Customer Reviews

Wild Arms 4

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Wild Arms fans have had it pretty good over the last few months with the debut of Alter Code:F a few months ago <grin> and now with Wild Arms 4. Needless to say my PS2 has not seen this much action since I bought it and Star Ocean: Till the End of Time back in 2004.

As a RPG series, Wild Arms is, and will always be in the shadow of almost everything Square-Enix throws down the pike (a fact so painfully obvious that it has to be accepted by the masses), so if you want to give Wild Arms 4 or any of the previous games a try, you can't, for example, use the Final Fantasy series as a golden standard as far as all RPGs go and use it as a basis for comparison. If you do, don't bother, as you'll ultimately be disappointed. That said, Wild Arms 4 is a solid game, but doesn't even begin to reach the level attained by the earlier games in the series.

For the most part, the changes Media.Vision has made to the basic Wild Arms formula do work, and help layer and mask what was probably one of the most simplistic RPG battle systems in existence. While the hex battle system adds a little strategy to the fights, combat is still simple enough and makes it easy enough to pick up and play. Still, there are a few hitches to be aware of, such as when one of your characters gets KO'ed even before you get a turn due to the random character/enemy grid placement, or having to compensate for uneven character leveling.

Gameplay wise, Wild Arms 4 trades some of the puzzle solving elements the series is known for some side-scrolling elements that unmistakably reminds me of Naughty Dog's Crash Bandicoot series (which isn't a bad thing at all). Overall this works pretty well, especially considering the excellent brain-teaser like puzzles from original WA have dwindled over the years and sequels into obvious, watered-down solutions (excluding a few certain exceptions, mind you). The fact your characters no longer have a pre-specified set of tools to carry out through the game to solve puzzles, while realistic, is somewhat disappointing (although sometimes trying to get said tool to point A to point B can be a puzzle in itself).

Graphically, one could say that Wild Arms 4 is a step above Wild Arms Alter Code:F. This is pretty much due to the fact Wild Arms 4 was probably build from the ground up by Media.Vision, where as Alter Code:F was basically the original Wild Arms slapped into a Wild Arms 3 shell. Like Wild Arms 3, Wild Arms 4 opts for a darker, duller color palette that emphasizes the war weary world of Filgaia, but many will find it clashes with bright colors used throughout Alter Code:F.

While the above elements of Wild Arms 4 work well enough, there are a few elements that do leave something to be desired. The story, while quite effectively depicting a post war struggle for power, never really creates a since of urgency until the very end. On top of this, the villains, while interesting at the very least, just can't compare to the Quarter Knights/Metal Demons from Wild Arms/Wild Arms Alter Code:F or Odessa from Wild Arms 2.

The most disappointing aspect about Wild Arms 4 would have to be the audio. The series staple composer Michiko Naruke only composed more or less one-third of the soundtrack due to illness, meaning her trademark western favored style from the previous games isn't prominent throughout (you can honestly tell which tracks are Naruke's), though thankfully her involvement is preserved. On top of this, while the game sports a very, very good translation (thank you xseed, eat your heart out Agetech!), the voice acting shows why the Wild Arms series was better without it.

So, if you like Wild Arms, despite the massive magazine review campaign/conspiracy to bash it to end, you will probably enjoy this chapter as well despite the changes.

Wild Arms 4 does a couple of things that I like, and some things I don't. My review will consist of a review of the game itself and then a pros and cons list.

Wild Arms 4 is an RPG with four playable characters set in the world of Wild Arms, Filgaia. The heroes must face a rising, despotic form of government whose vision of Filgaia's future is very tyrannical. This 3D environment allows the main character, Jude, to jump, stomp, and slide, changing the traditional Wild Arms field movement system.

Pros
-The new Hex battle system adds a level of strategy to the fighting, making you rethink how you heal and plan an attack.
-Each character has a different strength, and this too, adds a strategical challenge.
-I like the music and voiceovers. Wild Arms always has some great Wild West type music.

Cons
-Unlike previous Wild Arms, there aren't a set of tools for each playable character. The main character does all the problem solving.
-Some of the bad guys are kind of hard to take seriously. What makes up for this is how intriguing some of the other villains are.
-I wish it was a little less linear in the beginning.

