Wild Arms: Standard JRPG - Bogged Down By It's Simplicity and The Design Trends of it's Time

Wild Arms is one of those "hidden gems" I've heard of for awhile. Framed as this often looked over JRPG worth the time and consideration of gamers, unfortunately eclipsed by the release of Final Fantasy VII. I am curious of how it got this reputation. I hate to make accusations like: "People are blinded by nostalgia" because those same words have been used to disregard some of my own favorite pieces of media but I earnestly cannot help but feel that way after having experienced Wild Arms and what it had to offer.

During the half way point of my playthrough I had this feeling that my ending thoughts of the game were going to be something along the lines of: simple story, simple combat, but tight and not too difficult - makes for a nice casual playthrough for JRPG veterans or a beginners entry for those new to JRPGs. However three core things come together to make the experience begin to falter and really drained me by the end. These three things being:

1. The Encounter Rate
Wild Arms has an impressively high encounter rate. I am talking every few steps sometimes.

2. The Slowness Pace of Battles
These battles can be painfully slow. The worst example of this happening with enemies who inflict       status ailments, further slowing down the battle with LONG spell animations and wasting your            subsequent turn healing the conditions.

3. The Labyrinthian Dungeon Design
This should be a HUGE positive for me. I love dungeons - they are some of my favorite parts of            RPGs

Wild Arms has some incredibly interesting and fun dungeons. Puzzle focused with each character acquiring a number of tools to provide different layers and types of solutions to the puzzles within each dungeon. On top of these neatly designed puzzles comes these maze like corridors that test the player's awareness and memory - filled with a great amount of treasures that are always helpful and never feel like a waste during your playthrough. Seriously fantastically designed areas that are brain scratching and feel like more than just padding. If only you could explore them without so much struggle. When your dungeons are long and they are sprawling the worst thing you can do is make a player unable to explore them and take note of their environment. I had a reoccurring problem in Wild Arms where I was unable to create a mental map of the area I was exploring because of the amount of time I spent in battles. I would begin exploring an area, only to be hit with a random encounter, this battle would take a minute or two, then I would take a few steps and then be hit with another random encounter, after which I would retrace my steps a bit refamiliarize myself with where I was because my mental map of the area had began to blur after spending so much time in battle. Rinse and Repeat this process until I completed the area. This high encounter rate is further exacerbated by the fact that Wild Arms is simple. The battle system could even be called brain dead. I don't hate this on the surface- sometimes an affair of: Pick your strongest attack --> Heal when needed --> Repeat, is what I want. But for the battles to be this simple yet take so long only serves to bore the player. This boredom became frustration when these battles kept me from progressing and feeling like a master of my environment with the dungeons. 

I wanted to enjoy the game - but the game found it necessary to keep me from experiencing it most interesting aspects.

Wild Arms has ambition. It feels like it has some ideas it wants to show the player. The whole project feels like it comes from this place of excitement and inexperience. The wild west flavoring is inspired but is underutilized - the game largely feels like a standard JRPG fantasy - but with sprinklings of the steam powered machinery. While everyone is using Swords and Sorcery your main character will occasionally pull out a FUCKING ROCKET LAUNCHER. Its charming - but it doesn't go far enough. The designs of enemies are wild. Very little standard JRPG monster fodder - many of these creatures are terrifying or wacky beyond description.

Bird with metal hands and spiked purple shoes

Lizard Plant Maneater thing with tendrils???????

They have a Flatwoods Monster! This is one of my favorite things ever! You have to understand how much I want to like this game.

Even the big bads have these really interesting designs - some of who fall into the realm of ninjas - super off kilter in comparison to the demon dark knights. I feel its obvious that the team had unique ideas and wanted to implement them into their own RPG but the ideas themselves never get to have the proper spotlight they deserve because of the simple combat and the high encounter rate that was typical of older JRPGs. Rebalance and tweak some numbers and this game could work so much better. Truly a shame.

I Want Media To Be Genuine, I Think........

 I am over media discussion. I am over media journalism. Its almost all this trite circle jerking. A bunch of "informed consumers" fighting over how informed they all are. We are in an age of endless content. An age where all the scratches in your brain can be itched by the most targeted and focused pieces of media. You can be appealed to in ways never seen before. Perfectly crafted algorithmic formulas concocted in the offices of our corporate overlords to be poured into the ever further decomposing  mindscape of the masses of hungry consumers. Should you be appealed to though? Do you know what's good for you? Have you noticed that since we have damn near automated and assembly lined the process of creating art that we just get the smallest variations on the same things? Every video game is the "Dark Soul of X" or is "Like X and Y had a baby" or "A battle royale with influences from X". Its derivative. Everything is derivative, and its all derivative in the worst ways. Not in the way that an adolescent new to creation wears their influences on their sleeves in their first attempts at expression. That's endearing, that's inspiring. This is cold. Calculated. Manufactured. These are small turns of the dial made to see if the end result is more profitable. "They like extended universes, Marvel is real big, so we need to make sure all of our projects relate and connect and converge" "They like crafting stuff. Look at all these survival games, look at Minecraft, they are huge. We need to put in a crafting system." "They like competitive multiplayer where extended play sessions are rewarded, so lets implement a perk system. And we made it so this multiplayer aspect of our game is their primary avenue of social interaction - so if they fall behind we can make it so they can just pay their way into parity with their online friends."

