Wild Arms: ACF

[Rift120]

Alright first off before I start this review I'd like to point out that despite the bitching I'm going to make ACF is NOT a bad game. Its just not a good remake.

That haveing been said lets begin.

Wild Arms: ACF is a remake of the PSX rpgs Wild Arms. Where you play a band of wandering Dreamchasers out to save the world from the reawakened Demons. The real clincher was the Wild West feel of the game, including the fact that one of your charcters actually weilded a gun (AKA a ARM) as opposed to the standard medievil weaponry of the time.

Well now comes ACF, which updated the graphics and gameplay as remakes tend to do. THe basic gameplay is a direct copy of the gameplay of WA3, complete with enemy avoidence, migrant seals, and various gems. THe additions and adjustments of WA gameplay are at tiems good, times bad, and occasionaly annoying

First the good

In the original your three charcters were pretty much cookie cutter RPG hero's. Rudy and Jack were pretty much interchangeble stat wise, and Cecila was the typical Party mage. And all three could summon Guardians. With the addition of various stat altering Apples, it was fairly easy to make any of the three resemble the other outside of special moves in combat. (this became ridiciously easy when using the '115 item' cheat code... to date one of the VERY few actual cheat codes I can recall in a RP).

IN the remake however each charcter seems much more unique and streamlined.

Jack the mysterious Swordsman is fast but not much of a hard hitter.

Rudy on the other hand plays like the charcters from Wild Arms 3, now relying solely on his arm (and occasional drop kick if you run out of ammo in battle) which is upgradeble in several areas. After a few upgrades to ATK he'll becoem your heavy hitter. Albiet oen that will normally attack last.

Cecilas Magic using plays a much bigger role and she is the only one who can summon guardians. Although the later ability isn't really that much as I'll explain later.

Adding to this is the chance to add additional charcterst o your party. Fellow bounty hunter Jane Maxwell, Eccentric scientist Emma, the Butler Magdelon, the shy Elw girl Mariel, and even as a secret guest the ultra MAcho grim reapers penpal Zed will join your party at times (Albiet you'll have to recruit zed in the end game.)

Each charcter plays slightly different with their own strengths and weaknesses. Best of all aside from Mariel, allt he hcarcters join at approximtlyt he same level you do.

The new look of the game is a vast improvment over the original, albiet not to the full capability of the PS2. The charcters look pretty good, aside from the painted on view of their faces when talking.

The redisgned look of various charcters range from good update, to unintentionaly amusing (I can't help but htink 'Card Captor Harken' when ever I see her charcter walking around... and as for Boomerang.... well I wonder if Ed is aware that Al has suddenly turned evil ^^;)

THe new cutscenes are also a vast improvment, very appropiatly placed and fit rather well witht he tone of the various scenes. Although for some reason I kept hearing 'Big O! SHOWTIME!' during Asgards awakening scene in my head.

BAttle runs smoothly, and looks nice especially since they carried over the 'running around during combat' animations for WA3. Adds a nice change from the old stand in a line and strike each other school of turnbased combat. The only real glitch is that on occasion I found the victory sound just vanished every once in a while.

finally the game has a nice shallow difficulty curve.  I literally had no problems beating opponents till I reached Rosetta town and had to face level 30+ monsters to my level 25 charcters.

THen there is the Gimel coins ystem. Which are items you pick up or win fairly regularly. You can use a GImel coin to save anywhere (In towns you cna use a memory bird to save for free), or in combat you can use a coin to restart a battle that you lost. However this feature is balanced byt he fact that if you restart a battle, you will get NO xp, encouraging you to finish it right the first time.

WHile there are a few of Draco's pet peeve unwinnible battles, the game adjusts this in a favorable way. In most of the unwinnble battles, you get a basic XP bonus PLUS whatever amount of damage you caused the enemy will be added onto your XP total. GIving you a reason to go all out as opposed to guarding until the scripted end of the battle.

Now onto the Bad.

