I try not to let expectations dictate anything before I play through a video game with eyes unclouded- but Wild Arms is a strange case. On the surface, it seemed to be a game that I’d absolutely adore. Classic simple turn-based PS1 era JRPG with a unique aesthetic and lots of fanfare? Sounds right up my alley! In execution, however, Wild Arms fell apart little-by-little and resulted in something less than favorable overall. I don’t despise this game by any means, but I am confused by what it had to offer.
The peak of Wild Arms- funnily and disappointingly enough- starts before you even begin the game. The 90’s anime intro movie combined with the frankly outstanding music is perfect. Watching that intro on Youtube years ago was the biggest advertisement that got me curious about this game, and it worked because it looked so.. unseen? The PS1 era of JRPGs is famous for bursting with creativity. Final Fantasy VII, Chrono Cross, Parasite Eve, Persona- decades later and I struggle to think of any games since that feel like any of those. Wild Arms seemed like it would be another on that list. A blending of Fantasy, Sci-fi, and the Wild West? Just on paper that seems like a Pandora’s box ripe with ideas. In practice it lent itself to a game that felt dull, derivative, and worst of all dissatisfying.
Being blunt, I think Wild Arms is boring. I don’t like to toss that term around much, but I found this game to be just that. More than any JRPG I’ve played in recent memory I can recount many times where I was just standing still or drifting off on my phone because I didn’t find what it offered very compelling. The combat mechanics are very straightforward- which is not a criticism as someone who’s favorite video game series is Dragon Quest- but lacks any real agency or depth. The first half of this game I just turned on autobattle and watched me win every fight no problem. The second half when I unlocked strong multitarget magic turned into me using one thunder spell and reaping the rewards. Every boss fight is buff Jack > have Jack do strong sword techniques > have Rudy shoot gun > heal when needed. I described the game to a friend as being “babies first JRPG'' because it is absolutely pathetic in terms of difficulty and holds your hand so much that nothing scratches any itches this genre provides. Even the superbosses of the game, which I fought out of curiosity, are effectively impossible to lose to if you just equip a certain item. I don’t have a problem with easy games, heck, a lot of the JRPGs I love are easy- but when it’s presented so sluggish and with so little agency, I found myself spamming the invisibility spell every second I could just to avoid getting into fights entirely.
I also think the game is borderline broken and unbalanced as all hell when it comes to your very few bits of player agency. The notable example for me is the magic system, which gives a surprising amount of freedom in your choices of what spells you learn. About halfway through the game though, you are given the option to learn advanced magic. It costs the same amount of resources to learn as basic magic, and you can undo your spells at any time and reallocate those points. So basically, halfway through the game you can just undo the progress you made and choose a lot of options that are just.. objectively better. Cecilia the mage gets exponentially stronger at this point if the game in the span of like 10 minutes of menu fiddling. I liked that I had the choice to redevelop the character, but it makes an easy game even easier. The EXP balancing is also all over the place. In one of the dungeons I fought a regular random encounter that netted me 10k EXP. The boss at the end gave me 4k. The satisfaction of fighting a strong enemy- like a boss encounter- is ruined when the rewards aren’t even close to proportional. I can think of even more examples like how strong Rudy’s ARMs are to use versus the price to refill the ammo- but I think it’s emblematic enough of how thoughtless the game feels already with the current examples.
The overworld is also just.. not very fun to explore. The drab colors fit the story and themes of the game well, but it lends itself to a very homogenous world that feels clunky to navigate as a result. The map is near useless and shows the bare minimum amount of info possible, along with needing to be found first entirely rendering a good chunk of the game map-less. And most annoyingly is the use of teleporters sprinkled all around that disorient your location and make (the prevalent) backtracking convoluted and slow given the long repetitive animations of using them. By the time you reach the advanced magic and can finally fast travel, it feels like a godsend- and while satisfying in that regard, feeds into the frustration even more retrospectively.
