Why do you have to insult kittens like that?
(=ﾟωﾟ=)
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Make a Memory: Let's Play Wild Arms 3
- Thread starter gogglebob
- Start date
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- let's play wild arms
(=ﾟωﾟ=)
Fall is here, as it is September 21, Underfloor Day. Listening to women's heels tapping while I was beneath the dance floor is a beautiful memory I will never forget. P.S. Don't ask me why I was there.
Chapter 75: Disaster Blaster
Previously on Wild Arms 3: We entered Beatrice’s Nightmare Castle. We technically defeated the combined might of The Seven Disasters, but…
Now we are rewinding time back to when we first visited.
Beatrice’s castle is a choice: you can either fight a super-super boss, or you can “solve” the dungeon and weaken the boss dramatically by roughly 85%. We are now going to see how long it takes to weaken Tiamat to kitten levels.
(Yes, I am saying a kitten is exactly 15% as powerful as a super-super boss. I am confident in this assessment.)
And while we are doing that, we are going to admire the art on Beatrice’s walls. Some of these pictures are recycled assets from the Adventure book series.
Oh! And there are random monsters around, too.
Let’s look at the last random encounters in Wild Arms 3.
Here we are examining the final form of all those thievin’ birds from across the game. They are still weak to earth attacks.
Like their Abyss cousins, these dorks will steal and run on the same turn. Hopefully they don’t take anything useful!
Now we have a color swap of super boss John Dee from back at the Yggdrasil area (Part 55).
Is this a flayer that is powered by the sun, or a monster that flays the sun?
Be careful using magic!
This is the same physical attack that John Dee uses, but generally less effective.
Since magic is likely to be reflected, go ahead and shoot these suckers.
Got a smaller version of Balal Quo Naga over here.
This is a dream castle. It is possible Sammael is not to scale.
Time to freeze this wannabe.
Mind the swings, though.
Ah! Here are the most interesting random encounters in this or any other WA3 dungeon (they were opponents in Wild Arms 2, too).
Doppelgangers initially appear to be weird little 2-D creatures…
But they have nigh-infinite speed, and will immediately simulate your party.
Now it is a four versus four mirror match.
The bad news is that Queen Dopplepopalus and her minions will roughly match your stats, so they may be scary in a fair fight. The good news is that they basically work on “confusion” rules (IE what your characters do when they are afflicted with the confusion status effect) and will randomly use whatever abilities your party has. Thus, this means there are really good odds that DoppelClive will use magic ineffectively, or Gallows will cast a random status healing spell that does nothing.
Regardless, kill your strongest doppels first.
Jet using magic? Preposterous.
Back to the boring ol’ traditional encounters.
Cyclops? Huh. Is your dad a space pirate, too?
Bro has a mace for one hand, and a sickle for the other. Good for a monster, but makes it really hard to make a sandwich.
Bring on the night.
Cyclops and the Doppelgangers really sell the “nightmare castle” possibilities here. The angry birds… not so much.
Nectar is a drop from Cyclops. Nectar is technically a rare item. It is a useless rare item, but rare all the same.
Those are the random monsters for the entirety of this castle. We will see a lot of “sections” to this citadel, but we only ever face that same handful of monsters.
Now, back to the main hall.
The main exit from this hall will lead us back to Disaster Luck/Tiamat. We are going to anywhere but there. This cracked entryway looks like as good a spot as any.
I just can’t quit you, bombs.
There are seven disasters. The “seventh” appears to be Disaster Luck, so there are six other branches off the main hall. Welcome to what we are going to designate “Path Moon”.
Path Moon is Hell.
Like back at Sacrificial Altar, this is another situation where we have to navigate a (mostly) invisible path.
Previously, the Frost Doll illuminated the path forward. This time, the path only appears when a projectile-tool hits one of these urn things scattered about. A Frost Doll may be utilized, but now in a different way.
Unfortunately, the path does not appear for very long, and said path is extremely complicated.
And hitting an urn is not always easy. Depending on your angles, you might have to bank a boomerang around to see the way forward.
If you fall off this path at any point, you must start again from the beginning. There are no random encounters in this room, and falling does not impact your HP or health in any way… but it is a pain in the ass to repeatedly restart and “fail” this room.
And, as you can see here, there are a number of dead end paths that exist exclusively to waste your time.
This is obviously a surmountable challenge, but it is one that can lead to a lot of frustration.
Most of the paths have a simple pattern of “hallway – puzzle – hallway – puzzle – boss”. This is the second hallway of that equation.
And here is the second puzzle: this bullshit again.
This path is more complicated than the first, and has fewer urns to light up the area.
I am not going to tell you how many times I fell off this path.
Eventually, you don’t have to do it anymore… If you ever had to do it in the first place…
And our reward is…
Boss fight!
Hiya!
So we have the Moon Disaster at the end of this hallway.
Going to be seeing this model a lot…
Each of the Disasters are simply color swaps of each other.
Disaster Moon is not particularly elemental. Like Luck, Moon was not strictly assigned a weakness/strength.
And Disaster Moon uses the Moon Guardian summon. I’ve never been certain on how its damage calculates, but it does “decent” non-elemental damage to the whole party.
When an opponent does not have a weakness, why not add one?
Sliding earth attacks into your DMs.
And they go down easy.
There are no rewards for defeating a Disaster save the fact that a defeated Disaster will not join Tiamat when you finally fight the Disaster boss. This would be a great opportunity for each Disaster to drop a specific “final weapon” or something… but Wild Arms 3 doesn’t really have equipment, so scratch that plan.
And… that’s that for this path.
You technically have to revisit each of those stupid paths to walk out of here…
But screw that noise! Shane gave us the Exodus Orb for a reason!
One quick teleport later, and we are back to the main hall.
This solid wall across from the last path looks suspicious.
This puzzle requires you grab a nearby box and chuck it at the pyramid.
Welcome to Path Water.
Bullshit intensifies.
The puzzle for this area is that you must follow a Mario-ass moving bridge across the abyss. Like last time, if you fall off at any point, you will have to start from the beginning.
This first game of snake is annoying, but not overtly sadistic. We have to wait for that fun later…
Generic hallway…
Okay, now we enter the Danger Zone.
This snaking platform is cruel.
It will occasionally branch in two different directions, and you have to immediately identify which way to go. The first time you fail is a guess. Every successive time you fail is because you have the memory of a goldfish.
Glub glub.
And then, just when you reach the end…
You find that this platform will not actually take you to your destination. You have to quickly recognize that you must use Virginia’s Change Crest to “teleport” to that white gem. Using the Change Crest to access the start of this room is mandatory, so the game moderately prepares you for this. Moderately.
Personally, that nonsense did not take me as long as the Moon Path, but it was still very frustrating. Wild Arms 3 saved all its “break your controller in anger” missions for the finale.
And now we have…
An excuse to get wet.
… Wait. Are these things even different colors? Maybe just the highlights?
Disaster Water is a proper elemental boss. Weak to fire and lightning, strong against water and ice.
For the record, while I never saw Tiamat use anything but its Final Disaster summon attack, the individual Disasters will occasionally use their (ineffectual) physical attack. You don’t have to deal with a summon on every round.
Just most rounds.
Disaster Luck and Disaster Moon are non-elemental, but literally every other disaster has an elementally-locked attack. If you equip water wards for this battle, you will be safe (ice wards are useless, though). Fight back with fire, and you are in the clear.
Blammo. Two disasters disasted.
Time to head on back.
These puzzle rooms were set up with white gems so you can quickly teleport back to the start.
Main Hall again. Is it supposed to be significant that there are flags and carpets with the same symbol as Virginia’s gun holsters?
Wall switches, eh?
Ignore ‘em! Just shoot your grapple up into the sky to hit a switch that can only be seen from the second floor.
And a door on the second floor opens.
Path Earth: start.
Blocks. It had to be blocks…
You must use Clive’s Mighty Gloves to shove these blocks aside to make a path. Quarters are tight, so plan ahead.
The best way to solve this puzzle is look to the “end” of the room, and work your way backwards to access an available path through the cubes.
One hallway later, we are in block room #2.
This one is extremely tight. But there is a block that is not blocking the way forward in the bottom right, so see what you can do about clearing a path over to there.
You can always throw yourself into the pit if you trap yourself in the middle of your block pushing. Exiting and reentering the room will reset the blocks back to start if you need, too.
And the disaster du jour is…
Earthy.
I guess Mr. Pounds is appropriate after hefting those giant boxes around. Were the snake platforms meant to be watery? And the dark path evocative of the moon?
Break out your wind magic to blow this house down.
Each of these summons are a simple “model replacement” of the original Guardian summon. In some cases, I haven’t seen the initial summons in a while.
Anywho: time for a mighty wind.
Blammo (again).
When you are walking back from that battle, the boxes have mysteriously disappeared. An easy trip back to the Main Hall!
And we are going to chill in this Main Hall until the next update. We have eliminated three out of the seven disasters, so we basically still have a full half of dungeon to go. We are making progress!
Next time on Wild Arms: Which Disasters are left? Sushi? Is Disaster Sushi on the menu?
Chapter 75: Disaster Blaster
Previously on Wild Arms 3: We entered Beatrice’s Nightmare Castle. We technically defeated the combined might of The Seven Disasters, but…
Now we are rewinding time back to when we first visited.
Beatrice’s castle is a choice: you can either fight a super-super boss, or you can “solve” the dungeon and weaken the boss dramatically by roughly 85%. We are now going to see how long it takes to weaken Tiamat to kitten levels.
(Yes, I am saying a kitten is exactly 15% as powerful as a super-super boss. I am confident in this assessment.)
And while we are doing that, we are going to admire the art on Beatrice’s walls. Some of these pictures are recycled assets from the Adventure book series.
Oh! And there are random monsters around, too.
Let’s look at the last random encounters in Wild Arms 3.
Here we are examining the final form of all those thievin’ birds from across the game. They are still weak to earth attacks.
Like their Abyss cousins, these dorks will steal and run on the same turn. Hopefully they don’t take anything useful!
Now we have a color swap of super boss John Dee from back at the Yggdrasil area (Part 55).
Is this a flayer that is powered by the sun, or a monster that flays the sun?
Be careful using magic!
This is the same physical attack that John Dee uses, but generally less effective.
Since magic is likely to be reflected, go ahead and shoot these suckers.
Got a smaller version of Balal Quo Naga over here.
This is a dream castle. It is possible Sammael is not to scale.
Time to freeze this wannabe.
Mind the swings, though.
Ah! Here are the most interesting random encounters in this or any other WA3 dungeon (they were opponents in Wild Arms 2, too).
Doppelgangers initially appear to be weird little 2-D creatures…
But they have nigh-infinite speed, and will immediately simulate your party.
Now it is a four versus four mirror match.
The bad news is that Queen Dopplepopalus and her minions will roughly match your stats, so they may be scary in a fair fight. The good news is that they basically work on “confusion” rules (IE what your characters do when they are afflicted with the confusion status effect) and will randomly use whatever abilities your party has. Thus, this means there are really good odds that DoppelClive will use magic ineffectively, or Gallows will cast a random status healing spell that does nothing.
Regardless, kill your strongest doppels first.
Jet using magic? Preposterous.
Back to the boring ol’ traditional encounters.
Cyclops? Huh. Is your dad a space pirate, too?
Bro has a mace for one hand, and a sickle for the other. Good for a monster, but makes it really hard to make a sandwich.
Bring on the night.
Cyclops and the Doppelgangers really sell the “nightmare castle” possibilities here. The angry birds… not so much.
Nectar is a drop from Cyclops. Nectar is technically a rare item. It is a useless rare item, but rare all the same.
Those are the random monsters for the entirety of this castle. We will see a lot of “sections” to this citadel, but we only ever face that same handful of monsters.
Now, back to the main hall.
The main exit from this hall will lead us back to Disaster Luck/Tiamat. We are going to anywhere but there. This cracked entryway looks like as good a spot as any.
I just can’t quit you, bombs.
There are seven disasters. The “seventh” appears to be Disaster Luck, so there are six other branches off the main hall. Welcome to what we are going to designate “Path Moon”.
Path Moon is Hell.
Like back at Sacrificial Altar, this is another situation where we have to navigate a (mostly) invisible path.
Previously, the Frost Doll illuminated the path forward. This time, the path only appears when a projectile-tool hits one of these urn things scattered about. A Frost Doll may be utilized, but now in a different way.
Unfortunately, the path does not appear for very long, and said path is extremely complicated.
And hitting an urn is not always easy. Depending on your angles, you might have to bank a boomerang around to see the way forward.
If you fall off this path at any point, you must start again from the beginning. There are no random encounters in this room, and falling does not impact your HP or health in any way… but it is a pain in the ass to repeatedly restart and “fail” this room.
And, as you can see here, there are a number of dead end paths that exist exclusively to waste your time.
This is obviously a surmountable challenge, but it is one that can lead to a lot of frustration.
Most of the paths have a simple pattern of “hallway – puzzle – hallway – puzzle – boss”. This is the second hallway of that equation.
And here is the second puzzle: this bullshit again.
This path is more complicated than the first, and has fewer urns to light up the area.
I am not going to tell you how many times I fell off this path.
Eventually, you don’t have to do it anymore… If you ever had to do it in the first place…
And our reward is…
Boss fight!
Hiya!
So we have the Moon Disaster at the end of this hallway.
Going to be seeing this model a lot…
Each of the Disasters are simply color swaps of each other.
Disaster Moon is not particularly elemental. Like Luck, Moon was not strictly assigned a weakness/strength.
And Disaster Moon uses the Moon Guardian summon. I’ve never been certain on how its damage calculates, but it does “decent” non-elemental damage to the whole party.
When an opponent does not have a weakness, why not add one?
Sliding earth attacks into your DMs.
And they go down easy.
There are no rewards for defeating a Disaster save the fact that a defeated Disaster will not join Tiamat when you finally fight the Disaster boss. This would be a great opportunity for each Disaster to drop a specific “final weapon” or something… but Wild Arms 3 doesn’t really have equipment, so scratch that plan.
And… that’s that for this path.
You technically have to revisit each of those stupid paths to walk out of here…
But screw that noise! Shane gave us the Exodus Orb for a reason!
One quick teleport later, and we are back to the main hall.
This solid wall across from the last path looks suspicious.
This puzzle requires you grab a nearby box and chuck it at the pyramid.
Welcome to Path Water.
Bullshit intensifies.
The puzzle for this area is that you must follow a Mario-ass moving bridge across the abyss. Like last time, if you fall off at any point, you will have to start from the beginning.
This first game of snake is annoying, but not overtly sadistic. We have to wait for that fun later…
Generic hallway…
Okay, now we enter the Danger Zone.
This snaking platform is cruel.
It will occasionally branch in two different directions, and you have to immediately identify which way to go. The first time you fail is a guess. Every successive time you fail is because you have the memory of a goldfish.
Glub glub.
And then, just when you reach the end…
You find that this platform will not actually take you to your destination. You have to quickly recognize that you must use Virginia’s Change Crest to “teleport” to that white gem. Using the Change Crest to access the start of this room is mandatory, so the game moderately prepares you for this. Moderately.
Personally, that nonsense did not take me as long as the Moon Path, but it was still very frustrating. Wild Arms 3 saved all its “break your controller in anger” missions for the finale.
And now we have…
An excuse to get wet.
… Wait. Are these things even different colors? Maybe just the highlights?
Disaster Water is a proper elemental boss. Weak to fire and lightning, strong against water and ice.
For the record, while I never saw Tiamat use anything but its Final Disaster summon attack, the individual Disasters will occasionally use their (ineffectual) physical attack. You don’t have to deal with a summon on every round.
Just most rounds.
Disaster Luck and Disaster Moon are non-elemental, but literally every other disaster has an elementally-locked attack. If you equip water wards for this battle, you will be safe (ice wards are useless, though). Fight back with fire, and you are in the clear.
Blammo. Two disasters disasted.
Time to head on back.
These puzzle rooms were set up with white gems so you can quickly teleport back to the start.
Main Hall again. Is it supposed to be significant that there are flags and carpets with the same symbol as Virginia’s gun holsters?
Wall switches, eh?
