Wild Arms Alter Code: F

A remake of Wild Arms 1 for the Playstation 2, Alter Code: F is based in the Wild Arms 3 engine and shows it right from the get-go.  Many of that game's mechanics make themselves known right away - from the encounter cancel system (tied to a gauge refilled after battles), the Vitality bar that automatically restores HP after a battle, the lack of armor and accessories, and Arms being integrated into combat (firing with your normal attack, reloading with Defend) rather than a limited-use "special attack".  Most all of the dungeons are also redesigned to be more puzzle-oriented, and there are three new playable characters - all seen in the original game as NPCs.  It feels a bit low budget, lacking the polished animation and cel-shading of 3, but it's an interesting new take on a PS1 cult classic that's worth a look in its own right.

Developer: Media.Vision
Publisher: Agetec
Released: 2005
Platforms: Playstation 2

Wild Arms 4

Wild Arms 4 represented a major shift away from almost every norm of the franchise, and as a result is widely regarded as the black sheep of the series.  But is there still a good game to be found if you put the franchise's legacy aside and judge it on its own merits, or should it just be remembered as the beginning of the series' decline?

A franchise changing up its familiar format is always a risky move to take - the risk of alienating one's existing fans, paired with no guarantee the change will bring about new ones, has been a killing blow to more than a few beloved series.  But staying constant carries similar risks, with more than a few franchises being abandoned in favor of the new hot property on the market once the next big thing rolls in, so taking risks becomes a part of the territory even if it may ultimately doom a series.

Wild Arms 4 was Media.Vision's attempt to update Wild Arms for a new generation, and they really went all-in with the change, creating something that plays very unlike any prior game in the series.  In fact, it actually feels a bit like a puzzle-platformer rather than a straight RPG, at least outside of combat.  Movement is in three dimensions in some areas and two in others (helpfully pointed out to you with text reading "side view" in the corner of the screen).  You control only one character outside of battle (Jude), and he has some rather Mario 64-esque movement mechanics, utilizing a double-jump, slide and a stomp to get past obstacles.  Thankfully, despite the dynamic camera and perspective, the game does make navigation rather simple - a red arrow indicates the area you've just exited from, while blue arrows indicate areas you've already been and yellow ones point out areas you haven't visited yet, so it's easy too find your way around the dungeons.

Tools, formerly a mechanic that defined and distinguished the party, are no longer such. They are also not a permanent part of your repertoire - you find and use them in the same dungeon (and often in the same room), making that element feel more akin to something like Adventures of Lolo than Zelda.  There are at least quite a bit of variety to them - swords can break some objects, sword hilts can be thrown to activate switches, shields can block damage from fire and laser traps, and so forth, so while it doesn't work on the same principle as the previous Wild Arms games, it does at least keep the puzzle-oriented design to its dungeons.

Combat is another stark departure from the Wild Arms norm.  The game still utilizes a turn-based format, but battles are now based in large part around the "Hex Grid".  Players and enemies alike all move between seven spaces on the field, and attacks, items and spells target the hexes themselves - not the specific characters within them.  Moreover, multiple characters can be within a hex at the same time, though enemies and player characters cannot share a hex.  This effectively means that attacking a hex with two or more characters within it will do damage to all of them (barring a miss), and that most items and status effects are cast on the hex itself - not the characters.  Essentially, if one casts a Poison spell on a hex, the characters within it will take damage at the start of each turn, but they can also move out of that hex to get away from the effect.  Inversely, if a player uses a healing item, it will heal everyone in the hex, so grouping up the party momentarily would be beneficial in that case.  Controlling the field quickly becomes key to victory, especially as the game goes on and enemies become more aggressive, pushing your party into a single hex so they can attack them all at the same time. Hexes can also somewhat randomly be assigned as "ley points", granting bonus damage if the player uses a skill or spell that matches their element.  Inversely, casting from or into a ley point of the opposite element will reduce the effect.  Strangely, the game is also very forthcoming with enemy stats - you can view any enemy's stats at any time during a fight, even bosses.

