Customer Reviews: Read 25 more reviews...
 Has Not Aged Well January 19, 2008
This review was written by James Shea, my son
An RPG series with plenty of unique twists, Wild Arms is generally a good series, and Wild Arms 3 is no exception to this stylistic uniqueness. It has as much in common with a Wild West story as it does with a fantasy RPG.
The story follows four characters (each introduced with their own side-story prior to their uniting) who are on a quest to recover a mystical scepter that will restore order and protect the world of Filgaia. The four characters are Virginia, a young girl looking for her father, Gallows, an ex-priest, Clive, a bounty hunter, and Jet, an unprincipled treasure hunter. The story itself is less important than the setting, which contains elements of Western stories contained in the fantasy elements (shooting monsters with sixguns, for example). The setting is pretty distinctive, and is reflected in the music and level design in the game.
The combat system is a regular turn based RPG system, with a few quirks. Firstly, all the characters use guns (or ARMs), which means they need to reload every so often. This is done by using the guard command; while defending, they will reload their guns. In addition to shooting, there are magical abilities and items to use; standard RPG fare, basically. The only other thing notable about the combat system is that it is possible to cancel moves; this wastes a turn, but may prevent you from doing something you don't wish to (such as accidentally using an elemental attack on a creature that heals from those attacks). While exploring, there are some neat tricks as well. Characters can sprint or sneak, depending on the situation, and there are also special abilities like lighting fires or throwing boomerangs that are used for puzzle-solving. Finally, and most importantly in my opinion, characters can avoid random battles with good timing by pressing the circle button when an enemy approaches (signified by an exclamation point over the character's head).
On the world map, places aren't instantly marked; characters need to get clues and information, and then essentially puzzle out where on the map the place is. This is kind of neat, in the sense that the characters are drifters and need to find out where stuff is, but at the same time it's somewhat frustrating because of the random encounters.
The graphics are cel-shaded, and definitely pretty good for their time, but they haven't held up well. Everything seems kind of bland despite the reasonably cool character designs. The sound has a nice Western motif to it, as mentioned, but there isn't any particularly exceptional music, and there's no voice acting at all. In most ways, it's similar to Skies of Arcadia - this was the game that I kept thinking of while I played this. However, it also lacks a lot of things that SoA had.
This was definitely a good game in its time, but unfortunately it hasn't aged very well. If you are a fan of the series, or a hardcore RPG fan, pick it up. But otherwise, at this point, don't bother.
Rating: 6/10.
 Too Annoying to Play August 24, 2007
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
This game gets my vote as the most annoying RPG ever. Combat takes forever, isn't done very well, and the enemies circle around the screen constantly moving the camera, which gave me a headache after an hour or so. But that isn't enough to take the game down, it gets worse.
I hated the combat within five hours of playing this game (enough to collect my party), and then came travel. Not something you'd think would be an ordeal. I never found the next town, I gave up after wandering around aimlessly on the map, using the 'locater' function, only finding enemies of a level far higher than my starting party. Over and over again, for two hours. This wasn't any fun. It had become too much of an annoying ordeal to play. That statement comes from someone who finished ET for the Atari 2600.
Overall, this game reminded me of the Super Nintendo game Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest with a better story, worse movement, and longer pointless combat.
Don't buy this game blind, I don't care how cheap this junk becomes. Borrow or rent first because you'll probably hate it. The combat is bad. Moving around on the map is bad. The plot is slow, I didn't get far enough into the game to judge overall. The second star is for the in-theme music, because the composer did do a decent job.
 Pretty good overall. August 4, 2006
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
The game is alot of fun, it's alot like Wild Arms 1 and 2, yet it has a more complex combat system and better graphics. There are still a few of the more annoying things in the gameplay such as the sonar like symbol finder on the world map you have to use every few steps, but the game is still alot of fun.
Scanning Across the Wastelands June 12, 2006
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Wild Arms is an alternative RPG series that managed to move through time. However, seriously Wild Arms is very similar to your standard turn-based RPG but replacing swords, axes and hammers with Arms - literally guns.
Nonetheless, Wild Arms 3 weaved the different aspects of the gameplay together pretty well. Just like materia in FF VII, it managed to have a logical connection between the story and the battle system. The battle system is very similar to all your standard turn based system. In fact the level up system is a mix of FF IX and FF VI - you acquire skills and need to assign points to them but compared ot FF IX you have more freedom of what skills to give to your characters. Also similar to FF VI, you need the summons to help you learn new skills. The difference is in FF VI you permanently acquire those skills but in Wild Arms 3, the skills move with your summons, as in FF VIII's Junction System.
Story wise it started off pretty good but then started to drag after you went to 3/4 of the story. Probably this is a way to prolong gameplay time. One of the worst aspect is that you need to perform scanning around the world to unlock locations. This is really annoying when you only have a rough idea where the location should be then need to go on scanning for hours before you find the location you need to go to. Also, in certain dungeons, the way to solve the puzzles are quite annoying e.g. timing extremely accurately to just turn on several buttons together. These are things that I think should be paid attention to for the sequels.
In terms of side quests, there are a lot for you to do and some of the side quests give you something call EX File keys for you to unlock bonus materials in the future play throughs. However, none of them come in easy, and sometimes actually frustrating. Further the reward with these keys aren't as prominent and useful as one would think they are. So if you are tired of scanning all over the world to finish some of them, you can just move on to finish the main story.
Graphic wise, it is Cel-shaded. The quality is not too bad, but once you enjoyed the Cel-shading in Zelda: The Wind Waker, none of the other Cel-shading games meet that kind of aesthetic quality anymore. The soundtrack is not too bad though certain music were recycled too much and eventually you just switch the music off, particularly in the 100 Abyss (what's up with games nowadays? Some many have those 100 dungeons!)
To sum up, Wild Arms 3 is not a bad RPG and it does have its attraction for you to play through it again in the future. There are certain things that definitely needed to be fixed e.g. story driven locations should be showing up automatically instead of requiring extensive scanning. Also certain annoying puzzle formulars should be revised or removed. However, it is a solid RPG that can take up a lot of hours of your gaming life if you want to do everything in the game. A good buy indeed.
 Very smartlly made and fun game...dont listen to the idiots. December 12, 2005
3 out of 5 found this review helpful
I have played many RPGs in my time. The animation is great, characters are charming, the batlle system is quick and user friendly. Nowadays there are RPG/action games where you have to continually mash buttons, not good. I hated Final Fantasy X, annoying characters and screwed up battle system. This game doesnt have endless option screens and other useless stuff like Final Fantasies have. I cant really put in in words but it kept me playing and playing. This is the best RPG I have played on the PS2. I loved it...If you like turn based RPGs then you cant go wrong!
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