Wild Arms Series (general)

[Lovely]

It's about time I started this thread.
There aren't many RPG gamers on this board who play the less well-known stuff but... well, I gotta try!
(As a side note, when I purchase and play through Wild Arms 4 I intend to make a seperate thread. Unless someone else wants to start that thread...)

Wild Arms(WA) is an RPG series that is about 10 years old. What makes Wild Arms a bit different from other RPG's is:

1- The setting. Each WA has a "Wild West" flare. In addition to a little mythology, fantasy and Sci Fi. It's a fun mix.

2- Tools. In dungeouns, each character has a set of tools that you can use to solve various puzzles. This gives the series a bit of an "action/adventure" feel.




The Wild Arms series is also known for having a lot of optional bosses that you can try to kill.

The stories between each game ussually varies. Some are average, some are magnificent and some are.... not so great. So let's look a little further shall we?


mini-reviews) , and some short thoughts about them. -

Wild Arms 1 (PS1) -- Fun and cute game. One of the heros suffers from SHS (silent hero syndrom) , well mostly (he does talk a liiiitle bit) . Some of the puzzles are a bit hard, but mostly it's a fun game ^^ . Also, it has one of my FAVORITE comic-releif villians ever (ZED!) .
The story is pretty cliche up to a certain point.
WA1 came out at about the same time that Final Fantasy 7 came out. Hence, the series never got talked about much.


Wild Arms 2 (PS1) --- My favorite Wild Arms game. I simply love the story and characters in this one. Also the battle system was great, It was one of the first games to introduce the concept of switching in and out party members during battle with NO penalties. And yes, WA2 came out BEFORE FFX

Wild Arms 3 (PS2) --- visually, One of the more advanced in the series. To bad that doesn't save the rest of the game. This is my LEAST favorite game in the Wild Arms series. It's fun in the begining, but once you reach the halfway point the "story" takes a dramatic drop. It just get's boring.
Add to that the fact that a LOT of the bosses later in the game take ENTIRELY too long to defeat. It's not that they are hard, the stategy to beat them is ussually relatively simple, it's just that they have so much HP that it takes forever.
Luckily, the game has a pretty smart "auto-battle" option. Set up your stradegy, turn on "auto-battle" and go take a 3 hour nap. When you come back, the battle should juuust about be finished.
By the way, the final boss has about 10 forms -_- .


Wild Arms Alter Code F (PS2):
This game is a totall remake of the first Wild Arms game. The Same characters and basic story is used, but also BUILT upon adding a lot of depth to things.
Graphics are entirely re-done in 3D, and the dungeouns are all totally new.
The battle system is a mix of WA3 and WA1 with a little WA2 on the side (switching in and out party members.)
Two characters are made BETTER in this release.

1- Rudy- One of the mains. He's still silent, but he sort of has a reason. The game made his character better by adding a LOT of facial expressions to him. So instead of being a blank slate, he actually has a personality. Even without talking.

2- Zed. Hillarious in the first game. SUPER Hillarious in this one. ACF Zed is my favorite character in any media EVER. He's just so.... out there.

The game also has a really nice ending.


Well, there you go. My general Wild Arms views. I hope you all give the series a try someday. You just might like it.
Anyone else ever play any games in this series?

[I change my name everyday!]

Wild Arms has horses you can ride on. Therefore it wins unconditionally. D:

I've never played these games, but my friends speak highly of them, and I adore the music. I'll check out Wild Arms 2, considering the first one was around FFVII's time, it probably has those ghei ugly lego grafics. :\

[Lovely]

Yeah, the first Wild Arms was the first RPG to use 3-d battles. .... and it shows . Just get Alter Code F for the same story and stuff.

Wild Arms 3 is the only wild Arms where you can ride the horses. But as I said before, WA3 is deffinetly not my favorite.

[I change my name everyday!]

Bumpity bump bump.

I recently bought WA3 (along with Suikoden Tactics for under 20$ :8), I already had a save file from when I rented it-I never beat the prolouge, Gallows' was confusing, I never figured out where to go. ;-;

But what really concerns me is that the opening animation's song is whistles and not singing- can someone explain to me why it does this? It's annoying+I want to show my dad the opening with the vocals. :<

[Lovely]

Wild Arms 3 has a bunch of versions of the song. They apear as you play further through the game.


Now, since I never DID make a seperate thread for Wild Arms 4, I figure i'll mention it briefly now.

I love it.

A lot.

It's fun as hell, in not only the battle system, but also in the dungeoun system (It's like a platformer action game!) The characters themselves are are super fun and likable. And yeah, the main story, it's corny as heck and sometimes a little preachy, and that IS PART OF ITS CHARM .

I mean, heck, a game that has one of the "villans" carry around an ****anti-tank CHAINSAW******, is just wonderfull. The game is almost gleeful in it's goofiness .

[Lovely]

Well, since this thread is here, I figure I'll mention the next two games in the series.

Wild Arms 5 and Wild Arms XF .

Wild Arms 5 uses a modified version of WA4's battle system and is a longer game over all. HOWEVER. I haven't finished it. A lot of the games story is terribly cliche, but without the over the top goofiness that WA4 had. The characters aren't BAD, I just don't find them terribly interesting. Of course, I'm only through about 1/4th of the game, so who knows how it keeps going.

My biggest beef with the game is the "modified" battle system. I just enjoyed the system a LOT more in WA4. Where each skill felt useful. EVEN poison skills. WA5 cuts down the usefulness of a lot of the skills, and well... I just didn't find it that interesting. Not to mention that the save points are VERY far apart, making traveling a pain.

HOWEVER, most Wild Arms fans actually really like the game. So... my feelings for the game are pretty much in the minority. In the end, I suppose it all depends on play style and tastes.

For the record though, for people who DIDN'T like WA4 (basically fans of 3,) I imagine they'll probably enjoy 5 too.


The next game is Wild Arms XF. This game isn't actually out yet in the US. This game is actually coming out for the PSP and will soon be released from XSeed games. Unlike other games in the series, which were basically classic turn based rpg's, XF is a strategy rpg.
A bit different from most SRPG's is that instead of using a square grid for movement, XF is going to be using Hexagram grid. It should be intersting to see how it works out.

Design wise, it's looking pretty nice, so I'm looking forward to picking it up.