Lighting... this is terrible in the game. At my TV's default lighting level, a level I should point out i've had NO trouble with any other game, I foudn several cave and other levels to be so dark and dreary that I can't see the Floor, pits, or traps. This combined with the fact that you don't even get a warning animation before you fall down a pit meant that i have spent 10 to 30 minutes trying ot figure my way around a near invisble maze in a room that I should have been able to walk through in a minute!

Camera- the camera is typically overhead and can be rotated 360 degrees. However in tight situations it is nearly impossible ot get a camera angle where you can see what your doing. This is espeically frustrating when trying ot line up a shot to hit a switch, or in a timed area. The zoom feature of the camera is ridiciously inept, only magnifying htings enough that you know it is a zoom feature, without being helpful at all.

This can be a main problem both in navigating towns or Dungeons. Case in point Aldehyde's redeisgn is nearly half as small as the town was in the original game, its twice as hard to get around in. Especially during the 'rescue citzens' minigame at the start of the game.

The force power redesign is poorly done as well. Each charcter (and bonus charcter) has only 1 force power. This in general is bad as it makes the 4 levels of forcepower you can gain nearly useless (Sure 100% removes all status effect on yor charcters.... but who cares?) And also moves useful force powers away form your main party. Mystic (which allows you to use oen item on all three charcters) is now the only force power of Jane, whom you don't play as till midway to the game and doesn't join your party permantly till you do a small miniquest at the end of the game.  This takes some of the fun and strategy out of combat, whereas in the original WA you had to decide whether to use you FOrce power now, or let it buildup so you could access another ability....

Of course the real loser in the force power game is Cecila, who is the onlyc harcter who has a force power that requires more than 25% to use her guardian summons (She has a total of 2-3 summons that use 25%). While I suppose it may have been used to avoid abusing your guardian summons, the end result is that you'll practically never use a Guardian summon outside of boss battles, because you'll have killed your opponents before you get Cecila's FP up to 50%.

The fact that they removed the old 'start FP= to yor charcters lvl' intoa skill you must equip makes this unacceptble.

Another fault is that the games only items equippble are various skills. While this does allow a lto of customization on yo charcter, in practice its a bit of a pain having to swap various skills for various situations. Especially since you have to enter one menu to first remove a skill and then exit and enter ANOTHER menu to add a skill. More annoying is that thanks to the fact that there is no equipble items aside from skills, the game porgramers had to really reach as to what treasures to put in various areas as rewards.

The most glaring offense there?  The fact that the ability to skip movies and cancel the Guardian summon animation (Which isn't so bad seing as you'll rarely USE guardian summons) has to be won in a puzzle box minigame. Oh and said puzzle can't be reached until you halfway through the game...

Magic power- You MP is almost always critcally low (It wasn't till the mid 20's before i could use Cecilas magic at will without worrying about being drained dry when I faced a boss) and there are NO MAGIC RECOVERY ITEMS. The only way to recover magic is to A) level up, B) sleep at a inn or a extrodinarly rare recovery point, C) use the almighty Ambrosia (AKA elixer), or D) have cecila hit a enemy, which if the attack lands recovers a whopping 1 MP point *considering the lightest attack spell costs 6 mp.....*.

Jacks fastdraw- this is incredibly broken. Initally any new fast draw skill you acquired is guarenteed to drain half or more Jacks MP (which in itself is laughbly low.. I'm level 50+ and he still hasn't broken 100 MP points). Gratned repeated use of said fastdraws will eventually reduce their MP cost... but to make them even remotly cost effective you have to use them somewhere between 100-500 times PER SKILL... now remember this includes the fact that prior to that you can kiss goodbye to a significant poriton of your MP every time you sue said skill. Granted you can improve your skill point acquistion by using the skill against a monster thats a higher level than you. But you won't find to many of htem if you spend even a moderate amount of leveling up until you unlock Artica (Where the monsters are 20 + levels higher than i was when I first reached there). Also as far as I can tell the ONLY benefit of leveling up a Fast draw skill is that it reduces the MP cost.

