Wild Arms 4

"Now this makes up for Wild Arms 3"

I've always had a soft spot for the Wild Arms series. Heck, even the mediocre third entry in the series still holds something on me. If I haven't played a game in 5 years and many moments are still stuck in my head, it did something right somewhere. Wild Arms 4 hit North American shores not long after Wild Arms Alter Code F hit, which was a remake and I do believe I've reviewed it. Well, a year later and I have finally played my copy of Wild Arms 4 and must say, it's one fine game. What makes it special though? Read on!

Wild Arms 4 tells a tale slightly different than the previous games. Jude is out hero and one day he's outside his village and sees something landing. He races out, notices a lot of men and machines. Sneaks around and sees a girl being held captive. Rescues a man on the way to finding a key to save the girl but when he returns, she is gone. He leaves the building and there is no one around and he heads to the village and all hecks breaks loose. Fans of the series will realize the big secret right away but I won't spoil it and it happens within the first hour. The idea behind Wild Arms 4 is war, but also where does one draw the line on good and evil. What makes a person good and what makes a person evil and can it really be the opposite of what one believes. It's funny but after so many RPGS this is perhaps the first game in a long while to make its characters feel real. They have emotions, they show feelings when things happen. It's actually impressive that so much development goes into these characters and by the end of the game you really do care what happens to them.

The graphics in the game won't win any awards but they are solid. Most of the game takes place on a 2d field of sorts but there are 3d like areas. The game uses a cell shading styling which looks very good here and I really liked it. At least it looked cell shaded but I could be wrong. It looks good but not amazing. Monster designs are fun and actually, it seems the developers had a lot of fun with this game and it shows.

The sound in the game is excellent. From the sound effects in the battles to the fantastic music. The biggest draw is the voice work. I haven't heard so many voices just work in a game in a long time. By that I mean that the voices just fit perfectly with the characters.

The control in the game is really easy. Battles are menu based and you can pretty much just jump and pick stuff up. Once you're holding an item you can use it but everything is easy to remember and there is no character switching this time around.

Wild Arms 4 is a drastic change of pace and fans won't recognize the game at all. The biggest change is that there is no longer a world map. Grandia fans will know the drill but you pretty much just pick the next area from a flat 2 d map. It works though because they add areas as spots so it's kind of like your picking your next stop on the journey.

Other things have changes as well. Puzzles are now solved by jumping and using items around you. Grab a bomb and light it up and place it. Or you may need to take a pot to a flame, light it and then find a non burning flame to toss the pot on and all the while dodging water. These puzzles feel much more natural than what the other games featured.

So, that's a lot of change for a series. However, there is more. The entire battle system has had an overhaul. Think of it as Grandia meets a strategy game. The battle screen will come up and you will notice the playing field is a hexagram. Your characters will be randomly placed on it. Maybe together, maybe on four different spots. The enemies will also be on spots but they can't be on your spot and vise versa.

Now, the idea here is that you attack the entire spot and not just one guy (usually, there are exceptions). This leads to combing but also contaminating a square with a spell. This really makes you think of how turns will work. The game runs on an active time bar so you can always tell what order the people will attack in so you can plan ahead. It's a good change of pace and while I was worried at first, it really does work wonders.

Perhaps a down side to this game is that there is no new game plus that I noticed. We still have EX Keys and you can carry over data from Alter Code F which will give you some cool new features like special chests and alterations to your stats. The game itself is fairly long and has a ton of secrets to discover.

I may have nothing but praise for this game but to be honest there are very few flaws here. XSeed is new to the whole releasing of games thing and this was their first release. Despite a silly typo for Jude's first skill, I really didn't notice any other problems. I do believe you can change the name of attacks so you can fix the typo yourself if you want. Either way, I highly recommend Wild Arms 4 to any fan of RPGs and it's easily in my top 15 rpgs of all time.

Story - 9/10
Graphics - 8/10
Sound - 9/10
Control - 9/10
Game Play - 10/10
Replay value - 6/10

Final Score - 9/10

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 04/12/07