Wild Arms 3

Good Aspects
The cell shaded graphics are excellent
Not usually one who cares for magic or graphics, I must say that this game has the hottest looking fire I have ever seen. (I swear it actually really hot instead of just really orange).
The concept of riding horseback in battle/world map was GREAT.
The tools(example: Frost Doll shoots cold beam to unlight torches)
The ability to walk, tiptoe, and run.
Magic without losing magic points. Really neat.
Upgrading various stats of your weapon. (accuaracy, speed, attack, bullets)
Ability to avoid battles to an extent. Really nice feature. Gives you the option to dodge weak enemies inifinetly, and strong monsters a certain amount of times (like 6 times a dungeon)
TONS of extras. 25 hidden block puzzles. 99 hidden monsters. etc. Unlockable videos
Beautiful cinema and song when reloading a saved game

Bad Things
The battles are a little slow (a couple turns takes about 8 minutes)
Lack of variety in magic (only one spell of each element)
Mediocre equipment system (limited to status wards and elemant wards)
The towns aren't fun to explore (way to small)
The world map system is REALLY annoying. (places simply ARE NOT THERE unless you know where to look).
The dungeon design (run through small room, puzzle, run through small room, puzzle. etc)
Balance (stretched out story segments, stretched out world map exploring, stretched out dungeons)
Generally boring and wordy story.
Poorly balanced item system.

Generally, its a mediocre story, with drawn out (easy) battles, and TONS of tiny places to explore. You get a sandcruiser (the ocean is sand) and a flying dragon. Dunno. It can be fun, but there are long stretches of annoying not fun.


A mixture of gaming styles   September 1, 2003
 1 out of 2 found this review helpful

This is an excellent game for rpg fans who also have quick trigger fingers. However, if you are not good at platforming you will face some serious challenges. I was stymied part-way through the game by a door that would only open if 6 bombs were placed accurately within about 10 seconds. This will be a game ending challenge if you are not good at this sort of thing. The plot is interesting as are the characters. If you are interested in rpg's with more than a dash of platforming this is a great buy.


wild arms 3   July 24, 2003
 2 out of 3 found this review helpful

This game is great, if you level up or else it is difficult.For example I was only level 28 when I went to the abyss,and normal battles were like bosses. So this game is great just make sure you are level 40 and have finest arts on clive and have not upgraded his bullets but just the strength at the end of the game and you should have no problems.Buy this game if you have not already.


Beautiful Master Peace of the Western World.   June 18, 2003
 1 out of 3 found this review helpful

Wild Arms 3 is the first western RPG i have ever played. Wild Arms 3 is a unique game that for the graphics , it is cel-shading. It has an intriguing plot that makes you want to play it more and more. ( It;'s a very addicting game!) Anyways to some it all up, It's a drama with a twist! (8


New look for RPG's   March 3, 2003
 5 out of 6 found this review helpful

Wild Arms 3 is a great game, set in a novel-looking wild-west-like world which is about to be consumed by evil...okay, so that's not quite so novel, but it is an RPG! The cel-shading looked great and gave the game an anime feel. The characters faces and eyes, especially, were done well and conveyed a lot of emotion and expression during cutscenes. There's no voice acting, but the characters, even NPC's, are well developed and interesting. The story is engaging-I really cared what happened to them.
As far as gameplay goes, it's very linear, with fewer sidequests than some. I felt also that some of the sidequests were a bit tedious, such as the Telepath Towers and The Abyss. However, the dungeons and towns are exciting and unique-you don't feel like "haven't I been here before?" every time you start a new dungeon. Another excellent feature is the use of tools. Each character finds tools along the journey which they use to solve puzzles and gain access to new areas. Many puzzles, especially as the game progresses, require the combined efforts of several party members, and this makes things really intriguing, as well as paying tribute to the "jobs" tradition in RPG's (you know, Muscles the warrior, Wispy the healer, Demonia the dark mage, and Sneaky the thief)where every character has a specific function. In combat the characters roles are less well-defined. You can equip "guardians" to add stats and abilities, similar to the junctioning system in FF8. They can also be customized to a certain point through upgrades to their weapons, guns called ARMs. Each character has one weapon with 5 characteristics you can upgrade to different levels, making some characters the tough guys while others increase speed and reaction time, or critical hit percentages. Although I missed finding new weapons and being able to check out the eye candy, I thought this system was actually a lot of fun and fit well with the game.

Battles were basically enjoyable, and the random-battle thing has a twist here where you have the option of skipping battles with weaker enemies(very nice, especially since there are no enemy "upgrades" in areas you explore early on). There are also not a great variety of critters in a lot of areas, although this improves some towards the last third of the game. Personally, I hate fighting the same two kinds of enemies through an entire dungeon, so that part got a bit annoying. I also really don't want to see those manky little level one baddies (remember the jellies in the old rpgs?)when I'm level 8 million and revisiting my first town, so this battle skipping system works really nicely. As far as the system, it's turn based and looks dynamic, with everybody running around the whole time, sometimes conveniently turning semi-transparent as they cross before the camera(heehee). They could get a little bland at times, although boss battles tended to be fun and challenging enough to require varied strategies and attention. One weakness I found was that I thought the summons looked pretty disappointing, almost PS1 at times. I wonder if they did them at the last minute?

To sum it up, this is a highly enjoyable game with excellent characters, a fun new setting, lots of detailed dungeons and an involved, linear storyline. I think if you enjoy traditional RPGs but want a new flavor and some intersting tweaks to the conventions, you should really try this one out.