Wild Arms 4 still utilizes random encounters, and unlike 2 or 3, there isn't a readily-available way to avoid them.  However, once a particular dungeon's boss is defeated, the player is often afforded the ability to disable them completely for that dungeon, letting them explore and find any treasures they may have missed on the way in.  Not quite as convenient to the player, but practical in its own way.

The game also retains the franchise's high standards for presentation, with some quality graphics and sound design in almost every area of the game.  It's definitely a departure in style and tone from the "old west" aesthetic of the earlier games, going for more of a futuristic science fiction bent, but nothing about it is inherently bad; just different.  Town music in particular has a very ambient, laid-back tone to it; I found myself thinking of games like Simcity as I listened.  The game's story scenes are significantly upgraded, giving the game a much more anime-like presentation - lots of cutscenes with choreographed animation, dynamic camerawork and professional voice-acting (which was still a relatively new thing for games of the time).  Even the introductory cinematic (seen when you load a save) has its lyrics dubbed into English, which was fairly unusual for a video game of the era.

Fitting with that, though, the game's story does fall into a lot of particularly cheesy anime tropes.  The characters are all rather stock and archetypal, and the dialog has a pervasive tone of "adults are all too cynical to save the world, the kids are the real heroes" that gets a bit grating.  The designs are more than a bit silly at times too, with multiple belts and chains and oversized accessories.  Still, I found myself getting wrapped up in the story, and it does at least retain a sense of humor about itself at times, so its more annoying elements are only a minor issue.

Wild Arms 4 is definitely the odd duck of the series, and it isn't hard to see why - it changed up its aesthetic and almost every familiar element of its gameplay in some rather strange ways, largely exhuming a "classic RPG" feel in favor of something more akin to an action game with an anime aesthetic.  However, I found it to be a competent and entertaining title in its own right; maybe not as fresh and captivating as its primary competitors of the time (Final Fantasy XII and Persona 3), but one that's certainly worth a look if you're a fan of the franchise.  It's not without its faults for sure - an uneven difficulty level and some irritating writing tropes hamper it a bit - but it's an interesting and mostly successful reinvention of the franchise.

Developer: Media.Vision
Publisher: SCEI, XSeed Games, 505 Game Street
Platform: Playstation 2
Released: 2006
Recommended Version: N/A

Wild Arms 3

The third game in the Wild Arms franchise and the first to hit the Playstation 2, it is also considered to be the best in the series by many fans.  But does it hold up to closer scrutiny today, or is it just a by-the-book entry and little else?

Wild Arms was a cult classic while 2 came out fairly late in the Playstation's life and proved to be a pretty good seller despite its relative unpopularity among fans of the first, so naturally, the series would soon make the leap to the Playstation 2.  2002 brought us Wild Arms 3, which kept most of the core feel of the series intact while taking advantage of the platform's capabilities to deliver a stronger aesthetic experience - stylized cel-shaded graphics, virtually no load times and a much smoother framerate than even 2 are immediately put on display.  Combat tries to be more visually interesting too, having friend and foe alike roam the field between actions (though as far as I can tell, this is purely a visual effect and doesn't play into the overall strategy at all).   But more than that, the game has much more of an "old west" feel than the earlier games.  The music, dusty desert setting, riding horses to quickly travel around the world map and character designs all fit this well, but it's also quite prominent in the intro, depicting a Mexican standoff between the four protagonists as a clever in-road to their introductory quests (which all explain what led them to that moment).

This is evident in the gameplay too, which puts much more emphasis on ARMs than the previous ones.  Each character has their own weapon - Virginia gets a pair of revolvers, Jet gets a machine gun that fires in six-shot bursts, Clive gets a powerful rifle that can only hold two shots by default, while Gallows gets a double-barreled shotgun.  Ammo management is a significant part of one's strategy as each normal attack consume ARM ammo; after you spend all of a weapon's shots they resort to a much weaker melee attack.  By using the Guard command you can reload your gun mid-fight, and many of the Force abilities are centered on gun use too - usually firing numerous rounds in a single turn for extra damage but burning your ammo more quickly.  Magic is also not limited to specific characters anymore, but now based on finding and equipping "Mediums" with predetermined stat bonuses and spell lists, slightly similar to the Materia system from Final Fantasy VII.