Overall, I think if you like RPGs and would be interested in one with some Wild West/post-apocalyptic overtones, you will enjoy this game.

I'm enjoying this, but I have reservations. I'll dispense with the plot quickly, as it's the standard fodder: A boy with a confused past encounters a sweet and fragile girl with immense powers, whom crazed warring factions plan to exploit for great evil. He decides to protect her and they team up with more characters along the way (including one who knows magic, and one who has great physical fighting skills) and uncovering a plot to destroy the planet and end life as we know it - good grief, are we ever going to get anything new? Still it's serviceable enough so let's just concentrate on the other areas that make an RPG work or fail. So first of all, the battle system.

Well I was quite pleased with this. The new HEX system gives the player plenty of choices to make and you need to approach fighting in this game rather differently to most regular RPG's. For this reason I would warn you that you may well be fairly bewildered at the start and although there is in-game tuition, it really does pay to read the manual properly first - and probably twice. I'm a gamer who hates manuals but I didn't know what to do without it for once, as so much of then game is NOT self explanatory. Just so you know.

Anyway, the HEX system uses turn based play for battles, but you have to take into account the placement of characters on a small field area that is divided into 7 adjoining hexagonal blocks. At the start of each fight, you'll be presented with your team of four scattered randomly into one or more of the 7 spaces, and the enemy or enemies will be similarly placed (Any game screenshot that shows one of the battles will give you the idea). Now, everything that happens is influenced as much by position in relation to comrades and enemies, as it is to strength and ability, and you'll find that moving to the right space is as important as what you decide to do (moving one space takes up a turn in the same was as an attack or item action). Physical attacks can only be performed to an adjacent space, so you have to move to a space beside a monster to attack physically. Of course this means they can do the same to you. Sharing a block with your comrades means you share it's effects, so you could all take damage from an attack, or you could all benefit from one heal item. Furthermore, some blocks can be booby-trapped, or give the person in them extra elemental attack power, or poison them, while other skills can trap you (or the enemy) in one place permanently to become a sitting duck, or conversely you might find a skill permitting a jump to any chosen block for free. The options are attractively complex and I really liked this aspect of the game. I'm not exaggerating when I say it potentially makes every fight unique, as the opening random placements have endless combinations, and without taking some care, even a fight against weak enemies can go very badly wrong. I certainly had a lot of fun experimenting.

Another aspect that the Wild Arms series is good at is making the dungeon puzzles very physical, by which I mean you actually have to execute certain manouvers to get through them, such as skillful platform jumping and timed dashes to hit all switches or reach a gate before a bridge crumbles away. There are also various "tools" about like bombs, sharp instruments and crates that mean you have to work your brain and find out what would allow you to flip that out of reach switch or make it across a wide gap. At these times it's more like Tomb Raider than an RPG game, but I like the fact that Wild Arms games allow you to flex different playing styles rather than just the one.

Ok, now for the bad news. The game plays well but the presentation of it is quite poor. By which I mean the graphics. It's ok when your character is roaming around a dungeon or village, as these are well made with some very nice scenery and buildings - but first of all, you are stuck with a totally fixed camera, which seriously devalues the lovely 3 dimensional locations - you can never look around at will so they may as well have been pre rendered. At least the platforming and puzzle solving aspects have a good character model to play with, which jumps and dashes about in a nicely controllable fashion.

But the conversations and cut scenes...! These are just awful. Any time you approach a NPC, the action switches to a static screen fronted by a non-animated manga drawing of that person, along with a text-only conversation to click through. This also happens when you enter any town building - as none of them have explorable interiors -or have a group discussion, or some important revalation happens - it's like reading a comic book as you look at all these drawings of facial expressions and scroll through the text. Some important exposition is even told in a narrator style with words like "And then such and such a thing happened" being displayed over a blank screen.

On a very few occasions the in-game models of the cast are seen in action, but these 3-D versions are really blocky and primitive compared to what other PS2 games are managing to do these days, and they seriously compromise the supposed emotions or dramatic mood that the scripts is calling for whenever they are on screen...maybe that's why all the emotional conversations are left to the drawings. Which would be fine for a PS1 game, but in 2006, there is really no excuse for 3D character models to look this dull, and you might want to take this into account before buying the game.

