Ming's review of Wild ARMS!
Platform: Sony Playstation
Genre: RPG of course!
Hey, doesn't that name almost make you wanna throw your arms
all around the place and make octopus noises? Well, this game is almost
that much fun. I finished playing it last nite just in time for a
somewhat late supper, and I simply had to share its bountiful goodness
with the whole wide web. Especially since Joe, the only person I
personally know who's ever also played it, wasn't home to take my
hysterical call.
First off, I gotta say that Wild ARMS doesn't have an original idea.
Well, it has a few I guess, but
most of the experience of the game comes from pleasures that have been
yanked from other places. Most of these instances qualify as homages,
tho.
The Music: I'm gonna come right out and say that music makes a big
difference in an RPG. This one's got really nice stuff. It's much easier
on the ears than FF7,
partly cuz it sounds like real instruments and partly cuz it's just not as
tired-sounding. (Don't get me wrong I still love Uematsu.) The overworld theme
is yanked straight from near the end of Sergio Leone's The Good,
the Bad,
and the Ugly: Tuco's amazing stroll through the cemetery at Sand
Hill. It's okay, though: if you've gotta be a robber, better to rob from
a genius like Ennio Morricone. (Especially since EM is one of
those composers who lifts from his own shop all the time.) Uematsu went
to
the same source, by the way: Terra's
theme from FF6 is an inventive variation on the timeless main theme of the
same movie.
The basic battle music sucks. I hate it. It annoys me.
Oh yeah, the twisted banjo tune that plays
everytime Mother and her minions get together for a staff meeting is also
an
homage to Morricone - it's the first part of Cheyenne's theme from
Once Upon a Time in the West. Oh yeah, the Sweet Candy
music sucks too. Loud and annoying. Argh! But the Adlehyde castle music
and Jack's dungeon music are two of the most rousing pieces I've ever
heard in a videogame, and the Metal Wing music makes me wanna move to
the mountains of Peru and play pan flute while sitting on a cliff
overlooking the Amazon for the rest of my life. (Wait, does the Amazon go
through Peru? See, if this were a place in Filgaia we were talking about,
I'd totally know.)
The Play Mechanics: Well, they're a great mixture. The
automatic modes are
lifted from Dragon Warrior IV. The idea of tools are
from
Zelda A Link to the Past. The 3D battle scenes, summoned
guardians, and "force" abilities seem taken from FF7, but FF7 got
published second,
at least in the U.S., so it's hard to tell who yanked from whom. Anyway
it's fun to play, and fun to fight, and fun to learn each character's
unique abilities, equipment, strengths, and weaknesses.
The disturbing
thing is how much of the dungeon puzzles require going to an online FAQ.
That pisses me off. If a writer is able to stymie me with a logic
problem, then I say go for it. But there's nothing I hate more than a
puzzle that can only be solved by tedious trial-and-error. I'm told that
Myst also requires a lot of trial-and-error, which is why
I'll never play it. Why the hell do I gotta spend a half hour or an hour
trying out every possible way around a problem, only to go to the FAQ and
discover that the solution - like the "books are treasure, treasure is
books" trick in the De Le Metalica section - is COMPLETELY ARBITRARY? If
they ever come out with a Wilder ARMS, the memory of these annoying
puzzles
interrupted every ten seconds by that horrible 80's synth-rock battle
music only to end in a solution that doesn't make any sense
whatsoever might be
just the
thing to keep me from plunking down the money.
The Story: Hey, it's great, but underproduced. Lots of key plot moments,
like the defeat of a certain female villain, really needed more
attention and explanation. Better production values would have given
the audience more "wow" and more "ohhh . . . i understand" and this game
needed more of both. For example, I don't understand how after giving
him that whole lecture about "courage", how could . . . ooooooh, I just
don't get it. The animated cut scenes - what little of them there
are
- would have been impressive if they had been on a SuperNintendo or even a
Sega CD, but on a PSX? COME ON! I realize this is probably not the
programmers' fault, and that they were prolly given an impossible deadline
and prolly had to work 12 hour days just b/c the sweatshop bosses up above
wanted to rush this game out before FF7.
The story elements themselves are really neat tho. The Earth Golem seems
more and more like the old robot from Laputa Castle in the
Sky as the story wears on, and its eye-patch design is a direct
homage to Miyazaki's film. (By the way, the whimsical gentleman cat from
the Chrono Rune summon comes straight out of another Miyazaki film,
Whisper of the Heart.) Rudy's revelation is another part
that's under-produced, but it's a fine twist that can be traced back
through FF6's Terra to Harlan Ellison's "The Soldier" script for the Outer
Limits, with a little bit of Mary Shelley. When Cecilia enters his coma
dream, though, that's where the line gets blurred between homage and
shoplifting in a major way. I almost would rather not know if the
writers of Wild ARMS or FF7 thought of it first.
Other Stuff: The classic Dragon Warrior-style overhead view is a
breath of fresh air, especially after the confusing maps of FF7. I love
how you're able to name your own spells (I could almost fool myself into
thinking I was playing a Dragon Warrior game again - Bounce! Healus!
Robmagic!) and the magic system
with its elemental combinations is really neat - simple, but
logical.
One online fan (in a page
filled with
RPG reviews) said the hits during battle don't seem to quite
"connect",
which is true - I think it's more evidence of rushed coding. But what I
really got a kick out of is how almost every monster has at least one and
usually 2-3 roars: one for attack, one for special attack, and one for
when it gets injured. Where do these roars come from? Well, a couple
come from
Aliens, but many come from old Toho kaiju movies! I
got positive ID's on Megalon, Mothra, and Rodan. Pretty WILD, huh? Along
the same lines, there's a fish-bird-lizard monstrosity near the end whose
major weapon is called "Oxygen Destroyer" - the name of the doomsday
invention that a gloomy scientist used against the original Godzilla, back
in 1954. And there's another monster near the end who bears a striking
resemblance to the big G's archnemesis, Gigan, right down to the spikes on
its back, the crazy hook-hands, and the funky visor.
Overall, I really enjoyed playing this game. I have a hunch there won't
be a sequel, cuz it got totally overshadowed by FF7, but who knows?
Music: A-
Story: B+
Visuals: B+
Difficulty: Not too hard, but sometimes annoying.
Replay Allure: Not as high as FF7.
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