Finally, I think the story is just whatever. None of the side characters stood out to me at all and the main cast is decent enough if only for the fact that I just like the trope of a trio on an adventure. Plus you get a talking mouse companion which is just objectively awesome. I wish the world and story used the barely prevalent wild western themes more given it was one of the things drawing me here, but the fantasy and sci-fi elements were interesting enough to be passable. The melodrama didn’t really work for me given how uninvested I was most of the time, but there’s some good stuff to be found in this department here and there so I don’t think it’s quite as flawed as the gameplay- even if still pretty bland.
Where the game shines is the dungeon design, which I thought was pretty consistently great. Not everything is a winner, but combining Zelda-esque puzzles, a great balance of labyrinthian exploration, and a perfect length made them really fun, and seeing how the tools you unlocked worked in a puzzle context was neat. None of them are hard or push the mechanics very far, but they are enjoyable. In terms of presentation, the game visually is just ‘pretty good’ or ‘solid’ but in a simplistic way that I like. The music, however, is definitely the strongest part of this all and has some excellent and memorable tracks.
By the end of Wild Arms as it got goofy with the Sci-fi, ramped up stakes, and gave you a more full (albeit shallow) gameplay experience- I warmed up to it a bit more and had some fun with it, but probably the most important anecdote I can give here is that I actually shelved this game for a while because I was so unimpressed by the first half of it all. I never do that, and I think it speaks volumes to how middling this game is to have me go that far in avoiding it. Like I said, I don’t think this game is bad, but a lot of the elements of it are underwhelming or poorly implemented in a way that- even with the good- culminates in an experience that is somehow lesser than the sum of its parts.
I don’t love Wild Arms as much as I desperately wish I did. This era of JRPGs is so, so incredible- but this one is a reminder to me that not everything is a heavy hitter. Maybe someday I’ll revisit this game to see if my mind changes at all, and in doing so I’ll huddle up with it on original hardware to give it that charm, but until then I am not impressed with this game. I got the platinum trophy in an effort to really make sure I wasn’t missing something here, but this will be one I don’t think about all too often in the days to come. A shame, but whatever. Can’t win ‘em all!
The peak of Wild Arms- funnily and disappointingly enough- starts before you even begin the game. The 90’s anime intro movie combined with the frankly outstanding music is perfect. Watching that intro on Youtube years ago was the biggest advertisement that got me curious about this game, and it worked because it looked so.. unseen? The PS1 era of JRPGs is famous for bursting with creativity. Final Fantasy VII, Chrono Cross, Parasite Eve, Persona- decades later and I struggle to think of any games since that feel like any of those. Wild Arms seemed like it would be another on that list. A blending of Fantasy, Sci-fi, and the Wild West? Just on paper that seems like a Pandora’s box ripe with ideas. In practice it lent itself to a game that felt dull, derivative, and worst of all dissatisfying.
Being blunt, I think Wild Arms is boring. I don’t like to toss that term around much, but I found this game to be just that. More than any JRPG I’ve played in recent memory I can recount many times where I was just standing still or drifting off on my phone because I didn’t find what it offered very compelling. The combat mechanics are very straightforward- which is not a criticism as someone who’s favorite video game series is Dragon Quest- but lacks any real agency or depth. The first half of this game I just turned on autobattle and watched me win every fight no problem. The second half when I unlocked strong multitarget magic turned into me using one thunder spell and reaping the rewards. Every boss fight is buff Jack > have Jack do strong sword techniques > have Rudy shoot gun > heal when needed. I described the game to a friend as being “babies first JRPG'' because it is absolutely pathetic in terms of difficulty and holds your hand so much that nothing scratches any itches this genre provides. Even the superbosses of the game, which I fought out of curiosity, are effectively impossible to lose to if you just equip a certain item. I don’t have a problem with easy games, heck, a lot of the JRPGs I love are easy- but when it’s presented so sluggish and with so little agency, I found myself spamming the invisibility spell every second I could just to avoid getting into fights entirely.
