[PS2] Wild Arms: Vth Vanguard

Seems funny that half this thread is about Suikoden when it's over WA.

The only experience with WA I've had was with 3, and even then I thought it was average. My brother is bugging me to buy 4, but I've read some pretty negative reviews on it. I think I'm going to buy it anyway for his sake. =p

The graphics look pretty nice. Oh, yeah, SHOVEL. Cool.

Then my own comment on Suikoden. XD Goldfish, take everyone's advice and do not finish IV. It will literally break your heart as it did mine. I haven't played V yet but from reading the comments on this thread it makes me want to rush out and play it immediately. I'm skeptical about the "better than II" opinions; I'll have to play it for myself. The literal heartbreak with the "bad ending" with II led me to leave the game unplayed for a week before I can return to it again. The emotions were that bad for me.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

I believe WA4 is up online for $20, last I've seen it. Check Amazon or something.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

After playing around 30 hours of WA4 and getting around to the last dungeon (I got far enough -- like one screen over -- to get back into the world map), I can thoroughly say I was disappointed with this game. Although the only other WA game I played was 3 (I only played like a half hour of 1), it seemed like the story of 4 was some bad anime script left on the chopping block. I liked 3 a lot better in comparison to 4.

I can rant much more (probably do so when I actually finish the game), but here I'll start on the Hex system. Talk about horrible. Simply horrific. I didn't like it one bit; there leaves little room for flexibility and more room for sheer annoyance. Yulie dies pretty much half the time unless I on purposely draw her into a corner (despite her attack which can deal more damage than Arnaud). And if you just Intrude with Raquel you pretty much got the battle to your grand advantage. Not only that, I never felt the need to level (which was great, actually) since the boss battles were extremely easy. Extremely easy. Sometimes they are tricky, but after the first couple of moves you understand what little magic trick or whatnot to get over this small obstacle. All I do to "level" was throw a Lucky Card and I'm game for the next area.

Now the story... hoooo. It's like a deflated balloon. Firstly, I dislike main characters who are within the age range of 13-18; unfortunately 99% of RPGs follow this "rule". More often than not I found it very juvenile with classic anime-ish plot twists (character dies, noooo, character dies, noooo). I never really connected with any of the main characters, sadly. They were all very one sided. Lambda was also dry.

Good things: Side view. That was pretty interesting. The ACB or whatever thing you activate with R1. I liked that. Some of the puzzles in WA4 were fun.

Bad things: Things described above. Probably a few more things I couldn't think of now. Also... the voices! GAHHHRHHRHH. "Razor sharp intellect! What's above my head!" It was almost as annoying as SO3. And I felt sometimes when the antagonists read dialogue it was painfully slow and clear that they were just reading the script in front of them. It was sad.

I know I'll probably get blasted for this, but now I know where the bad reviews come from. WA4 couldn't hold up. It had the Suikoden IV (S4 was truly a bad game) phenomenon, the "Huh? That's it?" Time to begin Suikoden V.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.