One of the first RPGs to hit the Playstation, Wild Arms was the game that introduced many players to Japanese console RPGs before the release of Final Fantasy VII. A new instalment followed a couple of years ago - partially ruined by an awful localization, Wild Arms 2 was easily overshadowed by many other titles that populated the line-up of the console.

Nevertheless, this series has its magic and its loyal fans. Gifted with intuitive gameplay and well-developed storylines, Wild Arms games take place in the decaying world of Filgaia, a reproduction of the American Old West seen through Sergio Leone's Spaghetti-Western movies. In Wild Arms you'll find deserts, ghost towns, trains, horses, and dusty roads, but with the addition of typical fantasy elements like dragons, monsters, magic spells, and, you guessed it, summon creatures.

Wild Arms 3 is a very classic Japanese RPG that carry on the heritage of the series without the urge of innovating. Despite the rather unusual setting, Wild Arms 3 looks and plays a lot like Grandia games, but it's clear the developers drew part of their inspiration from Final Fantasy VII - expect to have some déjà vu here.

There are no apocalyptic events in Wild Arms 3; the story follows another cliché of the genre: the heroes of the game are four "drifters", three young men and a girl in search of money, fortune, and adventure in Filgaia. Each character represents a "type" of the RPG genre. Jet is the classic anti-hero, the Cloud Strife of the group, a mercenary with apparently no other passion than money; Gallows is the big rude boy, but you'll soon realize he is more tender than he looks; Clive is the elegant hero, the good hearted mercenary always ready to help people in danger. A bit more original is the choice of a female character as the main hero: Virgina Maxwell is a girl who has always dreamed to be a drifter, and she's as skilled as Clint Eastwood with her pair of six-shooters.

While the main plot is rather bland, the interesting development of the relations among the main characters make this 40+ hours long adventure actually interesting and worth playing. Virgina, Gallows, Clive and Jet become lively, well-rounded persons as long as the story proceeds. Not by chance, before entering into the actual main storyline, you have to play through four mini-stories that introduce you to each of these characters - a good choice of the developers who clearly wanted a) to make you feel interested about the destiny of their heroes, without using the usual ten minutes of non-playable cutscenes b) to let you learn the controls and the basics of the battle system in a few minutes, with no need of reading the game manual.

Actually, Wild Arms 3 is a very straightforward RPG. In the world of Filgaia you'll visit towns, mysterious ruins, and dozens of dungeons. The graphic engine shows the environments in a classic 3D isometric perspective, the top down view with no roofs typical of Grandia games, and exploring the dungeons you have to pass through many and many rooms occasionally solving easy puzzles like "light four torches to open a door" or "move a crate to activate a mechanism on the floor" - I wonder when crates-based puzzles will finally disappear from videogames. Progressing in the game, puzzles become more varied and difficult. Each member of your team has many special abilities and tools that are necessary to solve the many puzzles; sometimes you'll have to combine these abilities to proceed. Unluckily, you can't just stay in a room and move around trying to solve a puzzle, because Wild Arms 3 is heavily based on random battles. Thankfully, you can skip many battles by pressing the Circle button, but you can do this just a few times: according to your team's stats, each time you skip a battle, the "Encounter Gauge" depletes; you can refill it resting in a inn, collecting encounter gems you can find in the dungeon, or fighting - since there aren't inns in the dungeons and since Encounter gems are very rare, by the end of the game you'll have fought thousands of battles.

Sincerely, I had fun fighting in the dungeons - after all, battles are the core of many good RPGs - but travelling in the World Map was often source of frustration. Wild Arms games feature a World Map like Final Fantasy games; you travel from town to town through the World Map, and like in a dungeon, you have to face lots of random battles. But like in the previous games of the series, in Wild Arms 3 the places where you are supposed to go aren't immediately visible. You have to stop, press the Square button, and activate a sonar-like search system that detects all interesting places in the surroundings. This senseless "Search System" that the developers seem to love so much, combined with the poor indications you are given about the position of your next leg (generic as "go south, past that big mountain"), makes your travels in the World Map a continuous, apparently endless "move a few steps - cross your fingers - activate Search System - you have found nothing - fight random battle". This inevitably adds a few hours of gameplay, but it's far from my definition of role-playing fun. Your feet will not be the only means of transport in the world of Filgaia. You'll soon find horses, trains, and later, a sandcraft, a sort of ship built to "sail" the deserts of Filgaia. Anyhow, unlike Final Fantasy's Chocobos, neither horses nor the sandcraft will prevent you from fighting random battles.

The battle system is simple but flawless, and it resembles the one of Grandia games; it simulates the heat of chaotic battles, because your characters and the enemies move freely in the battle area. When your turn has come, an icon-based battle menu is displayed. You can shoot, guard (this also reloads the bullets in your ARM), use an item, use a force ability, or activate magic spells. There are no magic points in Wild Arms 3, but in order to use a Force Ability or Magic you need Force Points. At the beginning of each battle, your Force Points are always equal to zero: your characters earn Force Points when they attack an enemy or when they're attacked. Force Abilities are special powers that can vary according to the character, and they consume a certain amount of Force Points. Magic Spells, called Arcana in the game, require that you have a certain amount of Force Points, but they don't consume them - basically, you can use a magic spell as long as you like, once you've gained a sufficient amount of Force Points in the battle. If you want, you can also select the Auto Battle mode; in this way, your characters will automatically fight during the battle, following the strategy you selected for your team. The Auto Battle mode can be useful if you are tired of playing over and over random battles against the same enemies, but it's an option that fans of action RPGs will not even take into consideration.

A final note should be made about the good localization work. After the awful localization of the previous instalment, SCEA asked Squaresoft to take care of the North American version of Wild Arms 3. The result is excellent, with written dialogues that are always believable and enjoyable, and that perfectly distinguish each character.

Overall, Wild Arms 3 is a good RPG, flawed by some weird choice of the developers, but that will please fans of console RPGs. As a whole, the game may seem too simplistic, but it actually delivers a well-balanced and varied gaming experience.