I also think the game is borderline broken and unbalanced as all hell when it comes to your very few bits of player agency. The notable example for me is the magic system, which gives a surprising amount of freedom in your choices of what spells you learn. About halfway through the game though, you are given the option to learn advanced magic. It costs the same amount of resources to learn as basic magic, and you can undo your spells at any time and reallocate those points. So basically, halfway through the game you can just undo the progress you made and choose a lot of options that are just.. objectively better. Cecilia the mage gets exponentially stronger at this point if the game in the span of like 10 minutes of menu fiddling. I liked that I had the choice to redevelop the character, but it makes an easy game even easier. The EXP balancing is also all over the place. In one of the dungeons I fought a regular random encounter that netted me 10k EXP. The boss at the end gave me 4k. The satisfaction of fighting a strong enemy- like a boss encounter- is ruined when the rewards aren’t even close to proportional. I can think of even more examples like how strong Rudy’s ARMs are to use versus the price to refill the ammo- but I think it’s emblematic enough of how thoughtless the game feels already with the current examples.
The overworld is also just.. not very fun to explore. The drab colors fit the story and themes of the game well, but it lends itself to a very homogenous world that feels clunky to navigate as a result. The map is near useless and shows the bare minimum amount of info possible, along with needing to be found first entirely rendering a good chunk of the game map-less. And most annoyingly is the use of teleporters sprinkled all around that disorient your location and make (the prevalent) backtracking convoluted and slow given the long repetitive animations of using them. By the time you reach the advanced magic and can finally fast travel, it feels like a godsend- and while satisfying in that regard, feeds into the frustration even more retrospectively.
Finally, I think the story is just whatever. None of the side characters stood out to me at all and the main cast is decent enough if only for the fact that I just like the trope of a trio on an adventure. Plus you get a talking mouse companion which is just objectively awesome. I wish the world and story used the barely prevalent wild western themes more given it was one of the things drawing me here, but the fantasy and sci-fi elements were interesting enough to be passable. The melodrama didn’t really work for me given how uninvested I was most of the time, but there’s some good stuff to be found in this department here and there so I don’t think it’s quite as flawed as the gameplay- even if still pretty bland.
Where the game shines is the dungeon design, which I thought was pretty consistently great. Not everything is a winner, but combining Zelda-esque puzzles, a great balance of labyrinthian exploration, and a perfect length made them really fun, and seeing how the tools you unlocked worked in a puzzle context was neat. None of them are hard or push the mechanics very far, but they are enjoyable. In terms of presentation, the game visually is just ‘pretty good’ or ‘solid’ but in a simplistic way that I like. The music, however, is definitely the strongest part of this all and has some excellent and memorable tracks.
By the end of Wild Arms as it got goofy with the Sci-fi, ramped up stakes, and gave you a more full (albeit shallow) gameplay experience- I warmed up to it a bit more and had some fun with it, but probably the most important anecdote I can give here is that I actually shelved this game for a while because I was so unimpressed by the first half of it all. I never do that, and I think it speaks volumes to how middling this game is to have me go that far in avoiding it. Like I said, I don’t think this game is bad, but a lot of the elements of it are underwhelming or poorly implemented in a way that- even with the good- culminates in an experience that is somehow lesser than the sum of its parts.
I don’t love Wild Arms as much as I desperately wish I did. This era of JRPGs is so, so incredible- but this one is a reminder to me that not everything is a heavy hitter. Maybe someday I’ll revisit this game to see if my mind changes at all, and in doing so I’ll huddle up with it on original hardware to give it that charm, but until then I am not impressed with this game. I got the platinum trophy in an effort to really make sure I wasn’t missing something here, but this will be one I don’t think about all too often in the days to come. A shame, but whatever. Can’t win ‘em all!