Wild Arms 3

"Standard RPG Action in the Wild West"

I still remember the first day I purchased my PSX. It was a bittersweet day that came forward as I stepped out of the 16bit era and into the exciting world of CD games and their new fancy graphics. I had a choice between Suikoden or Wild Arms at the time as far as RPGs went, so, on a whim, I picked up a neat little western RPG dubbed Wild Arms. Wild Arms still stands today as one of my favorite RPGs of all time. However, after a wretched translation tainted the sequel, I was a tad more wary when it came to approaching Wild Arms 3. Then I read that Squaresoft would be handling the localization and I felt a burst of elation, as I knew it would be done properly. One of my favorite series would be back in its full western splendor. It therefore came as something of a shock that this game let me down a little bit, but let's delve into why.

Technically, WA3 is a beautiful, solid game. The graphics look like something out of a storybook and manage to look so unalike anything I have ever seen before that I can't help but love it. Everybody animates beautifully and the colors and backgrounds seem to really come alive. Despite people getting a little sick of cel-shading, I personally think it does wonders to bring a unique feel to a great series. While the graphics may not appeal to everyone, you have to admit that they are certainly a nice step up from Wild Arms 2. The only problem I had with the eye candy is that the over world looks pretty much the same as it always has throughout the series. Now, this isn't going to ruin the game or anything, but you would think they could have come up with something a little more...I don't know...vibrant?

One aspect of this game that really drew me in is the wonderful, wonderful music. I actually found part of my incentive to progress to be a wanting for the next piece of music. Somehow, the composer took haunting, fitting RPG music and gave it a western feel. I don't think there is one piece that I found out of place. I have found myself listening to the sound track during work, and receiving no complaints from my roommates! If I could judge this game strictly on its technical aspects, it would be getting a 10. Sadly, there are too many inconveniences that make WA3 less than it should be.

The root of any good video game is, naturally, its game play. Sadly, in my opinion, WA3's style of play is just getting dated. What was once a fun, original concept has become painfully boring. Basically, the style of play goes like this: Story bit, hack your way through dungeon while solving puzzles, rinse, repeat. I suppose this style of play may appeal to some players, but I found myself just wanting to get it over with. A couple rather stupid issues with the system didn't help matters either.

First off, you cannot run from battles. That's right, if you get caught unprepared, you are finished. The game tries to make up for this by allowing you to avoid battles entirely by pressing the circle button, which in turn lowers an evasion gauge. This might have worked in theory except that by the end of the game (if you aren't using a walk through to find the hidden items that boost the gauge), you will only really be able to avoid a couple of fights leading to some painfully nerve racking moments. Second, enemies can attack you while you are solving puzzles. So, if you can't figure out a puzzle, let's just say you will be there for a while. Quite frankly the battles are nothing special either. The only real difference from previous Wild Arms is that the battles now look a little nicer. The enemies and your characters run around, but it doesn't add one bit to the game play. Basically what this amounts to is basic, turn based boredom.

Now, all of these problems might have been forgivable had the story been spectacular. After all, I loved Xenogear's second disc, even though it was nothing more than an interactive storybook, simply because of an amazing plot. WA3 has a decent plot but it is nothing spectacular. The plot is actually quite original but there is something about it that just doesn't seem to click (perhaps the boring dungeons in between every sequence?). The characters, however, are very enjoyable and each have their own unique personalities. They interact well with each other and are very easy to relate to. Luckily, the translation is also very note-worthy. Squaresoft knows what they are doing in this regard. I don't believe I witnessed one mistake in my entire playtime, and the script flows very nicely. I hope Sony will keep this in mind with the rest of its franchises.

WA3 sports something of an original interface. I had a little trouble figuring out exactly how to junction items to the different guardians you can get, but once I got the hang of it, it was like second nature. A nice skill points system has been implemented that lets you really customize your characters and makes for some interesting strategy. Unfortunately, a few annoyances bog this aspect down as well. First, you cannot un-equip your guardians, so if you make a bad choice with a valuable item, you are toast. To make things even worse, the game has a 'delete' function which I took for the un-equip that does exactly what it says, it deletes the item. What is with that? How hard would it have been to implement a proper un-equip function? On top of all this, WA3 decided to stay with the incredibly stupid system of 'finding' locations. What this basically amounts to is hours upon hours of first finding a person to give you directions, then frantically mashing the square button on the over world, yuck.

All in all, Wild Arms 3 comes across to me as somewhat mediocre. Don't get me wrong, I had a good time playing it and would recommend it to hardcore RPG'ers but I wouldn't let a rookie touch this with a ten-foot pole and a strategy guide. If you love puzzles though, you can't really go wrong with this game. A decent story, superior character interaction, and more side-quests than you can beat with a stick contribute to a fairly solid RPG. Go into this if you don't have anything else on your platter and you will enjoy it, just don't expect anything too spectacular.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 12/16/02, Updated 12/16/02