Wild Arms 5

[briareos_kerensky]

Got this today, played for a couple of hours.
For the setting, think any western movie, with a bit more teenagers with shocking pink clothes...maybe a bit too much. Maybe.
For all anime fans, it might reminds to Gun X Sword, as the game is set on a western-like world with giant mechas (golems) and -of course- a mysterious girl fallen from the sky with a "slightly" different clothing style. The main characters are a boy dreaming to be someone big and a girl with red hairs and twin ponytails.
Uhmm...girl from the sky, redhead girl with ponytails, boy dreaming...Skies of Arcadia anyone? Naaah, it must be a coincidence.
BTW, the game is a standard RPG where you go around a world solving small puzzles with the incredible agility the main character has (jump, crouch, pull/push things, slide and mid-air attack) in a very Zelda-like fashion, but encounters are resolved just like any other RPG: screen fading out, turn-based combat, experience, money and item screen and back to exploring.
Battles are resolved on a hexagonal battlefield where the party and enemies can move and attack once per turn; some hexes have attributes to a certain element and it's possible to stack party members on a single hex to heal them all in one turn, or force enemies in a single hex to attack them all at once. As most party members use guns and alike to attack, some require to be in the adjacent hex or one or more hexes away to attack, and to reload once weapons have run out of bullets. All in all it's something different that makes the battles a bit more strategy-oriented than most titles, but so far everything has been really easy as the game heals the entire party once a fight is over.
I can't say nothing more, except for the technical side. Graphics are sharp, extremely colorful and everything loads fast though the landscape could use a bit more polygons and different textures. The game is completely dubbed in english, with no japanese option, and voices vary from good to "oh my god why", like most american dubs. The game comes with a 80-page artbook celebrating the series 10th anniversary and features illustrations from all five games.

[briareos_kerensky]

Spent some more time with the game...I'd have Persona 3 to play too, which probably is more interesting, but everyone in the first play thread are speaking of 100+ play hours, so I'll stick with this one.

There's nothing much else to say. Story details are beginning to emerge and unfortunately the more details the more stereotypized the story becomes.
Dungeon exploring is fun, the puzzles are easy and quick to solve, maybe there are too many random encounters but if you have the patience to fully explore one you can find a Sol Niger, a black orb containing a powerful monster that will allow to switch on and off encounters for that dungeon if defeated. This feature partially offsets the number of encounters you are subject to and makes backtracking a lot more enjoyable, as some dungeons have sections that can only be opened with special items obtained later on.

The battle system is good, and it's not a simple it might look. Status-changing effects like poison are aimed at the ground (divided into hexes) rather than a single character and it's possible to force enemies into a hex they poisoned themselves; some hexes also have elemental affinity that will change some offensive magics and boss battles are determined more by the skilled use of such hexes rather than pure hitting power.
The game restores health after a battle (but no magic or special points), which is quite fair as items are relatively rare and it's possible to see your entire party annihilated in a couple of attacks if not properly organized.

Just met a new party member and her alone brought down the dubbing quality, her voice is simply horrible - the main character, Dean is an upbeat teenager and his voice is good, though sometimes it gets a bit too high. There are other good voices (mostly for enemies/secondary characters), but for example Avril sounds a bit too old for her looks (but since she's the lady without memory and with many plot devices in her past, I'll keep judgment until light is shed on her).

edit
Forgot this one: tutorials. The game offers an handy tutorial menu, and certain things are very easy to understand, like the "analyze" command...it shows the enemy status, weakness and strength, what else? Do you really need a boss battle to describe such command? And why you need to explain it after 9 hours?

[GordonJ]

Why do my characters have blue flames surrounding them on some fights?

I'm confused.

Suppose I'd better write something about the game itself. It's my first Wild ARMs game, so the hex system is a new experience and figuring out where you can attack takes a few battles.

Reminds me of enchanted arms with the grid based battles and the speed of them, most fights should only last a couple of rounds unless it's a boss fight.

I do like the cowboy theme though, specially with the music adding to the atmosphere.

[briareos_kerensky]

Why do my characters have blue flames surrounding them on some fights?

I guess it's something related to their skills, but I still need to fully understand which skill or condition triggers the flame - and what it does.

[toythatkills]

I assumed it was just a random 'powered up' state, where your stats were increased slightly for the duration it lasts. Not sure why I got that impression though

[GordonJ]

Yup. found it in one of the help books, "detonation mode', stats are increased and skills are more effective.

Bit annoying that the game doesn't tell you these things, just so they can add a 'collect all these books to learn what we should have told you' element.