, not exactly a moving, original, or groundbreaking storyline, but it does have an original setting for an RPG. Although the story is not quite as fleshed out Final Fantasy 3 or Chrono Trigger, the story is still solid enough to keep you motivated until the end, even though it’s a pretty short game. The dialog can be humorous at times, some of it is really bizarre, like "This isn't the USS Missouri!". Some of the best dialog scenes require you to answer quizzes about stuff that has happened in the game, to make sure you're paying attention. Although it only happened a few times, I enjoyed that alot.


    ----------Graphics----------
    The towns, dungeons and world map are still stuck in the 2D pixel SNES era. Not that this is a bad thing, but at times games like Chrono Trigger and Illusion of Gaia outclass Wild Arms in the graphics department with only a couple exceptions that the SNES probably couldn't pull off. The battle system is the only thing that separates itself from the 16 bit counterparts. When in battle the game becomes 3D with various changing camera angles. I eventually got sick of the various camera movements, because it was a total overkill, so I set it with one angle that I enjoyed. The character look and move like puppets modeled after "small people". The enemy models aren't anything to special either, a few of the enemies looked cool like the big dragons, but for the most part everything was blocky to the extreme. Not quite as good looking as Blazing Heroes for the Saturn that predates this a year earlier. The game opens with a really cool anime cutscene, and it ends with a bunch of grainy looking anime still shots. Really cool stuff for the time.

    ----------Sound----------
    The music is wonderful stuff that will stick with you even after you shut the game off. They use real instruments which is cool. There's no voice work, but some monsters squeal like a cat or a bird when they get attacked, which gets really repetitive.

    ----------World Map----------
    The map is a classic Final Fantasy styled overview map. There's not alot of variation on the map. There's an winter continent, a desert continent, and the rest are plains. The towns, towers and castles all look like the same on the map with a couple exceptions. You'll find bottles in the sea that hold treasures or hints, and on land you'll find caravans that sell you items.

    You will eventually gain a Golem that will walk over shallow water, a ship that will transport you through deep seas, and plane that will fly you across the map. Cecilia will also learn Teleport that will warp you to any town you've visited before. You can't save on the world map, but rather in towns by talking to a parrot (or in a special occasion, a monkey) or in the middle of dungeons you'll find a 6-sided star that will save you progress.

    One thing that really bugged me about this map was there wasn't an actual map displaying your location or the town locations you've visited, so if you need to go someone and forget exactly where it is, then you'll be walking, sailing, or flying there for a long time until you happen to accidentally roll by it.

    ----------Time to Complete Game (last save before final boss)----------

    28:33

    The game doesn't save after you beat the game, so you can continue from your previous save point and go back to level up, find sidequests or anything else you want to do. The final battle was kinda long and the ending story was even longer, plus the credits was extremely long, so you can add about an hour to that time and there you have it, a 29 hour game. Then again, I leveled up for a few hours before I entered the final dungeon, so it's barely even a 29 hour game.

    Other reviews for Wild Arms (PlayStation)

      Wild Arms should please most RPG fans 0

      I can understand that many gamers of the late 90's were pretty exhausted and displeased with the over-saturation of JRPGs. There were simply, the RPGs that were good and stood out from the pack (ex. Final Fantasy, Suikoden, Chrono Trigger) and the other 75% that fell flat because nothing really stood out about them. After all, there's only so much you can do with an RPG game right?   Enter Wild Arms, where nothing about the game is earth-shattering, or ground-breaking. However this game is just ...

      1 out of 1 found this review helpful.

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