It has been over ten years since I played through the original Wild Arms. While I could be using my newly acquired PSP to be moving on to some other title exclusive to the system that I happened to miss out on, I am instead using it to experience one of my favorite games for the original Playstation once again.

Time has not been kind to this game, and yet I still enjoy it immensely. The strange thing is, I cannot completely piece together why.

The best way I can describe Wild Arms to the uninitiated is a mash-up between Trigun and Vision of Escaflowne in regards to setting. A comparison that is absolutely worthless to anyone unfamiliar with anime of the late 1990’s. What allows Wild Arms to stand out from its JRPG brethren is that it is a Western inspired fantasy setting. Cowboy hats, farms, and desert litter the landscape of a dying land while ancient Mechs are uncovered from the Earth. There are steam and coal-powered machines as well as the high-tech remnants of an Elf-like race that long ago left the dying world.

By the Playstation it was common to see fantasy and science-fiction blending together in Japanese role-playing games, especially due to the popularity of the Final Fantasy franchise, but to also include that blend of Wild West flavor allowed Wild Arms to really have a unique aesthetic, both visually and aurally.

The protagonists come to be known as “Dream Chasers”, a name for adventurers seeking ruins and treasure. While our heroes have a primary goal of saving the world, the gameplay is very much focused on this idea of wandering ancient and abandoned locations in a search for ancient valuables. While the Wild West was typically more about exploring new and uncivilized lands, Wild Arms instead reorients it to a more broad sense of adventure. Dream Chasers yearn not only to be free, but for the thrill of danger and the hunt for moola.

As a result, Wild Arms has a great sense of constant “dungeon crawling” to it, a trend that would continue into its Playstation 2 successor Wild Arms 3 (the furthest I’ve played in the franchise). The ability to use tools within dungeons also sets Wild Arms apart from its competitors, allowing for puzzle solving more in-line with Zelda games than Dragon Quest or Final Fantasy. From pressing switches and pushing blocks to bombing walls and grappling across gaps in the floor, Wild Arms gives the player a very pulpy sense of adventure as they dive deeper and deeper into decaying ruins and caverns.

Even the character’s special abilities are found through treasure chests and exploration as opposed to leveling up. In order to learn new spells the player must find “Crest Graphs”, items in which a spell is written and imbued. The swordsman learns new attacks and abilities through a variety of hidden locations within the environment, be it from the way the wind is blowing upon a mountain to an ancient statue demanding he pass a trial by fire. The gunslinger obtains new firearms through special chests scattered throughout the world.

In essence, Wild Arms takes traditional role-playing elements and tropes, such as dungeons and abilities, and ties them into the setting’s theme of adventure. It is also thematically intentional that each dungeon is essentially a ruin, a piece of the old world that has long since been abandoned by humankind. The world of Filgaia is dying, and these locations all serve as a reminder to what was once a lush and heavily populated world.

Each of these elements to the game makes it a fascinating setting, and giving each dungeon a sort of gameplay “gimmick” on top of the various tool-based puzzles helped keep them more entertaining and invigorating to explore, but it’s not enough to make a game fun to play. They are, after all, only part of the experience.

The combat was pretty simple and out-dated when the game released in the late 1990’s. It is a simple turn-based system with your standard combat commands. The only thing to differentiate it is a “Force Gauge” that allows you to use special abilities once it has filled up to a certain point. Most of these abilities are unique to each character and appeal to their strengths. Yet it is not enough to really make battles fun or enjoyable.

Indeed, sometimes the constant random encounters can make a dungeon feel too long and tedious. While this is partially due to how well the puzzles in any given dungeon are constructed, fights that simply take too long ultimately feel like padding.

Yet I am enjoying my time with the game. I cannot quite piece together why outside of a satisfaction in figuring out what combination of attacks will wipe out all the foes in a single round. It’s not really difficult enough to keep me on the edge of my seat, nor are the enemies themselves really special or different enough in each fight to keep my mind operating at full speed. In fact, the enemies are pretty identical in most aspects.

Despite all of these flaws, I am still, for whatever reason, having a good time. Perhaps I’ll figure it out as I get closer to the end of the game. For now, however, I’m simply content to be enjoying the title again.

However, it is hard to recommend it to anyone new to the franchise over a later title like Wild Arms 3. Combat was still weaker than many of its competition at the time, but the dungeon-diving strengths of the first title were only made better and better in its later iteration.