Wild Arms Alter Code: F

"Filgaia's demise seems to be widely exaggerated."

When Wild Arms first came onto the scene in the early days of the Playstation, there weren't too many RPGs in circulation. I remember the days of when I first played it, being inspired and excited at the world that lay spread out before me...a strange-but-fascinating fusion of 'Wild West' themes alongside castles, villages and looming towers reminiscent of typical game standards. Thus, a new appeal was born, and one that would eventually cultivate around a series of its own. Sadly, a little game called Final Fantasy 7 would arrive a few months later, and end up overshadowing its very existence. Crudbuckets.

Well, no need to worry. The kind folks over at Agetec and Media Vision have seen fit to bless us with what many a gamer likely missed in choosing between one of the two titles on the shelves. Wild Arms Alter Code: F brings back the charm and the quaint feel of that world of the original game, by remaking it under higher standards. General fans of the series will be happy just to have another addition, and RPGers will have even more of a selection to choose from.

And let us get one thing straight before we start: I firmly believe the game is marketed mainly towards followers of the series. This review is written for everyone though, so no worries.

The game is great overall -- better than the original, in fact -- but not without its flaws. Let us go into greater detail.

Gameplay: 9/10. Alter Code uses the same exact system that its predecessor Wild Arms 3 did. It isn't custom-built from the ground up, as it isn't a fresh installment to the franchise. With that said however, I regard WA3's game system to be the most advanced and user-friendly to gamers, so this switch doesn't warrant any worry. The original WA lacked many of the functions that the remake has now: field searching for locations/items, multiple characters at your disposal, joint attacks within battle, Personal Skills, Encounter Gauge, etc. This game continues the tradition of random battles, but you have much more leeway to do as you wish this time around (in comparison to the original). Each character has his or her own unique abilities that cannot be duplicated by anyone else. No mage-tanks in this game; each character has a specific strong and weak suit. Use projectile weapons called ARM, swords, magic -- everything is unique. You may even swap out characters with others on the fly in the heat of battle.

You may enhance your character's skill through the use of Personal Skills. Each time a character gains a level, one skill point is added to the maximum. Use these points to increase stats or resistances to maladies and elements. These can definitely turn the tide of battle in your favor, if properly used. For endgame fun, they are a necessity.

The Encounter Cancel system used in WA2 and 3 is also present in this game. If you grow tired of constant random encounters, you can use gauge points to cancel fights before they even happen. A bar in your upper-left screen corner will tell you the general ferocity of monsters around, and based upon your Migrant Level (which increases through collection of Migrant Seals) you can cancel a certain amount of fights before you are forced into them no matter what. This is a refreshing breath of air, and should be emulated by other games whose encounter rates are sky high.

The downfall to the gameplay is that you get surprised very often before fights happen. Being back-attacked or surprised disallows the player from cancelling, and can make major foot travel a hassle.

Story: 8/10. The story of Alter Code is actually very vanilla fare, but it is ultimately saved by its core characters and interesting villains along the way. Filgaia is a dying world, injured in a war that took place between its inhabitants and invading lifeforms 1000 years ago. As the greenery fades across the lands, nothing but dirt and dust is left in its wake. The planet's animal life and vegetation replaces itself with monsters that continue to grow in ferocity. Only brave souls who call themselves 'Wanderers' would dare venture out into the wasteland to stake a claim for themselves. Well that's the gist of it, anyway...not much more to say.

Enter our three heroes, Rudy, Jack and Cecilia. Each character has their very own prologue, and these serve to thrust them into the lifestyle of said 'Wanderer'. Eventually the trio will cross paths, and that's where the true story begins.

Like I said, it is pretty standard. But I believe the key players all have a nice cohesiveness to them, and this really enriches the progression of the plot elements. This goes for the villains too, which is great. Some story bits are altered to best fit the progression this time around, resulting in pleasant surprises (for fans of course).

Graphics/Sound: 6.5/10. Ack, this is probably the sore spot of the game. The graphics aren't anything astounding in terms of Playstation 2 potential, and are quite average in scope. Menu graphics tend to act a bit jumpy whenever they please, with the overworld map and status screen portraits acting shaky occasionally. Text boxes all-too-frequently have portions of monologue running out of their boundaries, bad spelling or punctuation, or entire chunks of an NPC's monologue cut out, leaving the player to wonder what exactly they said. The proofreading could have used some more effort...this wasn't a professional job, to be certain.

Character expressions on characters are decent enough, but nothing to write home about. In dungeons and towns, the camera is zoomed way out overhead in a bird's-eye view, resulting in faceless 'miniatures' puttering around the environments. This game really needed a zoom-in function. Towns and villages are also quite standard-looking as well. All in all, it isn't the most inspired effort on the graphics front.

The music is good, however. Most tunes from the original game are remixed into faster, upbeat, more dramatic tunes. Composer Michiko Naruke did a nice job here. Not much variety in town and dungeon themes, but then again, there wasn't in the original either. There are new pieces in the playlist too, and some bosses get their own themes. Battle music is upbeat but not frantic...a nice balance to be sure. This game also originally had voice acting, but was left out of the North American release, presumably over licensing problems. English VAs would have served this game well, as there are quite a number of dramatic points that would have been enhanced in effect with their presence.

Playtime/Replayability: 8.5/10. I should mention that I'm a notoriously slow gamer, so the suggested playtime may be drastically off against the norm. I clocked in at about 40 hours after the credits rolled, so...take it at face value. And that was hardly scratching the endgame content -- superbosses, Puzzle Boxes, Ex-File Key collecting for data transfer to WA4 and optional save file functions, plus more. I believe there's a lot of things to do aside from the main journey once you get near the end of the game. It's easy to get sidetracked and addicted to the Puzzle Boxes (basically large block puzzles scattered across the lands for leisure enjoyment). I'd replay this quite easily if there was something I missed for a master file or for data transfer. Chronic completionists should appreciate the art of collect-a-thons by now. It's a fun game too, so that helps on this front.

Final Score/Final Recommendation (based on averages, rounded for format purposes if score is a fraction): 8/10. I highly recommend buying this, even if you aren't one who follows or followed this series when it came to be in the PSX era. And of course, if you like RPGs, you should get along well enough with this title.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 12/10/05