Wild Arms 2 is well worth the money and a big time-eater.
Written: Sep 26 '02
Product Rating:
Pros: Nice story line, long (37+ hours)
Cons: Chunky graphics
The Bottom Line: Wild Arms 2 is a very good rounded RPG with many puzzle elements and a long plot that will keep you playing this game for several weeks.
Note: This review is old. Very old. I can't be held responsible for the length or redundancy of this review. Oh wait, yes I can. Darn.
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You know, I was really wondering when Contrail was going to release a sequel to it’s very popular game from 1997, Wild Arms. Thankfully, almost a full three years later, everyone was blessed with Wild Arms 2. Did this game match up to its predecessor, or was it a gigantic flop? A lot of gamers have absolutely loved this game, but some popular sites (who I choose not to name at this point in time) gave this game relatively low scores due to its supposed “outdatedness” or choppy graphics. I am here to review the whole game, not ramble about the graphics alone and look pretty. Let’s see how Wild Arms 2 fared in the most important categories.
Graphics (6)
Yes, the graphics were not all that spectacular. But, it did have its high points. The overworld was beautifully designed, with no visible flaws at all. Well, except for the sky. The designers tended to make the sky all swirly with tons and tons of colors making you a bit dizzy at times (that is, if you stare at it too long like I did).
The towns looked pretty good. One noticeable change for this game is that, well, the dungeons and towns are in 3D, not 2D!! Yeahhhh. The houses weren’t empty at most points, having tons of crap that we can’t interact with that makes the homes seem more realistic. I only have one question. Where did all the animals go? In the first Wild Arms there were plenty of animals in each city. How many could I remember from this game? Two. One cat and one dog. It is a pity, too. I liked how they were designed in the first game…
The dungeons weren’t greatly designed, but they were a bit above average at best. All there was were variations of stairs, blocks, and hundreds upon hundreds of fireplaces. Other than that, I have no complaints with the dungeons, rather than the fact that they should’ve put more things into it.
There were only about three to four FMV’s, but all of them were excellent, due to it being anime. I guess they did not have enough room to add more FMV’s onto the two CDs that they offered for this exceptional game.
The characters in Wild Arms 2 looked semi-deformed on the overworld, but they weren’t badly designed at all. Well, that is, unless you’re talking about how they looked in the battle system.
Ughhh, the battle system’s graphics are what really chocked down the points for graphics. The characters were extremely blocky, and the magic did not look all that great, either. The only redeeming factor of the battle system was the guardians and their special long sequences. (Too bad I rarely used the little buggers, anyway.) The backgrounds were also pretty damned average. There were square walls and square grounds and such, different colors. Sometimes the crazy swirly colors returned to make you dizzy while fighting little rat men…bah.
Overall, the graphics were above average, but very far from great. If only Contrail had updated the battle system more thoroughly the score would have been quite a few points higher.
Control (7)
You know, most Role Playing Games don’t require much of a “control factor”. All you do is choose a command during fighting and beat the hell out of your enemy. This game has these features and all, but it also has other features. Like, for one thing, navigating through the dungeons. For the most part, going through the dungeons is pretty easy, but occasionally you fall into a pit that seemingly appears out of nowhere, which can really become annoying. Also, when you are warping across a pit from one platform to another, you find yourself falling into the pit by just a millimeter, if not less.
Most of the time the tools that you used in this game worked the way they were supposed to, but once again the millimeter rule plays a role in this matter. “D’oh! The knife hit that damned switch, I say!” “What? I didn’t set the bomb in the right place? YES I DIIIID!!!” I said these two lines multiple times during this game. Oh well, the tools overall are very responsive, and work well.
So, the control isn’t perfect. Sometimes it is annoying, but you get used to it after a few hours of running, bombing, and hooking your way through all of the dungeons.
Music/Sound (7.5)
Although the music was good in its own little way, I still found it lacking the “greatness” of the original Wild Arms’ music. (In which I gave that game’s Music/Sound portion a perfect 10 for outstanding music) There were about forty to fifty tunes in this game, each sounding very well put together. The only problem that I seemed to have is that none of the songs were memorable. None of them were so catchy that you would just play them over and over again in your head. I had that case with about nine or ten songs from the first Wild Arms. However, I especially liked the Final Boss Theme (yes, the final final final one.) The music was very commendable at best, but it was quite a bit short of mastery.
Gameplay (8)
Hoo boy, where the hell should I start? There are so many things to cover. I guess I will start with the tools, which is a new concept to all of the non-Wild Arms players out there.
Tools
There was a **** load of tools in this game. In the first Wild Arms, there was only about nine tools. In this game, there are eighteen. What are tools? Tools are items that you use in dungeons or towns to help you solve all forty-two billion puzzles that are featured in this game. Like using flares to illuminate rooms, or perhaps using roller blades to skate across lava pits without any scars. Hell, you can even do something as little as kicking pillars over with your big assed foot. However, some of these tools were relatively useless after you used them two or three times. The only true letdown, however, is that one of the character’s tools, the electric thingee (bah, I don’t remember its name. Let’s just call it a TAZER. Heheh) can’t shock the hell out of people. It can only zap little midget robots and blast carved lightning bolts on walls. Wah.
Battle System
Other than the choppy graphics, the battle system was pretty decent. Just like Final Fantasy VIII, the programmers of Wild Arms 2 decided to remove the Magic Points system. Instead, they used the Force Points system. Those of you who played the first Wild Arms may remember that the Force Points system was used to determine special attacks alone. Now, it determines just about the whole damned thing. Special attacks, special weapons use, and all the magic, too. You get force points by dealing out damage with your physical attacks, or getting decked by your opponents.
