All gamers shall have the right...no, the privilege to bear "Wild Arms"
Written: Dec 13 '02 (Updated Dec 13 '02)
Product Rating:
Pros: Immersive dungeons, nice cel-shaded graphics, and a very SWEET soundtrack.
Cons: Lack of playable character selection, and world map navigation is still a pain.
The Bottom Line: Just like a good gun, Wild Arms 3 rarely ever misses the mark. Only in this case, the guns are animated and nobody actually gets killed.
siliconheroxl's Full Review: Wild Arms 3 for PlayStation 2
Even with the massive hype surrounding the Final Fantasy series nowadays, Sony's Wild Arms series appears to be holding its own in the console RPG market. As far as I know, it's the only series that I know that the company has stuck with (to my knowledge, Legend of Dragoon only had one game, and the latest Legend of Legaia game now appears to be in the hands of Eidos), so it must be good, right? Sony certainly seems to think so...and that's why there's already a third game in the series. If you haven't played any of the Wild Arms games before, then this would be a good place to start.
Story
Many experienced Wild Arms gamers should be familiar with the world of Filgaia. It's gone through two incarnations, each one almost different than the last. This time, Filgaia is slowly being eaten away by large expanses of sand. Amid this planet's deterioration, people called "Drifters" search this world for treasure, adventure, and other such things. The four "Drifters" that you control through the game - called Virginia, Jet, Clive, and Gallows by name - band together after a fateful encounter on a passenger train, and set out to find a cause for their planet's deterioration, and to unlock the mystery of a war long forgotten.
You get a pretty good idea of each character's background a little past the intro, as you have to play through a prologue scenario for each of the four characters. They all have a good mix of personalities, which make up for their team members' shortcomings. Virginia's the naïve leader of the group, with high ambitions but very little idea of how to carry them out. Clive is the calm-and-collected member of the group who holds a strong sense of commitment, and won't stop until his job is complete. Jet's basically a lone wolf. He doesn't like working in groups unless it's beneficial to him in some way. And then there's Gallows (yes, that is his first name), who doesn't listen closely to the elders of his village, but is always more than happy to lend Virginia a helping hand.
Of course, not everybody that Virginia's group meets is out to help them. There are two other bands of drifters whom frequently get in the party's way, and even then they don't know whom they really need to worry about. I like this multiple bad-guy part of the plot better than I do the single "annoying bad guy" or "ominous evil power", because this method shakes up the plot a bit, keeping the gamer on his/her toes, and it proves the point that you can't always put your trust into people you meet.
Gameplay
There's a lot to like about the gameplay in Wild Arms 3. Though this is an RPG as defined by genre, this game throws some action elements into the mix to keep it from being just the same old, same old. You can run around, jump off of platforms and rooftops, cling onto (and climb on top of) hanging nets, and search and use practically anything in the immersive 3D environments. The puzzles and dungeons are quite impressive, as well. Some of the puzzles are pretty easy, as you may have to throw a switch or push a crate to get a pesky door to open, but some of them require a bit more interaction. Luckily, when the answer to a puzzle isn't so obvious, each of the characters has a set of Tools at their disposal. (For example, Virginia's Tindercrest cards can be used to light torches or to quickly thaw out frozen objects.)
The combat system has been modified a bit from Wild Arms 2 to make battles a little more strategic. First off, the characters' weapon of choice will always be some form of gun (Virginia uses a pair of pistols, Jet duels with a heavy machine gun, Gallows carries a sawed-off shotgun, and Clive bears a long-barrel rifle), which can't be exchanged, but can be upgraded by people called Armsmiths (the signs in town are hard to spot, so you'll have to do a little searching). You can have the Armsmith customize your character's guns by bullet strength, bullet capacity, accuracy, weight, and critical hit rate. In theory, you can use these customizations to make a normally weak Virginia into your team's powerhouse. The guns that your party members carry have limited ammunition (like any good firearm), so in order to reload the gun when you run out of bullets, you can use the "Defend" command to restock it (see? The "Defend" command isn't useless after all). If you save up enough Force energy by taking damage, you can turn the battle in your favor by unleashing a powerful rapid-fire Gatling attack. The magic system (called "Arcana" in this game) has been streamlined a bit, too. Now everybody in the game can use magic through the use of Mediums. Each Medium you find has a set of magic spells, and a special summon attack that deals damage depending on how much force you have. These work in similar fashion to Materia crystals in Final Fantasy VII, in that you have to have them equipped before they can be of any use to you. For those of you who've gotten sick and tired of the overly drawn out summon animations in the Final Fantasy games, you'll be pleased to find out that Wild Arms 3's summon animations only take about 20 seconds (on average) to complete. The battles themselves are pretty balanced - not too hard, and not too easy (although there are a few boss battles that'll require some heavy leveling up before you can take them on).
One thing that I really didn't like about Wild Arms 2, and I still don't like that much in this game, is the world map navigation system. Rather than having all of the towns and dungeons laid out on the world map ready for you, you have to get information from various townspeople on where to go next. And even after you have your new destination in mind, you still have to go out onto the world map and hit the "Search" button to find it. Sometimes searching can turn up some hidden items or money, but all you're really interested in is finding those dungeons, which can unfortunately be a chore, especially at the beginning of the game.
Graphics
What can I say? The graphics on this game look excellent. The character designs are bright and colorful amid the dreary, dust-filled wasteland. Everything is smooth and well-animated, running at a crisp 60 frames-per-second, and nary a jagged polygon in sight. The battle visuals have improved significantly over Wild ARMS 2's messy-looking animations. The battle animations look a lot more realistic and intimidating this time around (since now the artists who drew up the animations figured out that lightning attacks don't look as threatening if they're drawn as simple, continuous crooked lines). They're not quite as stunning as the pure CG visuals present in Final Fantasy X, but they still look damn good nonetheless. The cel-shaded, colored-pencil look of the characters takes a bit of getting used to, though.
Music and Sound
Much like the rest of this game, the musical score is very good. You'll hear a lot of wonderfully-composed Western-style pieces to fit the atmosphere. The song you'll hear in the town of Jolly Roger is a great example - lots of acoustic guitar, accompanied by soft drumbeats and the occasional flute melody. Some of the best pieces in the game were reserved for dungeons and boss battles (I especially like the Janus boss battle...it reminds me a bit of the Cocytus battle theme from the previous game, although this one sounds more ominous). There's plenty of variety in the musical tracks, so there's something here for everybody to like. The sound effects were quite good, too. There's a good helping of gunshot and explosion effects, which sound realistic enough to make you forget you're playing a video game. The only thing missing in the sound department is voice acting. If you think about it, it'd be kinda pointless to add it in, since you can rename your characters at the beginning, but don't you sometimes wonder what Virginia, or Gallows, or Janus and his two cronies would sound like if they actually "spoke" to each other? I sure did, and it left me feeling a bit empty, because the dialogue is certainly good enough for Sony to pull it off.
Final Verdict
I could use a lot of positive adjectives to describe my overall opinion of Wild Arms 3, but I'll be brief and just use one - "wonderful". Wild Arms was (and still is) Sony CE's best RPG series, and this third installation solidifies that position. Whether you choose to rent or buy, you'll surely have lots of fun playing this game.
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