Welcome back to Save State, where we consume large amounts of carbohydrates. Exactly what part of the carbohydrate actually hydrates you? Life is hard, and in this week’s stupid instance I still could not manage to keep my wife’s cat off my gaming shelves. However, him knocking half of my PS2 game cases off the shelf made me realize that I own every Wild Arms game but never actually took the time to talk about these titles in this column, so I felt like now would be a great time to reexperience one of my favorites from childhood: Wild Arms.
Well, technically, I’m experiencing Wild Arms Alter Code: F, which is a PS2 remake of the first Wild Arms game on the PS1. This was among the first JRPGs I ever got to play as a kid: I remember renting this PS1 game from a video store multiple times due to being absolutely entranced by the fact that I could use a grappling hook to cross bottomless pits in dungeons. It should come as no surprise, being a massive fan of RPGs and anime, that the western theming of Wild Arms would sink its hooks into me so easily. Considering how it’s been absent from the gaming zeitgeist for so long, it’s difficult to explain how popular the early Wild Arms titles were for those five to six years we were getting western-themed anime like Trigun, but hopefully I can gush about it enough that the readers can understand just what made this title special.
Wild Arms is one of those truly special games from the experimental era of the 90s, where there were still lots being developed, but loads of game makers were trying to do different things to make their titles stand out. Enter Wild Arms with its phenomenal mixture of western themes with JRPG high fantasy and music that complements the storytelling and world of Filgaia. In Wild Arms, the world is effectively a wasteland, driven to this point as a repercussion from a great war that took place many hundreds of years before the start of the title.
Metal demons, creatures of unknown origin, at some point invaded Filgaia and started a war with the humans and Elw who lived there. This caused a war that essentially drove the planet to the brink of annihilation. These villainous creatures made of living metal are effectively the only things that can use technology, and while they’re eventually pushed to a point that they disappear for a millennium, the scarred landscape they left behind is the very proof that they existed.
When you first boot up Wild Arms, you’re treated to a delightful anime cutscene with a gorgeous, whistling tune that will stick in your mind for years to come. You’re given the choice to start with any character you want, which will let you play that character’s introduction and get an idea for their story. It’s recommended you start with Rudy, though you’ll eventually play all three no matter which one you begin with. Rudy’s tale begins in a backwater location called Surf Village, and this silent protagonist was orphaned after his adoptive grandfather passed away and comes under the care of Surf’s mayor.
Rudy is, for some reason or another, capable of wielding technology left behind by the metal demons, specifically weapons known as ARMs. Usage of an ARM is cause enough for people to attack or exile you, so Rudy keeps his weapon a secret from the villagers. After being placed in an impossible situation where he had to choose between safety of the villagers or revealing his secret, Rudy unveils his weapon to keep them safe… and is promptly exiled from the village, the one place he had.
Jack and Cecilia have similar opening stories, depicting their motivations. Jack is one of the only survivors of an attack by demons, and he is the wise-cracking adult in the room compared to Rudy and Cecilia’s more innocent demeanors. Cecilia, on the other hand, was the princess of a fair kingdom on the verge of destruction due to a demon attack, that event being the impetus that forces her to embark on a quest to retrieve an artifact of the kingdom so the demons can’t use it to revive their matriarch.
As far as opening segments go, Wild Arms starts off with a bang for 1997. This was by no means the first game to let you choose from different characters to start your journey, as ones like Seiken Densetsu 3 (Trials of Mana) were years earlier, but while the story of Wild Arms is pretty standard JRPG, the mid to late 90s were clearly making a turning point in terms of storytelling for these kinds of titles. Guardians, demons, golems, and ancient relics all tied together with a sci-fi western theme that wouldn’t be out of place in something like Trigun: I loved Wild Arms so much as a kid. There are a few specific twists in it that blew my ten-year-old mind back in 1997.
Sidebar: Just thinking back on it, it’s crazy how rapidly JRPGs advanced in the late 90s. In the course of just a few years, we received games like Chrono Trigger and Wild Arms, which told a simple story with great presentation, but then you also have titles with incredible stories to tell like the Persona 2 duology and Xenogears. One of my personal favorite stories ever told is in Final Fantasy Tactics and its tale of the Zodiac Braves, Vagrant Story had fun gameplay with some pretty interesting (and obtuse) gameplay mechanics, and Thousand Arms really leaned into the anime aesthetic. The whole of the SNES through PS2 generation is really just a renaissance era for JRPGs, though we do have a lot of great ones releasing now too.
