Wild Arms Alter Code: F

"Beautiful! The magic of Wild Arms is reborn into a whole new game!"

Before playing Alter Code: F, I don't think a video game has ever brought me to tears within the first five minutes of playing, let alone from several other instances throughout the rest of the game. This wasn't a result of the dramatic change from simplistic (and sometimes deformed) PSX graphics to the stunning, full 3-D graphics of PS2, but rather, it was the newly reborn aspects from the original Wild Arms that elicited such an emotional response. It was the music, the characters, the story, and the classic battles. The original Wild Arms is a game, unlike most other games that I've played, that possesses such power; the power to move the player emotionally. The player would have empathy for Rudy's plight as an outcast, become immersed in Cecilia's growing connections with the Guardians, and share Jack's desire for absolute power. Unfortunately, like many other great RPG's at the time, Wild Arms is a very low-profile game and it was hidden from the majority of players under the immense shadows cast by more popular RPG titles. Alter Code: F (ACF) gives these people a chance to experience Wild Arms, reformed to meet the ever-increasing graphical standards of today, while giving old fans a chance to relive the fond memories of one of their most cherished games, now with a plethora of new features to enjoy.

Story

Naturally, the main storyline in ACF is the same as it was in the original Wild Arms, although all of the dialogue has been re-written. At the very beginning of the game you play through the introductory solo-quests of the three main characters. There's Rudy, a lonely Wanderer who can wield the ancient weapon known as ARM; Jack, a treasure hunter in search of the absolute power; and Cecilia, the princess of Adlehyde. Eventually these three characters meet and work together to uncover a Golem, a weapon built by man 1000 years ago to battle invading demons, to display at the upcoming Ancient Civilization Exhibition in Adlehyde. The situation turns sour, however, as demons suddenly attack Adlehyde to steal the Tear Drop, the treasure of Adlehyde and crystal of life. Your team then sets out on an epic quest to recover the Tear Drop and seek help from the Guardian forces of Filgaia to eradicate the demon threat. For the most part, you journey through all the same dungeons and do battle with all the same bosses as in the original game. But don't think it'll be a cake-walk if you've played the original, because all the dungeons, towns, and even the world map are designed differently. Also, there have been a few other changes here and there. In some instances you may fight a different boss than you fought in the original, and a few bosses have been removed entirely. The same goes for dungeons as well. For example, the Tripilar from the original is now an optional dungeon. Generally, the dungeons are much shorter in ACF, and at the beginning of the game the bosses are very easy. But don't worry, because as long as you don't over-level, fights get much more challenging and fun!

Throughout your quest, your team will meet several allies who assist you in various ways. Unlike in the original game, sometimes these characters will join your party temporarily. There are other instances in which you must exclusively fight with these special characters. And near the end of the game, you can recruit up to three extra characters to permanently join your group! Exactly who those characters are, I won't say. However, I will tell you that one of those characters is bound to make you smile.

Encounter and Battle Systems

This is the area in which ACF most greatly differs from the original Wild Arms. Not only have there been many changes to the battle system, but now Wild Arms features a special encounter system, which I'll discuss first.

In this new encounter system, you may cancel random battles before they happen by hitting the O button when an exclamation point appears over your character's head. If you don't hit O after about two seconds, you'll be thrown into battle. In the upper-left corner of the screen is your Encounter Gauge. Whenever you cancel a random battle, your Encounter Gauge decreases, and when you fight random battles it fills back up. If your Encounter Gauge is empty you cannot cancel battles and will be forced to fight when the time comes. The “size” of your gauge depends on your Migrant level, which is determined by how many Migrant Seals you have collected. The higher your Migrant level, the less quickly your gauge decreases. Once your Migrant and party levels reach a certain point, you'll be able to cancel battles without having your gauge decrease! This is what makes the system great, because this means that you can return to old areas where the enemies are weak and not have to fight annoying battles against them. I really liked this feature, and it's something I wouldn't mind seeing in future RPG's.

Once you're actually in battle, you'll find that that the interface is very similar to that of the original game. It's still a standard, turn-based system, but a lot of things have been tweaked. First of all, there's no escape command, due to the existence of the encounter system (although Cecilia can get a spell that lets you escape from battle in case of an emergency). Also, since at certain times you will have more than three party members, the makers have implemented a front/back row system. Only the three characters in the front row can actually fight, but you can switch out characters at the beginning of every turn. Characters in the back row will regenerate lost HP by using their Vitality Gauge. The Vitality Gauge, however, plays a major role because of its other, much more common function of restoring lost HP at the end of every battle. Allow me to explain this further. When you are fully rested, the Vitality Gauge for each character starts at 100%. When you finish a battle and your characters have lost HP, your Vitality Gauge will automatically repair your HP bar, and it decreases depending on how much HP it heals. When your gauge reaches 0%, you'll no longer recover HP. This Vitality system replaces the need to often use healing items after fights, and thus HP restoratives cannot be purchased in stores.

