Wild Arms
Main game
3.81 average rating based on 254 ratings
- Developers
- Media.Vision
- Publishers
- Sony Computer Entertainment
- Franchises
- Wild Arms
- Series
- Wild Arms
- Event
- Sony Computer Entertainment America E3 2012 Press Conference
- Platforms
- Android, PlayStation, PlayStation 3, PlayStation Portable
- Genres
- Role-playing (RPG)
- Themes
- Fantasy, Science fiction
Release Dates
User Stats
How Long Is Wild Arms?
Related Content
WerqKween's review of Wild Arms
This review is for the PlayStation version
I am very pleasantly surprised at what a great adventure Wild Arms was. I'm almost tempted to give it 5 stars, but it does have some flaws. This review summed it up well: "What it does possess is a lovingly-crafted 2D universe, a charming cast of characters, and enough idiosyncratic gameplay features to ensure that it can stand on its own two feet."
Let's get this out of the way, the brightest star in Wild Arms' offerings is its incredible soundtrack. Michiko Naruke's score is breathtaking in its scope and emotional depth. The orchestra and choirs sound freaking excellent. Truly one of the great soundtracks, that regrettably gets overlooked for the Square Enix titles.
So, what about the world of the game? I found the characters likeable enough. There's silent Rudy, headstrong Jack, his mouse-thing companion Hanpan who plays the brains to his brawn, and the kind but mostly annoyingly self-serious princess turned sorceress Cecilia. The towns and dungeons are plentiful and varied. There's a good amount of challenging side questing. The story, while not anything groundbreaking, holds its own as a blend of fantasy and sci-fi thrown in to a wild west-esque setting. It nails the atmosphere and presentation …
I am very pleasantly surprised at what a great adventure Wild Arms was. I'm almost tempted to give it 5 stars, but it does have some flaws. This review summed it up well: "What it does possess is a lovingly-crafted 2D universe, a charming cast of characters, and enough idiosyncratic gameplay features to ensure that it can stand on its own two feet."
Let's get this out of the way, the brightest star in Wild Arms' offerings is its incredible soundtrack. Michiko Naruke's score is breathtaking in its scope and emotional depth. The orchestra and choirs sound freaking excellent. Truly one of the great soundtracks, that regrettably gets overlooked for the Square Enix titles.
So, what about the world of the game? I found the characters likeable enough. There's silent Rudy, headstrong Jack, his mouse-thing companion Hanpan who plays the brains to his brawn, and the kind but mostly annoyingly self-serious princess turned sorceress Cecilia. The towns and dungeons are plentiful and varied. There's a good amount of challenging side questing. The story, while not anything groundbreaking, holds its own as a blend of fantasy and sci-fi thrown in to a wild west-esque setting. It nails the atmosphere and presentation of the world of Filgaia, its ecology, and the historical interactions and conflicts of the good guys and bad guys (and "good" guys and "bad" guys). There are some truly disturbing moments with the game's antagonists. I feel like dungeons include a lot more puzzles than we get from future games.
In remembering past play through attempts, I thought fighting was cumbersome and slow going. But once you start learning a few skills and get out into the world, it really does pick up. Combat reminds me a lot of Breath of Fire, with the cross shaped symbol menus and purely turn based battles. The game manages to keep it fresh by supplying each character with a steady stream of new abilities (and different ways to learn/get/upgrade them), a decent but not overwhelming array of armor and accessories, and summonable Guardian beasts that represent various elements or characteristics and boost your stats.
One pet peeve I have is this trope of the silent protagonist. Rudy, the blue haired dude who was featured front and center in the game's art and promotional materials, says all of 2 lines of dialogue in the whole game. He has an interesting enough story arc, but he absolutely doesn't do anything to establish himself as more important than the other two.
The game's major drawback is that the 3D combat looks. fricking. awful. It's not at all nice to look at. On the flip side, the rest of the game looks like a SNES game - a very nice one, but still, a SNES game. So you're flipping between this smooth 2D world, exploring towns and dungeons, blowing stuff up or bopping animals with your magic wand, and then you're plunged into the grainiest, ugliest battles I've seen. I wonder what this would have been like if it was all just super polished 2D sprite based, and battles did look more like Breath of Fire. The game is bookended with some very nice anime-style scenes.