Console RPGs back in the 90s were considerably simpler than they are nowadays. Turn-based RPGs were what made up the bulk of the genre, though it’s not like titles that required timing or quick reflexes didn’t exist, since the 90s had its fair share of Ys, Mana, Star Ocean, Tales of, and even ones like Soul Blazer and Terranigma. What set Wild Arms apart from its contemporaries was having 2D sprites on the world map or in dungeons, and 3D characters duke it out in battles. On top of this, Wild Arms gave you three characters with which to explore the world, and each character had special abilities you could use to open up new areas.
In Wild Arms Alter Code: F, each character has a set of tools they can use to explore the environment. Sometimes progression is stymied until players acquire a certain tool, so you have to keep a mental note of things and come back once you have it to access whatever was hidden. For example, Rudy can use bombs to blow away rocks. Jack’s trusty mouse companion can slip through holes in walls to press switches that lets you through doors and also has a grappling hook to cross chasms. Cecilia can talk to animals and use a stopwatch to fix some puzzles.
In terms of combat, this is where Alter Code: F most vastly differs from its original release. In the original, Rudy could acquire a large number of different ARMs. In this version, he has one primary ARM and its function changes based on the cartridges you find. This system is a lot more similar to Wild Arms 3, which was also released on the PS2. Missing health at the end of combat is also replenished using each character’s own vitality gauge, which allows enemies to hit hard without overly punishing the player for fully exploring every nook and cranny of a dungeon to find items. Once their vitality gauge runs out, characters no longer heal after battle on their own and need items to keep their HP in tip-top shape.
There’s also an encounter gauge which helps manage the significantly higher encounter rate the original PS1 release had. The encounter gauge is something you can spend to avoid getting into a random battle, which lets the player directly control how much they engage with combat, which is just a great mechanic overall. One of the largest complaints with the original version, given its timing as one of the first JRPGs on the PS1 (technically the seventh one, releasing between Vandal Hearts and Ogre Battle), was that its encounter rate was simply too high. Having this encounter gauge mechanic that gives you more control over the encounter rate is a solid improvement across the board.
Alter Code: F’s version of Wild Arms changes things up considerably from the original PS1 release. There are more playable characters, additional side quests, and you’ll need to make use of a radar function to find things on the world map like towns, dungeons, items, etc. (also similar to Wild Arms 3). The additional playable characters are nice, and one of them is quite possibly the most broken blue mage (a character who learns spells and abilities from monsters) in any title I’ve personally ever played.
In terms of battle, Wild Arms Alter Code: F should be familiar to anyone who enjoys turn-based combat. You can choose attacks, skills, items, defend, etc., but what really sets Wild Arms apart is its Force abilities. As you fight, you’ll build up a Force meter that will allow each character to use their specific Force ability, all of which have been streamlined since the main three party members don’t learn multiple different Force techniques any longer, as some abilities were moved from the main cast to the new playable characters. In exchange for this change to Force powers, however, Personal Skills from Wild Arms 3 make their appearance and let you attach new passive abilities to your characters, potentially increasing versatility since there are a lot of skills to find throughout Filgaia.
Finally, there are some additional dungeons that really amp up the difficulty, as well as some optional, powerful boss fights that intrepid players can challenge, and there are also a bunch of puzzle boxes you can complete for extra rewards. Though, what is it with games from this era doing puzzle box challenges? Tales of Legendia on PS2 also had a ton of random puzzle box challenges, for whatever reason. The puzzle boxes are fine when you come across them, but I’ve never been an appreciator of mindless block puzzles.
The music of Wild Arms Alter Code: F is composed by the same person as the original PS1 release, and I greatly enjoyed a lot of the redone tracks in this title. The visuals of Alter Code: F don’t feature 2D sprites like the original version, preferring polygonal character models and a completely redesigned world which can be way more amenable to modern gamers who don’t enjoy titles featuring 2D sprites. Seriously though, that soundtrack is just delightful, and the composer did a great job reinventing it for the PlayStation 2.
Overall, I enjoyed revisiting Wild Arms Alter Code: F. It’s a solid remake of a great PS1 game, and something I hope more fans of JRPGs try to experience since it’s just an amazing time in an apocalyptic western-punk landscape. Anyway, if you want to hear about random overlooked titles from my childhood, be sure to tune back in a couple weeks from now. Bye!