Story	9/10	Characters	8/10
	Graphics	8/10	Music	7/10
	Gameplay	10/10	Extras	10/10
Reviewer: Chi Phan Final Score: 8.7/10

It's hard to believe that the first Wild Arms game came out almost ten years ago back in the 90s. Time sure does fly in the gaming world. Since the release of the first Wild Arms game, the series has it's up and down. With the latest being down with the overall negative feedback from Wild Arms 4. Wild Arms 4 was different from the three previous Wild Arms games due to its introduction of a new hex battle system that loyal Wild Arms fans hadn't seen before. Add into the fact that the characters and story of the game wasn't as good too. All of this left fans with a bitter taste in their mouth wondering where things will go for their beloved series. Despite all this, Wild Arms 5 was release with the hope in bringing faith back to the fans. This time around, Wild Arms 5 will incorporate old and new features into the game in hopes of giving Wild Arms fans the complete rpg gaming experience. Was this a successful attempt or a failure? Well I'm happy to say that it was very successful in providing rpg fans one of the greatest rpg experience in a long time.

Do you know Johnny Appleseed? I'm never going to give up!      For centuries the two races of Veruni and Humans have lived together on Filgaia but not as equal but as masters and slaves with the Veruni as the masters and the Humans as the slaves. One day in a small village called Cape Bronco, a boy by the name of Dean Stark wanted to venture out to the nearby peak with his childhood friend Rebecca Streisand. Dean had long since wanted to become a golem hunter like his hero, Nightburn, and it was time for him to test his resolve at the peak to see if he has what it takes to venture out into the world to become a golem hunter. While at the peak, a mysterious huge golem hand fell out of the sky and landed near Dean and Rebecca. As the two investigated the golem hand much to the excitement of Dean seeing an actual part of a golem for the first time, they soon discover that inside the clutch golem hand was a girl by the name of Avril. Avril had lost all of her memory with the exception of her own name and the name of someone that goes by Johnny Appleseed. Despite meeting Avril for the first time, there was a sense of familiarity and trust between the three and a bond was quickly formed amongst them. All Avril knew is that there is someone out there that is important to her and goes by the name of Johnny Appleseed and that her missions appears to finding this Johnny Appleseed despite not know anything about Johnny Appleseed. Dean and Rebecca quickly came to a conclusion that they will go with Avril in her journey across Filgaia to find Johnny Appleseed. As the trio traveled across Filgaia they soon met up with other friends and discover the social differences between Veruni and Human. Being disgusted with how the Veruni treat Humans, Dean vowed that his journey won't stop with just finding Johnny Appleseed, he wants to break down the wall that divided Veruni and Humans altogether. This soon brings Dean into full conflict with the leader of the radical Veruni group, Volsung and his four Sentinels. The fight for Filgaia future unfolds in this story about friendship and love. The story was a very pleasant surprise in that it's very good. That seem sort of strange but truth be told each Wild Arms story that had been introduced one after the other in the previous years seem to be less and less as good as its predecessor so there wasn't much of an expectation from Wild Arms 5 of being better than Wild Arms 4 story base on that trend. What makes the story good is that there's an emotional feel to it. Without giving away the main storyline or ending lets just say that this is a sad story that actually makes you think about life and cherishing every minute of it with your friends and family. Even though the ending like most ending in an rpg game where the outcome will be the good guys winning the battle, the outcome actually make you sad and wish that the story didn't end the way it did because there's a sadness to it. Again it's hard to explain without revealing plotline but the idea of being stuck in a never ending loop for eternity is really sad and makes you think on life in general and how it's important to be able to go forward in life. This is where the story is good in that it actually makes you think and analyze how you would feel if you were in that situation. In most rpg stories when you done with them you just move on to the next one but here I actually felt sympathy for these fictional characters, for one fictional character in particular. This is more of a good sad rpg story about friends than a story about adventure and excitement in saving the world. A very nice change of pace from the usual rpg stories out there.