Ignore ‘em! Just shoot your grapple up into the sky to hit a switch that can only be seen from the second floor.
And a door on the second floor opens.
Path Earth: start.
Blocks. It had to be blocks…
You must use Clive’s Mighty Gloves to shove these blocks aside to make a path. Quarters are tight, so plan ahead.
The best way to solve this puzzle is look to the “end” of the room, and work your way backwards to access an available path through the cubes.
One hallway later, we are in block room #2.
This one is extremely tight. But there is a block that is not blocking the way forward in the bottom right, so see what you can do about clearing a path over to there.
You can always throw yourself into the pit if you trap yourself in the middle of your block pushing. Exiting and reentering the room will reset the blocks back to start if you need, too.
And the disaster du jour is…
Earthy.
I guess Mr. Pounds is appropriate after hefting those giant boxes around. Were the snake platforms meant to be watery? And the dark path evocative of the moon?
Break out your wind magic to blow this house down.
Each of these summons are a simple “model replacement” of the original Guardian summon. In some cases, I haven’t seen the initial summons in a while.
Anywho: time for a mighty wind.
Blammo (again).
When you are walking back from that battle, the boxes have mysteriously disappeared. An easy trip back to the Main Hall!
And we are going to chill in this Main Hall until the next update. We have eliminated three out of the seven disasters, so we basically still have a full half of dungeon to go. We are making progress!
Next time on Wild Arms: Which Disasters are left? Sushi? Is Disaster Sushi on the menu?
As a lifelong cat ownee, I'd say that that's a pretty fair assessment.
Sushi can absolutely count as a Disaster depending on where you get it.
Keep your ear to the ground, because today is September 28, Informer Day. There once was a country which paid a large reward for secret info. In this country lived a notorious informer named Replica. He was hated like the plague for informing everything of everyone to the government. Eventually there was no one left to inform about. In the end, he framed himself for a crime he did not commit. Impressed by Replica's commitment to informing, people named the day in his honor.
Chapter 76: Master of Disasters
Previously on Wild Arms 3: We are cleaning up this Nightmare Castle! Three Disasters have been defeated, so now we continue on with…
Dealing with those switches we ignored last week. These two are a classic “stand on (against) one, and launch the Steady Doll to activate the other one.”
Path Wind is open! (And we can see that switch that we hit with the grappling hook last time.)
Oh… this is absolute bullshit.
I have checked FAQs, I have experimented myself, I have tried and tried to see if there is some trick to this… But no.
And there is our target.
Next time on Wild Arms: A forgettable final battle for the ages.
Chapter 76: Master of Disasters
Previously on Wild Arms 3: We are cleaning up this Nightmare Castle! Three Disasters have been defeated, so now we continue on with…
Dealing with those switches we ignored last week. These two are a classic “stand on (against) one, and launch the Steady Doll to activate the other one.”
Path Wind is open! (And we can see that switch that we hit with the grappling hook last time.)
Oh… this is absolute bullshit.
I have checked FAQs, I have experimented myself, I have tried and tried to see if there is some trick to this… But no.
This is just bullshit.
The puzzle of this path is that you have four doors, and only one of them allows you to move forward. There are absolutely no clues here, and this all follows no discernable pattern. It is just trial and error, and then remembering the proper sequence (it is at least consistent). If you choose wrong, you get booted back to the start of the order. If you see this rose in the middle of the room, you have chosen the right door. If you do not see the rose, you are at the beginning.
I maintain that this Let’s Play is no FAQ, but just to save anyone playing this game time, the proper path is: west, north, east, south, west. Remember that you can rotate the camera so your compass always points North.
Fugging hate this. May as well be a “what number am I thinking of” puzzle.
When you hit a hallway, you are done with that section.
And now again!
The previous puzzle had four possible choices. This version has eight.
Once again, if you see the rose in the middle of the room, you have chosen wisely. If you do not see the rose, you are in the first room in the sequence.
At least you don’t get booted back to the start of the previous puzzle.
The proper sequence is north, northeast, west. Screw you, everything about this puzzle. No one should ever have to do this blind.
Okay! We’re done! Time to fight air.
This battle will blow you away.
Disaster Wind has a weakness to earth and water. I guess the water weakness is supposed to counter the lightning strength?
And here’s Gale Claw, which is dimly odd because this Disaster doesn’t actually have anything like claws. Gale Scrape?
That water weakness really comes in handy when our main mage is packing the Water medium.
And we are done with that Disaster.
The trip back is much easier.
Looks like we have hit all the switches and whatnot on the first floor of the Main Hall. Let’s move on up.
These statues look unusual. Let’s drag the third one out of place. I swear I will explain why later.
Door opens!
Path Light time.
Welcome to your grave.
Each of these rocks tell a fun little story. Here it is in its entirety:
Note that this story is roughly analogous to the history of Filgaia told by Shane way back at World’s Footprint. It is curious that Beatrice has a history lesson in her dream castle.
So you are supposed to hit the statue there in the center with tools that match the progression of story. Since you cannot initially reach the statue, you are supposed to use projectile tools. Sorry, Clive.
Tinder Crest, Freezer Doll, Boomerang (I guess it is the most “devastating” projectile you have), Change Crest.
And the path opens.
Next puzzle is a classic.
You’ve got a design, you’ve got blocks, time to rearrange some blocks.
This one is a pain, but it is a reasonable pain.
It is nice that the design is right there on the floor, too. Means you don’t have to switch back to earlier just to get your bearings.
Hey, guess what? The center of the rose design has to be flipped first. If you never rotate it, you will not succeed.
Now we’re on the trolley.
Overall, a pretty straightforward path this time.
Is “blare” the right verb here? Does light make sound? … Are we talking about thunder?
Shiny.
Light is weak to dark? I never would have guessed.
Total eclipse of the Disaster.
Knock ‘em out with darkness.
Vaporized.
And we can Gale Crest on back to the entrance.
Back in the Main Hall, this third unlit candelabra is meant to indicate which statue you are supposed to move to access the last area. Forgive me for not showing you this first.
And now lighting the candelabra because we need to make progress to the final path. Good luck with that statue bit if you light up this candelabra first!
By process of elimination/candle, this must be the Fire Path.
Another classic.
There are three wheels, and three sets of blocks. You must arrange the blocks to make a path.
This puzzle has three rows and three columns of blocks. The path must be three connected rows across any number of columns. The game does not provide a hint as to where/how the path should start and end.
But trial and error is pretty easy here, and it quickly becomes obvious which blocks will connect properly.
And that’s puzzle #1 down.
Puzzle #2 is the physical challenge of the castle.
Timing your usage of the Gale Crest is key.
Weeee.
Time your grappling well, too.
And then jump up to go down.
With the exception of the radar (which finds a complete lack of treasure here) and the Kramer Dolls that summon encounters (we have enough of those), we have used every tool to conquer every corner of this castle.
And now for some fiery rage.
The hottest Disaster.
The weakness for Disaster Fire is specifically ice. Water is neutral for this go round.
Wear something to account for warm temperatures.
And cool things down.
Open fire!
This is the last anyone ever saw of Disaster Fire.
Alright! All paths complete!
Let’s go meet Yoshi on the roof.
Or finally leave the Main Hall through the main exit…
To do this all over again.
Disaster Luck Take 2: Older and Wiser.
Once again, Disaster Luck’s summon attack is ineffective.
And they go down easily.
Tiamat has returned!
Tiamat admits that you may have cut their power a scoosh. But they can still take you! Sure!
Now Tiamat uses the same Final Disaster attack…
But it is only the same ineffectual Lucky Shot as Disaster Luck. What was once an attack that could leave us with 5% health is now barely a blip on the radar.
And it’s not like Tiamat has better defenses to compensate for their newfound lack of power.
This part should be familiar.
And that’s that. Other than the random dragon fossil, no extra bonus or penalty for defeating Incomplete Tiamat.
So there we go! Complete castle completed.
(a screenshot from the universe where we made a beeline for Tiamat)
So should we have bothered? Well, if we believe the WA3 in-game timer (which we should not, as it does not count time spent in battles for whatever reason) every last Disaster is defeated as of 23:56:28. In the alternate timeline where we made a beeline for Tiamat, we were done by 22:51:48. So that is apparently a full hour of castle exploration (and likely more actual time, thanks to the previously mentioned weird timer). We do not get any extra rewards for conquering the Disasters, and the experience and gella earned from the monsters around the place is meager. Oh, and there are absolutely no treasures to be found in the Nightmare Castle. At all.
Was it worth it? If you can handle Tiamat, it is not. If Tiamat is impossible without knocking off some lesser Disasters, then do what you gotta do.
Note that this is a mix and match situation. You can destroy Disaster Moon, and then face a Final Disaster that is wholly elemental (and thus something you can guard against). If you know you only have one character with a Fire Ward, then beat Disaster Fire, and see how you fare with the rest of the Final Disaster slightly blocked. Leave Disaster Water intact because you have plenty of Water Wards. You have options!
… Though it is not like the paths are distinctly marked, and a new player would have no real way of knowing which path leads to which Disaster…
.. Or which paths are absolute bullshit, and which are perfectly reasonable…
But still! I appreciate what the designers were trying for here, even if it doesn’t wholly come together. It is nice that the most difficult dungeoning challenges in Wild Arms 3 are simultaneously required and optional.
Whatever! Let’s say both timelines now converge, and we are moving on to new business.
Past Tiamat, there is nothing more than a hallway standing between you and the final door.
Duh!
One last choice as to whether to proceed.
Spooky!
You have an opportunity to save here. This is technically the last save point in the game. Also: it is arguably completely pointless, as a trip back outside is not only an elementary two hallways away, but you have the Teleport Orb to instantly exit. Still! It’s appreciated given how apocalyptically the final sequence could go...
Onwards.
Where does one buy dream carpet? This has been one long rug…
The puzzle of this path is that you have four doors, and only one of them allows you to move forward. There are absolutely no clues here, and this all follows no discernable pattern. It is just trial and error, and then remembering the proper sequence (it is at least consistent). If you choose wrong, you get booted back to the start of the order. If you see this rose in the middle of the room, you have chosen the right door. If you do not see the rose, you are at the beginning.
I maintain that this Let’s Play is no FAQ, but just to save anyone playing this game time, the proper path is: west, north, east, south, west. Remember that you can rotate the camera so your compass always points North.
Fugging hate this. May as well be a “what number am I thinking of” puzzle.
When you hit a hallway, you are done with that section.
And now again!
The previous puzzle had four possible choices. This version has eight.
Once again, if you see the rose in the middle of the room, you have chosen wisely. If you do not see the rose, you are in the first room in the sequence.
At least you don’t get booted back to the start of the previous puzzle.
The proper sequence is north, northeast, west. Screw you, everything about this puzzle. No one should ever have to do this blind.
Okay! We’re done! Time to fight air.
This battle will blow you away.
Disaster Wind has a weakness to earth and water. I guess the water weakness is supposed to counter the lightning strength?
And here’s Gale Claw, which is dimly odd because this Disaster doesn’t actually have anything like claws. Gale Scrape?
That water weakness really comes in handy when our main mage is packing the Water medium.
And we are done with that Disaster.
The trip back is much easier.
Looks like we have hit all the switches and whatnot on the first floor of the Main Hall. Let’s move on up.
These statues look unusual. Let’s drag the third one out of place. I swear I will explain why later.
Door opens!
Path Light time.
Welcome to your grave.
Each of these rocks tell a fun little story. Here it is in its entirety:
Note that this story is roughly analogous to the history of Filgaia told by Shane way back at World’s Footprint. It is curious that Beatrice has a history lesson in her dream castle.
So you are supposed to hit the statue there in the center with tools that match the progression of story. Since you cannot initially reach the statue, you are supposed to use projectile tools. Sorry, Clive.
Tinder Crest, Freezer Doll, Boomerang (I guess it is the most “devastating” projectile you have), Change Crest.
And the path opens.
Next puzzle is a classic.
You’ve got a design, you’ve got blocks, time to rearrange some blocks.
This one is a pain, but it is a reasonable pain.
It is nice that the design is right there on the floor, too. Means you don’t have to switch back to earlier just to get your bearings.
Hey, guess what? The center of the rose design has to be flipped first. If you never rotate it, you will not succeed.
Now we’re on the trolley.
Overall, a pretty straightforward path this time.
Is “blare” the right verb here? Does light make sound? … Are we talking about thunder?
Shiny.
Light is weak to dark? I never would have guessed.
Total eclipse of the Disaster.
Knock ‘em out with darkness.
Vaporized.
And we can Gale Crest on back to the entrance.
Back in the Main Hall, this third unlit candelabra is meant to indicate which statue you are supposed to move to access the last area. Forgive me for not showing you this first.
And now lighting the candelabra because we need to make progress to the final path. Good luck with that statue bit if you light up this candelabra first!
By process of elimination/candle, this must be the Fire Path.
Another classic.
There are three wheels, and three sets of blocks. You must arrange the blocks to make a path.
This puzzle has three rows and three columns of blocks. The path must be three connected rows across any number of columns. The game does not provide a hint as to where/how the path should start and end.
But trial and error is pretty easy here, and it quickly becomes obvious which blocks will connect properly.
And that’s puzzle #1 down.
Puzzle #2 is the physical challenge of the castle.
Timing your usage of the Gale Crest is key.
Weeee.
Time your grappling well, too.
And then jump up to go down.
With the exception of the radar (which finds a complete lack of treasure here) and the Kramer Dolls that summon encounters (we have enough of those), we have used every tool to conquer every corner of this castle.
And now for some fiery rage.
The hottest Disaster.
The weakness for Disaster Fire is specifically ice. Water is neutral for this go round.
Wear something to account for warm temperatures.
And cool things down.
Open fire!
This is the last anyone ever saw of Disaster Fire.
Alright! All paths complete!
Let’s go meet Yoshi on the roof.
Or finally leave the Main Hall through the main exit…
To do this all over again.
Disaster Luck Take 2: Older and Wiser.
Once again, Disaster Luck’s summon attack is ineffective.
And they go down easily.
Tiamat has returned!
Tiamat admits that you may have cut their power a scoosh. But they can still take you! Sure!
Now Tiamat uses the same Final Disaster attack…
But it is only the same ineffectual Lucky Shot as Disaster Luck. What was once an attack that could leave us with 5% health is now barely a blip on the radar.
And it’s not like Tiamat has better defenses to compensate for their newfound lack of power.
This part should be familiar.
And that’s that. Other than the random dragon fossil, no extra bonus or penalty for defeating Incomplete Tiamat.
So there we go! Complete castle completed.
(a screenshot from the universe where we made a beeline for Tiamat)
So should we have bothered? Well, if we believe the WA3 in-game timer (which we should not, as it does not count time spent in battles for whatever reason) every last Disaster is defeated as of 23:56:28. In the alternate timeline where we made a beeline for Tiamat, we were done by 22:51:48. So that is apparently a full hour of castle exploration (and likely more actual time, thanks to the previously mentioned weird timer). We do not get any extra rewards for conquering the Disasters, and the experience and gella earned from the monsters around the place is meager. Oh, and there are absolutely no treasures to be found in the Nightmare Castle. At all.
Was it worth it? If you can handle Tiamat, it is not. If Tiamat is impossible without knocking off some lesser Disasters, then do what you gotta do.
Note that this is a mix and match situation. You can destroy Disaster Moon, and then face a Final Disaster that is wholly elemental (and thus something you can guard against). If you know you only have one character with a Fire Ward, then beat Disaster Fire, and see how you fare with the rest of the Final Disaster slightly blocked. Leave Disaster Water intact because you have plenty of Water Wards. You have options!
… Though it is not like the paths are distinctly marked, and a new player would have no real way of knowing which path leads to which Disaster…
.. Or which paths are absolute bullshit, and which are perfectly reasonable…
But still! I appreciate what the designers were trying for here, even if it doesn’t wholly come together. It is nice that the most difficult dungeoning challenges in Wild Arms 3 are simultaneously required and optional.
Whatever! Let’s say both timelines now converge, and we are moving on to new business.
Past Tiamat, there is nothing more than a hallway standing between you and the final door.
Duh!
One last choice as to whether to proceed.
Spooky!
