Back in the early days of the Playstation prior to the revolution of the modern rpgs with the introduction of Final Fantasy VII, there were only three small rpgs games that were worth a mention, Suikoden, Vandal Hearts, and Wild Arms. Each of these rpgs were released a few months earlier before Final Fantasy VII and they were released with small fanfare. However, the few rpg fans that did buy these rpgs quickly fell in love with them and a small base of core followers developed from then on. To this day, only Suikoden and Wild Arms were consider a popular success in terms of series as the Vandal Hearts series never gone further than the Playstation console. The thing about the first Suikoden and Wild Arms games was that they were released with such limited numbers that finding copies of those games today is consider a treasure hunt. Remember that this was before the time of Final Fantasy VII and its revolution that the rpg genre as a whole wasn't as popular as it is today. So most fans of either the Suikoden or the Wild Arms series were really introduce to the series by the second game of the series and not the first original games. The announcement of a remake version of Wild Arms came as quite a surprise to most rpg fans out there. While remakes of older games on a new console isn't something new it's mostly however was done and kept with a gap of at least two console generations. To remake a Playstation game on a Playstation 2 is quite surprising and can be consider too soon since there wasn't a generation gap. Still, Wild Arms Alter Code F will give those Wild Arms fans that were introduce to the series from either Wild Arms 2 or Wild Arms 3 a good chance to experience the original Wild Arms that started the popular series. We're going to take an in-depth look as to why this game is still one of the best rpg games out there by far.
STORY
Making peace for the world.
A love that is not to last?
In a land call Filgaia, three individuals searches for their place in the world, Cecilia, a student of magic who has to ability to communicate with the Guardians of Filgaia, Rudy, a boy who is an outcast because he has the ability to use ARMS, an ancient weapon technique that was used during the ancient wars with the demons, and Jack, a wanderer searching the wasteland for absolute power. The three of them converge on the city of Adlehyde where they befriended each other while taking on a job for Emma, a researcher, to eliminate monsters that have appeared in the nearby Lolithia's Coffin ruins. After completing the tasks, the three retired in Adlehyde. However as next day came, Adlehyde was invaded by the reappearance of demons, led by a demon known as Berserker. Berserker is seeking to claim the Teardrop, a mystical charm that has been held by the royal family. If he doesn't get the Teardrop, he will destroy Adlehyde and its people. Surprisingly it was revealed that Cecilia is the princess of Adlehyde and the person in possession of the Teardrop. Fearing for the safety of her people, Cecilia turned over the Teardrop to Berserker so he can leave in peace. As next day arises and peace once again calm the city, Cecilia and her friends decided to trek on a journey to reclaim the Teardrop and to search for answers as to why the demons have reappeared and what they wanted with the Teardrop. This journey will begin an adventure of a life time for them as well as a discovery of self awareness for each of them to find peace within themselves.
Now if you played the first original Wild Arms then you pretty much know the outcome of the story as well as some of the plot twists and revelations. So the elements of anticipation and surprise won't be there for you since you already know what to expect. The overall plot, characters, and general direction of the story is pretty much the same in Alter Code F as it was in the original Wild Arms. And like with most stories, if you are already aware of the outcome to it, the excitement of the story isn't there as much. However if this is your first time playing the game and introduction to the story, you'll find out that this is really one of the better masterpiece rpg stories out there. The story has everything. From romance to adventure, to drama to sadness, and many plot twists too. This is an emotional story that will move you from joy to sadness and back to joy again. This is a beautifully written story where you never know what to expect next. It also helps that all the characters within the story are excellently introduced and written in a way that they are an intricate part of the story. If you looking for one of the best rpg stories out there, it's highly recommended that you pick this game up. Even now with 3 Wild Arms games under the series belt, you can see why the original Wild Arms is still the best out of all of them.
Score 10/10
CHARACTERS
Good friends we have become.
The overall cast of characters in this game is about 6 characters not including the bad guys. You basically have 3 main characters and 3 supporting characters. There's no central main character in this story. What you have is 3 equally shared main characters. The nice thing about this cast of characters is how the story fully integrates all the characters into the storyline as part of their development. The 3 main characters are exceptionally developed very well. Each of these characters takes turn in the storyline allowing us to fully understand and appreciate the past experience hardship of these characters that developed them into the kind of character they are today. As you go deeper into the story, you learn more and more about these characters and a sense of sadness that you start to feel for them.
This is good because if you start to feel for the characters then you know that the story has done its job in developing them into realistic characters that you can relate to. And when you start to feel for the characters, that in turn will make the story much more emotional and interesting for you. What really impressive is how the game really balances out the development of these characters and integrates their development as part of the story line. These are fully developed characters that you will easily fall in love with by the end of the game. In this day and age, it's really hard to find a story where the characters actually make the story a better story and that's what you have here.
Score: 10/10
GRAPHICS
I'm back in CGI graphic mode.
