Bang Bang, Your Dead, I Complete

I love completing games.

Its a great feeling of accomplishment when I complete an older game.  I usually find these some of the harder ones to get through.  This tends to be because they have sat for so long in my collection I tend to file them always in that "They are already there and I will eventually get to them" part of my brain.  Yet when I do finish playing them it does provide me with a great moment of checking them off.  

Add the element of being on the handheld platform and that is even better.  I tend to have more difficulty getting through handheld (however that might be changing with my current playing trends) that completing each one is fantastic to me.

So I had talked about Wild Arms in an earlier post when I was about a quarter of the way through the game.  That was about a month ago, so I think I did pretty well, considering I completed the game in ~39 hours.  That includes overleveling (as always) and taking care of all the side quests and optional bosses.  

I like the Wild Arms series.  I know I have mentioned that in the past, but its a good series.  Its nice to get away from the big mainstream RPG games to see what things are like.  There are a lot of gems out there that tend to have more depth and emotion to them than the big AAA games that are just

Its nice when the idea of making sure hair is perfect, and boob physics are perfect, is placed second to a story that flows.

Wild Arms brings story to the game.  Yes, I will admit it.  The translation can be a bitch.  I expect that due to when the game was made and the fact that localization has gotten better over the recent years.  Sometimes there are weird parts of the story that just make it a little chuggy with how it reads out, but it still for the most part ties things together.  This is more than what I can say with FFXIII.  I had problems with the flow of that cause it seemed things were just thrown in suddenly near the end.  Alas, that is different.

Sometimes an RPG can try to show multiple characters all being the main protagonist, however ends up focusing on a single or pair of persons.  You see this a lot of with Final Fantasy games.  Its something that can be hard because people tend to like a certain character for elements that are out of the control of the developers.  Its ok.  Wild Arms though makes you think that Rudy is the main character.  Then you work with Jack a lot and his quest for "Absolute Power".  Then to Cecelia and her overcoming her royalty pains.  You find that in the end of the game, there really is not one main character.  They went into this thing as a team, and you see that in the end.  Switching between characters to use the different tools that they have helps to keep this feeling.  Sometimes I would like to have Rudy on the screen.  Other times I liked to have Jack on there.  I never found myself sticking with one character all the time.  Hell I tried to keep Rudy as the highest level character, but in the end they ended up only being a couple 1000 xp away from each other (which isn't bad when I finished the game at level 58ish).  The fact that Rudy really does not speak at all throughout the game, however you discover his story and the importance of him being a dream chaser; all of this really draws you in.

One of my favorite images from the game

Wild Arms has lead me to want to discover other RPG games, like the "Tales of" series (I have one already in the my collection).  I want to break free from just FF and Kingdom Hearts.  Experience something new.  I want to play Wild Arms 2.  This is something important in a game.  You should enjoy a medium in a way that makes you want to explore new things about your tastes and what you like.  If we only stick to what we know and enjoy, what the big companies say we should like, then we will all be on the same route without ever enjoying the beauty that is off the beaten path.  I am going to talk more about this later I think.  It deserves its own posting.


Wild Arms.  Definitely a great game to play.  Having it on the PSP or Vita cranks up the enjoyment in my book.  Its easy to start up anywhere, play a little, and then do stand by.  Plus it doesn't kill your battery.



So go and get it.

Now.


I am watching you!!!

You are not going to get it!!

Here is the link to the PSN page

Use it.  And then tell me what you think

Total time: ~39.5 hours

This Is Not a Version Update Part 2: Flinging My Arms

Many games being played at the same time.  This can sometimes lead to disaster.  Unless you are able to organize your time and priorities properly.  Somehow with my crazy life and work I am succeeding in this crazy feat.

At the moment I am playing the following games:

There are more to these, however I have been playing these the most so I will only speak of these to save time.  I am going to split each game up into its own post so as not to make this too long.

Wild Arms:

Well, at the current speed that I was playing the game when I was going to post these updates, I was not really close to beating the game.  Damnit though do things change.  

I finally completed the game last night, and knowing that I needed still write this post, I am doing this quick filler and will be inputting a link to the final review page (coming soon) once I finish it.  I will have more parts up too.

Here is the link

This Is Not a Version Update Part 1: The Dream

Many games being played at the same time.  This can sometimes lead to disaster.  Unless you are able to organize your time and priorities properly.  Somehow with my crazy life and work I am succeeding in this crazy feat.

At the moment I am playing the following games:

There are more to these, however I have been playing these the most so I will only speak of these to save time.  I am going to split each game up into its own post so as not to make this too long.


Azure Dreams:
Reliving this game from when I first played it in middle school has been fun.  I first rented this game from my local Blockbuster (oh God, those were the days).  I was on a big Pokemon kick and I saw this game for Playstation.  It seemed similar to Pokemon so I decided to try it out.  I am glad that I did.

I kept playing it and playing it, returning it and then checking it out again.  I eventually bought a copy off a kid at school for 20.00 (a good deal now I believe).  After playing it for awhile I decided one day I would attach a gameshark to Azure Dreams to help me out.  The game became a little buggy and I was never able to play properly again.  To say I was pissed off is an understatement.

As the years went by I tried my copy of Azure Dreams on my PS2, which it worked for a little while but then started to glitch up on the opening cutscene.  Then when I got my PS3 I thought "THIS IS GOING TO BE IT".

I was so wrong.  Still with my PS3 I was unable to get through that damn cutscene glitching problem.  I tried cleaning the disc, doing all different things.  Alas nothing worked.

It was not until I finally got my emulator program running on my PC that I was able to do an image copy of the disc that I own to my computer that I finally was able to get through that damn glitch.  Since then I have been smooth sailing with the game.  So many memories are flooding back to me.