SPEAKING of cut scenes, the game's prologue is awesome. The problem with it is that I imagine most people don't know it exists. Every time the game boots up, you start with the anime intro. After this, you're greeted by the title screen which tells you to push start. DID YOU KNOW that if you wait, there's a six and a half minute prologue scene!? Because, world, I did not until maybe a year ago. And I've had this since 1998.
Playing this on a PS2 led to a LOT of crashes, so I cheated a bit to avoid having to grind levels, since random battles seemed to make the game freeze up the most. I regret that a bit because the game tends towards the easier side, and most battles (including the hard ones) weren't challenging.
Anyways, the very sweet ending is icing on the cake. Wild Arms is a treasure largely lost to time, buried by the Final Fantasies and Xenogears that would follow. If you're at all a fan of JRPGs, you should definitely give this a go.
Drbeatboxnik's review of Wild Arms
This review is for the PlayStation Network (PS3) version
This is an extremely underrated PSX-era JRPG. It’s got a fun Western vibe, a simple but enjoyable combat system, and truly creative dungeons. The dungeons were my favorite parts, even if a few (the Forest Prison) were too gimmicky. Thanks to a creative Tool system, exploration is way more rewarding than in some games of the same era and there’s a lot of focus on fun problem-solving. The game is a little easy but it makes up for it with lots of harder optional bosses and a battle arena. If you’re a fan of early JRPGs, you should definitely check this one out.
ThatDudeWinston's review of Wild Arms
Fun and creative RPG. Great music and environments. It does suffer from early PS1 era issues such as lack of a good map, a few difficulty spikes, blocky visuals, and a little jankiness. However, the characters, music, and environment carry the game. Enjoyed playing and would recommend those who like quirky retro RPGs and don't mind the PS1 era constraints.
Good night Earth Golem
This review is for the PlayStation version
Just beat this! My late friend Ali gave this to me as a kid and something about it always fascinated me but I never got far in it. Ali always had the coolest anime and japanese games, even import games that needed special boot discs to play and he often gave me old games he wasn't playing anymore. A group of us all played Legend of Dragoon on our PS2s in middle school. I miss you bud.
Wild Arms is a pretty standard old school jrpg, but it's set in a very cool western tech fantasy settings with harmonicas, swords, and castles. Without the 3d battle scenes and cd music, this could have easily been on the SNES (and that's not a bad thing!) The music is great but the sound design is atrocious. It sounds like threw many of the sounds sounds on from a free sample library at the last minute.
I would love a retranslation because the writing is often pretty goofy, and in other parts serviceable. I didn't really understand some of the plot about 3/4 through the game either (though I wasn't playing close attention.)
Being able to remap the controls was sick and should …
Just beat this! My late friend Ali gave this to me as a kid and something about it always fascinated me but I never got far in it. Ali always had the coolest anime and japanese games, even import games that needed special boot discs to play and he often gave me old games he wasn't playing anymore. A group of us all played Legend of Dragoon on our PS2s in middle school. I miss you bud.
Wild Arms is a pretty standard old school jrpg, but it's set in a very cool western tech fantasy settings with harmonicas, swords, and castles. Without the 3d battle scenes and cd music, this could have easily been on the SNES (and that's not a bad thing!) The music is great but the sound design is atrocious. It sounds like threw many of the sounds sounds on from a free sample library at the last minute.
I would love a retranslation because the writing is often pretty goofy, and in other parts serviceable. I didn't really understand some of the plot about 3/4 through the game either (though I wasn't playing close attention.)
Being able to remap the controls was sick and should be in every rpg! I set confirm, dash, and cancel to L1 and L2 which let me play most of the game one handed.
Overall a lovely jrpg. I understand there's a PS2 remake but I prefer the visual aesthetic of this one (sans the 3d battles, an entirely 2d Wild Arms would be preferable.) Does anyone know if the remake improved the story?