Each character still has their own special set of abilities (Rudy with ARMs, Jack with Fast Draws, and Cecilia with Crest sorcery). And while the Force system, a staple of the Wild Arms series, remains in ACF, it has made a sharp change from its original state. Each character gets only one Force ability. That's right, only one. Rudy gets ARM Lock-On, Jack gets Accelerator, and Cecilia gets Material (Guardian summon). A lot of you old fans may be disturbed by this; I was at first too. And while I would have really liked to have more Force abilities, the fact of the matter is that the ones you get are fairly sufficient. This is something that initially will disappoint you, but later on you'll forget about it. However, there's something else absent from ACF that may disappoint you even more; equipment. As blasphemous as it seems to take out equipment, an RPG universal, a Skill system has been implemented as a substitute. You can find and purchase a multitude of skills throughout the game, and the skills serve a vast variety of functions from increasing elemental and status change resistance to letting you start each battle with some Force power. Each skill requires a certain number of available points to equip, and the amount of points a character has is directly related to their level. In some ways, this Skill system allows the player to be more strategic in their character setups than they would be able to with a standard equipment system.

Other Gameplay Aspects

While the battle system has undergone some big changes, the aspects of gameplay outside of battle have remained more traditional. Tools still play a huge role in completing dungeons, puzzles, and obtaining hidden items. Many of the Tools are the same as they were in the original, such as Jack's Hanpan and Rudy's Bombs. ACF has also made using Hanpan quite fun, because you can actually control Hanpan's movement after you send him out. However, some of the Tools are completely different, and they will help you overcome many obstacles that are unlike any that you encountered in the original game. In fact, only one of Cecilia's four Tools is the same as in the original! You'll be happy to find that the routine puzzles and obstacles you face in dungeons are similar in difficulty.

ACF also features an ARM upgrading system that is just a little different from that of the original game. Instead of upgrading the attack, accuracy, and bullets of all of your special ARM abilities, you only upgrade these attributes in your standard ARM weapon. The catch is that you can only upgrade your ARM a total of 15 times, so you have to carefully decide which attributes you wish to enhance. But don't worry, because if you later decide that you want to change the attributes of your ARM, you can un-do your upgrades and start over. Your special ARM abilities (called cartridges) can also be modified to have more bullets by using items called Alter Parts.

Cecilia's Crest Graph system is very much the same as it was in the original. Throughout your journey you'll find items called Crest Graphs to which you can bind spells for Cecilia to use. To make your spell setup more strategic for a given situation, you can dissolve a spell from a Crest Graph and bind another one that's more fitting.

Jack's Fast Draw system, however, is quite different in ACF. You no longer have to use a newly acquired Fast Draw over and over again in order to learn it. Once you find a Fast Draw, you can use it immediately. There are no Secret Signs in this game, so another method of reducing Fast Draw MP cost has been established. After using a Fast Draw a certain number of times, it will level up in Mastery and the MP cost will be reduced by a certain amount. Once a Fast Draw is mastered completely, you cannot reduce the MP cost further.

Finally, Gimel Coins are yet another new aspect of ACF worth mentioning. You'll come across many Gimel Coins throughout the game, whether they come from chests in dungeons or from enemy drops. These babies let you save your game on the world map and in dungeons, so you can say goodbye to having to re-do entire dungeons after losing to the boss. But that's not all, because they have other functions as well. If your party is wiped out in a battle, you can use a Gimel Coin to restart the battle from the beginning. The catch is that you won't receive any experience points if you win the battle. I know all you old fans are already thinking of the trouble these things may save you in certain [abyssal] areas of the game.

Extra Goodies

One thing that made Wild Arms great was its abundance of side quests and challenging optional bosses, and ACF is no different. In fact, there are a lot more optional quests in ACF than there were in the original. Most of your old favorites are here, including the notorious Abyss, which is now a grueling 100 floors! All of the optional bosses are now harder than ever, mainly because Goat Dolls, the end to all cheap tactics, don't exist in ACF. You'll have to be near level 100 to even stand a chance against most of these monsters. However, there are other fun side quests that don't require you to power-level like crazy; mainly Puzzle Boxes, a new addition in ACF. There are 30 Puzzle Boxes scattered about the world map, and your job is to find them and solve the puzzles they present. The puzzles are all based around the same concept, but while some puzzles will have you laughing at how easy they are, others will make you want to bash your head against the wall.

