#3

Oops, missed a day. Going to make a double post to make up for that!

Wild ARMs (original y released in 1997 on the PS1)

Okay, so this game has one thing that no other game has for me: the single most beautiful intro I have ever laid eyes and ears on for a game. When the music starts to play and the screen loads to a books pages flipping from a breeze, you get a feeling that this will be a fun ride. Wild ARMs was supposed to be the rpg that was going to quench gamers rpg fix until the mega hit Final Fantasy 7 came out. This was a game that started the series and it had ugly in battle polygons and had no fan base. Most people just overlooked it, because they wanted FF7 and to be honest new games back in the days when rpgs were still an underground genre, a lot of people only bought and rented games that friends pointed out to them or games that had huge fan bases.

Wild ARMs had neither.

Instead, I saw a game that gave me a feel of the old school appeal of those SNES games. It had an overhead view and cute 2D sprites on the map while you were adventuring. Granted, the in battle graphics were some of the worst the Playstation had to offer at the time, I was never much into pretty graphics.

 Even after the beautiful opening animations Wild ARMs gives you a glimpse of some of the characters with a flashback. A group of knights are trying to escape from demons while protecting their king in the process. One of the knights is named Ryan (who dies by the way) and is one of the only characters named Ryan I have ever come across in a rpg. One by one the knights begin to fall to the pursuing demons. The king who shows his true colors as a coward tries to bargain with the demons, only to get killed while groveling at the demons feet. Two of the knights make it to the exit, but the lady knight decides to close the gates from the inside in order to allow the last knight to escape. The sole surviving knight tries to open the gates, but can't from the outside and reluctantly removes himself from the overtaken castle.

The the scene fades away and you are given the title screen.

At the start of the game you are given the option of three adventures. One is a drifter, a youth named Rudy who is silent and has a mysterious history. One is an adventurer by the name of Jack who looks remarkably similar to that knight from the previous scene... The last is a princess by the name of Cecilia who is an adept in the magical arts and has a deep love for Hamburgers.

No matter who you choose, all three end up meeting each other and then there amazing journey begins.

I loved Wild ARMs from start to finish. It had puzzles in the dungeons, it had bonus content, it had extra storyline galore, and it had a colorful cast who all were charming in there own way. Truth be told I was one of those people who was looking forward to FF7 and just rented WA in order to pass the time, but after I played both, WA was the game I preferred and still is to this day.