Standard JRPG - Bogged Down By It's Encounter Rate
This review is for the PlayStation version
Wild Arms is one of those "hidden gems" I've heard of for awhile. Framed as this often looked over JRPG worth the time and consideration of gamers, unfortunately eclipsed by the release of Final Fantasy VII. I am curious of how it got this reputation. I hate to make accusations like: "People are blinded by nostalgia" because those same words have been used to disregard some of my own favorite pieces of media but I earnestly cannot help but feel that way after having experienced Wild Arms and what it had to offer.
During the half way point of my playthrough I had this feeling that my ending thoughts of the game were going to be something along the lines of: simple story, simple combat, but tight and not too difficult - makes for a nice casual playthrough for JRPG veterans or a beginners entry for those new to JRPGs. However three core things come together to make the experience begin to falter and really drained me by the end. These three things being:
The Encounter Rate: Wild Arms has an impressively high encounter rate. I am talking every few steps sometimes.
The Slow Pace of Battles: These battles can …
Wild Arms is one of those "hidden gems" I've heard of for awhile. Framed as this often looked over JRPG worth the time and consideration of gamers, unfortunately eclipsed by the release of Final Fantasy VII. I am curious of how it got this reputation. I hate to make accusations like: "People are blinded by nostalgia" because those same words have been used to disregard some of my own favorite pieces of media but I earnestly cannot help but feel that way after having experienced Wild Arms and what it had to offer.
During the half way point of my playthrough I had this feeling that my ending thoughts of the game were going to be something along the lines of: simple story, simple combat, but tight and not too difficult - makes for a nice casual playthrough for JRPG veterans or a beginners entry for those new to JRPGs. However three core things come together to make the experience begin to falter and really drained me by the end. These three things being:
The Encounter Rate: Wild Arms has an impressively high encounter rate. I am talking every few steps sometimes.
The Slow Pace of Battles: These battles can be painfully slow. The worst example of this happening with enemies who inflict status ailments, further slowing down the battle with LONG spell animations and wasting your subsequent turns healing the conditions.
The Labyrinthine Dungeon Design: This should be a HUGE positive for me. I love dungeons - they are some of my favorite parts of RPGs
Wild Arms has some incredibly interesting and fun dungeons. Puzzle focused with each character acquiring a number of tools to provide different layers and types of solutions to the puzzles within each dungeon. On top of these neatly designed puzzles comes these maze like corridors that test the player's awareness and memory - filled with a great amount of treasures that are always helpful and never feel like a waste during your playthrough. Seriously fantastically designed areas that are brain scratching and feel like more than just padding. If only you could explore them without so much struggle. When your dungeons are long and they are sprawling the worst thing you can do is make a player unable to explore them and take note of their environment. I had a reoccurring problem in Wild Arms where I was unable to create a mental map of the area I was exploring because of the amount of time I spent in battles. I would begin exploring an area, only to be hit with a random encounter, this battle would take a minute or two, then I would take a few steps and then be hit with another random encounter, after which I would retrace my steps a bit refamiliarize myself with where I was because my mental map of the area had began to blur after spending so much time in battle. Rinse and Repeat this process until I completed the area. This high encounter rate is further exacerbated by the fact that Wild Arms is simple. The battle system could even be called brain dead. I don't hate this on the surface - sometimes an affair of: Pick your strongest attack --> Heal when needed --> Repeat, is just what I want. But for the battles to be this simple yet take so long only serves to bore the player. This boredom became frustration when these battles kept me from progressing and being able to create a map of my environment with the dungeons.
I wanted to enjoy the game - but the game found it necessary to keep me from experiencing it most interesting aspects.
Wild Arms has ambition. It feels like it has some ideas it wants to show the player. The whole project feels like it comes from this place of excitement and inexperience. The wild west flavoring is inspired but is underutilized - the game largely feels like a standard JRPG fantasy - but with sprinklings of the steam powered machinery. While everyone is using Swords and Sorcery your main character will occasionally pull out a FUCKING ROCKET LAUNCHER. Its charming - but it doesn't go far enough. The designs of enemies are wild. Very little standard JRPG monster fodder - many of these creatures are terrifying or wacky beyond description.