Another odd, but welcome mechanic is Inertia Cancel.  Once someone has at least 25 FP in their Force gauge, they have the option to cancel their action for a turn by spending 25 FP and can immediately input another one.  This does prove more handy than you'd think - for example, if another character gets taken out by an enemy before someone can heal them, they can Inertial Cancel that action and use a Revive Fruit instead, getting them back in the fight while avoiding wasting a Heal Berry.  Another option is to have someone use a Carrot to boost another character's FP, then cancel that character's action and have them use a Summon or other powerful attack instead of a weaker one.  Basically, meter management is a very important skill to master so you can get the most out of your resources.  One can also find an ability later in the game to "Power Cancel", which reduces the FP cost of Inertia Cancelling to 0 and opens up a whole new world of fun tactics.

Wild Arms 3 also compounds the "Wild West" feel by putting much more emphasis on exploration (requiring you to buy maps and follow clues to discover new areas on the world map), as well as conservation of resources.  HP-restoring items are not found in most shops and are relatively hard to come by in the wild, and upgrades are simply limited to boosting your ARMs' stats and character skills - there is no 'armor' per se.  Additionally, many rare and useful personal skill items can only be found in bulk by first finding one and selling it to the "Black Market", and even then, purchasing more is generally quite expensive (tens of thousands of Gella apiece).  The game does take a novel approach to the healing item conundrum, though - a major minigame is buying seeds and then tending to a garden to grow your own healing items.  Some items also have a very small chance of being successfully grown, which means you will have to "Breed" some crops to give them better chances to cultivate.  Eventually you can get all of them to 100% (and there is a special reward for doing so), though this takes quite a bit of work over the course of the game.

Because of this, the game does give you some options to conserve your health and be less reliant on healing items.  Each character now has a vitality gauge; after each battle, this gauge will be depleted to restore their HP, with every 1% of the meter restoring that amount of their health.  Resting at an inn will restore the bar to full, while picking up orange gems in a dungeon will restore it by 5% for each gem, so it is important to focus on making progress in a relatively efficient fashion.  Encounter cancelling returns from Wild Arms 2 as well, though in a slightly more limited form - this now operates off a gauge of its own, which begins at 10 and depletes by one point for each encounter you skip (and can be refilled by one point for each battle you fight or each white gem you collect).  However, if your level is far above that of an enemy, you'll get a green exclamation point warning instead of a white one, which lets you skip that battle at no cost to the gauge.  Another small exploit I found is that one can quickly interact with some objects (like throwable crates) or exit the room to avoid a fight without spending any of the meter, so that can also help you to keep points in the gauge.  Gimel Coins - used for retrying battle - now have a secondary purpose as well, letting you save your prograss at any time instead of just at a pretermined save point, which can prove quite useful in the tougher areas of the game.

In short, Wild Arms 3 was a game that retained the same turn-based, puzzle-solving design of its predecessors, but also did its best to make it feel more like you were exploring a harsh and unforgiving frontier.  With a heavier emphasis on resource conservation than the earlier games, as well as introducing concepts like ammo and careful Force meter management to combat strategy, Wild Arms 3 was definitely the most challenging of the Wild Arms games in its time, which probably played no small part in making it a popular entry among fans.  Whether it's the best in the entire series or not is certainly up to debate, but if you enjoyed either of the first two games, it's another one you'll definitely want to play.

Developer: Media.Vision
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment, Ubisoft
Platform: Playstation 2, Playstation 4
Released: 2002, 2003, 2016
Recommended Version: The game is also available on PS4 as a digital download with improved resolution and trophy support, though this version also reportedly has some freezing bugs that were never addressed.

