Wild Arms 4

"Another enjoyable romp through Filgaia."

Wild ARMs 4 has not disappointed me. It is a very engrossing game, well worth the 25 hours it took me to beat (including extra stuff... main game only took me about 20 hours.) However, I feel it falls a little short of WA2 and WA3... not in the gameplay department (the gameplay is near flawless), but in its other aspects. Anyway, here we go.

Graphics

The graphics in WA4 are GREAT. Really great. The models and textures look very nice, and the environments range from good to sheer awesome. The artwork is also very good, which is a good thing, since you'll be seeing it a LOT. Which brings me to my complaint with the graphics. Instead of taking a cue from WA3 and having incredibly well-done cinematography and in-game cutscenes, WA4 uses about 75% anime split-screen cutscenes. The other 25% is all voice acted, and generally well-done, although it doesn't live up to WA3's astounding shots. They had so much potential with the great character models... why didn't they use them more? The anime portraits get old after 20-something hours of seeing them, you know.

Oh, and I loved the anime OPs and ED. Very nicely done.

Score: 8.5/10

Gameplay

The gameplay in WA4 is far and away the best in the entire series. For being the first game with a jump feature, said feature is remarkably well-implemented. Although they scaled back the role of tools a great deal, the out-of-battle gameplay still feels remarkably like a Wild ARMs game. Very fun puzzles, I must say... although there were a few annoying ones, of course. In-battle, it gets even better. Instead of a simple turn-based system, WA4 has a totally unique Hex system. I'm not going to go into too much detail about it, since it would take up too much room (and I'm lazy), but suffice it to say that it works EXTREMELY well. My only beef is the removal of the exclamation points, but that's such a small thing that I can overlook it.

Score: 10/10

Story

Ack. WA4's weakest aspect is its story. Although WA1 and WA:ACF both had rather mediocre plots, I had come to expect great things after WA2 and WA3's well-written, well-presented storylines (not to mention the superb characterization). Unfortunately, WA4 pretty much ignores how WA2 and WA3's stories and characters were done, and goes its own way. It's a rather typical JRPG, story-wise, really. Arnaud and Raquel's characters are fairly interesting, and show some great growth over the course of the game, but Jude and Yulie (especially Yulie) are pretty much just walking cliches. Some of the villains are cool, but most of them are pretty much just cliches too. I do like the return of the classic "overarching theme" style of WA story-telling, but the themes (friendship, children vs. adults, good and evil aren't that simple) have a few problems in their implementation. For one, there's too many. One or two main themes work well. Three doesn't, really, as the story tends to go all over the place. They also come off as way, way, too preachy. Meh. WA4's story is its weakest point, really, unfortunately.

I must also give special credit to XSEED Games. Not only is this their first translation, but it's of a game in a series that has traditionally been translated by Square and SCEA. That takes some guts to translate, my friends. Not to mention the fact that they fully translated and dubbed the game with minimal errors in just under 10 months, along with full support for ACF data (ACF wasn't even out in America for a little over half of the translation period). Kudos, guys. You're a great team, and I'm looking forward to your work on Shadow Hearts 3.

Score: 7/10

Music/Sound

The voice acting is good. Not bad at all. No Crispin Freeman is the only really bad point. :( The voice actors could have had some more emotion, too, but it's better than a lot of dubs.

The music is hit and miss. What, you say? How could music in a Wild ARMs game be hit and miss!? Well, it's very simple. Michiko Naruke did not compose all of the music. :( All of the tracks he composed are simply excellent, as usual. They fit the situations perfectly in all cases, and are just generally awesome. The same can't be said for the tracks by the other 3 composers who helped Naruke with the soundtrack. Though there are a few good non-Naruke tracks, most of them are very blah. I really wish they would've paid Naruke more, or something. :(

The anime OP song, as well as the other vocal pieces in the game, are good as well. Personally, my favorite vocal songs are from WA2, but these work well. The final boss fight is set to an extended version of the OP, which is excellent. The ED music is great too.

Score: 8/10

Overall, WA4 is a great game. I would highly recommend it to anyone looking for a deep, fulfilling RPG. Just don't look for the degree of storytelling exhibited in WA2 and WA3, and you'll be fine. The story isn't really bad at all, it's just rather generic and bland. However, compared to WA2 and WA3, it is rather disappointing. If you can disassociate it from that stigma, it's pretty good. The music, again, is lacking, and there's not really any point in trying to justify that. However, these are the only two real low notes for WA4 besides the lack of engine-driven cutscenes, and if you haven't played the other games, it won't matter anyway. Definitely buy this.

Overall: 8/10

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 01/30/06