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Thoughts on Wild Arms XF

Shouta

Member
Hrm, I realized while I was typing something up that I tend to ramble when trying to describe stuff in a short format so I’ll type some thoughts up about the game in general.

Basically, I’m really impressed with the game. It manages to nail pretty much all of the elements that it attempts (as far as I’ve played in the game anyway, which is about halfway) and it does it while continuing to be interesting. A lot of SRPGs don’t really do the strategy part of the genre very well because they don’t force you to use the systems or think about the strategy involved. Most just do the SRPG style for the sake of being an SRPG. XF does it and gives the player freedom to really think about how they should approach things. There are battles where you’ll really need to think about how to tackle the situation with various class combinations and tactics. Generic party make-ups don’t really work all that well at times and I’ve been finding myself tweaking and setting up parties optimum to the situation at hand. It really is a strategy game.

The job system game is incredibly flexible. The other aspects are fantastic though. In battle features are great like Combination and Formation Arts. The developers really put some time into designing maps and scenarios and the subsystems that work within battle add a helpful (or sometimes detrimental) element too. I mean, a lot of SRPGs don’t really give you much in battle to do beyond simply killing X enemy with a skill. WAXF gives a lot to do in battle though and lots of things to consider.

For example, the current map I’m on is an assault on a gate. However, the conditions require that we not kill any of the enemies (although bringing them to near death is acceptable). In addition, the map is designed as a narrow bridge with blockades put up for the player to get around. The enemies also have high defense and varying amounts of HP.

The dilemma I face is how to get to the end of the map while severely weakening the enemies (but not killing them or letting any single member of my party die). I could make a straight shot to the end with high movement classes without attacking them. However, that means they’d get free attacks and could kill me. I could try weakening them but high defense and making sure they don’t die makes it a bit tricky. While I could go with magic attacks, several of the enemies have less HP than my spell’s damage meaning they die in one shot. Those jobs also tend to be particularly slow so they could get killed on the way there.

There are any number of solutions I could go with for this situation. I could simply test my luck with physical attacks and hope I don’t go over. I could try magical attacks to avoid the physical defense but I’d have to weaken my magic attack slotting the abilities to a class with lower SOR. I can use Formation arts to boost my physical damage and so on. The possibilities for attempting this battle are really diverse and the flexibility of the systems allows it.

The story is pretty good for a Wild Arms game, far better than WA5 at this point, and the graphics/music are top-notch. It’s a really surprising package for an off-shoot game especially since it plays a lot better than games originally designed as an SRPG.

If anyone wants detailed information about certain aspects, I’ll type up a post on it.
 

traveler

Not Wario
Thanks for the impressions. Never played a single Wild Arms game, but I'm a huge SRPG fan, so I'd like to check this out. In regards to specific concerns, how is (a) the job balance and (b) what is the typical length of a single mission? While I realize you can put down a turn based game at any time and resume it later, I always like to finish my battles before I do something else and, as such, prefer that they not drag on.
 

Jiggy

Member
Sounds really impressive; can't wait to play it. :D I also hate it when strategy RPGs (or even most non-strategy RPGs) suck the strategy out and let players just get by doing whatever they feel like... I want every option to be viable, or at least as many as possible in the confines of the systems that are in place, so it sounds like the developers had the right idea there.


Only one real question: how are party member deaths handled in this game?
 

Takeda Kenshi

blew Staal
Thank you for the impressions. I'm very looking forward to this game. Did you happen to do the extra stuff from hooking it up to WA5? I'd like to hear how that is.
 

Skilletor

Member
Thanks for the impressions, Shouta. I love Wild Arms and I love srpgs. Glad to hear that a game I would be buying off of these princples alone will turn out to be good.
 

Shouta

Member
traveler said:
Thanks for the impressions. Never played a single Wild Arms game, but I'm a huge SRPG fan, so I'd like to check this out. In regards to specific concerns, how is (a) the job balance and (b) what is the typical length of a single mission? While I realize you can put down a turn based game at any time and resume it later, I always like to finish my battles before I do something else and, as such, prefer that they not drag on.

A) Jobs are all diverse because they each have different functions. So a lot of the jobs don't overlap even though they seem to. The jobs don't have a lot of abilities to use but they a lot of different attributes and traits.