You have an opportunity to save here. This is technically the last save point in the game. Also: it is arguably completely pointless, as a trip back outside is not only an elementary two hallways away, but you have the Teleport Orb to instantly exit. Still! It’s appreciated given how apocalyptically the final sequence could go...
Onwards.
Where does one buy dream carpet? This has been one long rug…
And there is our target.
Next time on Wild Arms: A forgettable final battle for the ages.
This final dungeon feels a bit disappointing compared to WA1's tower to the heavens and actual satellite in orbit, and even WA2's delve into Filgaia's literal primordial muck.
Ah well. Bring on the final battle(s).
Ah well. Bring on the final battle(s).
Go play Mega Man X4, because today is October 5, Double Day. Today we commemorate for all the legendary doubles that sacrificed themselves so their patron would live. Would someone like to double for me?
Chapter 77: Forget You and Forget Her Too
Previously on Wild Arms 3: We have explored every nook and cranny of the Nightmare Castle, so it is time to address the mistress of the house.
Here she is now.
Sweet. We were getting bored with those hours of puzzles.
“You failed then. You remember that? You failing?”
Virginia tries to claim that Beatrice doesn’t have the energy to pull off such a feat, but
And as for Team Virginia? Well…
Next time on Wild Arms: More forms than a Digimon.
Chapter 77: Forget You and Forget Her Too
Previously on Wild Arms 3: We have explored every nook and cranny of the Nightmare Castle, so it is time to address the mistress of the house.
Here she is now.
Sweet. We were getting bored with those hours of puzzles.
“You failed then. You remember that? You failing?”
Virginia tries to claim that Beatrice doesn’t have the energy to pull off such a feat, but
Bea has plans…
Ah yes. The power of a thousand gamers yelling at that stupid Lost Woods puzzle.
You are welcome.
Thanks, Dad.
Janus doesn’t even get a mention…
Surprise! Lamium, leader of the Ark of Destiny, has inadvertently been working for Beatrice all this time.
This would have probably been more of a shock to the audience if Lamium was more involved in the latter half of the game (or... uh... any part of the game).
“Sucks to be a human. Moving on to new business…”
In case you aren’t getting it, Beatrice straight up addresses Lamium’s nickname for his dream demon.
“It’s because it’s really awkward to go to a fancy restaurant alone!”
“Except baby eating! Do you eat babies?”
Beatrice is going to blow this whole plan just because she’s annoyed.
Sounds restful.
Final(ish) Fight!
That seems like a bit of a flaw in the ol’ scheme…
Oh yeah, if you didn’t notice Beatrice’s makeover… Uh… You blind?
Not certain what we’re going for here, but it does feel very… Picasso.
Let’s get that rug dirty!
In a weird way, Beatrice looks like a graduated form of those dolls-with-scissors random encounters that have appeared in a few dungeons.
Nothing there. Nothing.
So let’s just shoot her.
Dark magic? From the source of all misery in this world? It's more common than you think.
Appropriate to the Dream Demon, her ultimate attack is Nightmare. It is a quasi-summon that does damage and may inflict sleep.
Sleep is really annoying in this fight. This is a shot of Gallows, the only one with a sleep ward, starting the process of waking everybody else up.
Beatrice also has the ability to reduce your magic resistance. This would be bad news if you were not already powerful enough to kick God to the curb.
So just remember that Beatrice is tangible, and shoot her but good.
Is that an excuse for final boss music?
Great. Wonderful for you. Bet the gender reveal party is going to be explosive.
Pictured: motherhood.
Or just a fun way to end the battle? Whatever.
… That’s bad (?).
That’s bad.
You know what would have been cool? A scene where Lamium actually receives the Yggdrasil generator from Beatrice. Or maybe Lamium reporting that he found the generator thanks to a dream? Something like that? Then we would have a transition of sorts between everyone in the Ark being a bunch of loons and their right-before-the-finale conviction that they’re about to lift off into space. It would work really great for the dramatic irony of the protagonists and audience knowing damn well where Lamium got that generator, and a hint as to what Beatrice was up to.
Or we could just bring it up at the last minute like this, too. That works.
And now for some actual gameplay at the end of the world.
Look at that timer! You literally have ten seconds to book it out of the castle.
Fun fact: you will fail if you try to play this straight. Ten seconds is not enough time to get back to the entrance. But you received the “exit spell” from Shane, so the solution is to whip out the Exodus Orb to make an immediate escape.
Note that if you do not instantly (or within nine seconds) recall that you have an Exodus Orb, it is a Game Over, and you will be booted back to your last save. This has been tested and verified by my dumb ass getting Virginia exploded.
But we teleported out in time. Which is… Well… At least we’re alive.
Everything seems fine back at the altar.
…. Mostly fine.
Really hoping we didn’t kill everyone by exploding the Nightmare Castle!
Phew.
Senile old bat.
Oh. That.
I mean, if you can remember your memories are being devoured…
To… what? Yell memories at people? Just start shouting diary entries at everyone on Filgaia?
“It’s up to us” is not a plan, Virginia.
So welcome to the ol’ Reverse Dragon Quest.
Dragon Quest, the granddaddy of RPGs, had a lovely ending sequence where you could go anywhere in on the planet, and visit all the people/towns that you had saved. There were no monsters, and the world was at peace.
Wild Arms 3 lets you beat the ostensible final boss and then explore a monster-less (and eerily music-less) Filgaia…
But as you quickly find out…
The galaxy is not at peace.
The save points sound downright suicidal…
And average NPCs are doing their best to not go completely insane in the absence of their own memories.
This sounds like a new fetish.
Shane has had so much trauma over the course of this adventure, he can rank his various brain-invasions.
So feel free to visit the whole world. Apparently someone programmed/wrote new dialogue for literally everyone.
Some of the comments are more significant than others. Emilia learned how to smile again after we slayed the sea serpent that killed her beloved Mario, but now she literally cannot remember why smiling is a thing.
It is horrifying to imagine Toy Story being your only memory.
Maybe everyone in the world is just high?
Special bonus for if you complete the Martina sidequest: Mileux lost her daughter again. Believe it or not, this is foreshadowing.
Pike losing his memories hits the hardest of them all. Think of all the horse dung lost in time, like tears in rain.
Here is Cheville if you do not complete the Martina sidequest. She somehow can remember the concept of pain without memories. Way to go?
There is a happier alternative if you clear that quest, though.
Kaitlyn is… mostly okay.
Fun fact: I did not complete the Adventure Book quest on my PS2 playthrough. If you have collected all the other books, Catherine will still go through the “here is Book #11” dialogue and handoff during the ending. Heck all you can do about it at this point, but rather amusing how this survives her memories being wiped. She really wanted to hand over that book.
Okay, back to normal dialogue about the end of the world.
Clive’s family is apparently putting up a good front for their patriarch. If you speak to these two with anyone but Clive, you get a different reaction.
Not 100% certain I like the implications here for people that lose their memories in our mundane reality…
Thanks, Virginia’s fake mom.
Almost like we’re building up to a point here.
At least some people can hold on to what is important.
Cormano, one of the ruffians of Little Twister, feels better with a lack of memories. Not all memories are good!
Similarly, Myra, the villain of Martina’s quest, feels improved by the eternal sunshine of the spotless mind.
Some people may enjoy this, but the basic implication of a few NPCs is that humanity is going to die from pure ennui without memories.
Cram it, Nalice.
It’s always aliens with some people…
Nooooooooo!
The cool kids see the appeal.
Brother!
Well that sounds like an existential nightmare.
Tony is surprisingly chipper.
When you are ready to move this whole thing along, head for the Ark of Destiny. No one really clues you into this… Aside from the fact that Beatrice wouldn’t shut up about the place during the (apparently not) final battle. Hope you didn’t forget!
The Ark of Destiny is the one place you cannot explore during this ending sequence. Once you enter, the final cutscenes begin.
“Kind of… static-y?”
Gallows asks if we are “too late”, and Jet is pretty sure we are.
“Lamium to a lesser extent, obviously!”
And just to make things interesting, monsters are poofing in.
Book it!
These purple things are gradually producing the same creatures we saw Shane summon at Sacrificial Altar.
And we don’t have time for that right now!
Good thing someone made this hallway long as hell…
Makes for dramatic cameos.
“Seriously! … Were you robbing the place?”
“What of it?”
Maya has not appeared for this entire chapter (!), so you will be forgiven for forgetting that she decided at the end of Chapter 3 to conquer the planet.
Thanks to creating this Let’s Play and playing through Wild Arms 3 multiple times, I have seen any individual piece of WA3 dialogue many times. That said, I exclaim “fuck yes” literally every time Maya says this.
Is it because she is laying claim on the world, or because you want to be president, too, Virginia?
“I assure you, my health care plan is top notch.”
“Do you know how easy it is to run a smear campaign on an accomplished woman?”
You notice how Maya has absolutely not lost her memories at all? I like to believe it is through sheer force of will that she rejects Beatrice’s brain jiggling.
It is kind of hilarious that the whole gang stopped like three feet from Virginia, but everyone knows better than to hop in a conversation when these two are talking.
“Good luck on becoming a dictator!”
“If we all survive, wear that pink thing I like!”
She singlehandedly destroyed like 90% of Siegfried. This is nothing.
And she’s got backup.
Bug creatures are not usually known for their manners.
Todd is the smart one here, but he is apparently not great with subtlety and innuendo.
Though I think everyone else has figured out Maya’s intentions at this point.
Sadly enough, this is the last we see of Maya and her clan.
One of those ambiguous situations where you can believe they went out fighting, or they survived to conquer the world another day. I don’t need to tell you what I believe happened, right?
Ah yes. The power of a thousand gamers yelling at that stupid Lost Woods puzzle.
We got super played.
You are welcome.
Thanks, Dad.
Janus doesn’t even get a mention…
Surprise! Lamium, leader of the Ark of Destiny, has inadvertently been working for Beatrice all this time.
This would have probably been more of a shock to the audience if Lamium was more involved in the latter half of the game (or... uh... any part of the game).
“Sucks to be a human. Moving on to new business…”
In case you aren’t getting it, Beatrice straight up addresses Lamium’s nickname for his dream demon.
“It’s because it’s really awkward to go to a fancy restaurant alone!”
“Except baby eating! Do you eat babies?”
Beatrice is going to blow this whole plan just because she’s annoyed.
Sounds restful.
Final(ish) Fight!
That seems like a bit of a flaw in the ol’ scheme…
Oh yeah, if you didn’t notice Beatrice’s makeover… Uh… You blind?
Not certain what we’re going for here, but it does feel very… Picasso.
Let’s get that rug dirty!
In a weird way, Beatrice looks like a graduated form of those dolls-with-scissors random encounters that have appeared in a few dungeons.
Nothing there. Nothing.
So let’s just shoot her.
Dark magic? From the source of all misery in this world? It's more common than you think.
Appropriate to the Dream Demon, her ultimate attack is Nightmare. It is a quasi-summon that does damage and may inflict sleep.
Sleep is really annoying in this fight. This is a shot of Gallows, the only one with a sleep ward, starting the process of waking everybody else up.
Beatrice also has the ability to reduce your magic resistance. This would be bad news if you were not already powerful enough to kick God to the curb.
So just remember that Beatrice is tangible, and shoot her but good.
Is that an excuse for final boss music?
Great. Wonderful for you. Bet the gender reveal party is going to be explosive.
Pictured: motherhood.
Or just a fun way to end the battle? Whatever.
… That’s bad (?).
That’s bad.
You know what would have been cool? A scene where Lamium actually receives the Yggdrasil generator from Beatrice. Or maybe Lamium reporting that he found the generator thanks to a dream? Something like that? Then we would have a transition of sorts between everyone in the Ark being a bunch of loons and their right-before-the-finale conviction that they’re about to lift off into space. It would work really great for the dramatic irony of the protagonists and audience knowing damn well where Lamium got that generator, and a hint as to what Beatrice was up to.
Or we could just bring it up at the last minute like this, too. That works.
And now for some actual gameplay at the end of the world.
Look at that timer! You literally have ten seconds to book it out of the castle.
Fun fact: you will fail if you try to play this straight. Ten seconds is not enough time to get back to the entrance. But you received the “exit spell” from Shane, so the solution is to whip out the Exodus Orb to make an immediate escape.
Note that if you do not instantly (or within nine seconds) recall that you have an Exodus Orb, it is a Game Over, and you will be booted back to your last save. This has been tested and verified by my dumb ass getting Virginia exploded.
But we teleported out in time. Which is… Well… At least we’re alive.
Everything seems fine back at the altar.
…. Mostly fine.
Really hoping we didn’t kill everyone by exploding the Nightmare Castle!
Phew.
Senile old bat.
Oh. That.
I mean, if you can remember your memories are being devoured…
To… what? Yell memories at people? Just start shouting diary entries at everyone on Filgaia?
“It’s up to us” is not a plan, Virginia.
So welcome to the ol’ Reverse Dragon Quest.
Dragon Quest, the granddaddy of RPGs, had a lovely ending sequence where you could go anywhere in on the planet, and visit all the people/towns that you had saved. There were no monsters, and the world was at peace.
Wild Arms 3 lets you beat the ostensible final boss and then explore a monster-less (and eerily music-less) Filgaia…
But as you quickly find out…
The galaxy is not at peace.
The save points sound downright suicidal…
And average NPCs are doing their best to not go completely insane in the absence of their own memories.
This sounds like a new fetish.
Shane has had so much trauma over the course of this adventure, he can rank his various brain-invasions.
So feel free to visit the whole world. Apparently someone programmed/wrote new dialogue for literally everyone.
Some of the comments are more significant than others. Emilia learned how to smile again after we slayed the sea serpent that killed her beloved Mario, but now she literally cannot remember why smiling is a thing.
It is horrifying to imagine Toy Story being your only memory.
Okay, random dude that taught us about Migrant Seals.
Maybe everyone in the world is just high?
Special bonus for if you complete the Martina sidequest: Mileux lost her daughter again. Believe it or not, this is foreshadowing.
Pike losing his memories hits the hardest of them all. Think of all the horse dung lost in time, like tears in rain.
Here is Cheville if you do not complete the Martina sidequest. She somehow can remember the concept of pain without memories. Way to go?
There is a happier alternative if you clear that quest, though.
Kaitlyn is… mostly okay.
Fun fact: I did not complete the Adventure Book quest on my PS2 playthrough. If you have collected all the other books, Catherine will still go through the “here is Book #11” dialogue and handoff during the ending. Heck all you can do about it at this point, but rather amusing how this survives her memories being wiped. She really wanted to hand over that book.
Okay, back to normal dialogue about the end of the world.
Clive’s family is apparently putting up a good front for their patriarch. If you speak to these two with anyone but Clive, you get a different reaction.
Not 100% certain I like the implications here for people that lose their memories in our mundane reality…
Thanks, Virginia’s fake mom.
Almost like we’re building up to a point here.
At least some people can hold on to what is important.
Cormano, one of the ruffians of Little Twister, feels better with a lack of memories. Not all memories are good!
Similarly, Myra, the villain of Martina’s quest, feels improved by the eternal sunshine of the spotless mind.
Some people may enjoy this, but the basic implication of a few NPCs is that humanity is going to die from pure ennui without memories.
Cram it, Nalice.
It’s always aliens with some people…
Nooooooooo!
The cool kids see the appeal.
Brother!
Well that sounds like an existential nightmare.
Tony is surprisingly chipper.
When you are ready to move this whole thing along, head for the Ark of Destiny. No one really clues you into this… Aside from the fact that Beatrice wouldn’t shut up about the place during the (apparently not) final battle. Hope you didn’t forget!
The Ark of Destiny is the one place you cannot explore during this ending sequence. Once you enter, the final cutscenes begin.
“Kind of… static-y?”
Gallows asks if we are “too late”, and Jet is pretty sure we are.
“Lamium to a lesser extent, obviously!”
And just to make things interesting, monsters are poofing in.
Book it!
These purple things are gradually producing the same creatures we saw Shane summon at Sacrificial Altar.
And we don’t have time for that right now!
Good thing someone made this hallway long as hell…
Makes for dramatic cameos.
“Seriously! … Were you robbing the place?”
