"I'm sure I can beat that mission THIS time..."

I'm a big fan of Strategy RPGs... FF: Tactics, Jeane d'Arc, Disgaea, and so on. Perhaps what was why I found Wild Arms XF so disappointing. It was also one of the most frustrating games I've tried to play in years.

I have to start off by saying that Wild Arms XF has some excellent ideas. It has an interesting job system and the traditional squares were replaced with hexagons allowing for different formation-based tactics. The graphics are actually very nice for sprites, environments and detailed and colorful. The interface is actually one of the best I have seen in one of these types of game, especially the circular command menu with it's nice, clear icons. I wish all strategy RPGs looked this nice or controlled this smoothly.

The voice acting can be a little corny but the characters are interesting and the art is lovely. The story is really quite interesting too.

Unfortunately, the gameplay just doesn't hold up under all that great design. Wild Arms XF isn't a game where you can grind up a very powerful army and take on all the battles. If you don't go into a battle with the right job classes you are pretty much doomed. Some battles have different objectives such as saving citizens or escaping and these can go wrong very easily and they aren't forgiving. For example, you can't let anyone you are helping escape die, or if even one of your party members dies you lose.

Overall, the entire game has a feel of trial and error. You might come into a battle at a high level with the appropriate job classes and still have everything go completely wrong due to some unlucky hits or misses. Also, you will find yourself fighting the same battle over and over trying to figure out the right strategy. (For example, I have played many strategy RPGs and the second and third battles of this game wiped the floor with me numerous times each... big blow to the ego there.) This is very frustrating. Going into each battle with a sense of dread and no hope that I might emerge victorious really put a damper on the experience.

The necessity to take certain job classes into certain battles takes away a great deal of the fun of customization in the game. You really don't have much control over what sort of party you want and what classes you would prefer your characters to be as you have to change to certain classes for certain missions. For example, one mission will require you to use a character class that can create 'fake' characters to distract the enemy... which will always attack the fake characters, of course. This lack of customization equals a lack of fun.

Ultimately, the game boils down to there being essentially one strategy per battle that works. Once you figure that out it's probably too late to salvage the battle. This is made even worse by the fact that these battles are not short, you might spend a good half hour getting annihilated and need to do the entire thing again and again and again. At the end of the day, I prefer a bit more choice in how to tackle a battle in my strategy RPGs.

Even giving in and using a walkthrough and seeking out advice, Wild Arms XF just proved an exercise in frustration that ended up feeling too much like work to see through to the end. Instead, it made me want to play FF: Tactics and Jeane d'Arc again. This game had so much potential and looks so very good. I wish it had fun gameplay too.

Give this one a rent even if you love strategy RPGs. Obviously, some people really love it but it just wasn't my thing.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 04/09/08

Game Release: Wild ARMs XF (US, 03/11/08)