My second gripe is that this game is relatively short, in that it's certainly less epic than Wild Arms 3, with a smaller world of locations to explore, easier dungeon puzzles and a shorter overall quest in general. Wild Arms 3 had a large, "playable" world map that you had to traverse and explore, however Wild Arms 4 has cut cut this out entirely, leaving just a static illustration, which you stick a pin into at your chosen destination and the game will take you there. It also has far less side quests and areas, but it does have a few of the more common RPG extras, such as very rare enemies that are very seldom found but worth high rewards to beat, a battle arena where you pay money to fight for prizes, a workshop for synthesizing rare items and weapons, and some optional secret bosses which are harder to fight than the in-game final boss.

Thes extra bosses are tough, and unfortunately this is one RPG where grinding away at random battles purely to level up is very gruelling, as the experience needed to reach the higher levels takes a LOT of perseverance. Once you reach the mid-way mark, it seems like only boss fights are giving you any experience worth having, and even the game's final and strongest regular random encounters will have to be hammered away at many dozens of times just to go up one level. But take heart, because managing your character levels is handled rather differently in this game anyway, and you may be shocked to learn that your final HP level may not be drastically more than it was when you started, due to a very fluid system that works by the earning and deploying of points. As you level up, more of these points are amassed, and you choose the balance between assigning them to either your HP level, your MP level or to nifty skills. Don't worry too much about making bad choices though, as these points can be moved about at any time as required. Which means that you'll be thinking about strategies and which attributes need boosting in relation to whichever boss fight or tricky area is coming up, rather than just buffing everything. It's a good idea, and one that provides a nice bit of diversion that just plain old stat-boosting.

So, with the dungeons and battle system being this much fun, I can overlook the primitive character graphics that seriously hampered my emotional involvement with the story. Plus the save system works quite well - saves are spaced far apart, but all the fights (both bosses and random encounters) allow you to re-start the failed battle from the beginning again if all your team should fall, thus avoiding the dreaded Game Over screen if you fall foul of some unexpected disaster after you have made loads of progress since your last save, as a restarted random battle may have a different arrangement of hexes from the one that killed you. It also helps with the optional bosses, as you can test out different strategies without worrying too much about failure, as you don't have to reload and repeat some long trek from your last save to try again. You will have to reload the save if you need to re-arrange your point distribution though, but if thats the case, you're probably attempting something too early!

In balance, then, Wild Arms 4 has more good points than bad. I've enjoyed it a lot, even though I was initially bewildered by some of it's more quirky aspects. But once I understood all of the features, I was pretty much in it for the full duration, so even though it's not an "A" list RPG, it's still worth playing.

A big fan of "Wild Arms 3" - a great western-meets-tech-and-magic RPG in anime-style - I could not wait until some publisher decided for an European localization of "Wild Arms 4th Detonator"(WA4) and had to get the NTSC-version first hand. Maybe I should've waited and checked more reviews before letting anticipation get the better of me...

It is not only the sky above his peaceful town that shatters for young Jude Maverick when he observes soldiers marching off the invading metal birds' bellies right into his hometown: stranded beyond the world he knew all his life, he and some companions gathered along the way have to take up arms against strange beasts and left-over fanatics from a great war that left the planet Filgaia a desolate place; fanatics who, in their war-twisted minds, intend to shape a new and even more cruel world, giving the motto "survival of the fittest" another dimension...
WA4 tries to modernize lots of aspects of the series but fails to preserve it's charms. For the story and it's characters: the player's party is likeable enough, though fans of the previous instalments may miss some depth in each member's background. The main topic between them seems to be "what (decision/behaviour/etc.) makes you become adult..." - for me, that would be experience and age, so it's not that much of a philosophic point to discuss through hours and hours of play-time, is it?
The opposing group, a crew of gene-manipulated war-veterans, fails to present any stringent philosophy either (apart from slight variations of that "survival-yagayaga"), so, to add a bit of drama, all that's left is a thin brother-sister-theme between the ranks of the two teams. Big yawn.
The consequence is obvious: there's no surprising twists in the plot worth mentioning.