“What of it?”
Maya has not appeared for this entire chapter (!), so you will be forgiven for forgetting that she decided at the end of Chapter 3 to conquer the planet.
Thanks to creating this Let’s Play and playing through Wild Arms 3 multiple times, I have seen any individual piece of WA3 dialogue many times. That said, I exclaim “fuck yes” literally every time Maya says this.
Is it because she is laying claim on the world, or because you want to be president, too, Virginia?
“I assure you, my health care plan is top notch.”
“Do you know how easy it is to run a smear campaign on an accomplished woman?”
You notice how Maya has absolutely not lost her memories at all? I like to believe it is through sheer force of will that she rejects Beatrice’s brain jiggling.
It is kind of hilarious that the whole gang stopped like three feet from Virginia, but everyone knows better than to hop in a conversation when these two are talking.
“Good luck on becoming a dictator!”
“If we all survive, wear that pink thing I like!”
She singlehandedly destroyed like 90% of Siegfried. This is nothing.
And she’s got backup.
Bug creatures are not usually known for their manners.
Todd is the smart one here, but he is apparently not great with subtlety and innuendo.
Though I think everyone else has figured out Maya’s intentions at this point.
Sadly enough, this is the last we see of Maya and her clan.
One of those ambiguous situations where you can believe they went out fighting, or they survived to conquer the world another day. I don’t need to tell you what I believe happened, right?
And as for Team Virginia? Well…
Next time on Wild Arms: More forms than a Digimon.
Y'know, I completely forgot about the battle with Beatrice and the potential world tour. I was just remembering getting bamf'd straight to the Ark.
Guess Beatrice ate my memories! Oh no!
Guess Beatrice ate my memories! Oh no!
Hey, that's gonna happen.
Welcome to the middle of the end on October 12, Fat Ego Day. Having a big ego is one thing, but a fat ego is even worse. You can hide big egos if you try, but you can't hide if you're fat...
Chapter 78: Evolve and Die
Previously on Wild Arms 3: Beatrice destroyed her own castle and all the memories of (nearly) everyone on Filgaia. She retreated to the Ark of Destiny to utilize the Yggdrasil Core she had left there, but our intrepid heroes have arrived to…
Find a ponytail?
Oh no! That ponytail belongs to Lamium, the leader of the Ark of Destiny.
And he’s not doing so hot.
I guess some kind of energy blast was coming for our heroes, but Lamium soaked it. It was really unclear.
“JC Penny never really puts things on sale… They just… They just say it is marked down…”
Wow. Not only did Lamium turn around on the whole “The Saint” thing, but he’s correctly identifying her by her proper genus, too. Maybe he read a book on demons a while back?
Lamium believed in Beatrice, but, since that didn’t work out, he is putting his faith in that girl in purple who keeps blowing things up.
“Who could have foreseen that we would be responsible for your death!?”
Bad news: Lamium can only defend against one (1) dream demon energy blast.
But it doesn’t matter anyway.
Anywho, now we have reached the climax: the last Nega Filgaia. And… I’m tired from all that fighting. Can we take a break?
Next time on Wild Arms: Remember that guy?
Welcome to the middle of the end on October 12, Fat Ego Day. Having a big ego is one thing, but a fat ego is even worse. You can hide big egos if you try, but you can't hide if you're fat...
Chapter 78: Evolve and Die
Previously on Wild Arms 3: Beatrice destroyed her own castle and all the memories of (nearly) everyone on Filgaia. She retreated to the Ark of Destiny to utilize the Yggdrasil Core she had left there, but our intrepid heroes have arrived to…
Find a ponytail?
Oh no! That ponytail belongs to Lamium, the leader of the Ark of Destiny.
And he’s not doing so hot.
I guess some kind of energy blast was coming for our heroes, but Lamium soaked it. It was really unclear.
“JC Penny never really puts things on sale… They just… They just say it is marked down…”
Wow. Not only did Lamium turn around on the whole “The Saint” thing, but he’s correctly identifying her by her proper genus, too. Maybe he read a book on demons a while back?
Lamium believed in Beatrice, but, since that didn’t work out, he is putting his faith in that girl in purple who keeps blowing things up.
“Who could have foreseen that we would be responsible for your death!?”
Bad news: Lamium can only defend against one (1) dream demon energy blast.
But it doesn’t matter anyway.
Void time!
Good of you to tell us that, as we knew practically nothing about the man.
While Beatrice goes on about the whole “I control the dream realm” thing she has explained before, can we talk about Lamium? We are hanging a chunk of the ending on his noble sacrifice and how he decided to embrace the truth in his final moments and… Does it work?
It is good that we get some measure of “if people know the truth, they will fight for it” here, but the last time we had to deal with Lamium was back before the raid on Siegfried’s first citadel, which was before Beatrice was even identified and introduced to the party. And that was one single piece of dialogue (that activated a dungeon)! The last time Lamium drove the plot was the start of Chapter 3, when he tasked us with blowing up a dragon mine. And before that… we met him.
Lamium has been a likeable dude all throughout the story, and it is a shame that he got murdered… But do you think we maybe could have fleshed him out a little more? Made him at least as present as… I don’t know… Todd? Maybe involve him a little in the Mimir’s Well section or something so you remember the name of the dude that is going to take a (magical) bullet for you? I don’t know, just seems like a wasted opportunity in a game where we spent more time interacting with our sentient airship.
Anyway, Beatrice was narrating because she thought she had completely beaten the heroes by sucking them into a dream hole…
But since when does that kind of thing actually matter to intrepid protagonists?
Gee, maybe because across three games, “Hope” is the most powerful force in the Wild Arms universe?
Oh! That too! Would be cool if the most hopeful man on the planet ever had anything to do with anything.
Uh… sure?
Looks like we are going with avenging today.
“Forget you, lady! Forget you right in the face!”
The final battle begins!
… Do we need to… uh… wear better shoes? Or… something? The floor is lava.
Beatrice appears to be Fightin' Beatrice again. Same gal as back at the castle.
Yes, all very familiar.
She uses the same attacks, including that faux summon that can inflict sleep status.
So plan ahead on that one. There are no fights between the two Beatrice battles, so you can keep all your same equipment going.
Dark Ward and Sleep Ward are what you are looking for here. And you’ll want Dark Ward again later.
Also: never stop shooting.
Yep, all the same attacks.
Until at which point she explodes.
So, if I am interpreting this all correctly, Beatrice is more or less dead now.
But the world Beatrice was trying to bring into existence is ready to stand in her stead.
I do not know why they even bothered with this. At least it means any “temporary” status effects used by Beatrice (like sleep!) will not last into the next fight.
The final battle begins! Again!
Hello world.
Behold! Jellyfish world!
Remember this one from a thousand updates back? Basically, the concept was introduced by the Prophets that Filgaia was a living organism onto itself, so logically it had to have a “baby phase”. We are looking at the earliest phase of Nega Filgaia. Note also that the Prophets’ lesson on the different phases of evolution are going to be relevant to this ”world” growing up.
And we gotta kill it.
Beatrice did make it, so it is probably evil…
Let’s shoot ourselves a planet!
(Jiggles menacingly)
Alright, first thing is first: this is going to be one long battle with a billion phases. As such, status changes last from the beginning to the end, so cast Hyper and Permanence on your main attackers so they have boosted damage through the battle (or until they die).
Now let’s look at Nega Filgaia. Nothing worth noting here yet.
The first phase has high odds on not doing anything.
But Jelly Filgaia will occasionally use a counterattack at the end of the turn against anyone that tapped it. Note that it counters regular attacks just the same as debuffs or other less direct moves. If you have low health (at the start of this fight?), do not touch the jellyfish.
Also, it can duplicate after taking some damage. To my knowledge, it will only split once. This ain’t Final Fantasy 3.
Red Nega Filgaia will do the same counter nonsense as Blue Nega Filgaia, but both of them do not have enough health or attack power to really make a difference.
And you have attack power to spare.
Each Nega Filgaia phase ends with the current opponent bursting into the next phase. In the event there are multiple Nega Filgaias, this metamorphosis does not occur until every… uh… instance is defeated.
So it is time for… Hm… Nega Filgaia Bug? I feel like that lower part is supposed to be an egg of some kind…
Regular bug.
This thing can use paralysis attacks. If you are not equipped to ward those off, make sure you cure the paralysis immediately. You do not want any team members out of commission for entire phases.
Other than that, nothing of note for this guy aside from the worst thing ever. If you take longer than eight turns to defeat Nega Filgaia Bug, it will use a reset move that takes you back to the beginning of the jellyfish fight. This is annoying, but at least you are only two phases in. Wonder what would happen if you saw this attack later in the battle…
Now for Slime Nega Filgaia.
Gross.
Slimey is invulnerable to physical attacks.
And has no significant weaknesses to any elements.
But…
“The core is exposed” after it uses its own attack. This means that you can do physical damage if you have a super low speed stat. It will be back to invulnerable at the top of the next round, so only attackers who move after the slimy touch can take advantage.
So magic is probably your best move.
But, if you use the Time Medium’s Replay ability…
Then the “replay” attack will be performed at the absolute end of the turn. Guess how that works out for jelly belly here…
This fight might take a little longer if you are exclusively relying on magic, but it will reach a conclusion. Jelly is a defense-based beast, but is not a threat offensively. This fight is more or less training you for later phases where defense is a key with offense.
Next form is Teenage Mutant Ninja Tadpoles.
We’ve got four of these suckers, and they are all glowing different colors.
You can shoot them, but…
Any physical attacks will lead to a “counter” wherein Nega Filgaia heals the whole quartet.
You can overwhelm the healing if you are strong enough, but using magic is highly recommended.
The trick this time is that each of the amphibians are weak to one element and strong against another. Bluey here is resistant to ice, but weak to fire.
They also utilize their own “strong” element as an attack. Bluey fires an arctic lance…
While Greeny is all about playing twister.
So you can either shoot these rejects from Chrono Cross as hard as you can…
Or you can play along…
The other trick here is that once you use an element, the frogs then become resistant to that element. After using a fire spell on the whole gang, they will all be strong against fire…
And start using fire attacks.
But they also become weak to the appropriately matching element. So if you want this fight to be over quickly…
Have Virginia use Mystic on an elemental gem to grant those lizards one weakness across the board, and then get Gallows to follow up by hitting everyone square in that weakness.
And they will be obliterated in a turn. Jet and Clive can rest for a round.
Bye bye, thingy.
And we have moved into the age of dinosaurs.
Let’s call these two Blue and Mr. Pilkington.
They both have the same scan-stats.
Blue is the attacker. It will cast Hyper on itself to double its attack stat, and then attempt to stampede you to death.
Mr. Pilkington does not attack often, but will start the battle by lowering your defense stat. Remember that this debuff will last not only through Blue’s tenure, but future phases as well.
Here comes Blue, taking advantage of its buffed attack and your debuffed defense.
Eat lead! Guess we don’t have to worry about Blue anymore.
And this jerk is protecting against magic.
Mr. Pilkington will use Critical Heal often. If you are not a superpowered monster that can fell Blue in one turn, you probably want to focus on Mr. Pilkington first. Not that the game does nothing to identify which dino is casting the healing spell…
You never like to see that.
Mr. Pilkington goes down after a sound thrashing.
The natural evolution of the dinosaur is, of course, a dragon.
Aren’t dragons in this universe supposed to be wholly unnatural? Or is this like saying that mechanical monster beasts are inevitable in the evolutionary line of the Wild Arms universe?
Oh! I spy a weakness or eight!
Try not to get barbecued.
Nothing much to worry about there.
This is the annoying attack.
Not unlike Tiamat’s Final Disaster, Arcana Disaster will hit one target with literally every elemental attack. That is eight separate smacks utilized in one turn, and it is difficult to ward against all of them. That said, the Prism Crown does exactly that, so at least one party member is likely to soak the whole onslaught.
And Puff here has an unusually named physical attack, too.
So shoot ‘em and use arcana attacks.
Note that Dragon Filgaia will gradually become resistant to any element you hit it with repeatedly, so try to mix it up a little. Your main mages should be able to alternate between at least two elements thanks to medium distribution. Feel free to juggle in other elements if your casters want to keep hitting weaknesses.
You do enough damage with the initial strikes, though, and you won’t have to worry about those resistances growing at all.
Saber Tooth Nega Filgaia is the final exam form of Dragon Nega Filgaia.
I have good news, more good news, and then bad news.
Good news: Saber Tooth has the same weakness issue as Dragon. It will gradually become strong to elements, but it will take heavy damage from initial offerings.
Good news again: Saber Tooth only has one ineffectual physical attack.
Bad news: Like Paralysis Bug earlier, if you spend eight turns with Saber Tooth, it will reset the battle back to the beginning. You know, the whole battle. You absolutely do not want that. So do as much damage as you can as quickly as you can.
Most people probably kill this thing so fast, they do not even know there is a super annoying countdown involved. Focus on those elemental attacks, and move this fight along.
There. That is the last reset threat in this battle.
Onto Spirit Nega Filgaia.
In grand Lavos tradition, we have a main middle man, and two little helpers.
In anti-Lavos tradition, you are aiming for the center. This is the first time in this fight something is not named Nega Filgaia. As such, you do not need to kill the Spirit Servants to proceed.
Sorry, all out of weaknesses.
Boo.
So here is the latest annoyance.
One Spirit Servant is always immune to physical attacks, and the other Spirit Servant is always immune to magic attacks. If you use either offense option, and the anti-that Spirit Servant is still alive, it will take the hit for Nega Filgaia, and you will do zero damage to anything.
Physical attacks or arcana…
Spirit Servant jumps in, and…
It ain’t gonna fly.
And Nega Filgaia will pummel you with a Dark Attack that hits everybody.
Other than taking blows, the Spirit Servants don’t do anything.
So the basic answer here is to eliminate the proper Spirit Servant, and then “clear the way” for someone to later directly attack Nega Filgaia.
The Spirit Servant that is weak to arcana blocks physical attacks, so have Gallows and Virginia focus on that helper…
And hope to Zephyr that Nega Filgaia does not use its ability that revives the servants. Dammit! That one always stings.
So here’s an option in Wild Arms 3 that most people forget exists…
Formation allows you to manually rearrange turn order for your characters. This is the final battle, and this option has never been useful at any other point in the game.
But we will use it now! Because if you put Clive, our slowest character, first, then everyone else will act after Clive. And that means the whole gang acts after Nega Filgaia could use its revive spell, so now we can go hog wild on obliterating a Servant and then knocking Nega Filgaia around. Score one for this esoteric battle option!
Note that this technique could have worked against Slime Nega Filgaia earlier in the phases... but only if Clive was slower than the slime. In both of my playthroughs, Clive was miraculously faster than a slimy little pile.
Next form is the RPG standard of Angel Nega Filgaia.
Like with Dragon and Saber Tooth before, Angel is basically the upgraded form of Spirit.
Magic is not going to work with its natural reflect status.
And the Messengers are about what you would expect.
Still doing that nonsense where you cannot do any damage while a Messenger survives.
And you still have to randomly distinguish which Messenger is weak to which kind of attack. Couldn’t you guys be color-coded?
So magic time?
Not magic time. Watch that reflect ability!
And this time we have a light-based attack to worry about.
The previous Spirit “guards” did not actually do anything but block attacks, but the Messengers will use light attacks on their own, too.
So the trick this time is “clued” by the reflect status. The only way you can get magic past a reflect mirror is by summoning a guardian. So here at the near-finale of all these fights, it is time to whip out the guardian summons.
Shoot the messenger (ha!) resistant to that summon, and Angel is defenseless.
And if you have FP for a Replay attack, this is all going to be over quickly.
Blammo.
And thus concludes the million phases of Nega Filgaia.
You may have noticed that this battle is thematically similar to some significant events in Wild Arms 2. Extremely long story of Wild Arms 2 short (though available in Let’s Play form if you are curious), the biggest threat to the Filgaia of WA2 was another dimension attempting to encroach on “ours”, and that crash was going to kill everyone. The heroes had a devil of a time fighting a generally incorporeal planet entity, but the problem was finally solved thanks to some light incest. A woman was sacrificed to “birth” the new world, and that created a freaky creature that our protagonists could shoot with guns and thus save the day.
