Finally, I've gotten back in the saddle and started to play Wild ARMs 2 again. It's a lot easier to pick up and play again that I first believed. Most RPGs (especially from the PS1 era) have a nasty habit of leaving you very confused if you try to put it down for more than a day or so. This game is an exception; the hint system in place is quite useful, and the maps are just busy enough to work through.
Overall, the game is going very well. There are some surprise difficulty spikes, but they actually serve to keep you on your toes more often than not. The titular ARMs mechanic is actually improving, giving you all sorts of firearm-based goodness to play around with and harvest the unworthy. The magic system is also pretty functional; the 'Crest' sub-set giving you limited-in-quantity but rewritable spells, while the 'Guardian' subset giving you unlockables based on how many monster kills your summoner-dude gets while equipped with given elemental Guardian. There is a third subset, but I haven't done the necessary steps to unleash it just yet. We shall see.
The whole Guardian concept is also worth noting. Your equipment is the usual weapon plus armor affair, with a slot for the usual accessories like status-immunity items, minor buffs, or even giving basic attacks elemental properties. Each character also has a Guardian slot, which acts much like Final Fantasy summon monsters. Each Guardian boots certain stats, and after a certain point in the storyline, is summonable for a large (but reasonable) cost in the game's take on MP. They're your usual flashy affair, and tend to be very cost-effective. The animations are also fairly nice, with the 'attack' summons being reminiscent of single portions of the fabled Knights of The Round, and a healing summon that looks like somebody took Secret of Mana's Flammie and turned it into a G4 pony. I'm not kidding.
The storyline is alright, being a twist on the usual RPG formula. That said, there are some unexpected moments here and there. Tim, your summoner, is to be used as some sort of sacrifice by his native village. Instead of telling him what an honor it is and how the gods think he's awesomesauce, they pretty much just press-gang him and then outright order him to die. He's all of ten years old by the way. Fortunately things are sorted out and he gets to be part of your flashy doom squad. Our villagers realize they're being assholes, which makes it a bit easier to swallow.
All in all, this is a worthy addition to the RPG specialist's collection, and I'm sorry that I never tried this series out before. I wound up with one game or another in the series a long time ago, and never touched it; not sure why, probably because I have to make up my mind to play a new game and get the jibblies when I don't have access to a guide. Yeah, I'm a total noob wuss like that sometimes.
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