A Warhead and an Assault Buster are both melee classes but they have differing advantages. Warheads have more armor and attack power but Assault Busters have far more Movement and they get a spear to attack two squares away. On the flipside though, Assault Busters can only move in lines radiating out from where they stand whereas a Warhead can move anywhere in the radius of their Movement.

You can also equip skills in a similar fashion to FFT but it's a lot less restrictive than FFT overall. This means you can equip skills from another class to boost your current one or make-up for shortcomings. It's really flexible and will allow you to customize your characters as you see fit.

B) Battles typically ranged from 15 mins to about 45mins I think. Some of the tougher fights take awhile but most can be completed on short runs, it's perfect for a Portable. However, I am only halfway through the game, there might be some other cases later.
 

traveler

Not Wario
Shouta said:
There are any number of solutions I could go with for this situation. I could simply test my luck with physical attacks and hope I don’t go over. I could try magical attacks to avoid the physical defense but I’d have to weaken my magic attack slotting the abilities to a class with lower SOR. I can use Formation arts to boost my physical damage and so on. The possibilities for attempting this battle are really diverse and the flexibility of the systems allows it.

Just wanted to say that this, in particular, impresses me. While I love me some Fire Emblem, one thing I find all too noticeable in that series is the sense that I'm almost solving a puzzle. (i.e. that there is one particularly effective way through any given situation that you pretty much need to take to succeed without suffering major consequences) The flexibility you describe seems much more appealing.

Edit: Thanks for the replies! Class diversity sounds good, as does the ability to use other classes' abilities so long as it doesn't water down the class in question. I just hope there's no Alchemist or Sage (from FFTA) equivalent is the game. (i.e. ridiculously overpowered, never want to use a different class besides these class)

As far as the times go, that sounds fine. I was just hoping to stay clear of the 1 hour+ battles. Sounds like they designed it with the portable in mind.
 

Shouta

Member
Jiggy37 said:
Only one real question: how are party member deaths handled in this game?

Characters don't permanently die. It'd be far too much of a pain in the ass if they did it that way. You can recruit new characters and level them up with Galla. However, character levels and Job levels are independent of each other so if they had killed one of your characters permanently, it'd be far too punishing. That's not to say you don't get rewarded for starting new generic PCs. You help determine the character's growth with their starting stats (which you can roll before creating them) so you can design characters specifically for magic or melee and etc.

Takeda Kenshi said:
Thank you for the impressions. I'm very looking forward to this game. Did you happen to do the extra stuff from hooking it up to WA5? I'd like to hear how that is.

It seems to be a special event later and then help with Galla bonus and grading in battles. The event is the key thing it seems. I haven't tried the boss battles in WA5 (the goblins and etc or whatever) though.

traveler said:
Just wanted to say that this, in particular, impresses me. While I love me some Fire Emblem, one thing I find all too noticeable in that series is the sense that I'm almost solving a puzzle. (i.e. that there is one particularly effective way through any given situation that you pretty much need to take to succeed without suffering major consequences) The flexibility you describe seems much more appealing.

Well, FE represents one end of the spectrum for SRPGs. There's the overly fighting type where you just go in and bash stuff (most SRPGs) and then there's the overly puzzle-like SRPGs like FE where it's more about figuring out the strategy that works.

WAXF does the happy medium. I adore SRPGs that allow me the freedom to approach
battles in varying methods but most don't offer that. Most tend to be stifling in one direction or the other.
 

john tv

Member
US version is out in a couple of months, I think. Frickin' long game, I was surprised at how much content they stuffed in there.
 

Shouta

Member
traveler said:
Edit: Thanks for the replies! Class diversity sounds good, as does the ability to use other classes' abilities so long as it doesn't water down the class in question. I just hope there's no Alchemist or Sage (from FFTA) equivalent is the game. (i.e. ridiculously overpowered, never want to use a different class besides these class)

It doesn't water the class down.

There are key stat differences between jobs that govern the effectiveness of the job. While I can equip my Healer with all the abilities of my Fighter, it would still have lower MOV and Attack ratings making it a less than stellar attacker. It works vice versa. My Fighter wouldn't be nearly as effective as a healer because of a lower SOR rating and MP.