Giant bipedal bird with metal hands and spiked purple shoes
Lizard Plant Maneater thing with tendrils???????
A Flatwoods Monster! That's like one of my favorite things ever! You have to understand how much I want to like this game.
Even the big bads have these really interesting designs - some of who fall into the realm of ninjas - super off kilter in comparison to the demon dark knights. I feel its obvious that the team had unique ideas and wanted to implement them into their own RPG but the ideas themselves never get to have the proper spotlight they deserve because of the simple combat and a high encounter rate beyond what was typical of older JRPGs. Re-balance and tweak some numbers and this game could work so much better. Truly a shame.
Wild Arms - A Thoroughly Ok Encounter
Wild Arms is a game that gets you excited on the outside for its Western aesthetic mixed with the grand adventure of a JRPG.
While you get the grand adventure, it feels fairly similar to a Final Fantasy game (with the exception of the ARM system, gimmicky at best). A bit too similar. The Western aesthetic is also unfortunately downplayed, as it's easy to feel like you're in a bare-bones Final Fantasy game with only three characters and little-to-no Western feel with only vaguely adventurous music to convince you otherwise.
It follows plenty of the same routes in a lot of JRPGs, right up to the mysterious pasts and the flying machines, and takes a little too much time in doing so. Fortunately it picks up the pace past the whole flying machine part.
Other than that, there's not much to complain about or treasure. It's a very competent, fairly straightforward RPG, with a balanced curve that won't force you to grind and systems that are quite simple to pick up. JRPG enthusiasts are welcome, but people looking for something actually Western-themed may want to try the sequels.
Been playing this sporadically over the past week and I can’t shake the feeling that this game is just a worse Lufia II, mainly because the dungeons have random encounters rather than visible enemies. Kinda breaks the flow of puzzle solving and Lufia II did it better. Not to say that there isn’t anything to like about the game (the music for sure stands out) but I’m not convinced this is worth the time investment just yet
Beat 100%, including all side quests and optional bosses. I adored Wild Arms 3 and it was interesting to see where the series began. I liked the solo prologues for each character, even though it was done far better in Dragon Quest 4 on the NES. I wish more rpgs used this. I liked the tools and creative puzzles involving them, which seen me often switching which character was in the lead. I would have preferred more intricate puzzles involving multiple tools, and cutting the tired generic puzzles like block pushing and the activate all the switches when they deactivate adjacent ones. I played the prologues in order and thought the princess was the main character because of her chosen one status and will to drive the plot forward. The 2 men just seemed to be wandering along for the ride. I was a little confused after the prologues because the men were not in town and I clearly needed them to progress. Where were they? Eventually I figured out about the change option at the save point and got everyone together. The game even made creative use of this mechanic with multiple dungeons that split the characters up.
This …
Beat 100%, including all side quests and optional bosses. I adored Wild Arms 3 and it was interesting to see where the series began. I liked the solo prologues for each character, even though it was done far better in Dragon Quest 4 on the NES. I wish more rpgs used this. I liked the tools and creative puzzles involving them, which seen me often switching which character was in the lead. I would have preferred more intricate puzzles involving multiple tools, and cutting the tired generic puzzles like block pushing and the activate all the switches when they deactivate adjacent ones. I played the prologues in order and thought the princess was the main character because of her chosen one status and will to drive the plot forward. The 2 men just seemed to be wandering along for the ride. I was a little confused after the prologues because the men were not in town and I clearly needed them to progress. Where were they? Eventually I figured out about the change option at the save point and got everyone together. The game even made creative use of this mechanic with multiple dungeons that split the characters up.
