Wild Arms 3

"Beautiful style with flawed substance"

Flying under the radar compared to the Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest series, Wild Arms makes its debut on the Playstation 2 with Wild Arms 3, sporting a new graphical style while retaining elements seen in the first two games. So how does this game compare to the dozens of RPGs on the Playstation 2? Read to find out!

Story:

Drifters, known to be strong and independent, wander the wasteland known as Filgaia for multiple reasons. Virginia Maxwell, a small town girl from Boot Hill, leaves the home of her aunt and uncle to find her missing father. She boards a train, which is transporting an important treasure waiting to be stolen. And, of course, when Virginia hears abnormal activity coming from another car, she investigates only to find three men surrounding the treasure.

Following Wild Arms tradition, each character gets a respective prologue where you, the player, can learn the motivations and aspirations of each character who you will control for the next thirty and then some hours.

The problem with the story is that it simply takes too long to build up to the climax. By the time it does, the player may no longer care. Furthermore, plot elements are introduced way too late in the game that only make me feel like the game was adding in fluff.

What was good, though, was the level of characterization. Each protagonist has to confront past problems, and begins to accept who he or she is and his or her own role. Virginia Maxwell felt like a refreshing protagonist, who falls under some hero cliches. While she has to spit out the oh-so-heard cliche lines like, “We have to save the world!” over and over, having a strong female protagonist seems to be rare in the RPG genre. On the other hand, the antagonists have very little screen time and their ambition to destroy the world seems paper thin.

Like its predecessors, Wild Arms 3 features a turn based battle system but has a few tweaks to spice up the game play.

Game play:

Before diving into the mechanics of the battle system, let me warn you, the reader, that battles take a long time, even if you set the animations to turbo in the menu. Battles took several minutes, especially times when there were 8 enemies on screen. What made these battles worse is that the money and experience points (needed to level up) are so insignificant that the random battles felt completely pointless. Okay, now that I warned you, let us proceed.

Unique to the Wild Arms series is the force gauge. By attacking an enemy, the force gauge will increase. Well, why is this force gauge so important? By having a built up force gauge, the character in the battle will be entitled to perform two different, and important, actions. One is force techniques, which are techniques that drain the force gauge. For example, Virginia has the “Mystic” force technique, requiring 25 FP, which allows an item effect the entire team. Two, arcana, which is the game's version of magic. Magic does not drain FP, but you need the FP to remain over a certain level in order to use a spell. For example, “Heal” requires that the FP gauge be at least 12. What is extremely disappointing about this system is that each character only has 3 force techniques, two of which are shared amongst each character.

Each character fits under a class, but there is a level of customization. By acquiring the “Guardians” which are like Final Fantasy's summons, you can evoke them onto a character. Not only do the Guardians grant a stat increase in a certain area (eg. Attack), but they have “Gears” that you can attach skills too. Some of these skills are already built into a Guardian. For example, the water guardian carries the skill “Water Ward”. Whenever your character levels up, he or she gains a “skill point”. Skill points are needed to utilize these skills. “Water Ward” has four skill slots, so when you use four skill points on it, that character will no longer be damaged by water attacks. What is great about this system is that if you attach the right Guardians to particular characters, he or she can become powerhouses in a certain field. Also, at any time, including battles, you can switch who has what Guardian and what skills they possess. When looking at a Guardian's status, you can hit the “Reset” button to gain all skill points back. Unfortunately, the game does not explain this, which I find a fundamental flaw because it really is the key to victory.

During battles, a character can do the usual attack, use item, or guard. Battles are relatively simple and really do not require any strategy. Boss battles, though, usually have a set pattern so some strategy is required if you want to make it as easy as possible. After each battle, your character's HP will be replenished depending on their vitality gauge seen on the status screen. The gauge can only replenish so much HP before it runs out. The only way to restore it is by sleeping at an inn, finding orange crystals throughout a dungeon, or using a rare item.