In addition, jobs have unique abilities that it gains after you master them so it still gives you incentive to use it as a main even if you can equip all its normal abilities to another job. Besides, the game encourages you to mess around with all the classes by either battle situations or by putting important skills in different jobs. So far, I haven't come across a class that's clearly superior than the others but I'm missing one more set of jobs I think.

john tv said:
US version is out in a couple of months, I think. Frickin' long game, I was surprised at how much content they stuffed in there.

Yeah, there seems to be a LOT of content in the game.
 

Teknoman

Member
Detailed music impressions please. (IMO Wild ARMs 1-3 had the best soundtracks...so is it comparible to those, or does it try to go in a new direction?)
 

Teknoman

Member
Shouta said:
Not my field but I will say it's quite awesome.

Alright, thats good then. Heh if it's one thing I cant stand, it's an RPG with a bad/non-catchy soundtrack. I couldnt even start Tactics Ogre for the GBA <_>
 

Shouta

Member
Teknoman said:
Alright, thats good then. Heh if it's one thing I cant stand, it's an RPG with a bad/non-catchy soundtrack. I couldnt even start Tactics Ogre for the GBA <_>

Aha, well. If you liked WA's usual soundtracks, I don't think you'll be disappointed. My quick thoughts are that it's about the same as WA3 and better than WA5's.
 

Lain

Member
You make it sounds like it is an interesting game afterall.
I'll think about buying it when it comes out now.
 
It really reminds me of the style of Jeanne with complexity closer to FFT. If it is anything close to that, it could be one of my favorite games. I love a good SRPG.

EDIT: And I just got done beating Wild Arms 1 for the first time from PSN, so I am EVEN MORE READY!
 

Shouta

Member
Hrm, well. I kinda want to talk about the game some more.

Some may have noticed it in the screenshots, but there's a third bar to go along with HP and MP in this game. It's a VP gauge or Vitality Points (I assume). Basically, it tells you how long your character will continue to fight in a battle before tiring out. If they run out of VP, they start losing HP every turn. How much VP you use every turn is determined by the WGT (Weight) stat which is influenced by what gear you have equipped. So you have to balance the strength of your gear with how long your character will fight in a battle. Long battles may drain all of your VP if you're wearing a lot of heavy equipment. Of course, there are skills that allow you to regenerate VP in various during battle but that also means you're taking up a slot that could be used for more offensive or defensive skills.

Equipment in the game comes in multiple forms for each tier. Equipment doesn't simply give attack and defense bonuses in the game, they give major status bonuses to your character as well. So you can have different weapons that emphasize different stats appearing at the shop during any period in the game. You then have to decide how you want to equip your character, do I want more DEF or do I want more MGR? Do I want more ATP or do I want more SOR? Additionally you can also customize/fuse weapons to make them stronger by using up special fusion items. You get these items by having your generic PC characters search various zones.

I'll talk a little more about each job and their abilities later today, rawr.
 

Durante

Member
I had high expectations for this game ever since the first video, especially since it showed that it uses a hexagonal layout. Good to hear that it lives up to it.

I still remember all the hate that permeated the first unveiling thread. HA.
 

Hcoregamer00

The 'H' stands for hentai.
john tv said:
US version is out in a couple of months, I think. Frickin' long game, I was surprised at how much content they stuffed in there.

Are there any specific dates, this thread got me interested.
 

Kiriku

SWEDISH PERFECTION
Hcoregamer00 said:
Are there any specific dates, this thread got me interested.

I remember seeing a thread recently about 2008 PSP games, where it said (3/03/2008) for Wild Arms XF.
And if all dates are accurate in the thread, March will be a killer month for PSP: R-type Command, Wild Arms XF, God of War: Chains of Olympus and Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core. My wallet is already crying tears of awesome portable gaming.
 

Shouta

Member
Ok, I'll talk a bit about the classes now.

There are as far as I know 16 classes available to all the characters and 1 class for each of the 5 main characters that is available only to them. The classes have unique traits (called Skils) that they gain when you set it as your main job. You can also earn them to equip to other classes. You gain one for every class level you go up for a total of 6 abilities. If you max a class, you gain another trait (called an SP Skill) that only that class will have. This means that the class will still have something unique to it (in addition to its stats) even though you can equip all of its other abilities to other jobs.

