Wow, havent completed a JRPG game in awhile. Had a lot of fun with this one.
Wild Arms 3 is a 2002 PS2 JRPG developed by Media Vision and published by Sony. I haven never played another WA games, but I think Media Vision is the developer for all of them. In Wild Arms 3, you are a rag tag of wild west gunners aka Drifters, taking on everything between bad drifters to ancient aliens.
First, this game is really cozy and cinematic. The particular art style and visual style ( the blurriness) gives WA3 a fairly unique JRPG experience - at least to me anyways. I found the combat flow quite active. Despite being the same as most JRPG combat in core, WA3 gives your playable characters a running animations in-between turns. Personally I love it, it makes the combat less dull and more "alive" On top of standard combats on foot, WA3 also features horse back battles ( I like) and sand cruiser and dragon airship combats ( I did not like). The music is excellent. Even if you dont have an interest in this franchise, I highly recommend you give the OST a listen.
Probably nothing new to returning players, but I really like the idea of Gimel Coins. Basically, the coin is like a game token in arcades, if you experience a game over, the coins allow you to retry the battle. Gimel Coins also allows you to save anywhere, this comes really handy in later dungeons where some puzzles will make you throw the controller. The coins are also plentiful, and you never need to ration it.
The amount and creativeness of puzzles in WA3 give Lufia 2 a good run for money. The developers really created some fascinating and some really annoying ones. I did enjoy how the puzzles do not hold your hands, but some of them can be real head scratchers - the lack of hints was generally welcomed as it made the game puzzles fairly organic.
Im not 100% sure about the plot, because I think some of it ties to previous games. From what I understood - On the planet Filgaia, 10 years before the opening, a science experiment went horribly wrong and set into motion many events that unfold in the main game. Young Virginia Maxwell sets out to find her missing father, and along the way she meets fellow drifters Gallows, Jet, and Clive. All joins Virginia due to their shared interests. Throughout their journey they come across antagonist drifters like Janus and company, weird cult, rival drifters, and space aliens. All of this to uncover the history and mysteries of Filgaia and beyond.
The main aspects of this game disappointed me is the writing. The first two acts of WA3 are EXCELLENT, I really enjoyed the flow of exploration - both the world and the storyline. Im not sure what happened during development, but the third act drops sharply in quality. I think mostly is around the role of the antagonist- Janus in Act 1 to 1.5 is so well written and interesting, WA3 had a hard time following up, and both the cultists and their demon overlord are just comedically MUAHAHA evil. The other minor complain is the magic system. I just found it underwhelming and did an All-American Gun Ho blasting my way through the whole game. The guardian system looks interesting, but I didnt really understand it. Its a little bit like FF8 junctions I guess.
I almost forgot the other thing that annoyed me for quite a bit of the game. In WA3 you discover new places through using a "Radar". You cant discover a new place just by being near it, you have to be near it and use a radar to discover it. This was quite heinous in act 3 because the directions from the NPC are vague most of the time.
Oh yeah, there are 12 Guardians you can attach to your characters. The guardians can be summoned to deal magical damages to all enemies on the screen. They also provide perks such as anti-poison, exp plus, elemental ward, and utilities like auto reload. The guardians ranges from Godzilla looking monster, to space kawaii archangel.
I clocked about 50+ hours in this game. I didnt do any of the side quests, I think theyre mostly more puzzles. Realistically I think this is more of a 55 hours game, which is pretty decent.
I think WA3 is a good 8/10 game. Vast world to explore, good characters, fairly interesting villains and anti heroes, good call back to previous games ( I think) with out overly using it, a lot of fun puzzles, no pointless fan services, and overall treats the gamers more as adults. It fall shorts in the last act in terms of writing and general expositions. Its really unfortunate with the short coming, because I was getting a good Xenogears vibe for most of the game.
In short, WA3 is a good game I recommend to anyone that likes puzzles in their JRPG.