Intro:

Wild ARMs 5 or Wild Arms: the 5th (Vth) Vanguard is the latest installment in the Wild Arms series. This game is an excellent improvement on the previous game, Wild ARMs 4. The areas outside the dungeons and towns are now a free roam environment. The puzzles in the dungeons are still using tools to solve them but they can now be done with the main characters ARMs and different cartridges for the ARM.

Story:

Wild Arms 5 starts with a boy named Dean Stark who has just 16 and is now considered an adult of his home town Capo Bronco. Golems play a pivitol roll in Wild Arms as they are ancient machines that are helping the people of Filgaia understand their past. There are however those who believe that the golems are a bad thing. These people are known as Golem Crushers. Dean is one of those people who believe golems are a good thing for this world and one of his idols is a famous Golem Hunter named Nightburn Acklund. This inspires him as his first act of adult hood to set off into near by ruins with nothing but his trust shovel, “Black Fenrir”, in search of golem parts.

Inside he finds not only golem parts but his friend Rebecca’s journal. Feeling triumphant he heads back to town to meet with the Golem Engineer, Tony, and to return the diary to Rebecca. While returning the diary he tells Rebecca of his decision to go to Lalia Belle, where a Golem Hunter guild resides in hopes of obtaining a Golem Hunter License and a weapon called an ARM. An Arm can vary from anything between a sword, to a gun, or even a bazooka. Each has a specific amount of rounds that determines the amount of times one can attack before reloading. Rebecca informs him that he can’t go that far alone and only with his shovel. Dean then decides to do the most logical thing and brings Rebecca along to prove to her that he can go ahead without her. With Rebecca in tow they head to a nearby area called Celestial Peak.

At the Celestial Peak, they see something odd in the sky falling at an alarming rate crash into a nearby cave. The two enter to find a huge golem arm. Dean is ecstatic and basically overflows with joy knowing that he has found something amazing. The golem’s hand then opens up to reveals a woman. The woman walks out with a pair of weapons in her arms and passes out  into Dean’s arms. The cave starts to crumble from the impact and the team escapes before they are crushed. The arm falls and disappears in a flash of light on their way out. Outside they are able to talk to the woman from the golem’s hand, she reveals that here name is Avril and that she is looking for Johnny Appleseed. The group then jumped by a very large monster.

Dean attempts to fend it off with his shovel, at least until it breaks, which devastates Dean. Rebecca tells Dean to buck up and deal with it and Avril offers the weapons she is carrying to Dean. These weapons are in the shape of a kind of revolver mixed with a present-day handgun. This weapon can fire bullets but also has a sort of blade that ejects out of the place where the clip would be on a regular handgun. Dean is able to flip the monster a distance behind party. Rebecca is amazed and the three gang up and defeat the creature. Dean offers the ARMs he received back to Avril who responds that she feels that Dean is the one destined to use the ARMs. Dean accepts them and the team heads back to Capo Bronco.

Once the team returns to Capo Bronco, Dean shows his new ARMs to Tony and informs him of his decision to leave Capo Bronco and become a Golem Hunter. Tony gives Dean a gift and his blessing. Avril, Dean, and Rebecca head out into the world of Filgaia.

Combat System:

The battle system for Wild Arms 5 has been from redone from previous games. The system used is known as the HEX system which uses 6 hexes as the battlefield. As with any system there are several advantages and disadvantages. One advantage to the system is if 2 or more enemies are on the same HEX, you can deal damage to them all. Though this can quickly turn into a disadvantage for you if your 2 or 3 of your party members are on the same HEX as all of the members get damaged then as well. In essence, you do not attack something individually, you attack the HEX. The same goes for Negative and positive status effects. As an example, negatives are Poison and Disease, with positives being boosts in speed and attack. However, if the characters in the HEX with the status effects move out of that HEX, the status effects are gone.

At the start of a battle, some HEX positions have a color associated with them called ley points. These points give elemental attributes to some moves and offer weaknesses. For example, if an enemy is on a Water ley point and Avril casts a Fire based spell from a Fire ley point the attack will do more damage than if the enemy was on a regular point though less damage would be dealt if the enemy was on another Fire ley point.

The party members can now move and attack, whereas in Wild ARMs 4, you had to move one turn and attack in a different one, unless you used an ability and wasted valuable Focus points. Focus points allow your party members to perform special actions like “Jump” and allow you to perform combined attacks with another characters on the same HEX. The combined attacks also do damage to a number of HEX positions, to those in a line, those around the HEX, and all of them. The battle system has been greatly improved and the game is still pretty good.

Conclusion:

The fans of the series have voiced their complaints about the game not keeping to the Wild West theme that the 1, 2, and 3 had. Wild ARMs 4 broke off from that and offered a futuristic look. Wild ARMs 5 goes back to the Wild West with a slight futuristic aspect to it. Several characters make cameo appearances. For example, Kanon, a mercenary from Wild ARMs 2, makes an appearance in the game at the Cavam Valley Train station as the “Crimson Warrioress”. All in all, with all the surprises and extras that are in the game, it was a good purchase to make and I highly recommend it.