Wild Arms 2

Wild Arms 2 came out three years after the first, expanding on the elements it established in just about every way it could.  But does it prove to be a worthwhile sequel, or just a disappointing followup to a cult classic?

Wild Arms was a well-regarded early RPG for the Playstation, though it quickly faded from the limelight once Final Fantasy VII arrived and took the world by storm.  Wild Arms 2 was released at the height of Square and the Playstation 1's popularity and found itself struggling for attention among a sea of other high-profile RPG releases, which probably didn't do it any favors when it had a more traditional, 16-bit feel to its design.  Fans of the original were also quick to deride it for its perceived faults, most notably a poor-quality translation that resulted in a lot of meme-worthy dialog and muddied story points (famously, one element that got a lot of praise - depicting two characters in a positive gay relationship - was simply the result of poor wording and not actually intended by the game's writers).  Over time, however, people warmed up to the game, regarding it as a solid, if not outstanding, sequel to the first and a logical step forward for the series.

I'm actually in a bit of an odd middle ground there; while I didn't play Wild Arms 1 until many years after the fact, I did play through and enjoy Wild Arms 2 when it was relatively new (particularly as I was in the mood for an RPG modeled on the 16-bit style).  While it obviously took more inspiration from games like the SNES Final Fantasies and Zelda than it did from more modern, "Movie-like" RPGs, it nevertheless captivated me with its strong presentation, well-paced gameplay and smooth design.  Wild Arms 2 again melds 2D and 3D graphics in a creative way, with 3D environments throughout the game but 2D character sprites for smoother animations outside of battle.  The three-year technological leap is very evident too, with almost no grainy textures, a much smoother framerate overall.and some surprisingly good visual effects (like certain attacks being portrayed from multiple camera angles in split-screen).  Audio design is similarly updated, retaining the same high-quality music as the original but much fewer distracting stock sound effects in battles.

Wild Arms' gameplay is largely retained, though with a few twists made to prevent it from becoming too monotonous. A notable difference is that the combat system does away with MP for special attacks. Instead, these are now governed by the Force gauge - once it rises above the required amount, you can cast that spell as many times as you wish until it falls back below the threshold.  The spell-learning system also has some new quirks, with more powerful Crests available that can multiply a spell's power by 1.5 or halve their FP cost, and even some entirely new types of magic for two of the new characters.  Tim learns spells by equipping a medium and killing a certain number of enemies, for example, while Marivel works somewhat like the Blue Mage class from Final Fantasy, learning certain spells from enemies with her Skill Drain ability.  Gaining levels also proves more impactful now - one's Force bar at a total equal to their current level, and they now gain "Personal Points" that can be spent to gain permanent bonuses like resistance to status effects, more HP gain per level or having a higher chance to counter-attack.  Spending these wisely is another very important part of the game's strategy, as it can make a drastic difference in the game's overall difficulty.  Dungeons are also considerably more convoluted now owing to the 3D layout, but efforts are made to help prevent you getting lost - the game provides a compass to follow, and each dungeon is also littered with HP-restoring "gems" that help you to keep track of paths you've already taken.  The world map has some twists of its own - towns and secret items are not readily visible until you "scan" for them to reveal their whereabouts.  Some can be determined by deciphering clues given to you from story context and NPCs in towns, but others are simply a bonus for exploring around as much as possible.

As one would expect from a sequel, there are also many more playable characters this time - a total of six, in fact.  Ashley is a relatively balanced character who utilizes Arms, Brad also uses Arms and is a slower, but heavier-hitting powerhouse, while Lilka is a Crest magic caster who operates very similarly to Cecelia from the first game.  Tim is another caster, though with a heavier emphasis on summon magic (learning mundane spells from having them equipped and having the ability to get more mileage out of summons than most characters).  Kanon is a weaker but speedier fighter who utilizes cybernetics and learns new special moves based on random chance influenced by her current Luck, while Marivel learns spells from enemies and summons various robots to attack her foes.