Did I not say it was a weird plot?
Regardless, this meant the (mostly) final boss of Wild Arms 2 was the physical manifestation of a new universe, and that wound up being represented by a giant fetus attached to an amalgamation of an RPG angel monster and a reproductive system. It was confusing on many levels.
And it is hard to object to the theory that Beatrice’s Nega Filgaia is an attempt at a do-over on that concept as a final boss. Nega Filgaia is essentially the same kind of creature as the final boss of Wild Arms 2, but this is a much more interesting battle with its quasi trip through evolutionary theories. We still wind up with an angel beast at one point, but starting with a spineless sea monster and working our way through dinosaurs and tigers presents a better, more understandable “battle story”. And, hey, it doesn’t hurt that it is an excuse for all sorts of fight configurations, so the match isn’t just a matter of your biggest bruiser using his limit break.
I’m not going to say this is my favorite final boss battle (it goes on way too long for there to be any real tension, at a certain point you just want it to be over), but it is definitely an improvement over Wild Arms 2’s vaguely nonsensical finale (which, admittedly, does recover with its “real” final boss).
Good of you to tell us that, as we knew practically nothing about the man.
While Beatrice goes on about the whole “I control the dream realm” thing she has explained before, can we talk about Lamium? We are hanging a chunk of the ending on his noble sacrifice and how he decided to embrace the truth in his final moments and… Does it work?
It is good that we get some measure of “if people know the truth, they will fight for it” here, but the last time we had to deal with Lamium was back before the raid on Siegfried’s first citadel, which was before Beatrice was even identified and introduced to the party. And that was one single piece of dialogue (that activated a dungeon)! The last time Lamium drove the plot was the start of Chapter 3, when he tasked us with blowing up a dragon mine. And before that… we met him.
Lamium has been a likeable dude all throughout the story, and it is a shame that he got murdered… But do you think we maybe could have fleshed him out a little more? Made him at least as present as… I don’t know… Todd? Maybe involve him a little in the Mimir’s Well section or something so you remember the name of the dude that is going to take a (magical) bullet for you? I don’t know, just seems like a wasted opportunity in a game where we spent more time interacting with our sentient airship.
Anyway, Beatrice was narrating because she thought she had completely beaten the heroes by sucking them into a dream hole…
But since when does that kind of thing actually matter to intrepid protagonists?
Eternal Darkness is locked onto the Nintendo Gamecube, Virginia.
Gee, maybe because across three games, “Hope” is the most powerful force in the Wild Arms universe?
Oh! That too! Would be cool if the most hopeful man on the planet ever had anything to do with anything.
Uh… sure?
Looks like we are going with avenging today.
“Forget you, lady! Forget you right in the face!”
The final battle begins!
… Do we need to… uh… wear better shoes? Or… something? The floor is lava.
Beatrice appears to be Fightin' Beatrice again. Same gal as back at the castle.
Yes, all very familiar.
She uses the same attacks, including that faux summon that can inflict sleep status.
So plan ahead on that one. There are no fights between the two Beatrice battles, so you can keep all your same equipment going.
Dark Ward and Sleep Ward are what you are looking for here. And you’ll want Dark Ward again later.
Also: never stop shooting.
Yep, all the same attacks.
Until at which point she explodes.
So, if I am interpreting this all correctly, Beatrice is more or less dead now.
But the world Beatrice was trying to bring into existence is ready to stand in her stead.
I do not know why they even bothered with this. At least it means any “temporary” status effects used by Beatrice (like sleep!) will not last into the next fight.
The final battle begins! Again!
Hello world.
Behold! Jellyfish world!
Remember this one from a thousand updates back? Basically, the concept was introduced by the Prophets that Filgaia was a living organism onto itself, so logically it had to have a “baby phase”. We are looking at the earliest phase of Nega Filgaia. Note also that the Prophets’ lesson on the different phases of evolution are going to be relevant to this ”world” growing up.
And we gotta kill it.
Beatrice did make it, so it is probably evil…
Let’s shoot ourselves a planet!
(Jiggles menacingly)
Alright, first thing is first: this is going to be one long battle with a billion phases. As such, status changes last from the beginning to the end, so cast Hyper and Permanence on your main attackers so they have boosted damage through the battle (or until they die).
Now let’s look at Nega Filgaia. Nothing worth noting here yet.
The first phase has high odds on not doing anything.
But Jelly Filgaia will occasionally use a counterattack at the end of the turn against anyone that tapped it. Note that it counters regular attacks just the same as debuffs or other less direct moves. If you have low health (at the start of this fight?), do not touch the jellyfish.
Also, it can duplicate after taking some damage. To my knowledge, it will only split once. This ain’t Final Fantasy 3.
Red Nega Filgaia will do the same counter nonsense as Blue Nega Filgaia, but both of them do not have enough health or attack power to really make a difference.
And you have attack power to spare.
Each Nega Filgaia phase ends with the current opponent bursting into the next phase. In the event there are multiple Nega Filgaias, this metamorphosis does not occur until every… uh… instance is defeated.
So it is time for… Hm… Nega Filgaia Bug? I feel like that lower part is supposed to be an egg of some kind…
Regular bug.
This thing can use paralysis attacks. If you are not equipped to ward those off, make sure you cure the paralysis immediately. You do not want any team members out of commission for entire phases.
Other than that, nothing of note for this guy aside from the worst thing ever. If you take longer than eight turns to defeat Nega Filgaia Bug, it will use a reset move that takes you back to the beginning of the jellyfish fight. This is annoying, but at least you are only two phases in. Wonder what would happen if you saw this attack later in the battle…
Now for Slime Nega Filgaia.
Gross.
Slimey is invulnerable to physical attacks.
And has no significant weaknesses to any elements.
But…
“The core is exposed” after it uses its own attack. This means that you can do physical damage if you have a super low speed stat. It will be back to invulnerable at the top of the next round, so only attackers who move after the slimy touch can take advantage.
So magic is probably your best move.
But, if you use the Time Medium’s Replay ability…
Then the “replay” attack will be performed at the absolute end of the turn. Guess how that works out for jelly belly here…
This fight might take a little longer if you are exclusively relying on magic, but it will reach a conclusion. Jelly is a defense-based beast, but is not a threat offensively. This fight is more or less training you for later phases where defense is a key with offense.
Next form is Teenage Mutant Ninja Tadpoles.
We’ve got four of these suckers, and they are all glowing different colors.
You can shoot them, but…
Any physical attacks will lead to a “counter” wherein Nega Filgaia heals the whole quartet.
You can overwhelm the healing if you are strong enough, but using magic is highly recommended.
The trick this time is that each of the amphibians are weak to one element and strong against another. Bluey here is resistant to ice, but weak to fire.
They also utilize their own “strong” element as an attack. Bluey fires an arctic lance…
While Greeny is all about playing twister.
So you can either shoot these rejects from Chrono Cross as hard as you can…
Or you can play along…
The other trick here is that once you use an element, the frogs then become resistant to that element. After using a fire spell on the whole gang, they will all be strong against fire…
And start using fire attacks.
But they also become weak to the appropriately matching element. So if you want this fight to be over quickly…
Have Virginia use Mystic on an elemental gem to grant those lizards one weakness across the board, and then get Gallows to follow up by hitting everyone square in that weakness.
And they will be obliterated in a turn. Jet and Clive can rest for a round.
Bye bye, thingy.
And we have moved into the age of dinosaurs.
Let’s call these two Blue and Mr. Pilkington.
They both have the same scan-stats.
Blue is the attacker. It will cast Hyper on itself to double its attack stat, and then attempt to stampede you to death.
Mr. Pilkington does not attack often, but will start the battle by lowering your defense stat. Remember that this debuff will last not only through Blue’s tenure, but future phases as well.
Here comes Blue, taking advantage of its buffed attack and your debuffed defense.
Eat lead! Guess we don’t have to worry about Blue anymore.
And this jerk is protecting against magic.
Mr. Pilkington will use Critical Heal often. If you are not a superpowered monster that can fell Blue in one turn, you probably want to focus on Mr. Pilkington first. Not that the game does nothing to identify which dino is casting the healing spell…
You never like to see that.
Mr. Pilkington goes down after a sound thrashing.
The natural evolution of the dinosaur is, of course, a dragon.
Aren’t dragons in this universe supposed to be wholly unnatural? Or is this like saying that mechanical monster beasts are inevitable in the evolutionary line of the Wild Arms universe?
Oh! I spy a weakness or eight!
Try not to get barbecued.
Nothing much to worry about there.
This is the annoying attack.
Not unlike Tiamat’s Final Disaster, Arcana Disaster will hit one target with literally every elemental attack. That is eight separate smacks utilized in one turn, and it is difficult to ward against all of them. That said, the Prism Crown does exactly that, so at least one party member is likely to soak the whole onslaught.
And Puff here has an unusually named physical attack, too.
So shoot ‘em and use arcana attacks.
Note that Dragon Filgaia will gradually become resistant to any element you hit it with repeatedly, so try to mix it up a little. Your main mages should be able to alternate between at least two elements thanks to medium distribution. Feel free to juggle in other elements if your casters want to keep hitting weaknesses.
You do enough damage with the initial strikes, though, and you won’t have to worry about those resistances growing at all.
Saber Tooth Nega Filgaia is the final exam form of Dragon Nega Filgaia.
I have good news, more good news, and then bad news.
Good news: Saber Tooth has the same weakness issue as Dragon. It will gradually become strong to elements, but it will take heavy damage from initial offerings.
Good news again: Saber Tooth only has one ineffectual physical attack.
Bad news: Like Paralysis Bug earlier, if you spend eight turns with Saber Tooth, it will reset the battle back to the beginning. You know, the whole battle. You absolutely do not want that. So do as much damage as you can as quickly as you can.
Most people probably kill this thing so fast, they do not even know there is a super annoying countdown involved. Focus on those elemental attacks, and move this fight along.
There. That is the last reset threat in this battle.
Onto Spirit Nega Filgaia.
In grand Lavos tradition, we have a main middle man, and two little helpers.
In anti-Lavos tradition, you are aiming for the center. This is the first time in this fight something is not named Nega Filgaia. As such, you do not need to kill the Spirit Servants to proceed.
Sorry, all out of weaknesses.
Boo.
So here is the latest annoyance.
One Spirit Servant is always immune to physical attacks, and the other Spirit Servant is always immune to magic attacks. If you use either offense option, and the anti-that Spirit Servant is still alive, it will take the hit for Nega Filgaia, and you will do zero damage to anything.
Physical attacks or arcana…
Spirit Servant jumps in, and…
It ain’t gonna fly.
And Nega Filgaia will pummel you with a Dark Attack that hits everybody.
Other than taking blows, the Spirit Servants don’t do anything.
So the basic answer here is to eliminate the proper Spirit Servant, and then “clear the way” for someone to later directly attack Nega Filgaia.
The Spirit Servant that is weak to arcana blocks physical attacks, so have Gallows and Virginia focus on that helper…
And hope to Zephyr that Nega Filgaia does not use its ability that revives the servants. Dammit! That one always stings.
So here’s an option in Wild Arms 3 that most people forget exists…
Formation allows you to manually rearrange turn order for your characters. This is the final battle, and this option has never been useful at any other point in the game.
But we will use it now! Because if you put Clive, our slowest character, first, then everyone else will act after Clive. And that means the whole gang acts after Nega Filgaia could use its revive spell, so now we can go hog wild on obliterating a Servant and then knocking Nega Filgaia around. Score one for this esoteric battle option!
Note that this technique could have worked against Slime Nega Filgaia earlier in the phases... but only if Clive was slower than the slime. In both of my playthroughs, Clive was miraculously faster than a slimy little pile.
Next form is the RPG standard of Angel Nega Filgaia.
Like with Dragon and Saber Tooth before, Angel is basically the upgraded form of Spirit.
Magic is not going to work with its natural reflect status.
And the Messengers are about what you would expect.
Still doing that nonsense where you cannot do any damage while a Messenger survives.
And you still have to randomly distinguish which Messenger is weak to which kind of attack. Couldn’t you guys be color-coded?
So magic time?
Not magic time. Watch that reflect ability!
And this time we have a light-based attack to worry about.
The previous Spirit “guards” did not actually do anything but block attacks, but the Messengers will use light attacks on their own, too.
So the trick this time is “clued” by the reflect status. The only way you can get magic past a reflect mirror is by summoning a guardian. So here at the near-finale of all these fights, it is time to whip out the guardian summons.
Shoot the messenger (ha!) resistant to that summon, and Angel is defenseless.
And if you have FP for a Replay attack, this is all going to be over quickly.
Blammo.
And thus concludes the million phases of Nega Filgaia.
You may have noticed that this battle is thematically similar to some significant events in Wild Arms 2. Extremely long story of Wild Arms 2 short (though available in Let’s Play form if you are curious), the biggest threat to the Filgaia of WA2 was another dimension attempting to encroach on “ours”, and that crash was going to kill everyone. The heroes had a devil of a time fighting a generally incorporeal planet entity, but the problem was finally solved thanks to some light incest. A woman was sacrificed to “birth” the new world, and that created a freaky creature that our protagonists could shoot with guns and thus save the day.
Did I not say it was a weird plot?
Regardless, this meant the (mostly) final boss of Wild Arms 2 was the physical manifestation of a new universe, and that wound up being represented by a giant fetus attached to an amalgamation of an RPG angel monster and a reproductive system. It was confusing on many levels.
And it is hard to object to the theory that Beatrice’s Nega Filgaia is an attempt at a do-over on that concept as a final boss. Nega Filgaia is essentially the same kind of creature as the final boss of Wild Arms 2, but this is a much more interesting battle with its quasi trip through evolutionary theories. We still wind up with an angel beast at one point, but starting with a spineless sea monster and working our way through dinosaurs and tigers presents a better, more understandable “battle story”. And, hey, it doesn’t hurt that it is an excuse for all sorts of fight configurations, so the match isn’t just a matter of your biggest bruiser using his limit break.
I’m not going to say this is my favorite final boss battle (it goes on way too long for there to be any real tension, at a certain point you just want it to be over), but it is definitely an improvement over Wild Arms 2’s vaguely nonsensical finale (which, admittedly, does recover with its “real” final boss).
Anywho, now we have reached the climax: the last Nega Filgaia. And… I’m tired from all that fighting. Can we take a break?
Next time on Wild Arms: Remember that guy?
I can kinda see the idea of it being a sort of "crust of the Earth" environment that is often evoked when you see simulations of the world being "born". Like Wikipedia uses this image for "Earth formation".
And I guess they are trying to distinguish this situation from Beatrice's "previous" Dream Realm, as that was very deliberately something different.
That said, it is still weird, and even weirder that no one notes that they should be on fire.
(And it would be so much nicer for screenshots of the battle if they stuck to the void...)
And I guess they are trying to distinguish this situation from Beatrice's "previous" Dream Realm, as that was very deliberately something different.
That said, it is still weird, and even weirder that no one notes that they should be on fire.
(And it would be so much nicer for screenshots of the battle if they stuck to the void...)
I kinda dig the WA2 connection with the 'stuff a noncorporeal concept into a corporeal shell so we can dang shoot it' thing but honestly I kinda prefer the Kuiper Core in WA2 to Nega Filgaia, mostly because here the fight just goes on so. Dang. Long.
It does win on the music front though. The battle against the Kuiper Core (not to be confused with the Lord Blazer music, because then it just wouldn't be a fair comparison) had a fairly short music loop. Here, though, every other phase brings in a new change of BGM and a lot of em are kinda rad, in an unsettling, alien sort of way. Almost Earthbound-y.
The Beginning and The End (fetus phase)
Breath Born of Mud (bug and slime phase)
Fangs and Claws of Fierce Evil (those reptiles from the Warp 10 episode of Voyager and Jurassic Park phase)
Wings Blacker Than Death Outstretched (dargon and sabertooth phase)
Generally, That Light (Lavos and Angel phase)
There is of course another piece of music for the FINALER battle but that's for next time.