This game seemed like lower budget indy project, and more like a SNES game, when compared to the top PS1 jrpgs. The worst offender was the battle graphics; not just how it looked but the ponderous speed of the very lackluster animations and effects. And the enemy sound that was clearly a cat. Why even put that in a game? I can understand the Daggerfall ancient vampire snarl, which still gives me shivers. Must be copyright free sound clips. The music was top quality though. I did enjoy the story, dialogue and characters, though they paled in comparison to even the top SNES jrpgs. I found the game a little too easy until about the time I acquired the ship, and I absolutely hate random battles while sailing. I did like the rarer enemies that were much stronger than their contemporaries. They were not overwhelming but just hard enough to encourage use of special abilities. I even wiped to one of those just before the final boss. Some of the optional bosses took multiple attempts to beat (always due to powerful hit all attacks), and I certainly did not fight them in the optimal order for getting the best gear sooner. I did the majority of the game blind, only checking a walkthrough around the mid game to find out what each spell did. I did what side content I found on my own, then went through the final dungeon to right before the final boss, then used a walkthrough to finish every side quest. In particular, Barbados and Lucifer gave me trouble and it was about repeating them until the RNG on their powerful hit all attacks went in my favor. The ultimate optional boss took a few attempts. I spent time grinding in the abyss to steal the frog badge needed to survive the ultimate attack. I used the guitar for instant battles, ran away from all I could, and tried luck and speed boosting but never succeed. I tried the boss without any badges and discovered Rudy had over 7000hp with the +50% hp accessory, which allowed him to survive. I then did the arena to farm goat dolls for the other 2 though I didn't actually need them as I only used 4 before winning. After all this powering up the final boss was laughably easy.
Ths most engaging aspect of the game was the princess's magic system. It was exciting to find a new crest graph and decide which spell to add to her repertoire. Early on I focused on the core white mage spells while letting her keep fire for attack. It was quite interesting that status recovery magic was not available until late game, making recovery items much more valuable. After covering the essential white spells I improved her offensive variety. Unfortunately, some of the spells were not very useful at all, and the vague in game descriptions led to me looking them up online. Some of those spells I never even bothered to get even after having a surplus of graphs. During random battles I had her using analyze to find out elemental weaknesses and then using the appropriate nuke to 1 shot an enemy. Or at least do decent damage to a powerful foe. The basic elemental spells were still good after getting the advanced because they were far more mana efficient. I did not keep basic lighting or blast because the hi version hit all enemies. I did not often use the non elemental blast and was very disappointed that the rainbow spell did not do the best damage against enemies with no weakness; there was no point for that spell to even exist then. Saint was the most useful nuke and I had a holy ring and dark ring to cast saint and darkness for free using mystic. Mystic also came in handy for healing and status recovering the entire party in 1 move. During boss fights she mostly used support magic: slow, armor down, hyper to boost Jack's attack, shield, life guard for auto resurrect, and hide on herself. Hide was great for massively boosting her evasion but it wore off upon physical attacks, including random counterattacks. Curse increased random battles and was good for farming, while invisibility did the opposite. I even used that to bee line to some optional bosses without having to fight any random battles, including the ultimate secret boss. Heal was great for topping up hp both in and outside battles, while hi heal was for critical single target heals. Group healing was lacking though, with remedy being only slightly better than mystic potion berry, and even summoning the love guardian was not enough to deal with those powerful hit all attacks on the optional bosses. For the ultimate optional boss I used a few ambrosia to completely heal the party, and could have done the same with mystic nectar but never did. I cheaped out by not buying her new weapons until the end of the game. I should not have bought her any weapons at all because her top 3 or 4 rods were free. I switched her accessory and runes around as needed and absolutely loved being able to freely change equipment during battle, especially to swap in status immune accessories. The mind gem was the best with passive mp regen, which I used during dungeons and random battles. I even found some areas in the final dungeon without random battles where I could spend minutes just moving back and forth to get all mp and hp to full. For boss fights she used +max hp or that talisman with its sweet hp regen to help her stay alive and focus more on supporting the men. When it came time to nuke she broke out the necronomicon for the highest damage. I used runes similarly, with defensive ones while supporting (triton then castle), magic boosting for nuking and random battles (water, death, hades and Chrono as the best), and love just to summon for heals. I fairly often summoned for damage rather than healing, with her having little trouble hitting for 7k to 9999 with Chrono. She ended at level 58.
