Not quite as Wild as it could be, but still great

[Rozalia]

 

Wild Arms 3

Originally Released: March 14, 2002
Newest Release: May 17, 2016

 

Opening

Wild Arms 3 is the third entry in the dormant Wild Arms series and the one that makes the most use of the series Wild West theme which to me is a positive. If you're going to be like Star Ocean and waste your theme to just have a standard JRPG then why even bother I have to ask.

 

Setting/World

The world in Wild Arms 3 can be summed up with a couple of words. Desert. Sand. Decay. Wasteland. Outside a few notable (explained) parts of the world map the majority of the world is a wasteland, even the seas reduced to nothing but sand. As ever but most notably in this game, the world of Filgaia is in big trouble.

The people live a meagre existence. Some who are lucky in regards to land can make it as farmers while in some areas you got your scavengers and outlaws.

 

The outlaw Janus Cascade. His weapon is a musket with a bayonet like WA2's hero. The blue hair up to this point signified a hero and he resembles WA2's main, but Janus is no hero.

 

In gameplay terms however there are issues. The world being mostly wasteland is not pretty to look at and the world map is perhaps one of the worst I can think of. Outside a few notable spots nothing on the world map is memorable and just where on the map a location you've visited is you'll quickly forget. Thankfully you can have the map tell you.
Forms of transport are; a Horse for faster travel on land and for jumping some crevices, a Sandcraft for travelling the Sand Sea, and finally an Airship for the air. All these unlock more of the map which is what a form of transport should do.

 

Characters

 

Left: Jet Enduro. Middle: Virginia Maxwell. Top Right: Gallows Caradine. Bottom Right: Clive Winslet.

 

The heroes are to me a strong line up with the main being the only female of the group, Virginia Maxwell, who is very unlike what a JRPG female character was back in the ancient history of the early 2000s (and even today some would say), straight from the get go with the design for instead of showing ample amounts of skin, she shows nothing but her face. While inexperienced, naive, and overly idealistic (to be fair with the exception of WA2 you seem to need those traits to be a main character in WA) she grows throughout the story and never serves as a damsel in distress and the main villains until chapter 3 all chiefly serve as her rivals. You have the outlaw Janus Cascade who takes advantage of her goodness to show her she should change, and the rich Maya Schröedinger who also attacks said goodness as foolish weakness...and is also the closest thing Virginia has to a love interest which is uh... progressive? Nah, everybody knows progressives hate gay people so instead I'll say... accepting, yes lets go with that. Though a female character without a heavy tie to a male character is a rare thing and so her tie is to her father as we know all good girls love their daddy. Said daddy has been missing for some time but he at least taught her how to shoot a gun when Virginia was a toddler. Her missing father while unimportant at first naturally becomes very important throughout the entire story. In game her role is that of the weak and fragile speedster who can make effective use of healing items especially with being to use their effects on the whole party.

 

Clive Winslet is an oddity in that he is ancient for this genre at the age of 30 and has a wive and child (!) at home who get this, are never kidnapped or killed by the villains. Being the oldest, most experienced, and smartest of the group he is usually the one who helps the story along and he is also the only other character beside Virginia to have a rival, that being the beauty obsessed Prophet Melody who he enrages for not falling for her looks and calling her ugly on the inside. His backstory is important in chapter 3 and surprisingly he is the character who in chapter 4 shows doubt (leading naturally to a rescue of the party later on when his daughter gets him his confidence back). His in game role is of the Mighty Glacier which is an odd role for the "smart guy".

 

Gallows and Jet are not I feel anywhere as strong. Gallows is a typical "slacker who runs away from his responsibilities but later learns to accept them" but thankfully isn't a Native American stereotype which is certainly a positive. His ingame role is of the magic focused character who oddly also has the highest health in the game (though his physical defence is poor). Jet is the weakest certainly and is a character you almost feel like was mandated to be present as he hits three very frustrating points. Firstly he is the typical anime pretty boy so the design is generic, second his personality is Squall-like though at least when he does overcome it its not because of an out of nowhere love, and third he is an amnesiac which is an overused and hated trope. His in game role is even bad with him being second rate in everything outside magic which he is laughably bad with.