To sum up this game that maybe not a lot of people know about, your father dies and when you come of age you are allowed to climb up this tower that has 40 floors.  All floors are filled with monsters, with floors that change to random designs each playthrough.  You have to collect monster eggs and either sell them or hatch them to get monsters to fight with you.  Your level does not mean anything in the game.  You will pretty much always be weak unless you spend a hell of a lot of time leveling up your weapon.  The real strength is with your monsters.  The stronger they are the better your chances of survival are.  It takes many, many journeys into the tower to get just one monster levels up enough to be useful.  It takes more to do at least two.  You can also fuse monsters together to change their element and their magic, as well as give them hidden abilities.  Something for the true completion players.

The other thing you do is gather money to help rebuild the town (to benefit you and others), complete some quests, and to make girlfriends.  Many girlfriends.  Each girl requires different things you need to do to have them fall in love with you.  Once you make girlfriends (funny, in Japan they are your wives, however because the character is 15, you can't get married in the good ole USA at that age, they say) you can get some fan service and see them in their bikinis at the pool.  There is a secret girlfriend, however you won't know who that is until you conquer the tower.  OOOOHHHH  mystery.

I will admit that there are translation errors to the game.  Not surprising.  That the story is ok, but there is definite room for growth.  The fact that you can't enter the tower with more than 5 items is a pain in the ass, but the limitation provides for you to think ahead and take risks.  Things like these are maybe the reason why this is never Game of the Year material, however Azure Dreams is a great game to just play and have fun.  Its a nice "rare" gem of a game that is off the beaten path from the big AAA games.

I find myself with almost my first girlfriend (DO NOT LAUGH.  I AM HAPPILY MARRIED), and at least one monster that may be strong enough to take me all the way to the top, not including Kewne.  I currently find myself working on gathering supplies to fix up the town, but once I am ready to conquer the tower I will probably switch gears real quick.

I do believe that Azure Dreams deserves a remake, or at least a release on the PSN.  It would be real fun to play on a PSP or Vita, that is for sure.  Almost perfect for them in fact.

How the West was Played

Time for a good ole fashioned western.

Thats right.  Time for:

Cowboys:

Guns:

Desert:

Magic:

Wait.  Magic??

That doesn't make much sense?  How does a western have magic in it?

Well, if its Wild Arms, then there you go.
The Wild Arms series has been around since 1996, and has gone unnoticed by the major media here in America.  There have been multiple sequels to the game, as well as a remake of Wild Arms (known as Wild Arms: Alter Code F, which is on the list).

I like how it is an RPG that takes the normal standards of the genre and and tweaks them a little.

Moving around, each character has 3 "tools" that they can use to interact with their surroundings.  You have bombs, radar, Hanpan, grappling hook, lighter, etc.  These are not key items, or one time use things.  You can use them over and over again and they are needed to progress the story as you go along.  They don't give you any advantage either with battles.  Just there to help you move around.

With stats and battles, you still have HP and MP, STR, VIT, etc.  Those things are there as well.  However each character has specific skills.  Only one person, Cecilia, can use magic.  She doesn't learn magic as she gains levels.  You have to find crest graphs and then take them to magic stores and select which spells you want.  So there is a strategy element to that so you have to think how you will use all of your spells together, and not just rely on one main spell to go through each battle.  Jack can use MP, but he does so for sword attacks.  He learns these sword attacks, called "Fast Draws" through planned and random events in the game.  Then you have to keep using the fast draw in battle until you master it so you can get the action each time.  Rudy doesn't use magic, however he uses ARMS, which are really just guns.  There are different types of guns that do different things.  You can upgrade the ATK, the ACC, and even the capacity for each one separately, however once you run out of ammo for that weapon you are unable to use it until its refilled...for a fee of course.

All three characters then have things called Force Abilities.  As you attack, defend, get attacked in battle, your force bar builds.  You have 4 levels on the bar, corresponding with 4 actions per person.  You start off with 1 ability, then you get the second one once you are able to use guardians (more to come on that later).  You gain the others as you progress through the story as per other elements to the game.  Guardians are like summons with other RPG stables (Final Fantasy being one that comes to mind).  These are beings that control different elements to the world, and you equip the corresponding runes for each guardian.  Each rune will make changes to your stats as well.  Using the guardian ability, as well as any force ability, doesn't use MP.  That is the unique part.  It just uses the force bar.  This new variable makes for extra planning and benefits.  Things I enjoy in a good RPG.

Something else I like about Wild Arms is the flow of the game.  A lot of times RPG's can present you with a lot of choices to do at one time that don't have anything to do with the main storyline.  So you have the lulls in the game where you are spending hours and hours progressing through sidequests instead of working on progressing the main story.  I love sidequests, don't get me wrong.  But Wild Arms has you going along the main storyline at a good pace without much of a lull between things.  There are some sidequests, however they don't take hours to complete.  Everything revolves around progressing the main narrative to the story.  I am playing this game on my PSP and I like advancement like this in my handheld games.  Let me explore, but also let me get a since that I accomplished a lot between battery charges.

Weird to measure progression on a device in the time designation of "between battery charges".  For my PSP, that is usually about 3.5 hours for memory card based games (thats a pretty conservative estimate).  Less when I am playing through the UMD.  I tend to play my UMD's more when I am close to an outlet.  That way I won't freak if I start to get low on battery and I am, for instance, up in a plane.



Status update for me on Wild Arms, I am currently fighting along on the Ghost Ship.  I am maybe 25% of the way through.  Hard to really tell.  About 11 hours in as well.  I think if you want to try this game out you should.  Its pretty cheap on PSN, and I think worth the money.  You just have to keep in mind that the game was made in 1996, so the graphics are not as intense as they are nowadays.