tanta07's Full Review: Wild Arms for PlayStation 1
Everyone seems to remember their first experience with the legendary Final Fantasy VII. Most knew it was coming out months beforehand, and popped it into their Playstation for the first time with sweaty palms. However, mention the name Wild Arms, and you’re likely to get a blank stare. One of the early Playstation RPG’s, Wild Arms was seen by some as a game to play merely because there were few RPG’s to choose from at that time, and it would help you pass the time until Finall Fantasy VII came out. Unfortunately, several years after its release, Wild Arms is still seen by many as a runner-up to the Final Fantasy series, instead of getting its full due as being a good game in its own right. While it has spun off a fairly successful sequel and an upcoming incarnation on the PS2, the original is still fodder for those who feel it should have somehow been better than the final product. For my money, Wild Arms is a charming RPG that can stand right up there with some of the best that the Playstation has to offer.
I’ve got to admit, than when you break down Wild Arms into its bare essentials, it doesn’t look like much more than a mediocre RPG at best. You’ve got: a limited character selection. You play the entire game with the same three characters the entire way through. The storyline is slightly cliché; it has all of the classic RPG elements, a princess who doesn’t want the responsibility, a silent protagonist who is an outcast from the rest of society, and a swash-buckling adventurer, complete with a weird flying, talking mouse-thing. The game also suffers from not giving enough clues to the gamer as far as where to go next, causing some frustration. Also, the graphics by now look very dated, and possibly even ugly, depending on how much of a graphics snob you are. So how does this game rise above all of this to be greater than the sum of its parts? Well, for one, it’s got a simple, and fun battle system that can be fairly addictive, as well as a storyline that is expansive and almost epic in proportions, as well as a big fat world to explore.
I honestly would have never even happened upon this game if it weren’t for some glowing recommendations I read right here on Epinions. You see? This site is occasionally used to make purchasing decisions! I had previously seen the game at a used game store for the bargain-basement price of $10, but something told me that a game that would only sell for $10 couldn’t be too great. And indeed, many reviews slammed this game for some of the problems I listed above. What have you really got to lose when you only spend $10 on a game, right? This being said, I still didn’t spend my own money, and instead borrowed my brother-in-law’s copy. Yeah, I’m a cheap bastage. Anyway, I’ve got to say that if I theoretically had spent $10 on this game, it would have been a very wise purchase. With over 35 hours of game time, just the amount of gameplay alone would make this a must-have for RPG fans. But, fortunately, there is a lot more that this game has to offer than simply a long time sitting in front of your TV.
Upon starting up the game, you will first be introduced to the three main characters, Rudy, Cecilia, and Jack. The game introduces you to them in an extremely cool way that scored points with me immediately. Each character is introduced separately, and you control each control on their own little adventure. Eventually you will unite all three characters and they will take off together on the main journey that will take up the rest of the game. I thought this was an extremely cool touch; it gave each character room to develop individually for a while, giving the gamer a more intimate understanding of each personality, as well as the different abilities of each character. You see, in Wild Arms, each of the main characters has a separate ability that you will need to get through the various dungeons in the game. For instance, Rudy can drop bombs in a dungeon to blow up walls. Jack can shoot a grappling hook to pull him across pits, and Cecilia has a magic item called “Tear Drop,” that can open up secret doors. Something as simple as this can actually make dungeon-exploring extremely interesting, since you will find yourself switching between the three characters several times in each area to make the best use of their abilities. Just getting from one side of the dungeon to the other actually takes a little thinking and planning, because the three characters will also gain abilities as the game moves along, so your options will expand, making the plotting going into the puzzles a lot more interesting. For those who are a little tired to RPG’s that feature dungeons that are basically “go from point A to point B, fighting random battles along the way,” Wild Arms does offer an interesting spin on the time-tested dungeon crawl.
As far as the storyline goes, it is not only fairly long and drawn out, but will pull you as it takes you over the entire planet of Filagia (I think I spelled it right). Rudy, of course, is your usual young boy from a small village who is an outcast. He had been living in relative peace for years, but one day, he tried to rescue a boy from a cave, and the villagers caught a glimpse of his ARM. His ARM is a legendary weapon that some assumed was a sign that the user was some sort of demon, so they of course banish him from the village. Cecilia is a princess who is unhappy with the way her life is shaping out, and wants something more. She doesn’t know it yet, but she is actually a chosen one picked out by the Guardians, or main protectors of the planet. Jack is a treasure-hungry adventurer who has a mysterious past that will slowly reveal itself as the game goes on to show that he actually has some vulnerability. The three meet and get wrapped up in (what else?) an all-consuming adventure to save the planet from evil.