 

Plot

The game is set across four arcs, they being the Janus Cascade arc, Prophets arc, Demon arc, and finally the Nightmare arc. Each of these arcs has a different villain opposing you along the way and naturally they get more bigly both in power and girth of their evil ambitions. Each one by its end has a big time feel to it like it could be the final dungeon but obviously you'll know better for the first arc. However the second seems like it should be the end, then it ain't and you think then the third is the end and then it ain't either. Some would say the game should ended at the third arc but it seems they wanted to surprise people with the game carrying on longer than you might think it would.

The first two arcs I personally think are strong ones and tie together very well. The third isn't bad either and the stakes get raised massively during it but the game just nosedives on the fourth arc which feels completely out of place and unneeded. It can be said it helps explains some things of the world, however those elements never needed to be present to begin with.

 

To not spoil too much the game begins with the main character, Virginia Maxwell on a train and due to some trouble going down and her sense of adventure leads to her going to a guarded cabin on the train with a treasure. Then 2 train robbers and the guardsman on the train all bust in and put each other in what people like to call a "Mexican standoff" (as Mexicans are known to violently kill each other?).

 

 

The game then stops and allows you to play a prologue for each of the four characters in whatever order you wish. This was a feature which was present in the previous games and WA3 would be the last to do, which I think it does best out of the three. The prologues server as a vehicle to see the characters before their meeting and how they are, what they want, and also as a tutorial for abilities and tools unique to each character. Naturally all these prologues consist of a dungeon and a boss at the end that requires the character's unique skill to defeat (with the exception of Virginia due to her one requiring a party to be useful). Jet faces a monster that can quickly heal itself when near death thereby requiring his use of "Accelerator" which allows him to act first no matter how fast the enemy is. Clive faces a winged beast which can easily evade attacks sent towards it thereby requiring his use of "Lock On" which gives him perfect accuracy (and double the damage). Gallows faces a blob monster which can split itself apart endlessly as long as one piece of it is alive thereby requiring his use of "Extension" which allows him to target a whole enemy group with his Arcane.

 

Once the prologues are complete the train is attacked by another group of train robbers lead by Janus Cascade, the villain of the first arc. Naturally the Guardsman (Clive) on the train conscripts the other two train robbers (Jet and Gallows) and a random girl (Virginia) to face this new group of train robbers. From there you find bad juju is afoot and you have to gain the power of the Guardians (Spirits the Native American expies, the Baskar, worship) from across the land because a vague threat has manifested itself in a dream vision of Gallow's brother (and his visions are always legit you are told). While the dream/prophecy angle is overdone I do like how this one goes though telling would be spoiling.

 

There is plenty of nods to previous games included. Janus Cascade will remind anyone who played WA2 of it's hero in terms of looks and weapon which is curious to me, to have a villain in a future game resemble an evil version of a previous hero. The third chapter clearly nods to the Quarter Knights of WA1 though I was disappointed that the designs outside the one exception didn't really fit. The forth chapter has the villain's main... enforcer of sorts I suppose you could say resemble Lord Blazer, the main villain of WA2. The final villain is also based on a concept from WA1 which is expanded on here. There are more of course but those are the big ones easily noticeable.

 

The Prophets. Leehalt Alcaste on the left, Malik Bendict in the middle, and Melody Vilente on the right.

 

Music

Its strong as it tends to be in Wild Arms which is known for tracks by Michiko Naruke which make use of whistling giveing a unique sound to many of the game's tracks such as: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UG0vrYxBWLY&index=13&list=PLB4C8DE2AF3D1BB2E, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRl8EpmHTJA&list=PLB4C8DE2AF3D1BB2E&index=45, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udmWG0rNYkg&index=49&list=PLB4C8DE2AF3D1BB2E.