You start the game with 4 base jobs (not including the ones unique to the characters) and you gain the other ones as you go through the game. The first 4 jobs are as follows:

Warhead: Your basic Knight/Fighter character. It's basically your bread and butter melee class. It uses Swords or Axes (Swords have better accuracy while Axes have better attack). While it is a starting melee class, it's by no means a throwaway. The attack remains one of the highest of the jobs I have. Its abilities are also unique to it and very useful. It has very high ATP (Attack Power) and solid DEF but low SOR (Sorcery), and MGR (Magic Resistance).

Original (abilities used in battle):

Hard Smash: High Damage Physical Attack, only usable with a 1-handed weapon
Smart Drive: Physical Attack that will allows hit, damage is adjusted (down) by Accuracy.
MP Burst: If successful, gain 3x your MP, if you fail lose all your MP.
Equip Change: Can change equipment midbattle.

Skills:

Wait VP Regen: Regenerates VP if you wait on your turn (no attack or movement)
Broad hit: Increases damage dealt when you counter attack
Weapon Block: Allows you to parry Attacks
Warhead Equip: Allows you to use Warhead Equipment on any job
ATP +25%: Self-explanatory

SP Skill:

Retaliation: When you parry an attack, you can counter with your own attack.

Spellcaster: Your basic Wizard. It's the first class to deal magic damage and the equivalent of the Warhead in that regard. It's the only job that deals damage through the four elements (the other jobs deal non-elemental damage) so far. You can take advantage of various weaknesses this way for more damage. Its SOR is among the highest and it has a lot of excellent MP related Skills.

Originals:

Crush: Earth magic damage. Cannot be used after moving.
Freeze: Ice magic damage. Cannot be used after moving.
Fire: Fire magic damage. Cannot be sued after moving.
Vortex: Wind magic damage. Cannot be used after moving.

Skills:

Spellcaster Equip
Wait MP Regen: Same as Wait VP Regen but for MP
Critical Status MP Save: When you're in the "Critical" status (i.e. near Death) MP usage is
reduced.
Resist Block: Nulls Magic attacks on occasion (equivalent of the weapon block for Warhead)
SOR +25%

SP Skill:

Reflect: Similar to Retaliation, when you Null a magic attack through Resist Block, it sends it back to your opponent.

Fantastica: A support class. Its stats are mid-range and it doesn't really excel in any one area. However, its abilities are really helpful to your characters and its the first job to provide debuffs and buffs for your party. It can also boost the effectiveness of Combination and Formation Arts. Its other unqie specialty is that it can move object blocks on the field by attacking them thus allowing you to take advantage of them in combat.

Originals:

Slow Down: Lower Res of the target
Feeble Mind: Deals MP damage to the enemy, cannot be used after moving
Invoke: Effective until the end of the next turn for the target, It increases skill and critical rate activations and also makes Accuracy 100%
Rush: Originals that cannot normally be used after moving can be used after moving when this is casted on a character.

Skill:

Fantastica Equip
Zone Effect: Friendly characters standing next to this character gain a boost to AIM and PRY. Enemy units next to them have their AIM and PRY lowered
Arts Support: Increases the effectiveness of Formation and Combination Arts (i.e. more damage I think)
PSP Point Up: Increases PSP point gain modifier at the Result screen after battle.
Object Attack: Can attack nearby blocks so they move.

SP Skill:

Support Effect Plus: Increase the effectiveness of Zone Effect and Arts Support.

Gadgeteer: The WA equivalent of an Alchemist (not but broken). It heals your characters by using items. Normally, items can only be used by the character on themselves (and they have a carrying limit of 4) but the Gadgeteer can use their items on other people and have a higher capacity. Additionally, they also have the ability to make the items AOE by using their Mystic Original ability. It also has high RES (speed) making it one of the faster classes.

Original:

Mystic: Makes an item you use have an AOE effect so multiple characters can benefit

Skills:

Gadgeteer Equip
Decelerate: Lowers the RES of enemies you land an attack on.
Item Effect Plus: Increases effectiveness of items
Item Range Plus: Allows you to use items on other characters.
Item Carry Plus: Increases the number of items you can carry

SP Skill:

Superior (quality) item usage: Allows you to use higher quality items (not sure what this does).

I'll get to the other classes later today. I also have artwork of the classes I'll post when I get back.
 
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