Graphics

Whew! Now that I'm done with all the gameplay stuff, lets move on to the eye candy. For the most part, everything looks up to standard, but there's probably nothing too spectacular about the graphics. Well, this is coming from someone who cares a LOT more about gameplay than graphics, so take my opinion as you will. My honest opinion is that mostly everything looks nice. In terms of character design, I think that, overall, the makers did a fantastic job of re-creating the old characters from their 2-D sprites into full 3-D splendor. Some of my favorite characters, especially Boomerang, were exceptionally well done. In terms of accuracy to the original, I think Alhazad had the most perfect design. My only real gripe is with Cecilia. I think they made her clothes look too bulky. When it comes to map and environment design, everything looks pretty good. All the towns and dungeons are well done and very detailed, and now with 360 degree camera rotation, you can see everything! The only major flaw I noticed was on the world map. At certain times, especially when one would try to dash and use the radar at the same time, large chunks of the world map would just vanish temporarily, which proved to be problematic at times. I just think that with all the delays Agetec put this game through, they could have at least fixed this problem in the process.

Music/Audio

Oh yes, the section I've been dying to talk about! One of the main reasons I loved Wild Arms so much was because its music was the greatest I'd ever heard in any game. The music played an enormous role in establishing the mood in each area and extracting emotional responses from the player. In fact, the first thing I remember thinking to myself when I initially heard about ACF was something to the extent of “They better not touch the musical score”. ACF didn't disappoint me, as nearly every bit of music from the original Wild Arms is back in some sort of re-make or re-mix, along with a handful of new pieces. The big question is: was the music re-made successfully? To be honest, it was a mixed bag, but most of the songs were worthily transformed. Some songs were re-made to be just as beautiful, or even more so, than the original pieces. Examples of these golden tracks are “Boy of Hope”, “Adlehyde Castle Town”, “Wings of the Bird God”, “Warrior's Whistle”, and my all time favorite video game song “War Demon”. However, some of the re-makes just didn't live up to their predecessors. One example is “Courage”, which was an absolutely beautiful song from the first game, re-made into “Facing the Ancient Ruins”, which was only decent at best. A cool thing that they did for this game that wasn't fully employed in the original was giving each villain their own special fight music. I was pretty happy with this, as each Quarter Knight's song fit them well. Something that may shock you old fans, however, concerns the ever-so lovable goof, Zed. In ACF, Zed's fight music has been changed to an entirely new piece called “I Hate but Love” from his original fight music “Oops…”, which everybody was in love with. But do not despair, for his new theme is actually an awesome song if you give it a chance, and it fits Zed just as well as the old one. And if you're a die-hard “Oops…” fanatic, then don't fret, because you may very well catch a piece of your favorite tune when you least expect it.

As far as everything else auditory (a.k.a. sound effects), I had no complaints. The sword slashes, the gun shots, the explosions, and everything else sounded great. The only thing I wish the makers hadn't done in the NTSC version was take the Japanese vocals out of some of the songs (like “Funeral March”) and other parts of the game.

Overall

Because of my love for Wild Arms, my expectations for this game were fairly high, and for the most part, my expectations were met. I've heard that a large number of game re-makes turn out to be unsuccessful, but I believe that Wild Arms Alter Code: F is an example of how a re-make should be done. ACF brings you the same great story from the original Wild Arms, but toting an entirely new script, it also covers the intense character development within the game more vividly than ever. New, innovative gameplay aspects combined with traditional factors taken from its predecessor give the player a strong sense of the same, great Wild Arms they knew from before with enough fresh features to make it a whole new experience. The game also boasts nice looking graphics and an absolutely mind-blowing soundtrack re-made from the original. In terms of length, you'll find that it's about average. It'll take you about 50 or so hours to complete the game on your first run through, but if you pursue all of the optional quests you could easily put about 80-100 hours into the game. I was hoping that I could give this game a perfect score, but ACF did have its fair share of flaws and shortcomings that proved enough to take at least one or two points off. But, since it is Wild Arms, a game that I absolutely adore, I'll have to add on an extra bias point to bring the final score to a solid 9. If you've never played the original Wild Arms, you can take this review as perhaps a 7 or 8 then.

So, what are my recommendations? If you're a fan of the original Wild Arms or the Wild Arms series in general, then you should get this game, no question. If you're an RPG fan and are new to the Wild Arms series, then rent this game and give it a chance. You may very well like it enough to want to go back and check out its magnificent predecessor.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 01/04/06