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This fall
has seen a bit of a boom in console RPGs, and one of the recent
releases has been Wild Arms 3. The game has some tough
competition against other greats, but Wild Arms 3 is one
of the PS2’s best RPGs.
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The story takes place in the dying world of Filgaia, where devastated settlements are spread across the globe, and the people struggle to survive. Those brave enough to seek adventure and riches become drifters, and journey across Filgaia in hopes of making a name for themselves. Your party, after a series of events, manages to meet each other on a train carrying a valuable treasure. The group runs into some rival drifters, and after a battle, decide to work as a team until they can get some leads into what’s going on. Each drifter in the group, Virginia, Gallows, Clive and Jet, all come to posses a Guardian, which they can summon, and that grants them magic powers. Those same rival drifters from the train are also after the guardians, but why? You’ll have to play to find out! As the game progresses the plot unfolds nicely and you end up with a story that’s a bit deeper than it appears to be at first. Most of the game has an upbeat and enjoyable tempo, and the plot is interesting enough that once you start, you’ll want to keep going. I also really enjoyed the western-fantasy theme. Although I’m not at all tired of the classic fantasy themes, the whole western thing was something different for a change!
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The characters
in Wild Arms 3 are really interesting, although they don’t
seem that way early on. As the game progresses you’ll find out a
lot about the cast and they’ll become MUCH more developed. Both
the heroes and villains are cool, and by far my favorite was Clive
(if you’ve ever played Xenogears, he reminds me a lot of
Citan...). You start the game with a prologue for each character.
These prologues help you to get to know your characters before the
game even begins, and were a great addition for character development
(plus, when they all meet up on the train…it’s really cool!).
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Combat is pretty similar to most console RPGs, but with guns in
place of swords. You’re equipped with an encounter gauge, and as
long as you keep it full, you can run from most random battles.
You can pick up gems to refill the gauge, or you can refill it slowly
by fighting battles. Wild Arms 3 seems to have a lot of
encounters though, so it’s tough to keep the encounter gauge full.
Once you get into a battle you can attack with your gun, use arcana
(magic), use force abilities, use items, or guard (which also restores
your ammo!). You’ll pick up several guardians throughout the game,
and you can equip them to a character to teach abilities and increase
stats. This reminded me a lot of Final Fantasy VIII, but
not nearly as confusing, so in the end, better. Each guardian gives
its controller the ability to cast magic (arcana) spells that coincide
with the guardians element. Each guardian also carries along with
it skills that you can equip your character with, such as resistance
to poison or fire ward. Depending on how many skill points your
character has, you can power up these skills, and some items can
be attached to guardians to teach them new skills. You also have
force abilities, which include summoning your guardian, using gatling,
which is a chain of attacks, or using their individual character
ability. Each character has a single ability distinct to them, such
as Virginia’s useful mystic ability, which allows her to use a single
item on numerous targets. Each character has a different gun type,
and these guns can be upgraded at weapons shops. You can upgrade
various aspects of the weapon, such as it’s critical hit percentage
and the number of bullets it can hold. After a while, your bullets
will run out, so you have to reload on occasions (you do this by
defending, but you auto reload after battles).
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Probably the most annoying feature of the game is the world map.
To find the next town or dungeon you have to wander around the map
scanning. If you don’t scan near the location of an area, you can’t
find it! What gets really annoying is when you’re not sure where
to go and have to wander halfway across the map scanning every square
inch just so you can continue with the game. Fortunately you are
normally given good clues as to where the next key area is, but
I spent several hours aimlessly wandering the map hoping to find
somewhere to go. The fact that you run into a good amount of battles
while searching the map doesn’t help much either, but you can ride
horses and increase your speed across the map so you can get where
you’re going (if you can find it) without too many battles. Once
you get into a dungeon things aren’t so bad. There are some difficult
puzzles on occasion, but nothing impossible. Each character has
tools, such as Jet’s boomerang, which are often the key to solving
the puzzles. When you need to cross a continent you ride in a sand
cruiser, which isn’t all that fun. The battles in the sand cruiser
are really dull, but you won’t likely run into that many. You can
upgrade your cruiser just like your weapons, and when it gets damaged
you go to weapons shops for repairs. This reminded me a lot of the
Gummi Ship in Kingdom Hearts…both were boring and annoying,
but at least the Sand Cruiser in Wild Arms 3 looked decent.
One last thing that bothered me (well, at least it bothered me at
first) was the fact that you can’t buy healing items. After a while
you can grow them, and you go from a severe shortage of healing
items, to more than you could ever use. It’s not that big of a deal,
but if you run out before you start growing the stuff you could
be in some trouble because there are some pretty tough bosses! Throughout
the game you’ll collect Gimel coins, which will allow you to save
almost ANYWHERE (I loved that!). They’ll come in handy for those
hard parts.
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Although I’m not a big fan of cell shading, I thoroughly enjoyed the graphics. This was probably the BEST cell shading I’ve ever seen. Characters were highly detailed and moved convincingly, and the spells had excellent lighting effects. The game features a fully rotatable map, and nice, detailed environments with a lot of variety.
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I really
liked the games soundtrack, and found myself whistling along pretty
often. The western style music is very fitting for the game, and
helps to solidify the theme. Not to mention it's so damn catchy! Other than that, the sound isn’t anything
special. I was a little disappointed by the complete lack of voice
acting, but, like I’ve said before, that may just be because Final
Fantasy X spoiled me.
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Wild
Arms 3 stands out as one of the best PS2 RPGs to date. Fans
of the Wild Arms series are sure to love it, and RPG fans in general
will appreciate it as a fine game. If you’re looking for a new game
to play, then DEFINITELY consider Wild Arms 3!
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