Run-of-the-mill RPG holds off the masses while they eagerly await the arrival of Final Fantasy VII.

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1) Because of the time of its release, this was a good game to hold off the masses until Final Fantasy VII arrives. It was a well-planned marketing strategy.

2) Smooth movement, smooth room-to-room transitions, and text scrolling speed.

3) The changing camera angles during battle show you how cool this new 3D technology really is, and gives RPG players a new type of experience when fighting in battles (a new experience for the time of its release, that is).

4) The auto zooming in and out on the world map also demonstrates the capabilities of the new 3D technology.

5) The music is soothing and pleasing.

6) Upgrading to new weapons and armor is handled nicely - each time you go to a new town there is a next level up weapon to get, rather than having this clutter of different types of weapons and armor to sift through.

7) Collecting the different sword abilities, ARMs, Magic Crests, and so on is kind of fun, although I wish there were an easier way to find them rather than to search every nook and cranny of the game. (And FAQs don't count! No game should ever need a FAQ!")

8) There was this one part where I returned to a town, and all the people were gone, and I ran into some monsters. This was a perfect example of how to use the interactive part of the gaming experience to tell the story. The player responds to changes in their environment. I, the hero of the story, returned to the town to find that my arch nemesis had struck a beloved homeland, and it was something I discovered, not something the cutscene discovered for me.

9) Each dungeon was littered with several puzzles to solve, so that the game was more than just fighting enemies. It gives it more variety, but then again, almost all RPGs do that.

10) The game is littered with some sexual teasers here and there (ie you find a bottle in the ocean with a note that reads, "Ship captain seeks open-minded 18+ year old girls for... The rest of the note is faded!"). Those were entertaining.

11) I love the way the Protowing moves. The way the physics are set up so you can swing and slide the ship around corners, and do sliding landings. It's one of the most fun RPG airship that I have ever flown. The physics for running around on foot were also good.

12) Taking control of Hanpen in the Pandamonium jail was cool. Controlling the rat gave it a whole new feel. I felt small, sleek, and dynamic, like I could just sneak around, go in and out of rat holes, steal cheese... It was decidedly different from controlling the normal characters.

13) The story touched on some themes like love, courage, evil, etc.

14) There are some optional things to do after you beat the game, like fight Sado and Lucifer, fight in the arena, and so on. It reminds me of Final Fantasy...

15) Good size of inventory. I never had to reorganize because it was full.

16) The ending was kind of nice, although Cecilia living her life the way she wanted had very little to do with the rest of the plot.

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1) As I said before, this is a good game for holding off the masses until Final Fantasy VII arrives, which means this is more of a run-of-the-mill RPG. Other than the 3D effects, there is nothing really special about this game.

2) Although the 3D camera movements are new, they are moreso annoying. If you're going to use camera movements, make sure you study your cinematography and use it for some reason other than to show the player, "Oh look! It's moving in 3D! Isn't this cool!?"

3) For non-RPG players, this game has a very steep learning curve, and the game has no tutorial and makes no effort into fixing the problem.

4) Random battles.

5) When the designers make the decision to not have the main character talk, so that the player can imagine that he is the main character, and give that character any personality his imagination wishes, that isn't such a bad idea. However, when the player takes control of not only Rudy, but also Jack and Cecilia who DO talk and DO have their own predefined personalities, it tends to defeat the purpose.

6) The story is put together poorly. It doesn't grab my interest, and doesn't keep me wanting to know what happens next. It is also very contrived.

7) Text instead of voice acting.

8) The hitting switches, fighting random battles, and solving dungeon puzzles didn't tie into the story very well. In fact, hardly at all.

9) Some of the puzzles were really cheap and didn't make any sense at all.

10) Letting the player know what the next objective is could be done a little better. I had to refer to the FAQ more times than should be necessary.

11) Carrying out the planned attacks takes just barely too long.

12) The name Wild Arms doesn't sound like a fun RPG game. Names like Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest have better rings to them because they have words like "Fantasy" and "Dragon" in them. Wild Arms might me more appropriate for a western gun-slinging game or an action-packed gun-shooting game. It just goes to show how important the name of a game is.

13) Many of the monsters and bosses are too generic. You fight them all with basically the same strategy.

14) Many of the areas have a striking resemblance to areas in some other RPGs (like Zelda and Final Fantasy). RPG fans, who comprise most of the people playing this game, will think this is lame.

15) Cutscenes.

16) There are some items that you can only get at a certain point in the game. The player should always be able to go back and get some items they may have missed in an earlier area at any point in the game, and this game does not allow you to do that.

17) Although the story did touch on some themes, it did in a very unprofessional way. It's more like they just cut an pasted the themes in there without properly integrating them in.

18) For one reason or another, designers seem to think that I, the player, am supposed to think that blue-haired mechanical boy is me. The only time I should ever think that the main character is me is when I am looking at the world through a first-person perspective. The blue-haired mech boy, the main character, should have been developed much more that he was. I was very disappointed.