Jack was a high offense fighter mage with a few cool abilities. I really liked the way he learned new abilities because each was a scripted unique event. Most of the time I had him do regular attacks in random battles to save mp for boss fights, but some nasty enemies warranted spending the mp to kill faster. I mostly used meteor dive because it took forever to unlock his better single target attacks; I even had a lot of optional bosses killed without those better attacks. I did not use his multi target attacks much, especially after princess got advanced magic. I spent secret signs on meteor dive, trump card and trickster (which I got down to 1 mp), though I did not find stealing very useful. His heal + status recovery was good but could not be used outside battle. I do wish there was a little more variety in his skills. I usually gave him the talisman to keep his hp up during random battles, otherwise giving defense. He got the sheriff star because as a hybrid he got the most benefit out of it. Also it did not restore mp or boost magic as much as the book for princess. At first I balanced him out by giving him a defensive rune (earth and Triton), until I realized that he was best off with raw attack power. He used the sword rune instead of courage. He had the best characterization in the game, with his tragic love story and sacrifice at the end. Would have been nice to see a hint of them getting back together in the ending. He ended at level 59.
Rudy was the least interesting, being the silent protagonist tank, slow but tough. His normal damage was mediocre but his gun damage was better than Jack. I did some basic cheap upgrades on the first few guns until I found the rocket launcher and pumped that up. By the end I had almost every gun maxed out, though the only times I needed more than 2 or 3 were when I forgot to buy ammo. I never used a single bullet clip though. During random battles I had him attack with his sword to save ammo, though the game probably expected otherwise. He was too slow to kill enemies before they got a turn, but some very strong enemies were worth the occasional bullet. I had him use the pouch during random battles for long term money gain, though switched it to Jack when I found the attack power boost accessory just before the ultimate optional boss. He used the force accessory for boss fights for more frequent fury shots. I usually used the arc smash and phaser until he built up enough force, then fury shot with the rocket, bazooka or phaser. The basic lock on force was best used with the poor accuracy wild smash. If I managed to run out of ammo for all those guns then it was back to the basic hand cannon and twin orbs. Early on I gave him attack power runes, then later switching to whatever was best after Jack took the best attack; ice, life and hope. Even after getting hope I occasionally switched to life so he could help heal. I did like the plot twist of him being an android and I was glad the game did not get into any romance. The standard trope would be for him and the princess to romance, but it seemed like Jane had a crush on him and was frustrated when she found he was not human. Jane was the hottest girl, and it was disappointing that her and the other side characters were not shown in the ending. He ended at level 60.
Wild Arms was a solid Jrpg that did not do anything critically bad, but was simple and lackluster when compared to even the top SNES Jrpgs.
7.8/10
Just finished this today, and I'm glad I played it. It had some of the old school RPG problems (WAY too high of an encounter rate, obscure directions for progress) but the story and gameplay were a good time.
To anyone who plays the original disc on a PS2, this isn't on the list of incompatible games, but it freezes ALL THE TIME. It's frustrating for sure, but mostly fine as long as you save frequently. I did lose some major progress a couple of times now but nothing to make me give up yet.
The culprit seems to be random battles, so after this happened a few times, I used the 255 item trick to avoid having to grind levels too much.
Bastion hasn't really been holding my attention, so taking a break from that, The Sims, and some other stuff to jump back into my JRPG backlog. Up next is this ...diamond? other nice but lesser quality gemstone? in the rough. I started this one a couple of times in the 90s and never made it through. I'm just about finished with the prologue and the game is much better than I remember. Although, in-battle graphics are laughably janky - for comparison, this came out a few months after FF7. Like, why do Rudy's legs collapse into themselves during his idle animation? Otherwise, great music, oddly dark but engaging story, looking forward to finally finishing it.
A western-style RPG with guns and magic? What the!? One of the best soundtracks too. I've still never played any of the sequels. I should work on that.
