Nothing that stands out as much as you might hope based on the novel cowboy-fantasy combination: the combat's a little basic, the towns all feel the same, the story has too much lore and not enough character. Really, there's not much of a Western flavour at all beyond Rudy's guns and a few of Michiko Naruke's compositions. ("Wayfarer of the Wilderness", which quotes Ennio Morricone's "Ecstasy of Gold", is a true RPG overworld classic.)
But it's still a pretty good time. The game's biggest strength is its pacing; I played this almost exclusively in one-hour increments, and in just about every single one of those increments I could expect to do a dungeon, go to a new town, wander around the map for a bit, and stop right before the next dungeon. You get a little taste of all the game's flavours in a comfortable portion every time you play, which means I know exactly what kind of fun I'm gonna have every time. (It also means it gets a little wearying towards the end, but at 25 hours or so, it's still a pretty brisk RPG.)
If any one of those flavours dominates, it's the dungeons, which are (likely not coincidentally) one of the stronger areas of the game. Each one's layout teases you enough with different paths that you feel like it's worth exploring for goodies, but not so much that you think you'll get lost or exhausted before reaching the end. Puzzles are well-placed (even if a few are either dull or obtuse) to break up the flow of the dungeon. Even the enemy encounters are designed well despite the basicness of the battle system; it won't take long to figure out a strategy to use against the dungeon's particular combinations of enemies, but you nevertheless need to figure it out.
I just wish I liked just hanging out in the game a bit more. The battles take too long (they shouldn't have been 3D at all, although given the time period I imagine Media.Vision didn't really have a choice) and the music during them is grating. The music in towns are great, but the towns lack personality and your characters rarely do much interesting in them.
This is a game that's remembered, to some extent, as the game that people played while they waited for Final Fantasy VII. But I'd say it deserves better than that; honestly, even if FFVII is more interesting on the whole, I enjoy the moment-to-moment gameplay of Wild Arms a lot more. It's brisk where it matters and doesn't try to do more than it can handle, two aspects that can go a little underrated in RPGs. I had a good time with it.
But it's still a pretty good time. The game's biggest strength is its pacing; I played this almost exclusively in one-hour increments, and in just about every single one of those increments I could expect to do a dungeon, go to a new town, wander around the map for a bit, and stop right before the next dungeon. You get a little taste of all the game's flavours in a comfortable portion every time you play, which means I know exactly what kind of fun I'm gonna have every time. (It also means it gets a little wearying towards the end, but at 25 hours or so, it's still a pretty brisk RPG.)
If any one of those flavours dominates, it's the dungeons, which are (likely not coincidentally) one of the stronger areas of the game. Each one's layout teases you enough with different paths that you feel like it's worth exploring for goodies, but not so much that you think you'll get lost or exhausted before reaching the end. Puzzles are well-placed (even if a few are either dull or obtuse) to break up the flow of the dungeon. Even the enemy encounters are designed well despite the basicness of the battle system; it won't take long to figure out a strategy to use against the dungeon's particular combinations of enemies, but you nevertheless need to figure it out.
I just wish I liked just hanging out in the game a bit more. The battles take too long (they shouldn't have been 3D at all, although given the time period I imagine Media.Vision didn't really have a choice) and the music during them is grating. The music in towns are great, but the towns lack personality and your characters rarely do much interesting in them.
This is a game that's remembered, to some extent, as the game that people played while they waited for Final Fantasy VII. But I'd say it deserves better than that; honestly, even if FFVII is more interesting on the whole, I enjoy the moment-to-moment gameplay of Wild Arms a lot more. It's brisk where it matters and doesn't try to do more than it can handle, two aspects that can go a little underrated in RPGs. I had a good time with it.