Also the ever fun Radar is back, along with the fun 'items in the field' game that is all but useless.... (there are a total of 3 guardians and one EX file Key that shoudl be found in our gameplay.... any other swag on the ground is purely secondary) And of course your party is so blind that htey can't spot a friggin tower unless you use your rader to see it...

The annoying

Okay there are a few things that irk me about the game story wise.

The biggest is the Arm customization shops. Now in the Wild Arm game the ARM is supposedly rare, misunderstood, and feared.

So how come if it is so feared....there is a FRIGGIN ARM SHOP IN EVERY TOWN EXCEPT FOR TWO???  

Whereas in the original game you had six places to upgrade your various Arms, each run by one of the six students of Rudy's dead grandfather...

From a gameplay standpoint I suppose it makes sense, from a story standpoint however it sucks. removing one of the more interesting subplots in the game.

Why the HELL does the surprised icon pop up so much, even with the surprise guard equipped? So annoying.... and for that matter why did they mess with the 'single player alone against group of monsters till allies arrive' ambush... in the original WA when this happened you at least had a chance to fight back for a few rounds till help arrived... in ACF what happens is your single charcter gets wailed upon for a round then its a normal battle with all three charcters....

Why is there no Inn in the Devils Playground? espcially since the only REASON to go there is to compete in the arena... and you don't get a full heal upon winning bouts?.

Overall I'm going to score the game in two levels

As a stand alone game it rates a  2.5 out of 5. Being roughly average and despite its flaws not a hard game to play. IT owuld have been a solid 3 if they had included some MAGIC RECOVERY ITEMS!!!

As a remake it rates a 1.5 out 5, as they removed and altered poorly several good things fromt he original game.

FInally why the hell did they remove all the aldyhyde festivel mini games? And the flower girl? *which would have made the future gardening subquest much easier to complete*

[Dexie Oblivion]

That damn radar is my big problem with the WA series, and I reason I quit playing WA3. :/

[Zenthor]

Now, I'm all right with different opinions, but some of the shit up here is just factually WRONG.

Rudy and Jack were pretty much interchangeble stat wise

Except, uh, not.  Rudy's HP and Defense were a lot higher than Jack's, and Jack's speed and Attack were a lot higher than Rudy's.  

This in general is bad as it makes the 4 levels of forcepower you can gain nearly useless

Except not at all.  FP is taken into the damage algorithms.  More FP -> More damage dealt, Less damage received.  Same is true in WA3.  While I agree more force powers would be nice, FP isn't useless past 25.

Of course the real loser in the force power game is Cecila, who is the onlyc harcter who has a force power that requires more than 25% to use her guardian summons (She has a total of 2-3 summons that use 25%). While I suppose it may have been used to avoid abusing your guardian summons, the end result is that you'll practically never use a Guardian summon outside of boss battles, because you'll have killed your opponents before you get Cecila's FP up to 50%.

...What?  Yeah, most of hers are expensive, but that was to balance the fact that instead of 1 she has several Force powers.  While, yeah, you usually kill your opponents before you get to 50, you also kill your opponents before 25 most of the time.

Another fault is that the games only items equippble are various skills. While this does allow a lto of customization on yo charcter, in practice its a bit of a pain having to swap various skills for various situations. ... More annoying is that thanks to the fact that there is no equipble items aside from skills, the game porgramers had to really reach as to what treasures to put in various areas as rewards.

How is having the only things you equip be skills a downside?  It's adds more strategy to it than "This armour has higher defense than that armour, so I'll equip it and not think about it at all later."  I will admit that the way to remove skills is retarded, but really.  And how did the programmers have to really reach in what treasures they put in areas?  That's just stupid.  "The equip system is different, so programmers will have to work to vary what's put where.  This variance would never have to occur in a simple Weapon/Armor/Helmet/Shield/Accessory system.  Because that makes sense."