Fun fact, back when Wild ARMS 3 first came out in Japan I got my hands on a copy of the OST through illicit internet means and made a whole lot of assumptions of what was going to happen just based on the track titles. When I saw the track title 'Breath Born of Mud' I thought for sure it was going to involve Glaive le Gable, the 'Guardian of Mud' from WA2 and source of all life on Filgaia. But nope, just one of the many phases of the final battle. I don't think Glaive le Gable even got mentioned in WA3?
It does win on the music front though. The battle against the Kuiper Core (not to be confused with the Lord Blazer music, because then it just wouldn't be a fair comparison) had a fairly short music loop. Here, though, every other phase brings in a new change of BGM and a lot of em are kinda rad, in an unsettling, alien sort of way. Almost Earthbound-y.
The Beginning and The End (fetus phase)
Breath Born of Mud (bug and slime phase)
Fangs and Claws of Fierce Evil (those reptiles from the Warp 10 episode of Voyager and Jurassic Park phase)
Wings Blacker Than Death Outstretched (dargon and sabertooth phase)
Generally, That Light (Lavos and Angel phase)
There is of course another piece of music for the FINALER battle but that's for next time.
Fun fact, back when Wild ARMS 3 first came out in Japan I got my hands on a copy of the OST through illicit internet means and made a whole lot of assumptions of what was going to happen just based on the track titles. When I saw the track title 'Breath Born of Mud' I thought for sure it was going to involve Glaive le Gable, the 'Guardian of Mud' from WA2 and source of all life on Filgaia. But nope, just one of the many phases of the final battle. I don't think Glaive le Gable even got mentioned in WA3?
You, my friend, should look forward to October 29, Toy Day. Collect all 12 Saint Guardian action figures and get a free Guardian of Mud doll! I wish
I'd known that before the offer expired... Sigh.
(Like a lot of WA "lore" references, Glaive only appears as an aside in an Armengard story)
It all comes to the credits today, October 19, Hypocrite Day. It's a day to find hypocrites and kick them out. I find no problem with hypocrisy as long as you do good in the end, but that's just me. I should keep my mouth shut before someone comes after me.
Chapter 79: Become As Drifters
Previously on Wild Arms 3: Virginia Maxwell is a young woman who is anxious to get out into the world and spread justice across the land. Jet Enduro is searching for a treasure that will restore his lost memories. Gallows Carradine is a man who is destined to be a priest, but wants to live a life without that responsibility. Clive Winslett is exploring the world, and keeping his expeditions afloat as a hired gun. They all meet on a dark and stormy night aboard a train, and, yada yada yada, now they are fighting the physical manifestation of a magical nightmare world.
So let’s get back to that nightmare.
This is the final phase of the final battle. You know this because it gets a rad intro.
Fight time!
Not 100% certain what Nega Filgaia here is supposed to be. Some kind of… plant? The Mana Tree? Nega Filgaia being a world tree fits with the environmentalism themes of Wild Arms 3, and the repeated Yggdrasil references.
It may be hard to figure out how to represent a world struggling to be birthed into a hostile dimension. It is not hard to shoot that thing, though.
Always happy to see as many weaknesses as possible.
As was mentioned back during our EX File Key roundup…
You must use Pickpocket on Nega Filgaia to obtain the final EX File Key. Previous forms of Nega Filgaia do not have anything to steal, so there is no reason to think this would be a good idea… But still! Always steal from the biggest bad you can find.
So
And that’s the word on advanced third.
Next time on Wild Arms: I’m not going to lie to you. You have come this far, you deserve to know the truth: It is going to be me throwing 3,000 words at Wild Arms 3.
Chapter 79: Become As Drifters
Previously on Wild Arms 3: Virginia Maxwell is a young woman who is anxious to get out into the world and spread justice across the land. Jet Enduro is searching for a treasure that will restore his lost memories. Gallows Carradine is a man who is destined to be a priest, but wants to live a life without that responsibility. Clive Winslett is exploring the world, and keeping his expeditions afloat as a hired gun. They all meet on a dark and stormy night aboard a train, and, yada yada yada, now they are fighting the physical manifestation of a magical nightmare world.
So let’s get back to that nightmare.
This is the final phase of the final battle. You know this because it gets a rad intro.
Fight time!
Not 100% certain what Nega Filgaia here is supposed to be. Some kind of… plant? The Mana Tree? Nega Filgaia being a world tree fits with the environmentalism themes of Wild Arms 3, and the repeated Yggdrasil references.
It may be hard to figure out how to represent a world struggling to be birthed into a hostile dimension. It is not hard to shoot that thing, though.
Always happy to see as many weaknesses as possible.
As was mentioned back during our EX File Key roundup…
You must use Pickpocket on Nega Filgaia to obtain the final EX File Key. Previous forms of Nega Filgaia do not have anything to steal, so there is no reason to think this would be a good idea… But still! Always steal from the biggest bad you can find.
So
here is the gimmick of the Nega Filgaia (final) fight. Every round, Nega Filgaia will summon a new tentacle.
Each of the tentacles are associated with two elements. When a tentacle appears, the associated weaknesses will disappear from Nega Filgaia’s weakness list. Oricoflagamus is Dark and Water, so Nega Filgaia is no longer weak to Dark or Water attacks. Note that Nega Filgaia does not gain a resistance to these elements, it is just no longer outright weak to them.
The tentacle summon order is always the same, so if you have advance warning on which elements will stay weak points, go ahead and hammer away.
Meanwhile, each new tentacle is not all that interesting, but…
They do use dual elemental attacks that hit the whole party.
Yes, a whole new wrinkle in the battle system appears in the final-final battle. Literally every monster before this point could only use one elemental attack at a time. Even Tiamat’s Final Disaster was six elements used in succession, not simultaneously. The tentacles meanwhile use concurrent dual elemental attacks, which means that a character must be protected against both elements to avoid damage. If you have a Water Ward active, but not a Dark Ward, you will still be damaged.
And while one tentacle is smacking you around, a second one arrives.
At least Wild Arms 3 is straightforward about what elements to avoid in the future.
Ohhh gettin’ Norse in here.
So that’s our ice/earth attack.
More tentacles!
Sound and fury signifying nothing.
Nega Filgaia (the core) gains general defensive buffs as the tentacles appear, too. At this point, Jet cannot do damage to Nega Filgaia.
Meet the light/thunder attack. Light lightning?
One more tentacle for the road.
Nothing like a warm breeze.
And here is “complete” Nega Filgaia with all its tentacles active. Since Fire/Wind is the last tentacle to be summoned, focusing on fire and wind attacks throughout is the safest move for the mages.
I am sure there is some significance to the names Vanda, Krukmer, Matricaria, and Oricoflagamus.
And here is Nega Filgaia all cleared of elemental weaknesses.
Enjoy a fire/wind attack while we’re here.
And once all the tentacles are summoned, Nega Filgaia starts unleashing a debilitating, non-elemental spell every round.
So this fight is practically impossible if you let every tentacle be summoned. Once the whole quartet is around, you must kill at least one tentacle to make some headway, and if you then hit Nega Filgaia with the related weakness, it will “counter” by instantly reviving the associated tentacle. And Nega Filgaia and the rest of the tentacles will be blasting you with their hit-all attacks all the while. It is practically impossible to survive that onslaught.
So do not let it summon tentacles. Do not let it live. The various bits of earlier Nega Filgaia phases where you were punished for letting the battle drag on (because a form could use Reset) were training you to kill Nega Filgaia as quickly as possible. Hit those weaknesses, use Finest Arts, do whatever it takes to murder Nega Filgaia immediately. If all the tentacles arrive, you are as good as dead.
Note that there is gameplay/plot synergy here. The party is trying to stop a whole new world from being born by killing it in its infancy. If they allow it to grow… Well… When was the last time you saw four fighters best a planet?
But once Nega Filgaia is in the ground, you’re in the clear. We’ll laugh about this later.
Hey! Got a trophy!
Only took all day…
Well, if we are in the habit of believing lying dream demons, we are in for a bad time.
And speaking of lying, Virginia is lying down on the job.
This seems familiar…
Oh yeah! This is the same white space where Virginia had her final conversation with Werner.
“Final” conversation.
Always found it funny that Final Fantasy 10 and Wild Arms 3 were contemporary, and they both had very different daddy issues.
One last nonsense term for the road.
Oh, super.
Virginia, he just poorly explained this!
Guess what, everybody!
The place between dreams and reality is the internet! You always knew this was true!
“I thought it would look like The Matrix.”
Voids aren’t so bad once you get used to them.
Well, you couldn’t accomplish anything you wanted. Transforming the world into Duck Amuck is accomplishing something.
“Hey, Virginia? Everything dies. Don’t worry about it.”
“We’re all just fake or something anyway.”
“And now they’ve all been whitewashed…”
… Yes?
Huh?
The Daddy Ball!
Ah-ha! If everything right now is memories, we’ll just focus those memories through the Hyades Terminal to manifest them as a physical reality.
And while we are at it, we can use any damn thing that has ever existed to power this process, because somebody remembers it (?).
“Beats hanging around this void forever.”
In case you do not have an encyclopedic knowledge of Wild Arms 3 at this point, this is an echo of a conversation Virginia had way back at the top of Chapter 2.
Let’s kick some metaphysical ass! Again!
Reboot the planet!
“Should work just fine as long as there aren’t four randos shooting the thing as it is born.”
Ugh, can we erase Jet?
Oh, wait. Jet remembers “old” Filgaia from when it was green. That could actually help! Jet can actually help!
Going to be a real downer ending if we don’t get reality back…
This is promising.
Woo! Not alone!
I ask this when I wake up, too.
It was all a dream ending!
Does this spaceship have windows?
Tackle hug!
Okay, everyone here remembers the battle against Beatrice. Only Virginia got the daddy-daughter save-the-world time.
Lamium is still dead, though.
Sorry, dude. Nobody could forget you died, apparently.
“Does that mean we are going to make this place fly?”
“No, that part of his dream was stupid.”
Uh-oh.
Oh?
Oh. Oh, this is not good.
Beatrice killed Lamium, but she barely existed in the first place. Now there are just four armed people and a corpse.
You can see how conclusions would be drawn.
Killing a cult leader in the middle of a cult never ends well.
“We could take these nerds.”
Or... not?
Everyone is quick to jump on the “kill a building full of people over a misunderstanding” train.
So you got a solution here, Virginia?
We can’t just memory at them hard enough or whatever.
I think Clive is tired at this point.
Hm?
Gobs?
Virginia has found her center. Despite how hard it may be, she will always take the just path.
“We did kill at least two noted demons.”
Damn right.
“Maybe serpentine a little…”
Here comes the cavalry.
So… like... ten years?
Hurricane Virginia.
Possibly the last time it rained in this world…
“I was just saying that to my dead dad.”
“Oh, and I just remembered we had a WMD airship dragon outside. We should be fine.”
“This your way of saying we’re not getting paid?”
Okay, just because you’re not going to shoot anybody doesn’t mean you should waste bullets.
“Except that time we sent Asgard into the past.”
And we close on what is going to be an epic jump kick.
Remember the future!
And that’s the ballgame, folks.
Credits roll parallel to random stills from the game.
The pictures are not necessarily chronological, they seem to focus on individual characters and relevant moments for said characters. Basically, you get sets for the whole party, the villains, and…
Maya gets her own highlight reel.
In fact, a number of the shots are Maya/Virginia-centric, with this one being one of the last. There is not a heterosexual explanation for this.
Thanks for playing.
Okay, one last denouement to set up The Avengers.
True to Virginia’s justice, no one was killed when the gang escaped.
But there is still injustice in the world! Martina is off adventuring again, and Janus’s old flunkies, Dario and Romero, are chasing her.
Note that you get this same ending sequence regardless of if you completed (or even started) Martina’s sidequest. She has plenty of reasons to swing by Little Twister.
But this trip is not going well.
Martina was running from one set of outlaws, and ran into another!
Sulky Boy!
We last saw Dario and Romero when they were blown off Ka Dingel at the end of Chapter 1. They presumably took the whole rest of the game to recover.
Such bad guys.
And gal.
Yo.
Remember when we beat you, like, a whole bunch?
Anybody ever tell them Janus was possessed by a demon/killed?
Meeting old friends.
And away they go.
The day is saved. Anybody wanna go get some churros?
Some things never change.
Apparently this little incident is happening immediately after escaping the Ark of Destiny. Those guys print wanted posters fast!
“Clive, you’re still married, right?”
Someone finally perfectly emulates their character portrait.
And we close on something we never saw before…
A small sprig of hope.
Back to the “granular” filter we have not seen since the introductory sequences…
Each of the tentacles are associated with two elements. When a tentacle appears, the associated weaknesses will disappear from Nega Filgaia’s weakness list. Oricoflagamus is Dark and Water, so Nega Filgaia is no longer weak to Dark or Water attacks. Note that Nega Filgaia does not gain a resistance to these elements, it is just no longer outright weak to them.
The tentacle summon order is always the same, so if you have advance warning on which elements will stay weak points, go ahead and hammer away.
Meanwhile, each new tentacle is not all that interesting, but…
They do use dual elemental attacks that hit the whole party.
Yes, a whole new wrinkle in the battle system appears in the final-final battle. Literally every monster before this point could only use one elemental attack at a time. Even Tiamat’s Final Disaster was six elements used in succession, not simultaneously. The tentacles meanwhile use concurrent dual elemental attacks, which means that a character must be protected against both elements to avoid damage. If you have a Water Ward active, but not a Dark Ward, you will still be damaged.
And while one tentacle is smacking you around, a second one arrives.
At least Wild Arms 3 is straightforward about what elements to avoid in the future.
Ohhh gettin’ Norse in here.
So that’s our ice/earth attack.
More tentacles!
Sound and fury signifying nothing.
Nega Filgaia (the core) gains general defensive buffs as the tentacles appear, too. At this point, Jet cannot do damage to Nega Filgaia.
Meet the light/thunder attack. Light lightning?
One more tentacle for the road.
Nothing like a warm breeze.
And here is “complete” Nega Filgaia with all its tentacles active. Since Fire/Wind is the last tentacle to be summoned, focusing on fire and wind attacks throughout is the safest move for the mages.
I am sure there is some significance to the names Vanda, Krukmer, Matricaria, and Oricoflagamus.
And here is Nega Filgaia all cleared of elemental weaknesses.
Enjoy a fire/wind attack while we’re here.
And once all the tentacles are summoned, Nega Filgaia starts unleashing a debilitating, non-elemental spell every round.
So this fight is practically impossible if you let every tentacle be summoned. Once the whole quartet is around, you must kill at least one tentacle to make some headway, and if you then hit Nega Filgaia with the related weakness, it will “counter” by instantly reviving the associated tentacle. And Nega Filgaia and the rest of the tentacles will be blasting you with their hit-all attacks all the while. It is practically impossible to survive that onslaught.
So do not let it summon tentacles. Do not let it live. The various bits of earlier Nega Filgaia phases where you were punished for letting the battle drag on (because a form could use Reset) were training you to kill Nega Filgaia as quickly as possible. Hit those weaknesses, use Finest Arts, do whatever it takes to murder Nega Filgaia immediately. If all the tentacles arrive, you are as good as dead.
Note that there is gameplay/plot synergy here. The party is trying to stop a whole new world from being born by killing it in its infancy. If they allow it to grow… Well… When was the last time you saw four fighters best a planet?
But once Nega Filgaia is in the ground, you’re in the clear. We’ll laugh about this later.
Hey! Got a trophy!
Only took all day…
Well, if we are in the habit of believing lying dream demons, we are in for a bad time.
And speaking of lying, Virginia is lying down on the job.
This seems familiar…
Oh yeah! This is the same white space where Virginia had her final conversation with Werner.
“Final” conversation.
Always found it funny that Final Fantasy 10 and Wild Arms 3 were contemporary, and they both had very different daddy issues.
One last nonsense term for the road.
Oh, super.
Virginia, he just poorly explained this!
Guess what, everybody!
The place between dreams and reality is the internet! You always knew this was true!
“I thought it would look like The Matrix.”
Voids aren’t so bad once you get used to them.
Well, you couldn’t accomplish anything you wanted. Transforming the world into Duck Amuck is accomplishing something.
“Hey, Virginia? Everything dies. Don’t worry about it.”