The heroes of Filgaia.      This is a small cast of characters featuring only six main characters with little to no supporting characters with the exception of the villains in the story. Still despite the small cast of characters, these characters come off good and well balance in the storyline. There are a couple of factors to this. The first factor is that each of these characters has a unique personality that is very likeable. Their personality is different from one another but yet at the same time you sense there's good chemistry within the group and that they like each other. This is mostly due to the fact that the voice actors that play these characters have done a good job portraying them. A good group dynamic is very important to how the characters are presented overall in the game and in the story. Likeable characters are very important because it usually translate to how much the gamers will enjoy the story overall. The next important factor is that the story does an excellent balancing job in developing each of these characters overall as the story moves along. Each of the six main characters eventually get their turn in the spotlight in how the story develop their background to the gamers making them all very important key characters in the long stretch. The best way to describe this bunch is, united they are a strong cast of characters but once they are divided individually, they aren't as strong because individually none of them are memorable stand out characters. There's no Rudy Roughnight or Cecilia Adlehyde type of characters here that will leave a mark on the series for the years to come as the new wave of Wild Arms games are introduced.

A little bit of animation please.      When you compare Wild Arms 5 graphics to some of the other rpgs out there, it's not going to fair too well against them. That's not to say the graphics are bad just that there's nothing really breathtaking or mind blowing that will have you in awe at the graphics. The towns, dungeons, and fields are design in adequate details to make the world look realistic in a 3-D format for gamers to enjoy in. But some of the designs seem a bit too simplistic at times because the game doesn't go out of its way in making sure the environment can be as detailed as it can be. Almost all of the towns have only a few people in them to give it a look of a town but yet at the same time it comes off a bit lazy as a town should have more than just 4-5 people in them. It's pretty clear the designers didn't really go all out in trying to impress us with the graphics in this game, just enough so we can't really complain about it. The character models are another good example of this. All the characters have a semi nice anime look to them but yet at the same time the character models aren't as defined in details as they can be. In some view points the character models look a bit chunky or blocky. So in the end the graphics are good enough to view and play but not good enough to impress anyone.

Need some traveling music.      The music is good just not great or anything special like the first two Wild Arms games. There's a lot of variety in the music with traveling themes, town themes, battle & boss themes, character themes, and dungeon musical themes. Individually I can honestly say that only 1 musical track is considered really good and memorable and that's the Avril theme or I assume its Avril theme. The rest of the musical tracks serve nothing more than good background music during your adventure in Filgaia. You probably won't recognize or remember any of the tracks in the game a couple of weeks later after you finish this game. But than again I don't think overall the music was intended to play a major role in the overall presentation of Wild Arms 5. Wild Arms 5 is clearly more about its gameplay and story than music.