The evil in this case comes in the form of a baddie named Ziegfried, and his controlling mother, who turns out to actually be the one to be scared of (Freud would have a field day with this game). Ziegfried and his many minions go about trying to destroy the Guardians one by one, as well as trying to steal the sacred Tear Drop away from Cecilia. The Tear Drop has far more meaning that Cecilia is aware of, and it is a key piece to the bad guys’ plans of ruling the world. Okay, I will admit that it is by far not the most original story in the world. Heck, it wasn’t even the most innovative story when it came out on the Playstation; Suikoden holds that honor. What will pull you in to playing this game for its entire running time is associating with the characters, and getting into the fun gameplay. I won’t give it away here, but there is a major plot twist about ¾ of the way through the game that got me very sucked into the story, as well as relating to the characters. I know I am a major stickler for strong storylines in games, and I hate to admit this, but the gameplay was so fun that I overlooked the somewhat weak plot. The character development and the charisma of the characters is also good, so there’s another plus.
Honestly, I can see how some people would have a problem with the graphics of this game. Even for a very early Playstation game, the graphics look fairly antiquated. The graphics are, however, bright and colorful, and the character designs are pretty nice. Where you might really cringe when looking at the game is with the battle graphics. The battlefield is 3D with a rotating camera to follow the action. The problem with this setup is that since this is during the infancy of the Playstation, the execution is not too great. The graphics are fairly choppy while battling, with a lot of clipping occurring, as well as colors fading and turning white at any given time. The character designs during battle look kind of goofy as well; the characters are extremely squashed, making them look like Oompah-Loompahs. The character designs look fairly cool on the cover of the game; Rudy has an imposing weapon, Jack looks suave in his trenchcoat. However, once in battle, it’s hard to imagine Rudy being a bad-a** when he looks to be about three feet tall, with a gigantic head and large cartoony eyes. I must say that they do look kind of cute, but “cute” is not what you’re looking for in a RPG character that slaughters bad guys by the thousands.
The world map graphics are also fairly weak; there is little detail to the landscapes to be found, the when zooming in on certain areas, there is noticeable pixellation. Towns and dungeons are fairly detailed, and might actually be the saving grace for the graphics in Wild Arms. Each town does have its own certain flair, and each setting is bustling with activity and color. Dungeons are also pretty varied, as well as being just as colorful and interesting as the towns. Given that you will spend 90% of the game journey through these towns and dungeons, you probably will not be too displeased with the graphics (until you get into a battle, that is). Oh yeah, speaking of that…you will get into a battle about every 3 steps. The encounter rate is extremely high is this game. If it wasn’t for the fact that you will have fun exploring the figuring out the dungeons, they would be made almost unbearably annoying by the sheer number of battles you will have to fight while making your way to the end. Once you get near the end of the game, random battles will suddenly become difficult, and there’s even the possibility you could die, so having them occur every few inches does become annoying. Once again, this is all pretty much offset by the fact that you will actually be having fun while wandering around in these dungeons.
I can’t believe I’ve made it this far in this review without talking about the music. Oh, yes, the music. Wild Arms, without a doubt, contains some of the best music I have heard in any game, on any system. From the opening theme, to the music that swells during the ending credits, your ears will be massaged as you play this game. Many have described the music in the game as “Western-themed,” as well as referring to the game in general in this way. While the music does occasionally feature acoustic guitars and sometimes whistling, it is much more varied than simply being music from a John Wayne movie. Many of the scores feature sweeping symphonic arrangements, while others are your usual MIDI blips and bleeps. There is a reoccurring melody that appears many times in the game, and it is the one featured in the opening. This is a simple guitar melody underscored by a haunting whistling. This theme will resurface during certain points in the game is a variety of different ways , and it is a gorgeous tune, and one that will stick in my head forever. I like the idea of introducing different interpretations of the same theme over and over in a game, it brings back a certain connecting thread that binds the musical score together, in my mind. When the theme is finally brought back again for a resounding finale at the end of the game, it is extremely moving. If there is ever a reason to buy a game’s soundtrack, this would be the one to check out, for sure.
By the way – on the subject of game soundtracks, instead of paying some jerk in Japan way too much for an import, many can be downloaded for free at www.gamingforce.com/audio. They offer many current games’ soundtracks available for download in MP3 format. I don’t support copyright infringement in any way, but I also won’t support the fleecing of innocent music fans by unscrupulous import dealers.
Okay, end of endorsement.