As in the last game, each character also has their own set of Tools, which play a significant part in solving puzzles or just providing conveniences for the player (like finding treasures that aren't readily visible).  The puzzles are quite a bit more varied and involved than the first game's too, often requiring some creative thinking - for instance, Ashley's throwing knives will actually fall when they hit a wall or other solid object, which can be used to hit a switch beneath him that he couldn't otherwise get to.  One will also frequently have to revisit dungeons later on when they have a tool to clear a particular obstacle they couldn't before if they want to experience everything in the game.

Wild Arms 2 certainly didn't skimp on the extra features, either.  As in the first game, you can redesign the UI's windows and icons to your heart's content, and even enable a screensaver for when the game is left idle for more than a few minutes at a time.  One has the option to name almost every major character in the story, playable or not, which is a bit unusual for games of this type.  More usefully, one has the ability to cancel random encounters - if a weaker enemy is about to attack, the player will see an exclamation point appear about their character's head.  Pressing the cancel button during this moment (default Circle) will cause the fight to be skipped completely.  However, one will still have to fight a fair bit to get above the enemy's level to enable this option, and "surprise attacks" can still occur, forcing the player into a fight with no opportunity to cancel it.

So, despite a spotty translation, I think that Wild Arms 2 is a significant improvement over the first game.  It has a fun storyline with some interesting twists, an impressive presentation despite its simpler and cartoonier aesthetic than the norms of the time, and plenty of gameplay expansions from the first that help it come into its own unique niche.  Combat mechanics are given much more variety, and while still rather monotonous (nearly all normal enemies die in one hit while bosses rarely involve more strategy than "spam your most powerful attacks at them"), the fact that most mundane battles can now be skipped significantly improves the pacing.  I enjoyed playing through it at the time, and while it is a more fun experience than the original, it's still not one that's held up particularly well over time. 

Developer: Media.Vision, Contrail
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment
Platform: Playstation 1, Playstation Network
Released: 2000, 2009
Recommended Version: The PSN version is a direct emulation of the original game.

Wild Arms

One of the earliest RPGs for the Playstation to get critical acclaim, as well as one of the first RPGs on the platform in the west, period.  But does Wild Arms still prove to be an entertaining title, or is this one that's simply overshadowed by what came later?

Early Playstation adopters that were fans of RPGs found themselves in a tight spot; Sony, itching to show off the 3D and media playback capabilities of the platform, was famously averse to releasing RPGs on the system and games with 2D graphics, which didn't bode particularly well for genre fans.  However, they did eventually relented on this policy, allowing games like Suikoden, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night and Wild Arms to be released and finally giving fans something better to play than Beyond the Beyond (shudder).

Because of that, Wild Arms quickly made itself into a fan favorite, as it maintained much of the feel of a good 16-bit RPG in its design.  Colorful and detailed visuals with 2D sprites, a surprisingly strong soundtrack, and dungeons that shared elements with the classic Zelda games, having the player use a variety of "tools" to clear obstacles and solve puzzles in order to make their way through.  Bombs to blow up rocks, grappling hooks to cross over gaps, a lighter to burn things and lamps, and even Jack's sidekick, a mouse named "Hanpan" that can cross over gaps to activate switch and safely open trapped chests.  As one would expect, more of these are unlocked as the story progresses, keeping the puzzles varied and fresh throughout.

