Wild Arms 3

"A solid, lengthy, enjoyable, and extremely l-o-n-g RPG."

Intro: Keep in mind that I have never played Wild Arms 1 and 2, but because of this game, I now intend to as soon as time permits.

If you’re looking for the most bang for your gaming dollar, Wild Arms 3 is definitely the type of game you want to invest in. There is just so much ground to cover in the game – I consider myself an average RPG player, and the counter after I finished the game read at just about 35 hours.

”35 hours?” You might say. “That sounds fairly average for an RPG.”

Ah, but the counter in this game counts ONLY time you are walking around. It does not run when you are fighting, talking, looking at the map, or looking at any other sort of dialog or status screen. Plus, I know I found less than half of what the game has to offer.

Now do you see what I mean? It really is an epic game, with innumerable secrets to discover. Definitely my type of game. :)



Story: In the blighted world of Filgaia, the concept of “survival of the fittest” rules the planet. The once lush forests have withered, and the seas have turned into arid wastelands, which can be traversed only by the hardiest of sandcrafts. Life has become very difficult for its denizens, yet there are those that would rise up to meet this harsh world; those who travel about without a care, worrying only about where their next paycheck or meal would come from. They are the hardiest of the people of the world, and they are known as Drifters.

In Wild Arms 3, the story begins with four Drifters having a chance, fateful meeting on a train that is transporting a rare, valuable artifact called an Ark Scepter. You are then given control of each of the four characters in their own scenarios which explains their backstories, and also shows you how they came into knowledge of the Scepter, and the path they took up to reaching their destination. Due to a rather unfortunate turn of events, they are forced to working closely together despite their abrupt meeting, and thus bonds are formed that will last the remainder of the game.

The four characters, closely bound into the Wild West mythos, are:

Virginia: A girl who has just come of age, and who wishes to spread justice and compassion wherever she goes. She is idealistic and untested, yet promising as she hails from sturdy stock. She also dresses like a 1800’s schoolmarm, but that’s a completely different story. :) Virginia is unconfident at the outset, but becomes a very seasoned leader as the story progresses.

Clive: Similar to Virginia, but older and much more experienced. He is constantly the voice of reason in the group, and can also be quite compassionate. He is always able to view a situation in a rational, scientific light, and so he is a great asset to the group in technical matters.

Jet: A young man with a shady and unknown past, he lives day to day, caring only where his next paycheck will come from. He is sarcastic and occasionally snide, but most of the time is usually just reserved.

Gallows: A young Baskar [read: Native American] priest who turns his back on his culture, seeing the life of a Drifter as a much more entertaining endeavour. He is most attuned to magic and spirits, making him especially effective as your main caster, yet he is also a very brawny man, so he will probably be your “tank” throughout most of the game because of his high HP total.

Overall, the characters seem a little stereotyped, but the story is hard to put down once you really get into it. 8/10

Graphics: I’ll admit it: Previously, I had my doubts about cel shading in video games. I just didn’t care much for the Zelda: Wind Walker graphics (although I will also concede the game looks *much* better while in motion) the graphics in Wild Arms 3 were very detailed. Characters convey emotion through the facial expressions on the main character model, and the text box also has a portrait in its background, similar to Grandia. One of the nice touches in the game is that *every* NPC in the game has their own portrait, instead of only “important” characters having them. Although there are only about five or six different portraits for each of the main characters, they take awhile to get repetitive.

Additionally, at first it seems that your characters will seem superimposed over the background, which seems unnatural at first, but eventually I got used to it. Just the same, the graphics are very nicely detailed, and never slow down except during fierce battles when a lot of magic is flying around. Overall: very nicely done. 9/10

Gameplay: While the series has still not moved away from the random-battle system, you are given the ability to avoid battles, which comes out of your ECN gauge. Over the course of the game, you are able to find Migrant Seals, which decrease the number of points it takes to avoid battles, and Booster Kits, which increase your ECN gauge total. The Seals/Kits are fairly well hidden (I did not find my first Kit until about fifteen hours into the game) but they are definitely worth searching out, as unfortunately, fighting does get somewhat boring after while.

In battles, your characters have the option to shoot with their ARMs, use a special Force ability which is fueled by attacking and being hit, summon a Guardian, unleash a flurry of attacks in a Gatling, or use an Arcana spell. Each spell requires a certain amount of force points to be used, but using the spell does not subtract those points from your total, so as long as you have sufficient FP you can continuously cast spells. However, some of the most unique spells might even require a full FP meter to cast, which is a real pain to acquire, so the system is difficult to abuse. Your characters’ attacks and spells will be stronger with more FP, so using them up in Gatlings or Summonings may not be such a good idea in all instances.

There is not much of an armor/weapons system in the game, as is the case with many recent RPGs. You are able to upgrade your ARMs in five categories: shot power, hit percentage, bullet count, weight, and critical hit percentage, but you may only upgrade each ARM a maximum of 15 times, although you are able to initialize any category (but you will not get a refund for it.) You also have the option of equipping guardian forces, and then you can equip stuff to these forces which gives your characters special abilities such as elemental/status resistance, counterattacks, SOS abilities that activate when your HP is critically low, and so on. (Think FF7 Materia system) You must then activate them with personal skill points, which are given to you as you level up. Fights can be won or lost depending on how you use these points, and some battles require you to strategically use these skills or you will flat-out lose.

General fighting is usually fairly quick, and the camera angles and character motion keep it interesting -- but most of the dungeons generally don’t have a wide variety of monsters, so once you figure out a pattern, fighting gets somewhat boring after awhile. However, if you like puzzles and side quests, this game has them in spades. There are twenty Millennium Puzzles scattered across the world map, which you can get items by solving. The dungeons are chock full of puzzles. There are hidden bosses. There’s even a dungeon with a hundred floors for you to work through. Hidden items and treasures are everywhere. If you’re a fan of exploration and finding lots of hidden stuff, this will definitely be your game. However, the game also has a different kind of searching, which is much more tedious than fun.

In the beginning of the game, the world map will appear completely devoid of towns or anything else. In order to enter a location, you must first find it by sending out “search waves”, which emanate from your character when you press Square. Since townspeople only give you a general idea of where your next target is, you will probably spend a lot of time walking and searching and getting into fights. This got very tedious after awhile, so I would suggest looking extra hard for Migrant Seals and Boosters. 7/10

Audio: Being a fan of the Wild West mythos in general, I absolutely loved the music in this game. While a lot of it is spaghetti western with whistles and guitar twangs, for the most part it is very memorable and uplifting, and I could not resist downloading the soundtrack at the first opportunity. The “ambush” music and the introduction (when you load a game) and closing (when you save and quit) tracks were personal favorites. There’s a nice variety of music in general, and it always flows well without too much repetition. 10/10

Rent or buy: As with most RPGs, you pretty much have to buy this one. If you rent this game until you complete it, chances are you will have spent enough money to have bought it in the first place. If you can manage to buy it from a friend or used from a GameStop, you will be getting a simply incredible deal, but even new it’s well worth the price tag.

Overall: 9/10

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 03/17/03, Updated 03/17/03