Wild Arms

"Where Legends Become Reality!!!"

Introduction

Fans of RPGs may want to watch out for Wild Arms- a traditional RPG with lots of new gameplay features, a truly standard RPG, deep and intriguing storyline, and new 3-D combat graphics and Lufia-type menu interface. Wild Arms is a solid RPG that I will highly recommend. But, with the release of Final Fantasy VII, I guess it might affect the sales of Wild Arms. Nevertheless, Wild Arms manages to receive quite a good response from gamers.

Story

Wild Arms takes place in the lands of Filgaia, a world that was once filled with green forests. A horrified war against the powerful demons 1000 years ago broke out. Though the powerful demons were eventually defeated and driven away, the land was then turned into a barren; the powers of the Guardian Forces were no longer as powerful as it once did and the morale of the people declined.

Filgaia doesn't possess the high technology it once did and unfortunately, the Metal Demons, legendary destroyer of Filgaia are planning to make a comeback and take away everything on Earth, and now it's your duty to save the world from the evil clutches of the demon.

Powerless, the Ancient guardians call upon three heroes to save the world- a warrior who has the gunner's gift that many fear; a princess, empowered by magic and an enchanting teardrop; and a rogue, who claims his sword is his word... but are his motives pure?

The story is quite typical of most traditional RPG. Yes, save the world and blah... blah... blah... blah... But the story has quite a lot of twist and is rather intriguing. During your quest, you need to search for mysterical objects, encounter golems, elws and lots more. You can expect long historical and magical myths. Each character has his or her own destiny in the beginning and how do fate bring them together?

The only drawback is that the character cast is too small, only three. But, that doesn't mean that the game lacks any characterisation. In fact, this is better in the sense that more attention or focus can be paid to each individual character for more indepth character personality.

Music and Sound

The music is simply excellent and the soundtrack is a must to buy. The tune in the introduction video is easily one of my favourite videogames themes, along with a few other tunes like the Overworld theme, Adlehyde castle theme, Baskar Village theme and so on. Need I say more about the music? Even though there's no voice-overs, Wild Arms features an impressive score that gives each location its own feel. The sound effects, without a doubt, like the music are excellent. The sound effects during the battles create a majestic feel.

Combat

Wild Arms may bring back some fond memories of a rather popular 16-bit Super Nintendo RPG series, Lufia. At first glance, the cross-menu interfaces in Wild Arms may resemble a lot to Lufia series but the battle system is actually a reminiscent of the popular Final Fantasy VII-style interface. Characters and enemies are all well animated in polygons during battles. The camera can shift to multiple viewpoints during the battle. The effects are all generally very neat and colourful. The magic and summons are really cool visuals. In my opinion, all the viewpoints are quite cool, perhaps with the exception of the top-down view.

Unlike the active-time combats in Final Fantasy VII, the combats in Wild Arms are all turn-based and because of this random fashion, either the enemy or you may sometimes get a chance to counterattack.

Other Innovations

Each character has his or her own unique abilities. For example, Rudy has to search for mystical arms. And these arms can be reloaded with ammos and even be upgraded too. Jack will also be able to learn unique sword fighting techniques, which are rather devastating. As for Cecilla, she will have the chance to assemble different combinations of white magic and black magic. The new force menu will also let you summon Guardian Force, sort of like the summoned creature in Final Fantasies.

Each character also has a set of tools to use. For example, Rudy has bombs, Jack has Harpan and Cecilla has a tearpoint. You can use Rudy's bomb tool by selecting the tool using the select button to bomb away unwanted obstacles. Tools are very vital to your survival, especially in dungeons that are full of traps. Often, tools are not available in the beginning so you have to find tools all by yourself. Be prepare to encounter traps like ground spikes, vanishing bridges, falling floors and so on.

Besides all these, there's also options to enable you to customise your control functions, camera angles, cursor positions and even an icon-based interface and help menu.

Conclusion

Gameplay and replay value are truly excellent. There are countless secrets. Wild Arms will need over 25 hours to complete. With tons of sub-quests, a variety of challenge, and spectacular graphics, Wild Arms is definitely a great game, which no RPG fans should miss.

My Personal Thought:

I know that many gamers will be wondering why Wild Arms resembles so much to Lufia, yet the game features beautiful and gorgeous 3-D battle sequences, graphics, sound that are way much better than the 16-bit Lufia games. As far as the plot is concerned, Wild Arms has really nothing in common with Lufia. However, there are some characteristics in the game that make it look very similar to Lufia. For instance, Wild Arms has an overworld which is quite similar to that of the 16-bit Lufia, except that it is graphically more impressive. Furthermore, the cross-menu interface is yet another feature that makes the two games in common. Any Lufia fans here will be extremely pleased to play Wild Arms. The only sad thing to say about Wild Arms may be that it may not get enough mainstream attention that it actually deserves because of Final Fantasy VII. True or not, I leave to readers to judge.

Some Cool Features About The Game

1)SEEK AND DISCOVER the powers of the Golem, ELWS, ARMs, mythic weapons and more.

2)ENCOUNTER AND SURVIVE traps like ground spikes, vanishing bridges and falling floors.

3)EXPLORE an interactive world by igniting bombs, activating switches, and throwing objects.

4)3D COMBAT with animated polygonal monsters and magic from multiple viewpoints.

5)CREATE powerful elemental magic through experimentation and discovery.

6)CONTROL the fight with Auto-Battle Commands and the New Force system.

7)CUSTOMISE control functions, camera angles, cursor positions, and more. Special options include an icon-based interface and a help menu.

Story : 8.5/10.0
Graphics : 7.5/10.0
Concept : 8.0/10.0
Music : 9.0/10.0
Sound : 7.5/10.0
Gameplay : 8.0/10.0
Replay : 8.0/10.0
Challenge : 7.5/10.0
Overall : 8.0/10.0

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 06/13/00, Updated 12/16/02