The worst part of this is that it is rewarded. It is greatly rewarded. We love our small iterations on the SAME FUCKING FORMULAS. We have been convinced we need to consume all of these tiny iterations, quickly and obediently. 60 - 80 hour experiences we need to finish this month because the next 60 - 80 hour experience is fast approaching and we can't fall behind. God forbid you fall behind. If you fall behind you might not be a part of the conversation. A pointless, worthless, unfulfilling conversation. Drivel. The same conversation you had on another game just like it a few months back. Just to keep up your "friendships" with filler. Because that's what friendships are, right? Opportunities to talk about media! Not to experience life together. Help one another accomplish life goals or projects - we don't have the time for that anymore. We have to use that free time to CONSUME MORE. 

Video games are bad but anime is the true embodiment of this. The logical extreme. With the isekai genre being a stark showing of this philosophy on making tiny changes to a formula until it brings the bank. A slice of life high school anime with some small change or area of focus. In the late 2000s we had this small "genre" of shows which we called "cute girls doing cute things" where the "cute things" could be literally anything. Driving tanks, Mahjong, Surviving the zombie apocalypse, Band class, Just trying to graduate high school, etc. Its been going on in this medium since its insurgence. The medium is almost entirely defined by this derivative and  iterative nature. Hundreds of mech shows. Hundreds of shonens that tweak that formula Dragon Ball created. Hundreds of high school comedy shows that are similar to Azumanga Daioh. Hundreds of "regular Japanese dude gets transported to another world with amazing powers" isekai shows. Its the nature of the damn medium. Its insular. Anime is influence by other anime. Who's roots all go back to one brand new take within the medium decades ago. This works because of the Japanese Otaku culture and its increasing isolation and lack of families. A path that we in the western world are walking towards all the same. We work more, interact less, and birth rates are falling more and more. Moving towards media to fill those voids. This piece of media made me feel happy for a moment, and this one did the same, so if I found something that was like these two things put together then I'd be twice the more happy! Without ever realizing the profound parts of these things didn't come from the superficial things we identified. 

We like to trick ourselves into believing that there is some easily identifiable to formula to happiness. Its human for us to believe this. We always want an easy answer. Eat this superfood and you'll be healthier and live longer. Stop eating processed grain. Consume less sugar, but avoid artificial sweetener. Take this pill for pain. Just deadlift more and you'll muscles will strengthen and your back won't hurt as much. That's what media has tapped into. Add a little bit of this and a little bit of that with a sprinkle of this and you got a hit. Never understanding that at the root of it all - its the human aspect we value the most. When you play something like Undertale, beyond all the concepts and fun ideas and all the "its like Earthbound meets a shoot-em-up and a visual novel" bullshit, what you have is a cohesive piece of art with a clear vision and emotional impact. There's a clear passion and something being told. Emotions that are genuine being conveyed to you. Passion evident in the lines of dialogue and the scenarios presented. Sometimes it doesn't even need to be upfront, it can be obscured, but the sparks it creates in the consumer's soul causes a fire to erupt. Think of Dark Souls and its lore, communities of people piecing it together into a rich tapestry for the awe of any seeking it out. All because of the aesthetics and odd language used. This VISION, so human, so alluring. It can't help but compel us into taking a dive into it. 

When these pieces art land they greatly impact the landscape of whatever medium they fall into. A paradigm shift occurs. We think its because of the new mechanics or the new approaches but we never seem to understand where the ability to create those new mechanics or approaches come from. They come from a person or people trying to convey. A person or people trying to communicate something, and in trying to find the way to communicate that something they find that what was before just can't communicate what they hold deep in their heart(s) in the way they want, so they must create an approach all new. We become so deeply impacted by this combination of human expression and approach but put all of the weight in the approach. Shove ideas into that box and come short - missing that human aspect that gave it it's gravity. This is where so many attempts at representation fail. Misguided social critics may have you believe its some sort of conspiracy involving the woke mob or some garbage (where if you follow the breadcrumbs far enough you learn the roots are blatant anti-Semitism) but the issue is that they shoe horn in representation and it rarely comes from these minorities themselves. These aren't minorities creating minority characters to tell the stories of their minority experience. These are calculated business decisions made to save face and create good rapport. Its not genuine, and while the social critics aren't ok with it for that reason (their reasons truly stem from dark places) this is why I am not ok with it.