One of the most talked about features in the original Wild Arms was its graphics. When we say most talked about, we don't mean it in a nice way. The graphics in the original Wild Arms were deformed characters during battle gameplay and little 2-D sprites on exploration gameplay. The game looked more like a 16 bit game than a Playstation game. Not to make the same mistake again, in this remake, graphics were definitely juiced up to the point where it's on par with most of today's rpg games. It won't blow you away like some of the more heavily graphics game like Xenosaga II but it still is a very nice looking game that you can appreciate. This time around, the game is loaded with CGI cut scenes and FMV movies of summoned Guardians. Both the CGI and FMV are done in a very soft texture with bright colors. They're not as sharp and detailed as you would like them to be but they are still nice to look at. The CGI cut scenes are designed with the Japanese Anime look. And from that stand point, it's really a nice display of anime visual that you would expect. Their facial anime expression and bodies are rendered very nicely and smoothly with the background environment complimenting the characters giving an overall rich look to all the CGI story scenes. The gameplay graphics are done in a rendered 3-D rich environment. The towns and forests are really done with some top notched attention to detail with colors matching the setting of the environment perfectly. The characters are no longer short sprites but fully developed render 3-D drawn models. The battle graphics are nicely render 3-D anime style design that look very much like cel-shading but not completely cel-shading. You'll probably notice the similarity of the graphics in Wild Arms Alter Code F and Wild Arms 3. But visually speaking it looks much better than Wild Arms 3 and many other Playstation 2 rpg games. You won't be awe inspired by the graphics but you won't be disappointed either.
Score: 8/10
MUSIC
Playing with my guitar.
To near perfection is what you can describe the musical scores in this game. The only thing that is missing is probably an actual song theme sung by some famous Japanese singer. But in terms of musical scores and themes, it's perfect. The overall theme is that of a western guitar theme but within the game, you basically have character musical scores, fighting tunes, towns or villages tunes, dungeon tunes and of course those unforgettable sad musical scores that can render even the strongest male gamer to cry. The thing that is great about the music is that you can't forget the music of this game like with most game. The memory of the tunes will stay on in your head even after playing this game and even the main theme of whistling and guitar has become such a trademark theme for this series that you can recognize the main theme any time you hear it regardless of whether or not you've played a Wild Arms game recently. The music is truly emotionally moving in this game. The only thing that is missing from this game in terms of sound is that there should have been voice acting introduce in this game. It would make the story CGI cut scene go far much better than it being done in silence with dialogue. This is still one of the best musical score soundtrack around.
Score: 9/10
GAMEPLAY
Executing personal skills.
FP Accelerator in action.
Game Information
Genre: Traditional Turn Base Rpg
Publisher: Agetec
Disc:1 DVD Disc
Memory:49 KB
Players: 1 Player Mode
Analog Control:Yes
Vibration Function:Yes
Rating: Teen
Release: November 2005
The gameplay is really set up much in the way of the old school rpg gameplay. You basically talk to villagers or people to have them unlock access to your next destination of exploration by having them tell you where you need to go next. Once this is done, you can find the next dungeon by exploring the world map in the direction that they advise you to go. Once inside a dungeon, you can reach the deepest part to fight the boss by exploring and solving the many various puzzles that will be blocking your way. The puzzle solving aspect of this is where most of the old school rpg tradition applies. Now for the most part, the puzzle aspect isn't too hard however there will be times in the game where you will be absolutely stuck on not knowing how to solve a particular puzzle to open your way deeper in the dungeon. Most of these puzzle elements will require you to use a particular tool from one of your characters. Battles in dungeons and on the world map are done through random encounters. And much like with the old school tradition, the random encounters are pretty frequent to the point where you can't go more than a few steps before getting hit with a random encounter. However there is a system to counter that which will be explained in the features below. Once you beat the dungeon boss, you head back to town to find out where to go next. Of course this process gets repeated for the rest of the game. The game difficulty can range from medium to hard. The battles themselves aren't too hard once you are familiar with the battle system and what to do. This is a turn base battle system so it's nothing too hard for you to master. The only difficulty that one can have is the progression of the game where you might be stuck on trying to solve a particular puzzle or finding out where to go next as it may require to you travel to each town in the world and talk to everyone. This game is pretty much linear but there are still a lot to do and with many unique features that are only available in the Wild Arms series. And we'll going to take a look at those unique features now.