The gameplay is what saved WA4 all the stars it scored with me. The Hex-Grid fights are fast and call for some tactics and ahead thinking - especially with the bosses. Gather the whole party on one Hex and you can, e.g., heal all by using up only one item/action, but a powerful opponent could take that chance and wipe out your party in one go - effects are aimed at Hexes rather than at characters. The battle comments, especially those of some opponents, are funny and varied.
The slight twist towards jump n' run-like basic movements makes dungeon exploration more fast-paced and calls for dexterity far more than for thinking. I prefer the puzzle-like quality of WA3's dungeons, yet there's some challenge in the new ones as well (especially with the "multiplying" money-hunt in accelerator-mode).

WA4 is fun to play and, having said that, it may seem a bit of a harsh judgement only scoring it three stars. So, why? Role-players with some experience (clever use of Lucky Cards, etc.) will be able to face the final boss after about 30 to 40 hours, plus some additional time for the arena, treasure hunt and hidden bosses, say about 10 - 20 hours; that's 60 hours at best. WA3 was fun worth at least 100 hours, the right duration for a full-fledged RPG to be. There's some kind of play-again feature in WA4, but the story didn't thrill me the first time around, so...
WA4 is a good start into the RPG-genre, however. The funny and fast-paced fight/jump n'run -mixture and the straight story/gameplay-basis make it a warm welcome to role-playing; if you have not played something from the Final Fantasy or Wild Arms series before, the lack of twists in the story won't weigh that much.
RPG-Veterans should consider taking on a more demanding "quest".

I was completely impressed with this game. As an RPG series, Wild Arms has evolved very well. And 4th Detonator is absolutely an improvement on past installments.

But although Wild Arms 4 offers a great RPG experience, the best part of the game is the story line. You simply can't get this kind of writing from contemporary Hollywood movies.

Anyone who is looking for an alternative to mainstream media should check it out.

I love this game. The story is constantly flowing and keeps you engaged the entire time you play. In Wild Arms 1,2, and 3 the story kind of peters out after a certain point and you have to slog through lots of mundane stuff to get to the final goal. Sure it gets annoying that almost everytime you walk into a new area they have to stop and talk with the ridiculous comic book split screen, but I can live with it because it moves the story along. I would suggest this game to new and old fans of the series.

I personally loving this game. The HEX system adds tatics to this game and allows you to have a tank and healer set up. The sideview puzzles are more fun than previous puzzle. I can't put this game down.

Having played through the delightful Wild ARMS 3, I went into the fourth game with excitement and high hopes. The third game boasted an impressively long adventure, lots of dungeon-crawling, a massive world-map to explore, strong artistic direction, decent enough story and characters, and a soundtrack that ranks amongst the finest of Japanese RPG scores. After about three hours of playing Wild ARMS 4, it was painfully obvious that a lot of those positive elements had been omitted or watered-down.

While the story was by no means impressive in the previous Wild ARMS games, this game's story is a mess. To be sure, the plot is not as much bad as it is badly-delivered. Excessive detail and repetition is allotted towards fleshing out the characters' bland story arcs in the game itself, during which the player will have to endure hundreds of meandering conversations about children vis-a-vis adults, children inheriting the earth, children protecting the earth, children-this, children-that, etc. etc... The characters themselves seem like they could have been worlds more interesting. The game's numerous villains suffer even more from the game's clumsy story-telling, as each of them pretty much becomes grist for the mill of the main characters' endless prattling. Every baddie seems to have some extraneous comment to make regarding children/adults, to the point where you'll wonder if the denizons of Filgaia ever think about anything else. What bothered me the most about this plot was that I was more interested in things that were largely left out of the story's exposition. I wanted to learn more about the war. I wanted to learn more about the characters' back stories. I wanted to learn more about Filgaia's mythology. The game's exposition ends up hinting at more mysteries than it ever explains. In Wild ARMS 3, plot details were there for the taking, as you could read books on shelves and talk to far more characters about the history of their environment. In Wild ARMS 4, Filgaia is just a burned-out old world that, for little apparant reason, is worth saving.