“We’re all just fake or something anyway.”
“And now they’ve all been whitewashed…”
… Yes?
Huh?
The Daddy Ball!
Ah-ha! If everything right now is memories, we’ll just focus those memories through the Hyades Terminal to manifest them as a physical reality.
And while we are at it, we can use any damn thing that has ever existed to power this process, because somebody remembers it (?).
“Beats hanging around this void forever.”
In case you do not have an encyclopedic knowledge of Wild Arms 3 at this point, this is an echo of a conversation Virginia had way back at the top of Chapter 2.
Let’s kick some metaphysical ass! Again!
Reboot the planet!
“Should work just fine as long as there aren’t four randos shooting the thing as it is born.”
Ugh, can we erase Jet?
Oh, wait. Jet remembers “old” Filgaia from when it was green. That could actually help! Jet can actually help!
Going to be a real downer ending if we don’t get reality back…
This is promising.
Woo! Not alone!
I ask this when I wake up, too.
It was all a dream ending!
Does this spaceship have windows?
Tackle hug!
Okay, everyone here remembers the battle against Beatrice. Only Virginia got the daddy-daughter save-the-world time.
Lamium is still dead, though.
Sorry, dude. Nobody could forget you died, apparently.
“Does that mean we are going to make this place fly?”
“No, that part of his dream was stupid.”
Uh-oh.
Oh?
Oh. Oh, this is not good.
Beatrice killed Lamium, but she barely existed in the first place. Now there are just four armed people and a corpse.
You can see how conclusions would be drawn.
Killing a cult leader in the middle of a cult never ends well.
“We could take these nerds.”
Or... not?
Everyone is quick to jump on the “kill a building full of people over a misunderstanding” train.
So you got a solution here, Virginia?
We can’t just memory at them hard enough or whatever.
I think Clive is tired at this point.
Hm?
Gobs?
Virginia has found her center. Despite how hard it may be, she will always take the just path.
“We did kill at least two noted demons.”
Damn right.
“Maybe serpentine a little…”
Here comes the cavalry.
So… like... ten years?
Hurricane Virginia.
Possibly the last time it rained in this world…
“I was just saying that to my dead dad.”
“Oh, and I just remembered we had a WMD airship dragon outside. We should be fine.”
“This your way of saying we’re not getting paid?”
Okay, just because you’re not going to shoot anybody doesn’t mean you should waste bullets.
“Except that time we sent Asgard into the past.”
And we close on what is going to be an epic jump kick.
Remember the future!
And that’s the ballgame, folks.
Credits roll parallel to random stills from the game.
The pictures are not necessarily chronological, they seem to focus on individual characters and relevant moments for said characters. Basically, you get sets for the whole party, the villains, and…
Maya gets her own highlight reel.
In fact, a number of the shots are Maya/Virginia-centric, with this one being one of the last. There is not a heterosexual explanation for this.
Thanks for playing.
Okay, one last denouement to set up The Avengers.
True to Virginia’s justice, no one was killed when the gang escaped.
But there is still injustice in the world! Martina is off adventuring again, and Janus’s old flunkies, Dario and Romero, are chasing her.
Note that you get this same ending sequence regardless of if you completed (or even started) Martina’s sidequest. She has plenty of reasons to swing by Little Twister.
But this trip is not going well.
Martina was running from one set of outlaws, and ran into another!
Sulky Boy!
We last saw Dario and Romero when they were blown off Ka Dingel at the end of Chapter 1. They presumably took the whole rest of the game to recover.
Such bad guys.
And gal.
Yo.
Remember when we beat you, like, a whole bunch?
Anybody ever tell them Janus was possessed by a demon/killed?
Meeting old friends.
And away they go.
The day is saved. Anybody wanna go get some churros?
Some things never change.
Apparently this little incident is happening immediately after escaping the Ark of Destiny. Those guys print wanted posters fast!
“Clive, you’re still married, right?”
Someone finally perfectly emulates their character portrait.
And we close on something we never saw before…
A small sprig of hope.
Back to the “granular” filter we have not seen since the introductory sequences…
And that’s the word on advanced third.
Next time on Wild Arms: I’m not going to lie to you. You have come this far, you deserve to know the truth: It is going to be me throwing 3,000 words at Wild Arms 3.
And once all the tentacles are summoned, Nega Filgaia starts unleashing a debilitating, non-elemental spell every round.
Debilitating, but awesome-looking. BTW, now that the game is finished and we don't need to worry about spoilers anymore, I thought I'd show you a project that I did a while ago - translations of (almost) all the non-story text in the game. Share and Enjoy™!
Debilitating, but awesome-looking. BTW, now that the game is finished and we don't need to worry about spoilers anymore, I thought I'd show you a project that I did a while ago - translations of (almost) all the non-story text in the game. Share and Enjoy™!
Armengard, take a bow, as this is the last this forum will need your services on October 20, Gimel Coin Day. Gimel Coins are handy items. You have one too, right? I use mine for opening wine bottles, brushing my hair, and opening letters. Each coin weighs ten grams, so it's useful for scales, too.
Chapter 80: Our Memories Into the Future
Previously on Wild Arms 3: Everything is wrapped up with the whole party surprisingly chipper for having just been framed for murder. So let’s talk about what happened.
If for no other reason than to justify one of the significant reasons I started this Let’s Play, let’s talk about Virginia Maxwell. This has been alluded to in other character writeups (eulogies?), but a significant way Wild Arms 3 separates itself from its peers (and even other Wild Arms titles) is that your protagonists stay 100% human throughout. Virginia exemplifies this: she starts out as a wide-eyed young lady that has never left her hometown but dreams of bringing justice to the wasteland, and ends the game as… a wide-eyed young lady that has seen/saved the world and still dreams of bringing justice to the wasteland. She is older. She is wiser. She literally knows more about Filgaia than anyone on it (and how close the whole thing came to nonexistence). But she is still herself. She has a smidgen of god power (oh boy she can cast a light spell), but she is still the exact same person that set out from Boot Hill. She has two ARMs, a surprisingly fancy dress, and the drive to make the world a better place. She owns a horse now. That is all she has, and all she ever needed to save the world.
And this is significant for her ultimate finale. Virginia gets her big damn character moment at Mimir’s Well, but she is also the focal point of the ending sequence. And what is the difference there? Well, back at the well, Virginia must literally and metaphorically pull the trigger on letting her father go by shooting him and the whole demon internet. It is something she absolutely does not want to do, but she must commit violence to save the world. Then, after an admittedly brutal battle against a wannabe god, Virginia has another challenge, and she chooses peace. Or… she at least chooses “peace” in so much as shoving over a bunch of cultist dorks is peaceful. But still! Virginia’s final action is not using her firearms to conquer her problems, it is hopefully using her courage to satisfy her desire to rectify a problem with love.
Oh, and she didn’t have to build a whole new universe to do it.
There have been a lot of complaints over the years about Beatrice in Wild Arms 3. The core of the criticism is simple: “The Dream Demon”, despite being lightly foreshadowed before Siegfried and the Prophets are even mentioned, is unprecedented as a final antagonist. Like your typical RPG “Giant Space Flea from Nowhere”, 75% of this plot is leading up to the “Blue Menace”, a demon from ancient times returning… and then he’s just gone. And in his place is a little girl that wants to create her own planet through dubious means. This has led many to claim that Wild Arms 3 was attempting to “redo” the finale of Wild Arms 2, and shove all the metaphysical nonsense about dimensions encroaching on each other into an otherwise straightforward tale of cowgirls and bad hombres.
But Beatrice brings something important to the Wild Arms 3 narrative: she’s not trying to hit anybody.
Janus Cascade wants to be remembered, and he is going to beat anyone in his path to do that. Wealth, fame, power: it all comes with the supremacy of his bayonet-ARM. After his first rebirth, he claims to subscribe to a sort of nihilism, but that is proven to be a feint when he dies literally fighting for his life. The Prophets have already died, but they still have desires, so they need to suck the life out of the planet to accomplish their various goals of mother revival and mother fucking (different mother). And Siegfried wants to rip and tear to his (demon) heart’s content, and he will kill everyone in pursuit of his goal of transforming Filgaia into Starship Death. But Beatrice? She literally cannot touch a thing about Filgaia. She has to worm her way into others’ thoughts, and she had to manipulate the likes of Lamium, Duran Bryant, and Shane to make any sort of headway. She wants to create a world that has no particular purpose beyond the fact that she can be tangible there. And, while she does pick up a god complex over the course the final battles, her objective is otherwise humble. She wants to change the world into one where she can just… be.
And not to accidentally echo Siegfried, but that makes her and Virginia the same.
It is confirmed practically from the beginning that Virginia is kind of a nerd. She is an avid reader, but her preferred periodicals appear to be Filgaia’s version of comic books (or comic book movies). Disaster Girl of the Wastelands is named, but Virginia repeatedly notes that she got her sense of justice from her father (known maniac) and “stories”. So, complete with the fact that Werner is literally an illusion by the time WA3 gets going, Virginia overtly believes in a world that is fictional. She is going to bring justice to the wasteland!... But she has barely left her own home. Virginia is trying to take her fictional world of justice, her dream world, and make it a real place for her and Filgaia.
Sound familiar?
Beatrice is, at her core, an existential threat. And Virginia needs that, because the finale needs to see how Virginia has, over the course of an adventure that involves about 40 hours of shooting, also learned how to solve problems without violence. Janus, the Prophets, Siegfried, and even Beatrice all had to be fought. But the confused followers of the Ark of Destiny? Or Dario and Romero? Not today. Not every question has to be answered with the same set of ARMs. Her final act is not omnislashing the shirtless manifestation of her own self-doubt, but discarding her ammo. Virginia dreams of a just world, and she is going to get Filgaia there with violence and pacifism. It sounds like a contradiction, but it is a contradictory world. Nobody ever said this would be easy.
And speaking of things that are not easy…
Let’s Plays are complicated beasts. I started my first picture-based Let’s Play on November 15, 2015. It was a complete examination of the entire Xenosaga franchise (including its auxiliary games). It wrapped up on January 13, 2017. It was 10,410 pictures (3,448 for Episode 1, 2,487 for Episode 2, 4,306 for Episode 3, 169 for “extra” content) across the entirety of the Xenosaga franchise. And I can tell you that I made that Let’s Play for myself as much as anyone. I genuinely wanted to replay every one of those games, but I wanted such a “time sink” to mean something. I knew Xenosaga took forever, so I wanted to share the experience, and force myself to analyze what happened there. As I outright stated in the LP, I was once obsessed with that franchise, and my own memory of finally completing it was not so much about the game, but that I was moving into my first “solo” apartment. Shion and KOS-MOS were up to something involving Jesus (?), but I was busy putting my childhood room into boxes. Something important was happening, right? May as well revisit it with an audience to separate the memory of my “reality” from the game…
My second picture-based Let’s Play was Wild Arms 2. It started on June 9, 2017, and ended on June 26, 2019. I took a significant hiatus there, but the whole project would have been long even without the break. That Let’s Play was assembled from 6,146 pictures all on its own (and you will note that that is more pictures than any individual game/episode of Xenosaga). As I revealed in the final post of that LP, a significant factor in deciding to Let’s Play Wild Arms 2 was that I once used the main plot of Wild Arms 2 as a primary reference for a college paper. That meant that I felt that, on some level, I “owed” Wild Arms 2 just as fair a shake as Xenosaga. I had lasting memories of Wild Arms 2 as the game that got me an A on a report, and I felt that warranted further examination now years after a college grade ever mattered.
But, separate from the memories that made me make the Wild Arms 2 Let’s Play, I now have substantial memories of the creation of that Let’s Play. I distinctly remember penning Part 3 of that Let’s Play while I was waiting for the internet to be hooked up at a new office. I remember thinking to myself at that moment that this Let’s Play was crazy: I was looking at a brand new and potentially challenging professional experience with that new office, and I knew I was going to have to dedicate a lot of time to “work” going forward. Did I really have time to focus on a silly Let’s Play, too? Couple that work upgrade with an upgrade in my social life (I started goin’ steady), and it is no wonder I took a year off from that project with a meager 25% of it to go. I could not do it anymore, and I had to take a break. And I hated myself for it! I did not want my Wild Arms 2 Let’s Play to be yet another abandoned Let’s Play! I could do this! And it was only after I took that rest that I was able to return to wrap everything up. From there, I told myself I would not do another Let’s Play again, because you cannot imagine the level of time sink involved here…
And I type this at the end of a Let’s Play that has updated consistently every week (minus vacations), lasted 569 days, and comprised of 9,244 pictures.
So let me talk about why this happened.
Back before revisiting Wild Arms 3, there was a meme going around where you filled in the blanks on your favorite videogame thingys. Here was mine:
(You can make this one bigger)
It is worth noting that nearly every one of the games there I have written about previously in some capacity (except Solitaire. I hate Solitaire). The only title I did not have a plan for was Wild Arms 3, home of (apparently) my favorite heroine, Virginia Maxwell. I always had it in my mind that WA3 was going to appear in my musings in some capacity, but, aside from Virginia, what did I remember about WA3? I haven’t (re)played Mother 3 in years, but I could still hand you an essay off the top of my head about how it made me feel and how some of the characters stick in my brain to this day. What was in my head regarding WA3?
· Virginia is awesome
· The Abyss sucked
· It was the final Wild Arms title I shamelessly enjoyed
· Man, did it take Wild Arms: Alter Code F forever to come out after WA3
That was all I got. And that last point wasn’t even strictly about Wild Arms 3!
So obviously I was going to have to replay Wild Arms 3 again for the first time in twenty years (!) to get anything real out of the experience. And, if I was going to replay Wild Arms 3 in its entirety anyway, may as well do one of those Let’s Play things. The last one only damn near killed me (or at least gave me a strong case of the sleepies), what is the worst that could happen with yet another Let’s Play based on an RPG that is openly recognized as being one of the longest games on the Playstation 2?
And here at the finale, I can say this: I am glad I made this Let’s Play, because Wild Arms 3 showed me that the most important thing about these Let’s Plays are the memories.
Wild Arms 3, Xenosaga, Wild Arms 2, and even that World of Final Fantasy video Let’s Play all happened for the same reason: I wanted to revisit those games. And I wanted to revisit those games because my memories of them were hazy. My memories of playing those games were conflated with real life events that had nothing to do with how those games affected the thousands of players that finished those titles, so I wanted to separate the wheat from the chaff. I wanted to analyze them from a more global player perspective. But the confusing thing? I would not have replayed those games if they were not associated with “reality” memories. I am likely one of the few people on Earth that ever cited Wild Arms 2 as a reference on a paper, so here it was on the to-do list. I would not have revisited Xenosaga if I had not played that franchise across my confusing college years, and I would not have reconsidered World of Final Fantasy if I had not initially played it at a time that it was vastly overshadowed by other parts of my life (and… uh… Pokémon Moon). It sounds like juvenile RPG dialogue, but the memories made these games memorable!
And, in much the same way that the act of observing an outcome changes said outcome (something to be uncertain about), creating these Let’s Plays has irrevocably changed my opinions and memories of these games. I will always remember dicing up screenshots of Xenosaga Episode 3 while watching the conclusion of the horrifying 2016 election. I will always remember when I finally returned to the Wild Arms 2 LP, game already played and recorded a year earlier, and setting to work on banging out another thousand images to finish the whole thing. I will always remember playing World of Final Fantasy with a screaming skeleton in my ear. These are experiences that never would have happened without these Let’s Plays. As much as I still feel shame regarding Wild Arms 2’s mandatory pause, I also remember glorious pride at crossing every single finish line in those projects. Not going to lie: I still beam ear to ear when I look at a complete index for any one of those Let’s Plays.