 

Not all music is of that nature however though it should be said that when it isn't its usually for a good and fitting reason. For example the Prophets themes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5lcCSBHmSs&list=PLB4C8DE2AF3D1BB2E&index=48 and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09_nn0c_Jqg&list=PLB4C8DE2AF3D1BB2E&index=50 sound very different from the other tracks in the game which reflects how in story they are so alien to the world what with being super advanced scientists who dress up like and call themselves Prophets in a world where tech is much less advanced.

 

Gameplay

This is certainly the game's weak spot. While the out of battle gameplay is as solid as Wild Arms tends to be with each character having tools which allows them to solve puzzles. However the battle system is very unadventurous and as generic as you get (WA4 would later make gameplay a stronger part of the series) which is certainly not helped by repetitive and I mean repetitive boss fights. You face Janus Cascade 8 times, Maya Schröedinger 4 times, the Prophets 10 times, Asgard 4 times, and even the plot unimportant Huskarls 3 times (in the same dungeon to boot), heck the final villain even crams in 2 boss fights back to back when one would have sufficed and the final boss is a marvel what with it having 10 forms for you to beat.

To be fair to the above not all the fights are the same as they sometimes go differently with either not all members of a group being present or different gimmicks being at play which tend to be interesting (for example one Prophet has a damage negating shield, another has perfect evade unless hit with a slow spell, and the last one returns all damage you deal to him back at you as a counter attack), but whatever the case it is an extraordinary amount of repeat fights. To make matters worse the game is very easy as WA games are known to be (it took till 5 and then XF for enemies to get threatening) and even more so here as most boss fights consist of you fighting a group of bosses meaning that once you take one of them down it really cripples their offence or ability to inflict status ailments.

 

The Schröedinger family. Mayor Schröedinger on the left, her brother Alfred Schröedinger in the middle, Mayor's bodyguard Todd Dukakis on the top right, and finally Schrödinger's cat (get it?) Shady on the bottom right.

 

 

Overall

While a personal favourite of mine and considered by many the best Wild Arms (I'm unsure myself as I like the often hated WA4 and also the portable game WAXF a lot) due to how it handles the series theme, music, and story (at least until the third arc), it obviously is a very imperfect game. The game play is simply too weak and the repetitive boss fights while perhaps better than just throwing random boss monsters at you instead is still not great. Graphically it uses a cell shaded style which I think looks fine, especially back in the early days of the PS2. There is no voice acting either which is odd for a PS2 game.

 

It gets 8 Rozzers out of the full monty of 10.

 

------

 

P.S: Oh yeah some Mensacans and illegal ayyliens or something hit Roz Wei alongside the shamefur TKR. Nasty bit of business and they will find that you shouldn't bring bad juju into your life like that.

 

 

[Caecus]

da fuk?

[yaakopu]

Tl;dr

[durmij]

Tl;dr

Ships are op this patch.

[Avruch]

Ships are op this patch.

 

No, they are buffed, totally and 100% everything is working exactly as intended. 

[Glorious Leader Abdul]

 

 

Additionally, you have looted 8.41% of your opponent's alliance bank, taking: $42,286,145, 1,084 Coal, 2,498 Oil, 2,865 Uranium, 2,029 Iron, 902 Bauxite, 488 Lead, 13,462 Gasoline, 14,220 Munitions, 14,643 Steel, 6,583 Aluminum, and 62,397 Food.

tours over boyo. time to lay down and rot

Edited December 30, 2016 by Glorious Leader Abdul

[Hooves]

tl;dr the gameplay sucks but the art/theme are great

 

I approve of this message of discussing JRPGs

Edited December 30, 2016 by Hooves

[Rozalia]

Additionally, you have looted 8.41% of your opponent's alliance bank, taking: $42,286,145, 1,084 Coal, 2,498 Oil, 2,865 Uranium, 2,029 Iron, 902 Bauxite, 488 Lead, 13,462 Gasoline, 14,220 Munitions, 14,643 Steel, 6,583 Aluminum, and 62,397 Food.

tours over boyo. time to lay down and rot

 

Thanks mate. Appreciated.