That being said, the biggest casualty of all is Filgaia itself. Gone is the ability to explore the game's world, replaced by a bland and linear push-pins-on-a-map approach that reminded me of Final Fantasy X's geographical build. Instead of the vast desert-world presented in #3, #4's Filgaia has been reduced to one continent with numerous fantasy-genre set-pieces strewn about. One minute, the characters would be journeying deep through a fire-cave and, an hour later, they would find themselves traversing an icy mountaintop or a giant futuristic-looking underwater tunnel. Gone are the numerous mysterious dungeons, replaced by, count-em, one church and one tower. There are other dungeon-like areas, such as one strange locale that is comprised of a bunch of abandoned shacks in a dark valley. Additionally, the world only has four town/cities, only one of which has a train station...whose tracks only seem to lead to and from the enemy's mobile command center in the middle of nowhere. Speaking of vehicles, the player doesn't really get to use any until the very end of the game. I found this change horrible, as (again) I had loved the Sandcraft and Dragon elements in WA3. As a general note, one of my biggest problems with RPGs is that the worlds they inhabit are excessively hard to believe in, and this is no exception. In terms of the gameplay, getting rid of the world-exploring (not to mention the unique modes of transportation in #3) amounts to a big letdown.

Beyond the world being a boring mess, the dungeon-crawling elements of the series also take a considerable hit in this title. In #3, I liked the various tools that your characters could accrue as the game transpired, a gameplay element that made it stand out above the average RPG and reminded me a lot of the Zelda games I've come to love. #4 dispenses with almost 75% of the tools, instead putting a great deal of focus on platforming elements that are somehow frustrating and easy at the same time. Some of the Accelerator puzzles were interesting, but I was hoping for much more of a challenge, which #3 provided with things like the Millenium Puzzle temples. The platforming could have been improved by allowing the player to use more than just the main character and giving each extra character a unique set of skills. The simplifying of the dungeon-crawling portion of the game, coupled with the above-mentioned lack of dungeons, amounts to a huge missed opportunity in my opinion.

I don't really have much to say about the game's battle-system and levelling systems. The HEX system was definitely an interesting innovation that made the game very fun to play, but some things about it were a little limiting. As well, I found myself wishing that the game had a bit more variety in the monster department. They should have designed larger monsters that could traverse multiple HEXes perhaps. Some of the boss fights were way too simple and predictable. The experience-levelling system in this game was a bit frustrating. I hated how some enemies, particularly gobs, had the annoying ability to knock your experience back 20,000 points or more in one turn. Additionally, there's a part of the game where you can only buy things from a certain merchant if you sacrifice the levels you've earned. After finishing the main quest, I could barely force myself to even bother with most of the side-quests in this game, as they almost all required a brutal amount of grinding and money-gathering. Earning the rarest items had to be the hardest and most tedious chore, as many would require you to save ten tons of Gella amd gather tons of badges that are hard to find, which is aggravated by the fact that it's pretty hard to find big-ticket monsters to fight, even in the last dungeon.

All that being said, the game does have a few positives going for it. I, for one, enjoyed the artistic presentation of the game. Of particular note are the dialogue scenes, which are almost all presented in a comic-book fashion that utilizes a number of well-drawn renderings of the characters (in addition to all the minor characters and villagers). Of course, none of this would matter if the game did not have very good character designs. Fortunately, Wild ARMS 4's world is populated by lots of interesting-looking characters that exhibit all sorts of different fashions. I thought it was nice that, just like their predecessor Virginia Maxwell from WA3, the two female protagonists in this game were just as restrained in their attires, especially Raquel, who dressed more like Clive from WA3. In that way, the characters give off the image that they are legitimate adventurers. As well, the villagers look like legitimate commoners, which is a very welcome change from the ridiculous pop-culture styles found in games like Final Fantasy X (I seem to recall seeing almost no physically-unattractive people in Spira). Most of the stranger-looking characters from WA4 ended up in the enemy group Brionac, but I suppose that this was intentional. I also liked a lot of the settings in and of themselves (though, as stated above, the world as a whole was terribly unfocused and thrown together). As well, the music meets the series' elevated standards, though, at the end of the day, the score is not quite as memorable as that in WA3 or Alter-Code F.