Wild Arms for the most part is a linear adventure, though one element that set it apart from some is that its main characters have a small solo introductory quest before the main story proper begins, giving the player an introduction to their character, motives and unique mechanics.  After that they travel together for much of the game, though there is the odd dungeon here and there that requires them to split up and solve puzzles separately so that the others can advance (with the player able to swap between them at set points).  While there are only three playable characters in Wild Arms, they do have quite distinct abilities.  Rudy is a relatively well-rounded character in terms of stats, but cannot magic.  However, he does wield ARMs, which have a limited number of shots and are consistently expensive to upgrade, but are quite powerful.  Jack utilizes a number of sword-based techniques that inflict elemental damage, status effects and have other special traits.  Cecelia utilizes both offensive and supportive magic, though in a somewhat unconventional way - rather than simply learning spells through levels or as the story dictates, one finds "Crest Graphs" as they adventure, which can be used to pick any of 32 spells (which later expands to 64).  These can also be cleared and reused, so essentially, you don't learn new spells as much as you expand how many you can utilize at a time.

Combat is a traditional turn-based system, but works in a few twists of its own.  As an odd contrast to the overworld and dungeons, which use 2D graphics, combat scenes are rendered entirely in 3D, with a constantly-panning camera to give the action a more dynamic feel.  Another prominent element of its design which would become a series staple is the Force meter, which fills each time a character takes an action or is hit by an attack, and enables special abilities to be used.  Rudy can fire his ARMs with 100% accuracy, for example, while Jack can take his turn first regardless of the other combatants' speed (an important tactic in some battles).  Cecelia has an interesting one too, able to pick an item and "draw magic from it" - for consumables, this usually means giving their healing/restorative effects to all allies rather than just one, while with weapons and armor it can cast various spell effects without using MP - dealing damage, putting up defensive barriers and so forth.  More of these are unlocked as the story progresses, though one common to all three characters is the ability to summon Guardians from runes, which often perform powerful elemental attacks in exchange for 50% of the Force gauge.  In addition, once the bar fills up to 100%, this activates "Condition Green", instantly clearing any status effects on the character, so it is beneficial to store power at times and not just spend it whenever you get the chance to perform a powerful attack.

Wild Arms is also noteworthy for having more bells and whistles than many other RPGs of the period.  Taking the window customization options from Final Fantasy even further, one can actually edit them pixel-by-pixel with the game's built-in editor and even save them to their memory card, keeping it throughout that entire playthrough if they wish.  This even extends to the UI icons too, so if you find the standard ones to be a bit hard to read, you can go ahead and make your own.  It's also the only RPG franchise I know of to have its own built-in screensaver, which the player can even set the timer for (defaulting to five minutes).  Between that and the quite well-composed music, it is a little odd that Wild Arms also utilizes so many stock sound effects, though I was rather amused at hearing a lot of sounds also featured in games like Doom and various cartoons from the era.

The game hasn't aged well in some respects, though.  The translation is notably quite spotty, feeling like the developers just ran the Japanese script through an automatic translator and then pasted it into the game, with dialog often coming off as clunky and unnatural and some puzzles being rather unclear (and the game sometimes not even making it clear there is a puzzle in the first place).  I had to check a guide several times to progress for this reason.  Combat is also relatively one-note, with most enemies one encounters going down in only a few hits and few having exploitable elemental weaknesses or differing strategies required for most.  Dungeons also just tend to drag on for this reason, forcing you into constant fights with the same enemies and the same few puzzle gimmicks again and again.

Wild Arms definitely tries to put a new twist on many elements, but in the end, I just didn't have a lot of fun with it.  The lack of variety really drags the game out before too long, and the dungeons, while they have some creative puzzle-solving at first, soon give way to tedious, long-for-the-sake-of-length design.  Far too many block-pushing and wall-bombing puzzles with little thought required, as well as some that are just plain obtuse (having to talk to everyone in the dungeon, then use the rat on a particular NPC to get them to move aside.  And no, the game does not explain this to you at all).  It laid the groundwork for substantially better games to come, but as it stands, you're probably better off playing the remake of the first Wild Arms than the real thing; it hits the same plot points while incorporating many welcome gameplay updates from Wild Arms 3, as well as featuring a much better translation, and is much more fun overall.

Developer: Media.Vision
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment
Platform: Playstation 1, Playstation Network, Playstation Classic
Released: 1997
Recommended Version: The PSN and Playstation Classic rereleases are direct emulations of the original game.