When not fighting battles, you will be controlling one of the four characters as he or she traverses through towns and dungeons. Throughout the dungeons are several obstacles in which we like to call puzzles. Unlike many other RPGs, where the puzzles simply require flicking of a switch or pushing of a block, some of the puzzles in Wild Arms 3 are rather complex. Each of the four characters is equipped with a tool, or unique ability they can use to solve puzzles. For example, Virginia has the “tindercrest” ability which shoots a flame from a staff. This can be used to light torches. Personally, I really enjoyed the puzzles because it made the dungeons feel less boring.

While solving a puzzle, you will get into random encounters; however, there is a way to stop this. On the top right of the screen is a “encounter” gauge that is determined by how many “migrant” seals you acquire. Migrant seals increase the encounter gauge and could be found within dungeons or on the world map. Before engaging in an encounter, an exclamation point will appear over a character's head. By pressing O, you can prevent the encounter, but this is at a cast. The encounter gauge will decrease. The encounter gauge will only be replenished by sleeping at an inn or finding white crystals scattered throughout a dungeon. This may sound really good, but if you do not find a good amount of migrant seals, this option really cannot be utilized. Furthermore, it seems like the game knows how many times you use it because the game will start ambushing your characters one battle to the next if you use it a few times within one dungeon.

When in towns, all your characters can really do is sleep at an inn, find a person to trigger the next story sequence, and visit the ARM shop. ARMs are your main weapons in the game. They're no shops to upgrade equipment as you don't have any. By speaking to the person at the ARMs shop, you can upgrade a character's strength, hit rate, critical rate, and weight of the arm. Even though this leads to some customization, each character should have their ARM adjusted in a certain way. You could put all of your money into increasing Gallow's, the mage in your party, strength, but not only will he miss all the time, but putting that money into Clive's, the strongest physical attacker, strength will make him one hit KO most enemies. Unlike the skills you evoke on Guardians, resetting your upgrades come at a cost. You lose ALL the money you invested, so be warned.

Graphics:

Despite playing this game six years after release, the game still looks good. Unlike the previous two installments that use sprites, Wild Arms 3 is rendered in 3D and sports a new graphical look. The cel-shading is excellent as the world looks like it came out of a sketch book.

What I found disappointing is that the graphical style is not fully utilized. Many towns look so similar that I really felt like I was not going across the world. Each town only had a few buildings with a few people to talk too. While the towns emphasize how Figalia is a wasteland, it would've been nice if each town has its own aesthetic flair to make the player feel like this world is worth saving. The world only seems to have like a hundred people, at most, which made the entire place feel like a wasteland…

The dungeons have a better design, but due to the setting, most are under ground ruins bearing some ‘ancient' technology that make up the puzzles. This only makes the player feel like he or she is exploring the same place over and over but with a swapped palette and different puzzles.

However, each location does have a nice level of detail. What further emphasizes the atmosphere is the sound.

Sound:

Michiko Naruke comes back to orchestrate the soundtrack. And, of course, she does a wonderful job of capturing the mood. This is good because the game does not feature voice acting.

Overall, the score is very good with several tracks you may find yourself humming too. However, none of the tracks are very memorable and are recycled over and over again.

Replay Value:

Wild Arms 3 is quite the lengthy adventure, clocking in about forty hours for the first play through. The game can be even longer if one decides to go through all of the sidequests, which includes solving additional puzzles, locating towers spread throughout the world, and conquering a 100 floor dungeon with bosses more powerful than in the main game.

There is nothing unique if one decides to play the game twice, so its really hard to say that this game is not a one-shot experience. The story is not so memorable or gripping that one would even want to play twice, but if you do decide too, know that all scenes are skippable by pressing START.

Closing thoughts:

For Wild Arms fans, this is a must buy. However, for those who only want a RPG to play, recommending this would be tough. The graphics and sound may be good, but the story is cliche and the battle system is not very engaging.

When there are so many other RPGs on the PS3, you may want to commit your time to a RPG that brings something new to the table.

Final Score: 7.3/10

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 09/17/09

Game Release: Wild Arms 3 (US, 10/15/02)