In summary, I found Wild ARMS 4 to be a reasonably fun diversion with some very pleasing artistic presentation and generally good gameplay, but a failure in terms of the standard set by Wild ARMS 3. Had the developers chosen to improve on previous models rather than overturning everything so rashly, this could have been an A+ game. As it stands, this title is mostly a mess.

I've read some of the other reviews here - I have no idea what everyone else sees in this game.

After really enjoying Alter Code:F I was excited to see WA4 come out. Too bad it didn't begin to live up to expectations. Here's the bad:

* Uneven character development
* Uninteresting story line
* The fighting system needs polishing (potential here, just not well refined)
* Terrible voice-overs (there is a feature to shut them off - use it)
* The game got rid of its old "tool" system for puzzle solving and added something that seemed like it was out a Mario Brothers side scrolling game. Ok - not that pathetic, but bad nonetheless.

The good? Well, I couldn't really find one. The story didn't excite, so the game devolved into a series of very boring fights without much point. The fights themselves didn't exite either - you'll wind up using the same strategies over and over again. The hex system has potential - but it seems like the idea was rushed and not well refined.

I sort of felt the same with WA3, although that game I at least toughed it through to the end (and never touched again). This one I bailed out on after 12 hours of game play. Maybe I missed out on the 'good part,' but I kind of doubt it.

Onward to Grandia 3 (so far - that game rocks! Pick it up instead).

Wild Arms 4 feels more like a "my first rpg" than a continuation or sequel of anything. A stable of annoying and cliched characters and a plot that you can guess the turns before they even appear there is little to redeem the game from the lower depths of mediocrity. Between the hastily assembled group of super kids and the plethora of "evil" adults instead of being a coming of age story it seems more like an angry fanfic experience from a twelve year old who has been sent to his room on punishment. And with lines like "This anti tank chainsaw is made for close quarter combat with tanks" and "It's the earthbound spirits of the undead, we better be careful" it's easy to believe that this story was in fact written by a child. There are some smatterings of evolution and nanomachines mentioned in an attempt to sound pseudo scientific but it's usually brought up as if I'm being given a science lesson and by the time they finish talking, what small part of the plot that I actually did find interesting is forgotten. Then there are the puzzles. Normally I don't mind puzzles especially when they're relevant to the story at hand. In Wild Arms I simply found them out of place and distracting. I'm in a secret military base, why am I maneuvering spring boards to jump to a higher level? Spring boards? That leads to top secret areas? Yeah right. Not to mention the numerous times when I was required to use the "wonder" staff and the "wonder" sword and the all so handy "wonder" pot. I simply wondered what they were doing in the game.

The "villains" and their plan to rule the world is so comical that it would do Cobra Commander proud and the "heroes" aren't much better. Jude and Yulie are the poster children for goody two shoes. One wants to solve the world's problems and the other just wants to help everyone. Not only that Jude earns everyone's admiration for his ability to trust and see the good in people, his desire to save the world, and his conviction. He converts even the hardest villains with his innocence and goodwill and hope for the future. Yulie was the typical good girl who wants to help and love everyone, and with the strength of her friends and love on her side there isn't anything that she can't do. I don't think that I've ever encountered two more irritating characters and I didn't even have the option of switching either one out of my party. I was stuck with them.

The game wasn't a complete disaster however; the game play is actually interesting and somewhat enjoyable. The controls however, were hit or miss. Sometimes a command would execute flawlessly, other times it seemed to hesitate. The most nerve wrecking however was attempting to use the aforementioned "wonder" items. A majority of the time I was required to shoot something whether it be a flame or a ball of light from the wonder item of the day and Jude would slide all over the place making what should have been an easy task a chore.

The graphics were well done and I liked the character design for Raquel. It was refreshing to have a female video game character that wasn't scantily clad and flashing panty shots all of the time. Interesting game play and nice graphics however, were not enough to make up for the juvenile, predictable story and the annoying characters. The whole "children are the future" theme was repeated so many times that I was slightly disappointed that the ending song wasn't "The Greatest Love of All" by Whitney Houston.

The series obviously has its number of dedicated fans, but this game failed to make me one of them. If you don't mind playing out a mediocre story littered with lines from a Care Bears special in order to utilize a decent battle system, go for it. Some people actually enjoyed this game, I'm just not one of them.