You MP is almost always critcally low (It wasn't till the mid 20's before i could use Cecilas magic at will without worrying about being drained dry when I faced a boss)

For Jack, yes, your MP is always low.  It is a pain in the ass.  Cecilia, though?  Never did I run into a point where her MP was below half her max, and I never had her do anything BUT use magic.  Yeah, I'm calling bullshit on this.

But you won't find to many of htem if you spend even a moderate amount of leveling up until you unlock Artica (Where the monsters are 20 + levels higher than i was when I first reached there)

Bzzt.  Wrong.  Trolls in the cave to Milama are of a higher level than you, up until you reach Articia.  There's always a time when you can find enemies of higher levels unless you're at level 80+.

Why is there no Inn in the Devils Playground? espcially since the only REASON to go there is to compete in the arena... and you don't get a full heal upon winning bouts?.

There is.  It's the machine right by the entrance to the arena.  How could you miss it?  Did you just not talk to anyone?  As for the full heal in the arena, why?  That makes no sense, and most games I can think of don't do it (Tales of Eternia, Dragon Quest 4, Wild ARMs 3...)

Most of your qualms with the game are sound, but the above is just retarded.

[Rift120]

Now, I'm all right with different opinions, but some of the shit up here is just factually WRONG.

All of my opnions are based on my observations of gameplay as I played it.

...What?  Yeah, most of hers are expensive, but that was to balance the fact that instead of 1 she has several Force powers.  While, yeah, you usually kill your opponents before you get to 50, you also kill your opponents before 25 most of the time.

Ummm.... you just proved my point, that aside from boss battles Cecilia's FP power was virtually useless. Also it could be argued that you above statement also refutes your previous argument about FP above 25% being useful, since if you can't reach it than what good is any stat bonus's it may or may not give you.

And how did the programmers have to really reach in what treasures they put in areas?  That's just stupid.  

*raises eyebrow* Let me point once again to the fact that one of the so called 'treasures' was the ability to skip guardian animation and cutscenes. Even leaving out hte fact that you had to play through a good portion of the game before the chest was even ACCESSIBLE, the fact that such a BASIC function was made into a treasure would indicate the Game programmers were really reaching about what treasure to put where.

For Jack, yes, your MP is always low.  It is a pain in the ass.  Cecilia, though?  Never did I run into a point where her MP was below half her max, and I never had her do anything BUT use magic.  Yeah, I'm calling bullshit on this.

Call it what you want, its was true for me that i had to seriously conserve Cecila's MP usage or face the boss with low to non-exsistent MP. In several cases I had to delay fighting the boss till I got enough XP to level Cecila up, so that she HAD MP to face him.  That was my gaming experience. if yours was different, kudos to you.

Bzzt.  Wrong.  Trolls in the cave to Milama are of a higher level than you, up until you reach Articia.  There's always a time when you can find enemies of higher levels unless you're at level 80+.

okay point. let me rephrase that, you can't CONSISTENTLY find enemies of a higher level till you reach Articia. Yes the trolls exist, but they appear only rarely, instead the majoirty are level 1-5 monsters in that area. Making it almost more trouble than its worth.

There is.  It's the machine right by the entrance to the arena.  How could you miss it?  Did you just not talk to anyone?  As for the full heal in the arena, why?  That makes no sense, and most games I can think of don't do it (Tales of Eternia, Dragon Quest 4, Wild ARMs 3...)

Granted I missed the little coffin thing my first few visits to the Arena. I admit I was mistaken. As for whya  full heal should be standard in an Arena? mainly convience. If your playing a long Arena mini-quest, its a huge pain having to backtrack to another town to heal in between sections of the miniquest.

Most of your qualms with the game are sound, but the above is just retarded.

*raises eyebrow again* Retarded? No different gameplay experinece, and i think I countered at least a couple of your accusations. Since they are at the very least debatable, they are not retarded.