I sort of liked how each character had his or her own unique abilities. Ashley and Brad (two of the characters) had the abilities to use arms, or special shooting weapons. Sometimes you have to reload the bullets for these arms, which can be done during battle with a “Bullet Clip” item, or at the local arms shops that are located in just about every town in the game. Another character, Lilka, had the ability to use magic, in which she could only learn them by finding “Crests” in dungeons or towns and taking them to a magic shop. There were only about 32 spells, which I did not think to highly of. I only have one major gripe about this. Where the hell did the “Escape” spell go? I really missed that. Yet another guy, Tim, could use magic, but the only way he can learn magic is by killing enough monsters to get a spell that’s attached to a guardian that you have equipped (don’t be too damned confused. I’ll explain that later). Kanon uses her force points just to beat the hell out of bad guys with brute force. From spinning kicks to super powerful blasts, this woman is really damned powerful. Maribel, the secret character, only steals abilities from monsters.
My favorite aspect of the battle system is one attack that Ashley is able to use once his Force Points total gets high enough. “Access.” Ashley transforms into a super powerful being, which makes him two to four times stronger than usual. Instead of doing 2000 damage, he could pull off a 20000 (you heard me) damage attack with ease.
The status effects in this game really, really annoyed me. Out of nowhere a boss or normal monster would pull out some attack that put like four or five status changes on me, which would make me utterly screwed sometimes. Thank goodness I bought 99 of each of those damned little status curing items near the beginning of the game.
There was another small, irritating factor for the battle system. Sometimes there was some sort of an immediate slowdown, which made the characters look like they were going in slow motion. Of course, the battle system was slow in my mind to begin with, but to slow it down by four more times? Agh.
Items
Well, for the first twenty-five hours or so I was mighty angry to find out that you couldn’t buy any healing items. I had to constantly reserve my healing stuff until I learned certain magic spells that automatically healed me. However, this torture ended when a little midget robot got shocked with a tazer and said, “Welcome to the Black Market!” (I’m not joking. This really happened) This made me very happy, but it also made the game much more easier, so I guess I understood why the programmers left out healing crap at the shops. …Oh well.
Arms
Aw, man. This really disappointed me. You could only make nine improvements to each arm. You couldn’t max out everything like you could do in Wild Arms. I only brought most of my arms’ attack powers up to about 45 to 50 in this game. I brought it up to about 200 with each weapon in the last game! I don’t recall finding any items in this game that let me add more improvements to my weapons, which made the arms relatively useless in this game.
Personal Skills
This was one of the new additions to the Wild Arms series. You earn Personal Skill Points by gaining levels, which you can redeem at certain shops in towns. You can use these Personal Skill Points to boost up your HP at each level up, up your physical offense and defense, or perhaps you could notch up on the status effects and make yourself more resistant to things such as silence and sleep, so that those pesky monsters won’t screw you up every time with those damn Latin spells they chant.
Guardians
The guardians are sort of like a mimic of the Final Fantasy series’ summons and guardian forces. The guardians can be summoned to deal out a bunch of damage, bring up defenses, or even steal crap. I myself rarely used the guardians, for I thought very little of them and their attacks. The only thing that I found of worth was that the guardians built up stats on your characters when you had them equipped. Oh, and the fact that they helped Tim gain new magic spells.
Overall, the gameplay was pretty good. I enjoyed the battle system, although it had its slowdown problems. The guardians were just “all show and not much power”, but they did help to make the characters stronger. The magic system wasn’t a disaster as I had expected, too.
Difficulty (6.5)
I personally found this game not that much of a challenge. There were three different sections that made up the difficulty factor in this game. I’ll run them down now with scores on each:
Dungeons (8)
OK, maybe I’m a retard, but I really got stuck on some of the puzzles in this game. Sure, there are some extremely simplistic puzzles in this game, but others make you actually have to sit down and think for a while (which a lot of gamers do not like to do). This game really tested my knowledge… and when my knowledge was too low and stupid, I had to consult a walkthrough. Heheheh.
Non-Optional Fights (3.5)
What the hell? This game had pretty challenging bosses until about the 18-hour point, where in my opinion the challenge went all to hell. The bosses seemingly got ten times easier, being able to be beaten within two minutes, rather than ten or fifteen. Not even the final bosses (all five to seven of them) were not that challenging at all.
Optional Fights (9.5)
This is where the all the challenging fights went. Some of these monsters were on par with Final Fantasy VII’s Ruby and Emerald Weapons in my opinion. Especially those damned monsters in the small spinning pyramids. You do not want to make those little buggers mad as hell.
Story (8.5)
As I had expected, Wild Arms 2 featured a very, very interesting storyline involving six, not three, main characters. Ashley, the gun warrior, Brad, the “hero.” Lilka, the young sorceress, Tim, the “Pillar” of the guardians, Kanon, a mercenary and demon exorcist, and Maribel, the Crimson Noble (a happy name for “vampire”), who’s life is eternal. Almost all of these characters had very diverse personalities, and played a major role to the plot. I cannot explain it here (NO SPOILERS FOR YOU! {THWAP}), for I do not want to give away the excellent story this game told.
Overall (7.5)
I really, really enjoyed Wild Arms 2. Although it had its numerous flaws, it had an almost equal amount of redeeming qualities. The graphics were a bit chunky, but the overworld and FMV’s helped make up for that a little. The music was a bit short of great, as was the gameplay and its unique take on Magic Points/Force Points. The story was very intriguing, as were many other points in this game. I honestly do recommend that you, the reader, buy this game soon for somewhere around twenty-five to forty dollars. The game lasted around 37 hours for me, which is a pretty good total for a Role Playing Game. Although it may be far from the top RPG of 2000, it should still be considered as one of the better titles that have come out this year.
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