Time for some Combination Arts. Hit em where it really hurts. Game Information     Genre: Traditional RPG    Publisher: XSeed Games    Disc: 1 DVD Disc    Memory: 26 KB    Players: 1 Player Mode    Analog Control: Yes    Vibration Function: Yes    Rating: Teen    Release: August 2007      Wild Arms 5 gameplay is pretty much a combination of all the previous four Wild Arms games combine together. Most of the gameplay elements are old features that's been improve into newer features but the original concept of how a Wild Arms game should be are there in this game. The game still uses a traditional turn base system in a random battle encounter that requires world exploration to advance the storyline. The thing to note is that Wild Arms 5 reuses the hex battle system that was introduced in Wild Arms 4. The flow of the game is pretty straight forward and linear since the game does give you hints on where to go and even teaches you on how to play the game a bit. Any past Wild Arms fans probably don't really need to read the instruction book too much as they should already be familiar with most of the gameplay elements. You can talk to the parrot at each save point for hints as to what to do next or where to go next. Heck you can also talk to the town folks on where your next destination will be. The game does provide a world map for you to chart your location and the location of each previous areas you been in. Once you hit a town and talk to the town folks there, you normally get some sort of a story scene that progresses the storyline. From there the game pretty much directs you to the next dungeon for you to explore. Once you reach a dungeon, all that's left is to make your way to the end of the dungeon to face off against a boss and receive the next story scene. The dungeons themselves are like mini mazes but again the game provides markers and a dungeon map for you so you shouldn't have problems. However there are a lot of puzzles that will block your way inside these dungeons that you need to solve. Some of these puzzles are fairly easy while some of them require some major thinking for you to do. Most of the time like with all previous Wild Arms games, you'll need to use your tools that the game provided you with to help solve these dungeon puzzles. If you get stuck and aren't much of a puzzle solver than go get a strategy guide. LOL. At certain points in a dungeon, you'll have the option to turn off random encounters in that dungeon. Overall Wild Arms 5 is pretty much a typical traditional turn base rpg game so the overall gameplay elements should be familiar to any rpg dreamers out there. Now let's go over some traditional Wild Arms features that all Wild Arms fans have come to know and love. ARMS: Your ARMS are your tools that will help you on your quest by allowing you to search for hidden treasures, reveal hidden paths, reach unreachable areas, blow away obstacles, and activate certain switches. Each type of ARMS is base on the cartridge that you load up or change to. You'll be gaining different ARMS as you make your way into the game and story. Sol Nigers: In each dungeon and on the world map there is one Sol Niger. Sol Nigers are crystal balls that have an evil entity in them. If you cleanse the Sol Nigers, the option to turn off random encounters in a particular dungeon or area of the world map is unlock for you. You can cleanse the Sol Nigers by defeating the enemies that inhabits the Sol Nigers. This is a great feature in this game, the ability to turn off random encounters whenever you feel like it. Mediums: To any Wild Arms fans they will know that Mediums are Guardians or Summons in this series. The difference in Wild Arms 5 is that the Mediums themselves don't play a major role in the actual storyline besides being accessories that can be equip so your characters can use Skills, Originals, and Force Abilities. There are 6 total original Mediums but you can make copies for those Mediums so more than 1 party members can equip the same type of Mediums. Originals: Originals are basically magic in this game. They just call it Original instead of Magic in this game. What Originals your characters have equip or learned is base solely on what Medium they are equipped with. You can learn new Originals once a character reaches a certain level or through the use of GC Graph. Skills: Each of your character comes with their first and original skill that no other character has. Now outside of that, the rest of the game skills are base on the Medium that the character equip as each Medium comes with their own set of skills. Skills can be learned or activated once a character reaches a certain level or by using the GC Graph. Force Abilities: Each Medium have their own unique Force Abilities that can be activated once the FP gauge bar is high enough. Combination Arts are also under Force Abilities as well. Your FP gauge goes up in level base on an action a character takes and each time a character takes damage. A Force Ability may require a max FP gauge or maybe only a level 1 FP gauge, it varies. GC Graph: Each Medium has their own unique GC Graph that allows party members to use GC Points to activate skills, originals, and force abilities a bit more earlier before they are able to officially learn them when they reach the level requirement. The GC Graph is more of a cheat system that allows any party member to gain access to higher level skills ahead of time. And you do this by distributing GC Points. The amount of GC Points you get to use is base on current level. However the penalty of using this cheat system to access certain skills or original ahead of time is that you are exchanging your characters possible Max HP for early access. This isn't always good as you don't want to have your party members with too low of a Max HP that they can be killed easily in a couple of hits. Balancing between using the right combo of GC Points versus loss of Max HP is the key to perfecting this system. Combination Arts: Just like with Wild Arms 4, your party members in this game can combine together to do a duo Combination Arts. It's basically a special Force Attack that consists of 2 party members. Unfortunately in this game Combination Arts are pretty to look at than useful. Combination Arts are activated base on the two party members, their levels, and when they are on the same Hex. Hex Battle System: The Hex Battle System is the same as in Wild Arms 4 so if you played Wild Arms 4 than you probably know how it works right away. What you basically have is a 3D Octagon chest board with 7 Hexes on the chest board. When you enter battle due to a random encounter, your party members and the monsters will all be randomly place in one of the 7 Hexes. From there the battle system goes into a turn base system. Depending on the movement stats of your characters and the attack reach of your characters you can attack enemies that are in the Hex next to your characters or you may need to move to a nearby Hex that is next to the enemies. If more that a character or enemy is on the same Hex than whatever action such as an attack will affect all the people that are on that particular Hex. Some special attack such as a Force Ability attack will affect the surrounding Hexes instead of just one Hex. Ley Points: Ley Points are Hexes that have elemental attributes to them. This is important because when one or more of your characters are on these Ley Point Hexes, their Originals will take the element of that Ley Point. In other words if you are looking to cast a fire magic or have a special attack with the element of fire, you will have your character move into a Fire Ley Point. This is a great way to exploit an elemental weakness of an enemy. Of course the same can also apply to you where the enemy can exploit your characters elemental weakness as well. ARMS Modification: At any save point you can modify each of your characters ARMS in the three categories of ATK, MAG, and FP by raising the level of these three specific categories. In order for you to modify your character ARMS, you'll need to find items called Dragon Fossil scattered throughout Filgaia. Modification will give you that edge in battle when the need arises. Badge Synthesis: Just like in Wild Arms 4, Wild Arms 5 allows you to combine and synthesize the more common badge accessories into more powerful rare badges. This is a feature that you need to learn and exploit if you plan on taking on all the secret bosses in this game as only the best rare badges will give you the advantage that you need to defeat those hard bosses. Even though the gameplay as a whole doesn't really offer anything new for Wild Arms fans to get excited about, it does offer the one thing that any rpg dreamer would love to have in each rpg game and that is a complete rpg gaming experience. Every type of rpg game play element that you would want in an rpg game to have is here. Long exploration quest that takes you around the world? This game got it. Puzzle solving element that fickle your mind and have you thinking on how to solve the riddle of each dungeon? This game got it. Synthesizing and customizing equipment and accessories? This game got it. Skills and magic customization? This game got it. The ability to turn off annoying random encounters? This game got it. Easy leveling up process where it doesn't feel like you are grinding for experience points or feel like leveling isn't a major chore? This game got it. And so on and so on. You get the point. This game provides a very nice balance for the old school rpgers that prefer things to be more difficult but yet at the same time also provide things for the more new mainstream rpg fans that don't want to feel like it's a major headache trying to progress in the game because the boss fights are too hard or some of the puzzles are too hard or finding out where to go and what to do next is too hard. The gameplay really has something to offer for every type of rpgers out there. You really can't get a more gratifying complete gameplay experience in an rpg game than this game right here. If you looking at a complete game that requires unlocking all the extras and secrets than you would be looking at over 80 hours of total extreme rpg gameplay. You really can't get any better than that.

