Wild Arms Alter Code: F

"Just another remake?"

The Wild Arms series is one that I've been playing from the beginning. I remember buying the first one on the PS1 and loving it. I remember getting a demo from Sony for Wild Arms 2 and running out on the same day to buy it and it became my favorite. I remember begging for a few extra bucks so I could buy Wild Arms 3 but sadly the series had let me down. When I heard that they were remaking the original I had mixed feelings. "Why?" was the first thing to pop in my head but I guess I never realized how long it's been since the series started. I must say that while this remake is just as good as the original, I felt let down by a number of things.

The game starts off with three characters on their own and doing their own thing. Rudy is an ArmS user. Not many are in the world and he's just looking for a place to exist. Jack is a treasure hunter, out looking for something that will bring him amazing powers so that he can get revenge. Cecile is an up and coming mage of sorts. She hears the voices of the Guardians, think of them as elemental gods. The three end up teaming up and setting out to find these Guardians and to discover why Filgaia is the way it is. The plot is good and it's one of the few games to offer surprising plot twists. It delivers its plot at just the right times as you never get bored and wonder if it's ever going to go anywhere. Not much new is added for those who have played the original.

Graphics wise is where the game fails. The CGI scenes are painfully dull. The characters are large and way too smooth, lacking any true details. Long and slow text is shown during these scenes and causes them to drag on far longer than they should. By the end I wanted to skip them. The game does have a few nicely done anime scenes and while they do look great, they kind of ruin the game at different points which had me just passing over it when I loaded my save. While the actual in game graphics are kind of ugly, they grow on you after a while. Dungeons all look different, as do towns but everything seems small and kind of boring.

Sound wise the game disappoints as well. While sound effects are nice, a little above what you expect from a RPG, the game fails in the other two spots. The game offers no voice acting and that isn't a real problem but by today's standards, it takes away from the game, it drags out scenes longer than it should and more emotion can be shown with voice acting. I just wish the CGI scenes had voice acting as that would have solved one of my biggest beefs with the game. The music is fantastic in spots. So what's my problem with the music? Well, they cut out all vocals when bringing it over. Why? This seems pointless. They could have dubbed it, they could have kept the original Japanese vocals but instead we get a slightly butchered experience. Oh well, a lot of the music is nice.

While I found the control easy to use, I did have a small problem with it. Menus are easy to navigate and using the new tools is easy as pie since the game kindly tells you how to use them as soon as you get them. The problem comes when you run. While running in a town, dungeon, or on the world map you run in a straight line. You can't turn or anything. Just stop holding the button and the character stops... This just slows things down I guess.

Wild Arms offers a solid game play experience that keeps to the basics while bringing new things to the table, as long as you haven't played the previous titles that is. One big bonus is that the game has an actual world map, you travel it; get means to cross mountains, oceans and all that jazz. To find a town you have to learn a general location for it and from then you can see a red dot on the world map. Head there and use the search function and you can find the town. The same goes for the dungeons. This can get frustrating if you don't have the map turned on, or if you missed a sign or person.

Now, the game has dungeons. Lots of dungeons. Try over 20 dungeons for just the story. And these aren't those silly little dungeons you might find in Final Fantasy. These dungeons are full of puzzles and they require you to use the tools of the characters? Tools? Well, each character gets 4 tools; they start with 1 and get the rest as the game goes on. Rudy starts with bombs, Jack has hanpan, a mouse, and Cecile has a fire wand. As you get further in the game the puzzles get longer and harder and by the end I was getting very frustrating. But this really keeps the game and its dungeons interesting.

Now, the actual battle system is interesting but still remains simple. First of all random battles happen a lot. Thankfully you have a thing called a Migrant level. You find seals that give you more but basically you hit circle when you're about to enter a battle and it cancels it. Enemies aren't seen on the screen, instead a "!" appears above the characters head showing that an attack is about to happen. Now, each character plays differently. Cecil is your healer; she is also the only one with spells and ahs the msot MP. You get spells by finding crests. Take these to a shop and for a fee you can get a new spell. You can dismantle them, build them, whatever. The game has just enough crests to have all spells. She can also summon later in the game. As for Jack, he's a swordsman. As you go through dungeons you may come across a glowing sword, these are new special skills for Jack. They use MP but he has very little. Rudy uses a gun. You need to reload and his specials are found in chests and can be upgraded at shops. Don't like the way you've upgraded? Cancel it, but don't get your money back, and start brand new. Now, Besides HP and MP you have Fp. As the battles go on and as you take damage this meter goes up. This allows you to use what I like to think of as power ups. They can enhance an attack. This adds a bit of strategy to the mix.

As for replay value, Wild Arms: Alter Code F has it in spades. The game has an arena, new game +, secret characters, loads of secret bosses and dungeons, a mini game and a number of EX Files that unlock still pictures and many other specials upon completing the game. So the game really does have a lot to offer in the replay department and you can be sure it will take well over 50 hours to do it all without a guide.

So, is Wild Arms a RPG worth checking out? For those who missed the original I would say run out and grab this, it's a really good title but it's small glaring flaws hold it back. It's a solid story, lengthy quest and full of extras and you really can't want too much more from a RPG. The game is kind of hard to find now since it had a few small print run and was very hard to find just weeks after its release.

Story - 8/10
Graphics - 5/10
Sound - 7/10
Control - 8/10
Game Play - 8/10
Replay Value - 8/10

Final Score - 8/10

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 05/01/06