Where was I? Ahh, yes: the battle system. Like I have said in reviews for other games, a good battle system to me is one that tries hard not too screw everything up by overdoing it. In other words, simplicity is the key to me. I have a hard time getting into games where I have to sit and think for 20 minutes about which option I want to use next in the battle. I want simple choices out in front of me: attack, item, defend, magic, etc. Wild Arms does a great job of not trying to re-invent the wheel in this respect; it’s a simple turn-based battle system that is effective and is still interesting by your 30th hour into the game. Each character has the standard options that come up for them, attack, item, spell, defend. There is really nothing too surprising here. If there anything that might smack of being a little different, there is a system by which the characters will gain power for a monstrous attack as the battle goes on. Think of it like the system in Final Fantasy VII(there’s that game again) that allowed you to unleash a summon or a powerful attack once you had received so much damage in battle (I forget the name of it right now). Same thing here; once your character has taken enough of a beating within one battle, you can unleash a mighty attack, or even summon a guardian to lay some smack down, depending on how many of your points you want to spend. It was my personal experience that the guardian summons were not all that effective, but maybe I didn’t have the right combination of items equipped.
Which brings me to the “Rune” system in the game. Like equipping things to your characters like armor and weapons, you can also equip each character with things called “runes,” which are basically magic items that will give your characters special abilities. They will usually up your character stats such as agility and stamina, but they will also give you cool new abilities once you start to take a beating in a battle. Like I said before, some of the summons will not be that great, and some will even heal the boss you are fighting, so you’ll want to experiment with different runes to find the best combinations. Rudy will always be equipped with an ARM, which is basically just a bad-a** gun he carries that will end up being his best weapon as the game goes on. The cool thing about his ARM is that it can be upgraded, and you will find new ARMs as you travel, with each having their own capabilities. Just fighting to get more money to upgrade Rudy’s ARM is something that kept me busy for quite some time in this game.
I’m not really sure where to put this, so I will leave it for the end. Wild Arms does have a significant flaw that I should mention. Like some other RPG’s, this game constantly leaves you with absolutely no idea where to go next. For instance, you will defeat a big boss, return to a town to rest up, and the inhabitants will thank you for defeating the bad guy. And that’s it. You’ll be left with no idea of what to do next. You’re basically expected to travel the entire world for clues as to where to go next. While I don’t like to, I consulted FAQS a lot for tips on what to do next. For those not in the know, FAQs are guides that gamers write to help out other gamers on how to beat games. The best source for this is www.gamefaqs.com, which is basically a mecca for gamers everywhere. Boy, I ended up endorsing a lot more than I intended to. Anyway, this game does have a problem with letting you know what’s supposed to be going on, but with a little guidance, you can get around just fine.
Graphics – 3/5 - Dated, and they look it. The 3D is bad, making the battles really ugly. Anyone who likes to play the old-school RPG'’s should have no problems, though.
Characters – 4/5 - Very well done. While Rudy, Cecilia and Jack may not be up there with Fei in terms of complexity, they are also a long way from being unpleasant jerks. The story goes a long way to develop the characters, so you should be fairly familiar and comfortable with them by the end.
Sound/Music – 5/5 - While the in-game sound effects kind of suck, the music in the game is so great that it can not actually bring the score down.
Plot – 3/5 - There’s not much here that you haven’t seen before about a billion times. There are cliches o’plenty, but there are a few little twists that you probably wont’ see coming, and make the story a little stronger.
Gameplay/Battle System – 5/5 - This gets a huge boost from the fun options you have during your dungeon crawls. Believe me, most RPG’s are 80% dungeons and puzzles, and anything the game can do to make this time more pleasant is a good thing, and in Wild Arms, I actually had fun.
This game is not all that hard to find, even thought it is quite a few years old now. You can still run across used copies is game stores, and there’s always a few copies floating around on Ebay at any given time. You shouldn’t have to pay more than $10-$15 for this game, so if you see it listed for more than that, move on, because you can find it cheaper. Personally, I think this game would still be worth the full retail price, because it offers fun gameplay with old-school values that doesn’t come along very often anymore. Since it was seen as something to pass the time until Final Fantasy VII during its first go-around, it should now be given your full attention like it deserves.
It is said that 1 000 years ago Filgaia was a prosperous fertile world protected by the mythical Guardians. Until one ill-fated day when the evil race...More at eBay
1 Player 3 D Combat RPG Custom control functions, camera angles and more, Platforms: PlayStation, ESRB Rating: Kids to AdultsMore at Amazon Marketplace
Epinions.com periodically updates pricing and product information from third-party sources, so some information may be slightly out-of-date. You should confirm all information before relying on it.
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2010 Shopping.com, Inc.