 

tl;dr the gameplay sucks but the art/theme are great

 

I approve of this message of discussing JRPGs

 

You got it mate, thanks.

[Princess Bubblegum]

PRAISE KEK

[Zygon]

Kek.

[Buorhann]

Not too shabby of a recognition.

[ArcKnox]

Look at this folks: The fine and upstanding nations of Orbis being swarmed by boat people and the globalist cuck king Rozalia is the one sending them! Sad!

[Chunky Monkey]

 

Thanks mate. Appreciated.

 

 

You got it mate, thanks.

Mate.

[Rozalia]

Look at this folks: The fine and upstanding nations of Orbis being swarmed by boat people and the globalist cuck king Rozalia is the one sending them! Sad!

 

It seems like all the progressives recently got that message or something. The Roz is quite used to being called mean words and is thus quite immune to them. So don't worry about me mate. Happy!

 

Mate.

 

Mate?

Edited December 30, 2016 by Rozalia

[Donald Trump]

I approve. 

[vonnorman]

It seems like all the progressives recently got that message or something. The Roz is quite used to being called mean words and is thus quite immune to them. So don't worry about me mate. Happy!

 

 

Mate?

Me thinks.. instead of mate, maybe lass wouldve been more acceptable?

[AkAk]

da fuk?

 

I know, 1 v 3's aren't supposed to be winnable, right?

[Rozalia]

Me thinks.. instead of mate, maybe lass wouldve been more acceptable?

 

Its a gender neutral term but you're right.

 

 

I know, 1 v 3's aren't supposed to be winnable, right?

 

Trump (pbuh) protects. 

[Buorhann]

Who is Virginia's love interests out of the bunch?

[Rozalia]

Who is Virginia's love interests out of the bunch?

 

They don't as the OP states really go into it as I think they wanted to avoid that defining the character/being a big focus. There are 3 people fans like to say and I'll list them below.

 

 

Some people take Jet's helping a couple of times as "totally love" but I see it as simply the idea that actually being with people (lone wolf and all that before) meant he stopped being as big a arsehole. Also considering one of the antagonists mocks her for it (her inexperience leading her to put herself, and thus also her allies in danger) and Virginia overcomes it later, I think it was just supposed to serve as development for both characters and not some love thing.

 

If by bunch you mean the party members then certainly he'd be the closest. Gallows is... no. While Clive is married and one part of the game involves him being immune to a villain's charms due to being married.

 

 

If you can't guess this is a total heroxvillain pairing that some people like because they like Janus. Virginia hates his guts, he treats her worst out of all the antagonists and at point says something to the effect that he was looking forward to hearing her scream when he stabs her. Some people like to believe in those sort of psycho pairings. 

 

 

Maya is Virginia's rival and the one with the strongest case to me, in fact I'd say the only case. Helps in Virginia's development and one of the scenes at the end where Virginia slaps her (makes sense in context) gives you a certain vibe. Worth noting they are also linked via surname and design. Maya's orange outfit is clearly supposed to be a nod to Jane Maxwell from WA1, Maxwell being Virginia's surname. 

 

In addition there is two pieces of artwork which went up for Valentine's day and White day (east Asian thing where those who received gifts on Valentine's give gifts to who gave them a gift). It shows WA1-4 but I cut the WA3 parts out. It shows Maya (in her normal clothes) presenting Virginia with a gift on Valentines, and then on White day Virginia seems to be gifting Maya.

Normally these sort of artworks would mean nothing but they were posted on a Japanese site which is ran by Sony (who own the rights to Wild Arms). As such people take it more seriously, official like.

Edited December 31, 2016 by Rozalia