[Kyanbu The Legend]

Been very busy so I haven't played much but there are two I'll bring up. One that I played from start to finish this year, and the other is more of a game I've played on and off since 2011. Which I'll review later on.

WildARMS XF (PSP/Vita)
Cross fire is a neat little TRPG and the last entry in the long standing WildARMS Franchise. It's kind of the FFT of the series in my opinion. The story focuses on Clarissa and Felius Arwin, a pair of young drifters whom are trying to get their mother's sword back after it gets stolen by a lone drifter and skilled swordsmen, Rupert. Their chase leads them to the kingdom of Elesius. Where one simple rescue mission to free a town from bandits results the two being dragged into a country wide conspiracy involving the King, the Royal Council, The church, and a sea of corruption and treason. While the game is set in a western world with wild west inspired designs that the WA franchise is known for. Clarissa is the only one who carries a gun. Granted it's a very special gun but still. XD The story is pretty decent. A bit cliche but enjoyable none the less. With some memorable characters and moments. "Katrina" being my favorite character mainly because of one amazing moment and everything after it. XD
Gotta love Evil Katrina lol.

Gameplay:
Like I said before, it's a TRPG similar to the likes of FFT. While having it's own take on the genre. battles take place on hex grid maps of various sizes. You pick up to 6 of your characters to place into battle. Like FFT and most of TRPG. XF uses a class system. Each character has their own unique class tied specifically to them. All in addition to numerous classes to chose from for new recruits or changing your main characters jobs to fit your current mission. And here's where things get a bit unique and annoying in some cases a bit too early on. Each battle through out the story is set up like a puzzle. After being given a brief summary on the field, the enemy, and the objective. It's up to you to solve the map.

To do so you will have to change your character's class to ones that have the skills you need to complete the mission. Fortunately you do not have to grind to use all of the skills that class has. Because each class has complete access to all of it's skills from the get go. Simply equip the class you need and you're good to go. But should you level up a class for any given character, that character will learn a skill from that class. Which you can equip to said character. Equipped skills can be used regardless of what class your character currently is. Allowing you to mix and match skill from varies classes to make your characters more versatile. Maxing out Classes isn't too bad as each class level caps at 7. And most vital skills are learned by Class level 3, though it does pay off to max them out to unlock each classes hidden skill. Not necessary but they can be helpful mid to late game. But unfortunately the only time you get a lot of experience is through story battles. Going back and replaying a map won't get you much experience. Though aside from class leveling, you'll rarely ever need to grind as the game is very dependent on you using the jobs it wants you to use for each given mission rather then you being at a specific level. Making each battle unique at the expense of you losing quite a bit freedom of choice when it comes to playing styles. You still have some leeway but that falls mainly on how many of your characters have mastered a class, or at least learned some skills from different classes.

Some of these missions have fairly simple objectives like "rescue everyone without getting seen" or "get to point B, on the map". Others more complex and challenging. With some maps being fairly difficult a bit too early on. like late Chapter 1 early where you have to make good use of stat debuffing or you're not winning as the game will sometimes and very intentionally put you up against enemies that are not only way above you but can stat buff them selves... And this is happens in chapter 1 and chapter 2 though it's not so bad compared to the first time. And there are points in the game where you can be very easily put in a bad situation if you haven't been stocking up on new gear and items as well as learning "Emulator" skills (this game's version of "Blue Magic") from enemies later on in Chapter 3. As frequently as possible whenever you can. As the game loves putting you in chain battles without the option to go to town an buy gear/items. Especially in Chapter 3 oh dear god I got pretty close to a dead game because I missed a chance to learn a Emulator skill from a certain enemy during a story battle. Resulting in me fighting enemies without the spell they are weak against. And they had high defense and hit like trucks! Damn those golems!!!!! be sure to learn "Electrigger" ASAP! as it makes this point of the game go by a lot more smoothly. As the Golems are x2 weak to it! Especially when cast by the Emulator Class thanks to their "Exploit Weakness" Skill. By the way, the game doesn't tell you this UNTIL it's too late to get the skill. It just assumes you went out of your way to get it before hand... thanks Labyrinthia...-_-

Fortunately it's not too hard to get a good balanced team set up. So the game actually gets easier towards late game (chapter 4 onward). And there are a few skill combinations that can break the game in half though they require a bit of class grinding. There's also one more thing. the VP bar, which depletes every time your characters move. Each character has their own VP stat. Each one varying depending on what class that character has equipped. Should you VP bar hit 0, your character will become fatigued. meaning they'll take damage at the end of their turn. Kind of like poison. Fortunately this won't kill your characters. At worst they'll be down to 1 HP. Unfortunately if you don't plan your moves out carefully or keep VP items and VP recovery skills handy. This can become a problem should your mission drag out too long. But despite popular belief. This is not really an issue. You take very little damage per turn and that's only when the VP bar is at 0. Which will take a while to happen. and it resets whenever you revive a character during battle anyway for the most part. Also for WA veterans, I'm afraid to say there are no Summons in this game that you can use. Though they do play a role in this world's lore and story. You just can't use any of them.

All in all, WildARMS XF is a fairly decent and challenging TRPG. With a interesting take on the Class system and some interesting missions as a result. But the game's difficulty curve is too hard in the beginning while being almost too easy towards the end (during the end of the last battle before the Final Chapter. You can literally win the battle by doing absolutely nothing aside from moving all of your units as far back from the starting point as possible... I'm not kidding and the game even encourages this in what ends up being an anti climatic but very poetic victory that's full of irony XD). A decent story, a some what lovable cast with questionable voice acting. And great Sound Track, and many memorable moments that'll make you smile, cry, and probably rage.


7.8/10 (Good)