[[2026 Games]] ## 2026-01-01 The [[PlayStation 2]] is home to a deluge of [[JRPG|JRPGs]] — dozens, if not hundreds of the things. While most know of the heavy hitters, your **Final Fantasies**, your **Dragon Quests** and the like, there were just as many bangers that flew under the radar. [[Shadow Hearts - Covenant|Shadow Hearts: Covenant]], **Mana Khermia**, **Suikoden V**: the list goes on and on. **Wild Arms 5** is the most recent game from that era that I’ve played, and possibly the best of the best. It released in America in 2007, nearly half a year after the **PlayStation 3** made its debut. What I’m saying is that it didn’t stand a chance and would flop on release. Even I, someone who remembers loving **Wild Arms 3** and who plans to replay it this year, didn’t even know this game existed until a few years after it dropped. That’s a shame, because it’s fantastic. I tried **Wild Arms 4** last year and found myself relatively unimpressed. The only thing I appreciated was the Hex System. **Wild Arms 5** takes that great combat gimmick and expands on it, while ditching all the stuff that made **WA4** pretty mediocre to me. I need to be clear: this game is shonen to its very core. Giant robots, a love triangle, the power of friendship and never giving up, an idealistic protagonist and saving the world — if there’s a shonen box you can think of, **WA5** checks it. Where it sets itself apart is mostly in its presentation. Despite being a **PS2** game coming out in 2007, this game could easily pass as a **PS3** game. It’s gorgeous to look at — same-y dungeons notwithstanding — and has tons of quality of life that you’d expect from a game that came out this year. Everything about it is super smooth, even running at a crisp 60FPS everywhere but the game’s overworld. The cutscenes are well directed and voiced, too. But the best thing about **Wild Arms 5** is without question the Hex Battle System. As my taste in games is refined with age and reflection, I find myself gravitating towards RPGs that eschew the **Dragon Quest**-esque “Attack / Defend / Item” paradigm, which is why the combat in **WA5** is so engaging to me. Every battle takes place on a grid of hexes that are all adjacent to one another. Each character can move around and attack on these hexes, and characters and enemies can group up — or be forced to group up — on individual hexes. ![[Wild Arms 5-1767464094765.png]] When characters are grouped up on a hexagon, they can perform special attacks together using the force meter. However, damage is done to a *hex*, not an individual party member — meaning put all three characters in one spot, and they might get blown out by an extra powerful attack. On the opposite side of the coin, everyone can be healed on a singular hex too. Then there’s the elemental system. Hexes can have an elemental attribute, and when a party member stands on it, their special attacks will carry that element. But the same is true of enemies. Between what I just described, there’s a push and pull to the combat. Literally! You eventually get abilities to swap places with enemies on a hex, change the elements of them, gather enemies into one spot, and more. It feels extremely cool to manipulate the arena by changing an element of a hex to get an instant kill, or lock an enemy into a hex so they’re cornered and you can whale on them. Plus there’s a turbo mode that lets you skip animations, which is great when you just wanna rip through battles as you explore. On that note, **Wild Arms 5** isn’t as puzzle-dense as **Wild Arms 3**, which may as well have been **Lufia** spiritual successors with how difficult they could get. But they’re simple and satisfying enough, breaking up the monotony of the ruins and caves you tend to be frequently stuck in. A cool update to the series’ encounter skipping system is the Soul Niger[^1]. Each dungeon has one of these, housing a difficult battle inside it. If you purify it, you can just turn battle encounters on and off as you’d like. I love this because if you can beat this battle, then you’re likely strong enough to cruise through the rest of the dungeon anyways. I wish more games had it. If I could describe **Wild Arms 5** in one word, it would be “pleasant.” It’s a solid game from beginning to end. If you focus on the main story, you’ll clear it quickly and be satisfied. But there’s a ton of side-content too, including four optional dungeons to tackle. I don’t have time for that sort of thing now, but I know I would have worn the disc out if I played it as a teenager. I also love the way it serves to celebrate the **Wild Arms** series as a whole. I don’t think Media.Vision knew **WA5** was going to be their last game in the series, and I don’t see **Armed Fantasia** ever being a real thing. So it’s almost bittersweet, seeing cameos and references of the previous games. Despite not being as ambitious as something like [[Wild Arms 2]], I think **Wild Arms 5** is likely my new favorite of the series as a complete package. If your **PS2** JRPG cuppeth run dry, give this one a shot. >[!INFO] Random Final Thought >Also the music bumps just as hard as Michiko Naruke’s OSTs, in my humble opinion. > [^1]: yeah i double-taked the first time too