And now Wild Arms 3 is at a close. It was the story of Virginia Maxwell and her friends saving the world from a monster that was trying to eat everyone’s memories. I understand the premise of that threat…
This Let’s Play reconfirmed that Virginia is one of my favorite protagonists in gaming, but now I am going to remember so much more. I have discovered that a long, weekly Let’s Play is vaguely brain-breaking, as it means I have not gone any longer than a week without thinking about Wild Arms 3 for over a year. And, given how much effort goes into playing the game, recording the game, chopping up screenshots of the game, writing about the game, and then proofreading everything about the game (including checking FAQs to confirm what you are saying is actually accurate [mostly])… Well, it is probably not erroneous to say I have spent the last 500+ days thinking about Virginia ‘n pals daily. And I note this for the purpose of observing that when you are thinking about one “thing” daily, inevitably that gets tangled up in your memories. If you really want to get technical, the first I played Wild Arms 3 for this Let’s Play was January 10th, 2022 (recordings are conveniently dated), so I know the “let’s do this” of this Let’s Play has been percolating for a while. And, in that time, a lot has happened in my personal and professional life. A number of things I will remember forever! And, oddly enough, I may be telling future generations about these life experiences while noting, “Sure, that was important, but at the time, I was considering the drinking habits of one Gallows Caradine…”
Memories are everything. That is a central thesis of Wild Arms 3, but I don’t think I fully understood that until penning this Let’s Play.
Virginia’s adventure is about her battle against Beatrice just as much as her relationship with her father or Maya. And, in the same way, Wild Arms 3 is a fun game with a cool plot that is also about whatever was happening when you played it. A videogame isn’t just about what objectively happens in the battle system, plot, or overarching character arcs. It is also about how you share it with others. It is also about what you think of when you look back on it twenty years later. The internet coming to a consensus on the best game in the world can be nothing to you if it means nothing to you. Astyanax could be the most important game you ever played thanks to one Hallmark-esque Christmas that occurred right before your family was eaten by gobs. It is memories that make things matter. Remembering a game or an entire world as a dusty sack of crap means that game/world is a dusty sack of crap. And that isn’t good for anybody…
So I close another Let’s Play on one simple statement:
Wild Arms 3, thank you for the memories.
And thank you all for being a part of these happy memories.
(… unless any of you are trolls haunting the demon internet. If so: forget you.)
Chapter 80: Our Memories Into the Future
Previously on Wild Arms 3: Everything is wrapped up with the whole party surprisingly chipper for having just been framed for murder. So let’s talk about what happened.
If for no other reason than to justify one of the significant reasons I started this Let’s Play, let’s talk about Virginia Maxwell. This has been alluded to in other character writeups (eulogies?), but a significant way Wild Arms 3 separates itself from its peers (and even other Wild Arms titles) is that your protagonists stay 100% human throughout. Virginia exemplifies this: she starts out as a wide-eyed young lady that has never left her hometown but dreams of bringing justice to the wasteland, and ends the game as… a wide-eyed young lady that has seen/saved the world and still dreams of bringing justice to the wasteland. She is older. She is wiser. She literally knows more about Filgaia than anyone on it (and how close the whole thing came to nonexistence). But she is still herself. She has a smidgen of god power (oh boy she can cast a light spell), but she is still the exact same person that set out from Boot Hill. She has two ARMs, a surprisingly fancy dress, and the drive to make the world a better place. She owns a horse now. That is all she has, and all she ever needed to save the world.
And this is significant for her ultimate finale. Virginia gets her big damn character moment at Mimir’s Well, but she is also the focal point of the ending sequence. And what is the difference there? Well, back at the well, Virginia must literally and metaphorically pull the trigger on letting her father go by shooting him and the whole demon internet. It is something she absolutely does not want to do, but she must commit violence to save the world. Then, after an admittedly brutal battle against a wannabe god, Virginia has another challenge, and she chooses peace. Or… she at least chooses “peace” in so much as shoving over a bunch of cultist dorks is peaceful. But still! Virginia’s final action is not using her firearms to conquer her problems, it is hopefully using her courage to satisfy her desire to rectify a problem with love.
Oh, and she didn’t have to build a whole new universe to do it.
There have been a lot of complaints over the years about Beatrice in Wild Arms 3. The core of the criticism is simple: “The Dream Demon”, despite being lightly foreshadowed before Siegfried and the Prophets are even mentioned, is unprecedented as a final antagonist. Like your typical RPG “Giant Space Flea from Nowhere”, 75% of this plot is leading up to the “Blue Menace”, a demon from ancient times returning… and then he’s just gone. And in his place is a little girl that wants to create her own planet through dubious means. This has led many to claim that Wild Arms 3 was attempting to “redo” the finale of Wild Arms 2, and shove all the metaphysical nonsense about dimensions encroaching on each other into an otherwise straightforward tale of cowgirls and bad hombres.
But Beatrice brings something important to the Wild Arms 3 narrative: she’s not trying to hit anybody.
Janus Cascade wants to be remembered, and he is going to beat anyone in his path to do that. Wealth, fame, power: it all comes with the supremacy of his bayonet-ARM. After his first rebirth, he claims to subscribe to a sort of nihilism, but that is proven to be a feint when he dies literally fighting for his life. The Prophets have already died, but they still have desires, so they need to suck the life out of the planet to accomplish their various goals of mother revival and mother fucking (different mother). And Siegfried wants to rip and tear to his (demon) heart’s content, and he will kill everyone in pursuit of his goal of transforming Filgaia into Starship Death. But Beatrice? She literally cannot touch a thing about Filgaia. She has to worm her way into others’ thoughts, and she had to manipulate the likes of Lamium, Duran Bryant, and Shane to make any sort of headway. She wants to create a world that has no particular purpose beyond the fact that she can be tangible there. And, while she does pick up a god complex over the course the final battles, her objective is otherwise humble. She wants to change the world into one where she can just… be.
And not to accidentally echo Siegfried, but that makes her and Virginia the same.
It is confirmed practically from the beginning that Virginia is kind of a nerd. She is an avid reader, but her preferred periodicals appear to be Filgaia’s version of comic books (or comic book movies). Disaster Girl of the Wastelands is named, but Virginia repeatedly notes that she got her sense of justice from her father (known maniac) and “stories”. So, complete with the fact that Werner is literally an illusion by the time WA3 gets going, Virginia overtly believes in a world that is fictional. She is going to bring justice to the wasteland!... But she has barely left her own home. Virginia is trying to take her fictional world of justice, her dream world, and make it a real place for her and Filgaia.
Sound familiar?
Beatrice is, at her core, an existential threat. And Virginia needs that, because the finale needs to see how Virginia has, over the course of an adventure that involves about 40 hours of shooting, also learned how to solve problems without violence. Janus, the Prophets, Siegfried, and even Beatrice all had to be fought. But the confused followers of the Ark of Destiny? Or Dario and Romero? Not today. Not every question has to be answered with the same set of ARMs. Her final act is not omnislashing the shirtless manifestation of her own self-doubt, but discarding her ammo. Virginia dreams of a just world, and she is going to get Filgaia there with violence and pacifism. It sounds like a contradiction, but it is a contradictory world. Nobody ever said this would be easy.
And speaking of things that are not easy…
Let’s Plays are complicated beasts. I started my first picture-based Let’s Play on November 15, 2015. It was a complete examination of the entire Xenosaga franchise (including its auxiliary games). It wrapped up on January 13, 2017. It was 10,410 pictures (3,448 for Episode 1, 2,487 for Episode 2, 4,306 for Episode 3, 169 for “extra” content) across the entirety of the Xenosaga franchise. And I can tell you that I made that Let’s Play for myself as much as anyone. I genuinely wanted to replay every one of those games, but I wanted such a “time sink” to mean something. I knew Xenosaga took forever, so I wanted to share the experience, and force myself to analyze what happened there. As I outright stated in the LP, I was once obsessed with that franchise, and my own memory of finally completing it was not so much about the game, but that I was moving into my first “solo” apartment. Shion and KOS-MOS were up to something involving Jesus (?), but I was busy putting my childhood room into boxes. Something important was happening, right? May as well revisit it with an audience to separate the memory of my “reality” from the game…
My second picture-based Let’s Play was Wild Arms 2. It started on June 9, 2017, and ended on June 26, 2019. I took a significant hiatus there, but the whole project would have been long even without the break. That Let’s Play was assembled from 6,146 pictures all on its own (and you will note that that is more pictures than any individual game/episode of Xenosaga). As I revealed in the final post of that LP, a significant factor in deciding to Let’s Play Wild Arms 2 was that I once used the main plot of Wild Arms 2 as a primary reference for a college paper. That meant that I felt that, on some level, I “owed” Wild Arms 2 just as fair a shake as Xenosaga. I had lasting memories of Wild Arms 2 as the game that got me an A on a report, and I felt that warranted further examination now years after a college grade ever mattered.
But, separate from the memories that made me make the Wild Arms 2 Let’s Play, I now have substantial memories of the creation of that Let’s Play. I distinctly remember penning Part 3 of that Let’s Play while I was waiting for the internet to be hooked up at a new office. I remember thinking to myself at that moment that this Let’s Play was crazy: I was looking at a brand new and potentially challenging professional experience with that new office, and I knew I was going to have to dedicate a lot of time to “work” going forward. Did I really have time to focus on a silly Let’s Play, too? Couple that work upgrade with an upgrade in my social life (I started goin’ steady), and it is no wonder I took a year off from that project with a meager 25% of it to go. I could not do it anymore, and I had to take a break. And I hated myself for it! I did not want my Wild Arms 2 Let’s Play to be yet another abandoned Let’s Play! I could do this! And it was only after I took that rest that I was able to return to wrap everything up. From there, I told myself I would not do another Let’s Play again, because you cannot imagine the level of time sink involved here…
And I type this at the end of a Let’s Play that has updated consistently every week (minus vacations), lasted 569 days, and comprised of 9,244 pictures.
So let me talk about why this happened.
Back before revisiting Wild Arms 3, there was a meme going around where you filled in the blanks on your favorite videogame thingys. Here was mine:
(You can make this one bigger)
It is worth noting that nearly every one of the games there I have written about previously in some capacity (except Solitaire. I hate Solitaire). The only title I did not have a plan for was Wild Arms 3, home of (apparently) my favorite heroine, Virginia Maxwell. I always had it in my mind that WA3 was going to appear in my musings in some capacity, but, aside from Virginia, what did I remember about WA3? I haven’t (re)played Mother 3 in years, but I could still hand you an essay off the top of my head about how it made me feel and how some of the characters stick in my brain to this day. What was in my head regarding WA3?
· Virginia is awesome
· The Abyss sucked
· It was the final Wild Arms title I shamelessly enjoyed
· Man, did it take Wild Arms: Alter Code F forever to come out after WA3
That was all I got. And that last point wasn’t even strictly about Wild Arms 3!
So obviously I was going to have to replay Wild Arms 3 again for the first time in twenty years (!) to get anything real out of the experience. And, if I was going to replay Wild Arms 3 in its entirety anyway, may as well do one of those Let’s Play things. The last one only damn near killed me (or at least gave me a strong case of the sleepies), what is the worst that could happen with yet another Let’s Play based on an RPG that is openly recognized as being one of the longest games on the Playstation 2?
And here at the finale, I can say this: I am glad I made this Let’s Play, because Wild Arms 3 showed me that the most important thing about these Let’s Plays are the memories.
Wild Arms 3, Xenosaga, Wild Arms 2, and even that World of Final Fantasy video Let’s Play all happened for the same reason: I wanted to revisit those games. And I wanted to revisit those games because my memories of them were hazy. My memories of playing those games were conflated with real life events that had nothing to do with how those games affected the thousands of players that finished those titles, so I wanted to separate the wheat from the chaff. I wanted to analyze them from a more global player perspective. But the confusing thing? I would not have replayed those games if they were not associated with “reality” memories. I am likely one of the few people on Earth that ever cited Wild Arms 2 as a reference on a paper, so here it was on the to-do list. I would not have revisited Xenosaga if I had not played that franchise across my confusing college years, and I would not have reconsidered World of Final Fantasy if I had not initially played it at a time that it was vastly overshadowed by other parts of my life (and… uh… Pokémon Moon). It sounds like juvenile RPG dialogue, but the memories made these games memorable!
And, in much the same way that the act of observing an outcome changes said outcome (something to be uncertain about), creating these Let’s Plays has irrevocably changed my opinions and memories of these games. I will always remember dicing up screenshots of Xenosaga Episode 3 while watching the conclusion of the horrifying 2016 election. I will always remember when I finally returned to the Wild Arms 2 LP, game already played and recorded a year earlier, and setting to work on banging out another thousand images to finish the whole thing. I will always remember playing World of Final Fantasy with a screaming skeleton in my ear. These are experiences that never would have happened without these Let’s Plays. As much as I still feel shame regarding Wild Arms 2’s mandatory pause, I also remember glorious pride at crossing every single finish line in those projects. Not going to lie: I still beam ear to ear when I look at a complete index for any one of those Let’s Plays.
And now Wild Arms 3 is at a close. It was the story of Virginia Maxwell and her friends saving the world from a monster that was trying to eat everyone’s memories. I understand the premise of that threat…
This Let’s Play reconfirmed that Virginia is one of my favorite protagonists in gaming, but now I am going to remember so much more. I have discovered that a long, weekly Let’s Play is vaguely brain-breaking, as it means I have not gone any longer than a week without thinking about Wild Arms 3 for over a year. And, given how much effort goes into playing the game, recording the game, chopping up screenshots of the game, writing about the game, and then proofreading everything about the game (including checking FAQs to confirm what you are saying is actually accurate [mostly])… Well, it is probably not erroneous to say I have spent the last 500+ days thinking about Virginia ‘n pals daily. And I note this for the purpose of observing that when you are thinking about one “thing” daily, inevitably that gets tangled up in your memories. If you really want to get technical, the first I played Wild Arms 3 for this Let’s Play was January 10th, 2022 (recordings are conveniently dated), so I know the “let’s do this” of this Let’s Play has been percolating for a while. And, in that time, a lot has happened in my personal and professional life. A number of things I will remember forever! And, oddly enough, I may be telling future generations about these life experiences while noting, “Sure, that was important, but at the time, I was considering the drinking habits of one Gallows Caradine…”
Memories are everything. That is a central thesis of Wild Arms 3, but I don’t think I fully understood that until penning this Let’s Play.
Virginia’s adventure is about her battle against Beatrice just as much as her relationship with her father or Maya. And, in the same way, Wild Arms 3 is a fun game with a cool plot that is also about whatever was happening when you played it. A videogame isn’t just about what objectively happens in the battle system, plot, or overarching character arcs. It is also about how you share it with others. It is also about what you think of when you look back on it twenty years later. The internet coming to a consensus on the best game in the world can be nothing to you if it means nothing to you. Astyanax could be the most important game you ever played thanks to one Hallmark-esque Christmas that occurred right before your family was eaten by gobs. It is memories that make things matter. Remembering a game or an entire world as a dusty sack of crap means that game/world is a dusty sack of crap. And that isn’t good for anybody…
So I close another Let’s Play on one simple statement:
Wild Arms 3, thank you for the memories.
And thank you all for being a part of these happy memories.
(… unless any of you are trolls haunting the demon internet. If so: forget you.)
Pity the preferred strategy for the final boss is to kill it dead asap because the music, The End of the Beginning, is kind of a banger. Not 'Battle vs Lord Blazer' levels of banger, but still, it's pretty rad!
Anyway, thanks for the LP memories, GogBob. I will probably never replay this game due to the sheer length of it but I was glad to get to revisit it this way.
Even if the ending is kind of a downer. But I like to imagine that since 'The Order' are a group of culty weirdos most of Filgaia just straight up ignores their pronouncements. Like those loonies following 'The Queen of Canada', no one is going to take their rulings as an actual legal threat, so Virginia and friends are mostly free to do whatever they like, hence why they're just moseying back to Humphrey's Peak like its no big deal.
I believe the technical term is 'Glomp'.
Tackle hug!
Anyway, thanks for the LP memories, GogBob. I will probably never replay this game due to the sheer length of it but I was glad to get to revisit it this way.
Even if the ending is kind of a downer. But I like to imagine that since 'The Order' are a group of culty weirdos most of Filgaia just straight up ignores their pronouncements. Like those loonies following 'The Queen of Canada', no one is going to take their rulings as an actual legal threat, so Virginia and friends are mostly free to do whatever they like, hence why they're just moseying back to Humphrey's Peak like its no big deal.
Thank you for this fantastic LP, GoggleBob!