Score: 10/10

Afraid of Ragu O Ragla? Nah.      This is the most complete feature in this game. Everything you can ask for is in here. Tons of mini side quests to do, over 10 extra hard bosses to fight, 4 extra bonus dungeons you can explore, and up to 20 different mini game puzzle boxes to play. All four of the above mention elements are what you would look for when rating extras in a game. And we haven't even talk about running around Filgaia looking for items on the world map or even cameo appearances of characters from past Wild Arms games. You are looking at over 30 hours worth of extra gameplay for all of this. There's also the Ex Files mode that you can load up once you meet certain criteria's. The Ex File mode provides various stats on your game, character sound bites, as well as a New Ex File Game+ Mode. And with the New Ex File Game+ Mode, that pretty much locks in replay ability if you are looking for a second time go at this game but in a harder mode with items from the first game being carried over.

If there was any fear that the Wild Arms series has lost its touch than fear no more. Wild Arms 5 clearly reminded us just why this series is one of the more underrated rpg series out there. With a solid good story, likeable characters, and a full rpg gameplay experience, Wild Arms 5 delivers one of the best overall rpg gaming in a long time. After 80 hours of gameplay, you'll be fully satisfied with having spent your hard earn money worth on this game. If Wild Arms 5 is the last Wild Arms game for the Playstation 2 than you can say that the Wild Arms series went out in a bang. In a good way mind you. For now lets hope the next Wild Arms game will be just as good or great as Wild Arms 5 no matter what console it may land on next. Final Score: 8.7/10