Word of advice, if your going to crticize points of a review, more power to you. IN some cases the reviewer may be mistaken, or his gameplay experince/style may differ from yours.

However don't get insulting, especially if your 'counter points' can be refuted or debated, as it makes you look rather foolish.

[Zenthor]

Ummm.... you just proved my point, that aside from boss battles Cecilia's FP power was virtually useless. Also it could be argued that you above statement also refutes your previous argument about FP above 25% being useful, since if you can't reach it than what good is any stat bonus's it may or may not give you.

Idiot, I'm saying that none of the force powers really get used in Randoms, so pointing out Cecilia's specifically is retarded.  

*raises eyebrow* Let me point once again to the fact that one of the so called 'treasures' was the ability to skip guardian animation and cutscenes. Even leaving out hte fact that you had to play through a good portion of the game before the chest was even ACCESSIBLE, the fact that such a BASIC function was made into a treasure would indicate the Game programmers were really reaching about what treasure to put where.

So that's you whining about that.  Okay, whine about that, not something as mind numbingly retarded as "THEY HAD TO REACH AS TO WHAT TREZARUZ 2 PUTZ!!!"  Yeah, no.

Call it what you want, its was true for me that i had to seriously conserve Cecila's MP usage or face the boss with low to non-exsistent MP. In several cases I had to delay fighting the boss till I got enough XP to level Cecila up, so that she HAD MP to face him.  That was my gaming experience. if yours was different, kudos to you.

I still call bullshit, but short of me forcing you to play it again with video I can't exactly prove you wrong.  Agree to disagree, here, I guess.

okay point. let me rephrase that, you can't CONSISTENTLY find enemies of a higher level till you reach Articia. Yes the trolls exist, but they appear only rarely, instead the majoirty are level 1-5 monsters in that area. Making it almost more trouble than its worth.

Mm.  Okay, I'll give you that.  Jack sucked up until around Articia anyway, but hey, it is a point.

Granted I missed the little coffin thing my first few visits to the Arena. I admit I was mistaken. As for whya  full heal should be standard in an Arena? mainly convience. If your playing a long Arena mini-quest, its a huge pain having to backtrack to another town to heal in between sections of the miniquest.

So your main complaint is that you had to backtrack to another town to heal after finishing 5 battles when there was an Inn right next to it.  Great.  You're a winner.  And if you're complaining about not being healed between each and every individual battle... >_>

*raises eyebrow again* Retarded? No different gameplay experinece, and i think I countered at least a couple of your accusations. Since they are at the very least debatable, they are not retarded.

No, they are retarded.  "There's no inn in the Arena."  "Yes there is."  
"...Oh.  Well they had to reach to put treasures in places!"  "No, you're just whining about the scene skip device not being accessible until after Ship's Graveyard.  A valid complaint but has nothing to do with what you're actually saying."  

Different gameplay experience?  I can buy that for the MP (maybe you used spells a shitload.  Doubtful since I had Cecilia casting every round, but, hey) but most of the time you're just pulling shit out of your ass or just missed something and are complaining about something that isn't even an inconvenience.

I may be insulting, but you can't exactly deny that some of the points I'm bringing up are valid.  I may be an asshole, but I'm an asshole who knows what he's talking about.  A fool who acts nicely is still a fool.

[Dracos]

I didn't get really far in this one.  The writing was just horrible and frankly, I'd about had it with the wild arms series by the time I started.  Looking forward to what seemed to be yet more radar stupidity combined with drivel for writing was enough to stop me quick.

Dracos

[Zenthor]

Jeez, Dracos.  You can't ever seem to get a grasp on the concept that a game is more than its intro, can you?

Jesus Christ.  I can see getting bored with a game and quitting, but do you have to be such a pompous prick that you pass judgement on a game before you get more than a few hours in?

I get that you're insanely busy but don't want to play games that don't grab you early on.  I can respect that, if I had less time on my hands I'd be the same way.  But must you handle these games like such an arrogant ass that you can't see that a game might get better?

