The strangest, yet best entry yet.

Reviewed by benkosar on February 22, 2008  |  report this review

Well, different defines this game, there are some WEIRD instances in it. Every once-in-a-while one of the female characters has a diary entry how she feels, usually talking about the main character and how she's in love with/jealous of him. In the very beginning, you pick up poetry talking about a 'honey-bosomed girl'.

All the strangeness aside, Wild Arms 5 is actually a great, deeply involving game. It's Wild Arms 4..to the XTREME! The same hex system, more properly balanced. WHen you level, you can choose your abilities like in 4, however it's more balanced. If you want some really fancy abilities, your HP is going to go from 2000 all the way down to 400. That's right, don't get hit! It really makes you consider what you want, and what you *need*. Everyone has an Arm this time around, they're almost commonplace. You can tune the arms to an extent. Some arms are melee arms as well, and still take bullets.

The visual system is patterned after Anime, obviously. About the same-quality visuals as 4, but a touch better generally. Not taking itself quite as seriously as 4 did, it ends up a silly romp in some places. There's 5 chars overall that you'll eventually journey with, all of them memorable enough, except for perhaps one or two, but you'll probably not be thinking of them a year from now.

Wild Arms 5 is a celebration. It has a fancy artbook that came with the package explaining chars from all the games. All these chars also Cameo in the game. They don't say who they are in all instances, but they're just kind of out of place chars, who usually want something from you, and it's fairly obvious who they are if you've played the games. Its a nice little touch.

The story is good, it can get a touch preachy in it's content but it throws in things like dimensional portal systems, uber-high-tech, your basic sci-fi anime-star trek jargon, including about past and future. It has a great ending, that may confuse you just a tad, as it doesn't tie up all loose ends in a pretty little bow. There's supposed to be extras however, that you can earn after game completion that go on to tell you more about the chars and what happens to them (Haven't gotten them yet).

This is a great RPG, and one of the last great games to come out for the PS2. Probably this, and Rogue Galaxy are the last of the greats, pick this up, you'll enjoy the journey, as long as anime doesn't grate against you. For instance, Dean and Rebecca, are very anime-cised, Rebecca usually overbearing, the way she moves, etc. Avril, is very low-key and thoughtful, and is a stark contrast to them, as are some of the other chars. You could probably enjoy this no matter what, but I could see Dean & Rebecca grating on people who don't like anime at all.