Editorial Review

The forces of evil are at work again, and it's up to a boy, asorceress, and a rebel to turn the tide in Wild Arms 2, Sony'slatest role-playing game.

Each character starts out alone and must fight bosses and enemies aswell as develop his or her own personal set of special moves. Aside fromthe traditional turn-based fighting, Wild Arms 2 throws in a bitof action, and characters get weapons that they can use to solvepuzzles.

The graphics in this game are fully 3-D with huge bosses, but the storyis a little thin. It's your typical "beat the megalomaniac before hetakes over the world" plot, which players familiar with the genre haveseen far too often in games past.Still, there's a large cast ofcharacters, with the playable characters eventually joining forces, andit's fun getting them there.For fans of action role-playing games,this one shouldn't be missed. --Robb Guido

Pros:

• Action blended into traditional turn-based fighting gameplay
• Three characters, each playable separately

• Doesn't emphasize story as much as gameplay

Features

• Join a three-person party in this Fantasy role-playing game
• Packed with quests, side quests, and plenty of battles
• 3D towns and dungeons
• Each character unique in puzzle-solving and battle abilities
• For 1 player

Reviews (40)

Difficulty is fun, but...
Wild Arms 2 is a nice addition to the famous Wild West fantasy series, but many may not find this as western as the other two. The lack of wild west aspect (save for the wild west music and towns) makes it seem somewhat stale in comparison to the first one and doesn't even compete with the third one. The game's battle system is easy to follow, but the monsters are a step up from the previous game's creatures. More than not, many monsters are faster than your group and abuse that advantage to no avail. The equipping of Guardians to boost parameters and gain an extra ability in battle is a welcome addition to combat and the use of ARMS (special artillery like the ones Rudy used in WA1) makes for some nice gunmetal action. Crest magic is back and comes with more features, including special rare crests that can cut the FP cost for magic or increase the power by 1.5 times. That and the fact you have six members makes this a more engrossing WA than the other two. Each character develops nicely even though one might expect more considering the game's length. If you want to do EVERYTHING in this WA, you're looking to clock in over 70 hours of gameplay.

However, this game is not without its one major flaw: the translation. Practically every line uttered by Ashley and Co. sounds very strange. Why? The game was translated word for word from Japanese which many who know the language know it's going to come out sounding very unusual in English. This has been this game's biggest gripe for everyone and discourages some from even playing it. I admit it was bizarre at first, but that didn't stop me from beating the game. If you can get around this problem, the game is fine.

The music is top notch, full of the usual wild west you demand from this series along with sad, happy, goofy, mysterious, serious and dark themes. It's all in here.

If the translation won't bug you, I would recommend getting this WA highly, especially if you haven't touched it yet. You might miss out on one of the better PSX RPGs of its time.

Not as strong as the original, but still very enjoyable...
Wild Arms 2, like most sequels, would have the incredibly hard task of following the series dynamite debut back in 1997. While many think that sequels never attain the level of the original (thus the theory of diminishing returns) Wild Arms 2 holds up pretty well overall, but doesn't really break any new ground for the series.

Graphically, Wild Arms 2 pretty much follows in the path of its predecessor in that the game has it high and lows. Environments such as towns, dungeons and world map are now completely 3D, unlike the first game, and are very well done with lots of detail - as one would expect a last generation PSX title. Unfortunately, like the original, the graphics in the battle scenes are still behind the times (that's somewhat of an understatement). While they are better than first game's, you can tell that this element of the game probably recieved the least attention from the development team. While they're not horrible, it leaves you wondering what could have been.

Story-wise, Wild Arms 2 delivers another interesting and engrosing tale as the original did, even though this time it does take a little but longer for things to get rolling, but not to the point as in Star Ocean: The 2nd Story. However, once the story gets going, their is no turning back (the story is the main reason I like this game the way I do - it has some great twists).

Character development is strong as well, but not as strong as in the first installment. This is probably due to the fact you get 6 characters (1 is hidden) in this game in contrast to having just three characters in the first game. Having more characters means having less time to spend developing each one, but is a VERY welcome change from the first game and is a trade-off that works in favor of the game. I only wish that they empolyed this in Wild Arms 3.

As for battle system, Wild Arms 2 ditches magic points in exchange for the force point system. Overall, this works pretty well, but they're are more than a few occasions where you wish your abilties used MP instead FP. This is especially apparent when fighting the optional foes. Due to the fact a character loses all their FP when knocked out, their are points you'll find you can't defend or cast anything upon revival until you build up more FP. More often than not against the optional foes, they'll knock you into subbmission before you can build your FP back up. This isn't as big of problem with fighters as it is with mage-type characters, who rely on thier FP to cast spells.

Wild Arms 2 is also the hardest out of the three Wild Arms games. There is no duplication trick like the first game and you CANNOT buy Goat Dolls (an automatic revive upon knock-out item) as in Wild Arms. This and the situaution with the force points system makes the extra boss battles in Wild Arms 2 much harder than anything found in Wild Arms and Wild Arms 3. Basically, there is no easy solutions to some of the optional battles in WA2, you just gotta use pure skill, or dumb luck.

While not an amazing game or sequel, Wild Arms 2 is well crafted game worthy of any RPG freak or gamer's playing hours.

this game is good
wow..i played this game from my friend, its really neat..but that was a long time ago. i kinda forgot some of it..but i rememberd they had good graphics

(i kinda forgot some of it, but i still give it a rating 6 out of 10)

please help me?
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The only RPG to get my attention
This is the most fun and only RPG game I've ever played.Though clearly not the best game, it is very fun with a good storyline, music (although it's kind of repetitive) and gameplay. Many people claim this game has bad graphics but at least the towns and dungeons are perfectly put. And graphics don't mean everything. You start off as a GunWarrior, CrestSorceress or Deserter.According to a plan of a Nobleman, you all meet and form a group known as ARMS (Agile Remote Mission Squad).You battle terrorists and a coming, nearly indestructible threat to save the world.There are maybe a whole lot of talking scenes to this game, but I believe talking scenes are a good way to get involved with the characters and feel the depth of the game.The missions, finding new members (total of 6), and combat is fun and enjoyable. This game is especially great for patient people because your destinations can be challenging but not in a way you want to stop playing the game.Overall, I would give Wild Arms 2: 2nd Ignition a total of 4 and a half stars for giving an experience I can never forget.

P.S. There's also an excellent twist at the end of the game, but I don't like to give up surprises. ... Read more