Migrant Seals/ENC Gauge: One way to counter the in excessive random battles is by canceling them. Before a random battle occurs, an exclamation mark would pop up. Within a couple of seconds during this time, you have a choice of canceling the random battle. However each time you cancel a random battle, your Encounter Gauge would drop. Once it drops to zero, you can no longer cancel any more battles until you build your ENC Gauge to full again by fighting random battles. Now to increase the level of your ENC gauge, you'll need to find and receive Migrant Seals. Each seal will raise your ENC gauge by one level. The higher the level, the more times you can cancel random battles. Tools:Each of your main character will receive during the game, four set of tools to use. Each tool will have a specific use in the game, whether it's to solve a puzzle or to gain access to a block area that a chest is located. Crest Graphs: Obtaining attack or support magic from a magic shop is through the use of crest graphs. Each crest graph will allow you to buy any particular magic you wish. The good thing is that you can always return your crest graphic to the magic shop and re-edit it into another type of magic that you may need more if you so chooses later on. Personal Skills: You can acquire various personal skills by buying them at shop, finding them in treasure chest, stealing them from monsters or just getting them as a drop item from monsters. In order for a personal skill to take effect, you need to have each character equip that skill. The amount of skills you can equip is base on the total amount of skill points you have. ARMS Upgrade: ARMS Upgrade is a feature that is available to Rudy and Jane as they are both arms master. The game allows you to literally customize both characters' ARMS base on parameters such as level of attack power, level of aim, number of bullets, and easiness of reloading the ARMS. Being able to fully understand how to customize the ARMS of each character will allow you to develop them into an effective fighter that is best for your party. FP Gauge: Each fighter or party member will have access to their own unique special fighting technique. These techniques can only be access if the character has built enough FP points. Each time a character takes an action or gets attack, their FP gauge will move up. It takes a minimum of 25% full gauge before you can use your special technique. If the FP gauge reaches 100%, the character will achieve Condition Green, which means they will recover from any status ailments if they were inflicted with a status ailment. Combination Attacks:This is a very rare feature that may occur during battle. This is also a very unique feature that was introduced in this game that wasn't available in the first Wild Arms. Combination Attack may occur when you have more than three party members and with back up party members in the back row. If a front row and a back row character are both equip with the personal skill, Assist Blitz, during an attack turn, both character can do a special combine attack that is called a combination attack. This is a very powerful special attack but a very rare one.
80+ hours is what you are looking at by the time you finish this game. This isn't including doing all the extras mind you. We are talking about a total rpg gaming experience here. You would be exhausted by the time you finish with this game. The gameplay will offer you what you always expected out of any rpg game, a total package of everything. Boss fights, puzzle solving, world exploration, dungeon exploration, interaction with town folks, travel by sea, land, and air. Just plainly an epic quest throughout the entire world. Even total packages don't mean there aren't some minor flaws. First is the camera angle. While you can rotate your camera angle in a 360 degree in any direction, the camera angle doesn't move in the direction along with your character as they change direction. This becomes very annoying as you constantly have to manually change the camera angle to a more suitable direction each time your character change direction as they move. Lastly is the very high encounter rate of fights. While you can cancel these fights, it get very annoying after awhile of having to constantly cancel fights just so you don't want to be bother with a random fight as you explore the world of Filgaia. Again these are all minor annoyances out of a total rpg experience. In the end, you will be burnt out but at the same time, very pleased with your accomplishment on completing such an epic adventure. Sometimes, the old school way is still the best there is.
Score: 9/10
EXTRAS/REPLAY
Boomerang Flash is back!
Where to even begin with the extras? If you plan on completing all the extras in this game, expect to spend at least 40+ hours more of gameplay. In terms of extras, this game provides everything. And I do mean everything. The interesting thing is that the extras in this game are a combination of old original extras and new added extras. You want hidden bosses? Well you got plenty of hidden bosses to fight. Over 15 hidden bosses to fight ranging from level 55 to level 100. That's a lot and it going to require a lot of leveling up to do. You also have various extra dungeons that you can explore. Extra side quests that you can do to recruit extra characters that you weren't able to get in the original Wild Arms. You have 30 Puzzle Boxes that you can try and solve to get items. These puzzle boxes are a new feature in this game but a familiar feature in Wild Arms 3. A battle arena where you can fight monsters and hidden bosses to obtain items. A 100 floor Abyss dungeon that you can climb to fight the ultimate hidden boss. Then there's the collecting and completing the Ex File keys collection. Each Ex File key will unlock a special feature in an Ex File menu where you can look over artwork galleries and movies in the game. To do all of these extras is going to take lots and lots of extra gameplay hour. You're getting your full money worth when it comes to extra gameplay hours. And like with most things, if you want to replay the game again for another experience of Wild Arms adventure, you can load up a New Game+ file where you can have all the stuff you collected in the first game transfer over to the your new game making the adventure more easy on your second time around. Truly there's nothing more you can ask for in terms of extras.
Score: 10/10
Wild Arms Alter Code F isn't just a remake. No, to call it a remake is a mistake. The only thing really that is familiar to this game and that of the original Wild Arms is the overall storyline and characters. And even then, the story isn't really original as it was in the first Wild Arms as some of the plots were changed to include new things and the new playable characters. In essence, everything about this game is new. So even if you played the original Wild Arms, Wild Arms Alter Code F should still give you that new experience that you would expect from playing a brand new rpg game that was never introduce before. The sheer experience of playing this game will remind you why sometimes, old school rpg is still the best rpg experience out there. It's hard to say for sure that Wild Arms Alter Code F is the best rpg game for 2005 but if not then it's in the running as the best rpg game for 2005. If you ever want a total enjoyment of gameplay and story then Wild Arms Alter Code F is a must have game for all you rpg fans out there. It is highly recommended that you pick up this game before it becomes one of those too hard to find rpg game out there.
