The reason I fell in love with RPG games!
Wild Arms 2 starts off offering to three characters(Ashley, Lilka, and Brad) to chose from to begin their individual missions. Ashley Winchester is a young man ready for action with his trusty throwing knives. Lilka Eleniak is a young sorceress just getting started with magic. Brad Evans is a former hero who was then labeled war criminal. After these introductions to gameplay and the three main characters they all meet and your team is assembled and the main story begins. Throughout the game you will acquire more characters that will help you do battle. Tim Rhymeless is a 12-year old Zoa Priest that has the ability to contact the Guardians. Kanon is a female bounty hunter with a bionic arm. Marivel Armitage is a Crimson Noble that is only unlocked after you reach the deepest part of the Crimson Castle and convince her to join your group. Anastasia and Lucied (a guardian) are only playable in the Memory Maze of the second disc.
The gameplay of Wild Arms 2 is very simple. It's a traditional RPG game where you chose everybody's commands and then watch them play out. It doesn't get difficult in the battle unless you not paying attention. Battles come very often when running around trying to go to your next destination. This can be annoying at times when you want to just zoom across the entire country to get some much needed rest and items. There is a load of powers to obtain and items to use throughout the game. Every character has his/her own unique set of tools that can be used outside of the battles and force abilities and special abilities to be used against the opponent.
The graphics are that of any other Playstation game. It doesn't make anything stand out for the eye to catch. The character designs for monsters are used repeatedly throughout the game with just the colors changed. The landscape of the environments aren't interesting to say the least and don't provide a pleasant scenery (dirt ground with the occasional grass patch). Even the icons that representing the different elements (darkness, ice, water, light, fire, earth, wind, lighting, life, and death) are hard to distinguish at first glance.
The sound of the game isn't memorable at all. It had classic game sounding sounds. It did have any voice acting, with would have been helpful because of the long texts that need to be read. The sounds aren't that great to sum everything up.
The value of the game is good despite some of the flaws. Without the guide I went through the game and enjoyed it thinking nothing of the side-quest that could be taken. But once I used a guide the experience was much more different and better. The third time I started to play I still discovered things that weren't in the guide that I used, making the experience better then the second. Altogether it was a good game with, as you can tell, some replay value.