[Dracos]

*looks up, sees review, looks down, sees three lines saying he didn't get far in it*  I don't see myself writing a review on it, Zenth.  I said what I saw at the beginning and the hints of what I saw further on, most particularly with the radar system, stopped me from continuing.  The game could get better, it could not, I wasn't judging it beyond that.  There was not "Damn that game was terrible", there was a "Yeah, I couldn't stand the writing and I'd about had it with wild arms anachronisms anyway before I started".

Dracos

[Zenthor]

You essentially said the game started out like a piece of shit and was probably going to end like a piece of shit.  How is that not passing premature judgement on a game?

[Brian]

Mmm.  I loved the original Wild Arms.  Was one of my favorite games.

Wild Arms: Alter Code F was actually in my mind a pretty good remake.

First of all, Jack's Fast Draw skills gain (Enemy's Level - Jack's Level) 'uses' per use towards leveling them up, to a minimum of 1.  Leveling the Fast Draws not only reduces their MP cost, but give percentage based bonuses to various of Jack's stats (which ones depend on which Fast Draw -- check GameFAQs for the whole readout).  My main problem with this is that they are logically easier to raise at lower levels (with the enemies, you know, being higher level than you), except, more rewarding at higher levels, when his stats are higher and will therefore benefit more from a percentage increase.

That part was a bit annoying.

Secondly, as always, I never had a problem with the 'you must search to find places' mechanic, especially since it let them put dungeons in places you've been before, which lets them add more content without requiring a larger overworld.  Now, this isn't to say I think their solution is perfect, but it's never bothered me.  Especially since you can get an item that will make any collectibles show up on the radar later.  Collectibles of course, including the important stuff.

Also, there is a skill that allows Cecillia to start with the same amount of FP as her level, which is useful, because in my mind her best summon is the ... shooting star, was it?  The one that basically gave extension to her spells.  It was handy, cheap, and once you disabled the summoning movie (a must, unfortunately), very convenient.  Also, only WA2 and 3 had the party start with FP equal to their levels automatically ... which was somewhat gamebreaking in 3.  Once you reach level 25, you have a huge advantage, and again at 50.

Thirdly, I did occasionally run into instances of minimal/low MP, but typically the game was well balanced to the point where I could just go three-four more encounters before getting a level-up.  Which of course, fixed the problem.

Nextly, I enjoyed the ability to play the other characters.  Emma as a Blue Mage was interesting, and her spells were expensive ... but she had a technique to steal MP from enemies, so I didn't mind that either.  Magdellen was powerful enough that his blandness didn't bother me too much.  Zed ... I still haven't unlocked.  Jane having Mystic is kind of appropriate to her character, and the fact that she can say the heart and star symbols is <3.

I was only really dissapointed by the removal of the 'big key' dialogue.  Well, okay, I also kind of missed equipment.  The game worked quite well without it, but I really like that aspect of RPGs.

Ultimately, I think WA:ACF was a superior remake, since it really was an improvement over the original WA.  It was much more polished, cleaner, and they refined a lot.  Admittedly, I'm saying this from just before I've finished climbing the tower ... but.

The only other thing I have to say is that the Wild Arms games are, unfortunately, something of an aquired taste.  Either you likes 'em, or you doesn't.  And that's okay, because us true fans will kill you in your sleep, and that's what makes all the difference.  :)

Er.  I mean.

Variety is the spice of life, and while some of what I think are nifty elements are a 'bleah' factor for others, ultimately it comes down to personal enjoyment -- and for me, this game delivered.

[Anastasia]

I swear I've posted here before. Oh well.

ACF is a pretty good remake, to steal a line from Brian. While it imports a few of the idiocies incurrant to the WA series (Searching system, hi!), it works well overall. A massive dose of game balance has been injected, complimented by a tenset of development and added features.

Anyway, beyond that I agree with Brian.