Monday, March 13, 2006

Wild Arms 4 (PS2)

Reviewed by Kit
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Wild Arms 4 is the (obviously) fourth installment of the series. The story is that of a young boy trying to understand the powers he was born with while at the same time protecting a girl. As always, other, more interesting characters join the party as well.
Graphics: The game is pretty with sprites and well down environments. Every person has their own art model that you view when talking to them. This creates a brief lag every time you talk to a townsperson, which becomes annoying quickly. Dungeons are somewhat 3D, but there are also parts that are side scrollers. There is no rotating camera. Graphics in the cut scenes are less well done. The characters look a bit blocky. There is an anime opening, once you pass the prologue, that is very pretty. 3/5
Audio:
Like all Wild Arms, the music is western themed. It’s not the greatest soundtrack, but it serves its purpose. There is voice acting for some cut scenes, dialogue, and in battle. The voice actors are good, and in general the voice acting isn’t bad, but there are times when it just sounds off somehow. 3/5
Gameplay:
There are quite a few new elements to this game that were not in any previous version. First off, you can import your saved data from Wild Arms: Alter Code F which will allow you all sorts of bonuses, including increased gella drops and increased experience. Like Alter Code F, you can get exp bonuses by doing certain moves in battle (kill a monster, dodge an attack, perform a critical). After battles, HP is immediately fully restored, but MP is not. Battles are done on 7 hexagons, three of which are elemental based. There are quite a few special attacks which will differ depending on what element they are on. For example, Yulie (the main girl and summoner) will call a different guardian depending on where she stands. On an elemental hexagon she’ll call that elemental guardian, but on a non-elemental hexagon she’ll summon a guardian that replenishes life to the party. At first this system seems strange and silly, but it does grow on you. Also to get items at the end of battles, one of your party members must be in the hexagon where the chest lands. Another change is that your character can jump, stomp, slide, and slow down time on dungeon maps. You’ll find that slowing down time is used often. Occasionally while running around you will see exclamation points appear. The game does not mention it until some time into it, so if you want to know what to do, hold down the L1 button for a few seconds and you will interact with these things. Mostly they are signs or points of interest. As you level you get skill points which can be added to a list of all the skills your character will get. Your character will still earn skills even if you don’t distribute the points, but by distributing the points you can use skills earlier. These points do not become permanently distributed, so you may move them around as you like. Also there is a battle arena where you can go to test your strength. It costs money to enter, but of course you get prizes. And if you collect a ROM for this one guy, you can play an arcade style game. Finally, there is no longer any true world map. Ever thing is either dungeon or town. You have a map on which you point and click to get to a new area. 4/5
Story:
You start the game as a young boy who apparently has never done anything besides being raised by his entire town and skipping classes. How he manages this as the only child in the town is a good question. One day the sky shatters, yes shatters, and Jude, the hero, goes to explore. He is of course still skipping classes. He then sees a girl. The first girl he has ever met. Because apparently girls and women are completely different and he must investigate this girl. After rescuing her from the military men who have just shattered the sky, they join up with a sexy teenager, Arnaud, who can use magic. Jude finds out he can use Arms, which magically appear in his hand, and accidentally destroys his town, which apparently is flying through the air. From that point on the group of them are on a mission to keep Yulie away from the military. They are quickly joined by a powerful swordswoman named Raquel, who is by far much cooler than Yulie or Jude. Discovering Jude’s abilities and Yulie’s secrets while avoiding the military take up the plot. 3/5
Replay:
Like most RPGs, replay is completely at the discretion of the player. Pick it up again if you want to see the story again. There’s an epilogue as well, but nothing particularly special. 2/5
Overall:
Like all the Wild Arms games, 4 offers a solid game, but it isn’t something spectacular. The new battle system is innovative, but I’m not sure if is good enough to be widespread. The skill system is nice, but it’s hard to know what skills the points should be in until after the battle they are needed. For example, I didn’t put points into the anti-undead spell because I hadn’t met any undead yet. The next boss was of course undead, but I didn’t have the skill learned. I then put points into the spell, but no more undead were around. For all it’s mediocrities, it’s a sold game and worth picking up for fans of the series. 3/5

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