I miss Wild Arms

Excessively cold weather triggers something deep inside me. A switch is flipped in my brain, and all I want to do under these circumstances is sit on the sofa with a fuzzy blanket and lose myself in the ebb and flow of an RPG. he US Midwest is currently under a deep freeze, and the weather outside is the coldest it has been in recent memory. During this weird limbo week between Christmas and New Years, I have hunkered down and have been alternating between Final Fantasy VI, the Final Fantasy XII remake, and Golf Story (which totally counts). RPGs are my version of cocoa and a warm fire. They just keep me content inside, and I can turn my mind off when playing them and just let them absorb me.

Before deciding on these three games to numb my brain this holiday season, I scanned through my extensive RPG collection. Though I didn’t select one for playing this week, I own three Wild Arms games. I have the original and Wild Arms 2 on PS1, and Wild Arms 3 on PS2. Though I haven’t played any of them in years, I got thinking about the series, and wondering what ever became of it.

The first Wild Arms game, developed by Japanese developer Media.Vision, released in the US in March of 1997, just two months after the release of Final Fantasy VII. While it was released in the shadow of what was arguably the most popular RPG of all time, Wild Arms still managed to garner decent reviews and sell a respectable number of copies. While not nearly as advanced technologically as FF VII, Wild Arms distinguished itself with a unique Wild West/sci-fi tone, reflected in both the look of the game and the soundtrack.

Wild Arms’ graphics were an interesting blend, with one foot seemingly in the 16-bit era, but the other foot squarely in the 32-bit future. Towns and dungeons were portrayed with sprites, but when battles began the game would shift to an impressive (for the time) 3D view, full of special spell and status effects. Cut scenes were shown in full motion video, with spectacular anime sequences filling out the story.

Players controlled one of three main characters, each of whom had their own unique attacks and battle styles. Additionally, each character had their own “Tool”, which could be used to solve puzzles in dungeons in order to progress (bombs, grappling hook, etc). The game had a great loop, stopping progress in dungeons until players could figure out the correct tool to use to overcome barriers and move forward. None of these puzzle elements were overly difficult, but figuring them out gave dungeon progression a satisfaction that was missing in other RPGs.

Wild Arms 2 offered some awesome new additions to the series. The character count was raised to a total of six, increasing the tool count, with players able to toggle between them at will. This allowed for more complicated puzzle sections. Additionally, while the characters remained 2D sprites, the environments were rendered in isometric 3D, allowing players to spin the environment around the characters to gain better vantage points and see stuff they couldn’t see otherwise. Wild Arms 2 was doing Fez about 13 years before Fez released.

Gameplay-wise, Wild Arms 3 was much the same as the previous entries, but leaned even further into the Wild West setting, with characters moving around a barren desert environment. It offered the same great exploration and puzzles, with graphical improvements allowed by the PS2. The PS2 added the ability to do cell shading, which lent the battle sequences a whole new look and feel.

I lost track of the series after that, but it seems that there were two more entries on PS2, and a PSP game in 2008. According to online articles, the battle system moved to a more tactical approach, with characters navigating hexagons for position while fighting it out. While the earlier titles were published by Sony, the later titles were published by JRPG specialist publishers XSEED.

Since the release of the PSP title, there has been little substantial news on the continuation of the series. The fan base seems to have revolted a bit at the move to hex strategy, and the later titles score progressively worse and worse reviews. A mobile title (BOOOO!) was announced in 2016, but it appears to have either fizzled out or stalled in production.

It is unclear at this point who even owns the rights to produce Wild Arms games. Media.Vision still exists, but they seem to spend most of their efforts on Digimon games (BOOOO!) and the Square/Enix published Chaos Rings series (okay, fine.) They also released 2017’s poorly received Valkyria Revolution (BOOOO!).

I miss the fun Western/Steampunk vibe, the cool soundtracks and the unique puzzles of Wild Arms. I would love it if Media.Vision bailed on the tactical battle system and made a straightforward puzzle-oriented turn-based RPG. While Wild Arms may have completely fallen off of the company’s radar, the series is still on my list of favorite RPGs, and if Media.Vision took it upon themselves to make a new title, I would be there on day one to take it for a spin.