A Look At: Wild Arms pt 2

Part 1 can be found here

This article is also going to contain major spoilers for Wild Arm’s endgame, and focuses largely on the villains.

A Look At: Wild Arms

After Suikoden, I’ve been playing Wild Arms, another playstation RPG from the system’s early years. It’s the first game is what has since become a series (the sequels, especially #3, my favorite, I’ll cover later). The series has always had a sort of fantasy western feel to it. While its light in the first game and more of a “desert punk in the second, the third is also filled with it.

Wild Arms feels a more like a tabletop game than many other RPGs. You have three members in your party throughout, and their personalities develop through the story. Each has a different type of abilities they can use, with how they gain them varied as well. Most uniquely, each character gains different tools that are available outside of combat, and are used for the many Zelda-esque puzzles in the dungeons. There are bombs, grappling hooks, treasure locators, watches that turn back time, and so on – there’s an actual element of problem solving, rather than just exploring areas filled with nothing but random encounters.

The three characters in the game are Jack, a swordsman, Rudy, a gunslinger, and Cecilia, the mage. Rudy, the toughest of the group, can use the artifact guns of the game called ARMs, which require some sort of psychic link. ARMs can be found in different dungeons in special chests, and it’s always a rare, happy event to find one. Each ARM has different attributes, and has its own bullet counter, that can be refilled for a tiny bit of cash back at town, or through the use of a Bullet Clip item which is very rare. There are also shops where you can upgrade each ARM, in damage, accuracy, or ammo capacity, also for money. 

A Look At: Suikoden

Suikoden was originally released in the US in 1996, for the Playstation. Like many RPGs at the time, its cover had nothing to do with the game at all.

Seriously. Nothing here has anything to do with the game, at all. None of these even resemble the characters.

Suikoden was the first playstation game I owned, and I still enjoy it. The basic plot of the game is that you are Tir McDohl, son of Teo McDohl, one of the Emperor’s six great generals. Though a few crazy mishaps, you find yourself a fugitive leading a rebellion army against the Emperor, and the witch Windy who is controlling him behind the scenes. You have to gather an army (and there are 108 recruitable characters in this game, so it is an army!), meet the enemy generals on the field of battle, and stop their overall villainous plans. While Windy and her sorcery play a heavy role in the story, the real meat is the rebellion, and the two opposing armies. You’re not saving the world from a crazy white-haired clown, you’re just a son of a famous general thrust into opportunity to lead people to freedom.

Here are some things that I noticed that relate to tabletop roleplaying games: