Remaking an epic JRPG is always pretty rare. Today, if anything is remade, fans are lucky if they get the whole thing, let alone if it’s sold in parts. While JRPG remakes did happen in the early to mid 2000s, most of the time they never left Japan. The original Wild Arms was an ideal candidate for a remake, being a diamond in the rough, and its developer, Media.Vision, had refined the formula to perfection with Wild Arms 3. However, the road to get there was long and arduous.
Wild Arms Alter Code: F barely made it to the West and took a staggering two years to be localised and released. Aside from Sony bailing on its publishing duties, this remake’s scope was considerably large for its time, with a huge script that made it roughly twice the game as the original. With Agetec calling the shots, fans finally got to experience one of PlayStation 2’s most underrated JRPGs in the fall of 2005, almost one year before the PlayStation 3 launch. How does it compare to the original? Is it better or worse? The answer is more complicated than it seems.
Wild Arms Alter Code: F is still the same story about how Rudy, Jack, and Cecilia harness the spiritual power of ancient Golems to stop a destructive race of alien demons from completely annihilating the remnants of humanity. The main difference is that it expands the story by filling in narrative gaps, giving minor characters their own subplots, and adding cinematic flair. While the overall plot and sequence of events remain identical to the original game, the remake deepens the lore and tries to rewrite the script to be a more accurate translation. “Try” is the operative word because, try as it might, Alter Code: F‘s script is drier, cornier, and filled with grammatical errors and awkward phrasing. At times, the text boxes even suffered from formatting issues where dialogue would clip completely off the edge of the screen.
Not everything in the new script is bad. The dynamic among the primary antagonists is given extra screen time. Their dialogue is reworked to illustrate their internal conflicts better, and the fan-favourite rogue ninja Zed gets a vastly expanded redemptive arc that highlights his comedic turn to the heroes’ side. Yes, it’s true. Zed becomes a party member. In fact, the party roster expands from three to a whopping eight.
Several characters who once had minor roles have been fully developed with their own story arcs and become full-fledged party members, including Emma, Mariel, Calamity Jane, with even her butler joining in on the fun. The tools are only relegated to the main cast since the game is designed around them being the principal heroes, but it’s not like there’s a shortage of depth in this JRPG.
The only downside to all these extra party members is that they’re introduced so late in the story that they don’t really impact the main plot of the original. The amount of optional activities and post-game content is greatly expanded; while the original Wild Arms was a brisk 25-hour adventure, Alter Code: F can easily go past 60 hours and breach 80 for gamers who aim to 100% it.
Some parts of the new script and story work better than others; at least Alter Code: F‘s take on the gameplay has been improved. Characters sprint dynamically across the battlefield, creating a cinematic impression of combat. The battle visuals now match the overworld graphics more consistently, and the economy has been tightened, offering players a tougher challenge.
Traditional healing magic is significantly weakened, and common healing items like berries aren’t available for purchase in stores. Instead, they have to be carefully cultivated using a greenhouse system. Survival relies on a vitality gauge, similar to the one in Wild Arms 3. This gauge automatically consumes stored VIT points to fully restore a character’s health at the end of a battle, improving the game’s flow and reducing downtime in menus.
Like in Wild Arms 3, every character starts a match with zero FP, building it up sequentially as they attack, dodge, or take damage. Accumulating FP natively increases a character’s general attack and defence statistics throughout the encounter. Spending stored energy in blocks of 25 unleashes specialised Force Abilities, which unlock character-specific tactical manoeuvres or allow Cecilia to summon massive spiritual Guardians (Wild Arms‘ version of a summon monster).
Another change to the combat system is that Rudy and the gang have been completely rebalanced and now take on new roles in battle. Rudy doesn’t even use a sword for basic attacks as he did on the old PlayStation; instead, he relies solely on his ARM rifle, which has a strict ammo limit. Just like the protagonists of Wild Arms 3, once Rudy runs out of shells, he must guard for a turn to reload his clip automatically.
Like in the third game, Alter Code: F trades traditional equippable gear for Personal Skills and Mediums (Wild Arms‘ version of a Guardian Force), giving players points to spend on customised passive abilities like status immunities or counterattack bonuses, adding a deeper layer of strategy.
Alter Code: F is a much longer game than its progenitor, and it’s not because there are extended new scenes where the gang has to go have pizza at a side character’s house or have to go chase a pig for a bracelet in a sewer. Alter Code: F is longer because its core gameplay has been made deeper and more complex. Dungeons and puzzles used to be pretty simple 2D maps modelled after the 16-bit Zelda games, but Alter Code: F completely upends their designs and reimagines them as elaborate, multilayered, dense puzzles. The original game focused heavily on timing traps and floor switches, and the remake relies on line-of-sight geometry. An example of this is Jack’s lighter being replaced with jumping boots for reaching new areas.
Overall, Filgaia has become a bigger, deeper and more complex place to explore. Well, almost. Wild Arms‘ original towns were pretty big and full of enterable buildings, and there was a grand sense of scale. Going full 3D and aiming for 60fps on PlayStation 2 forces Alter Code: F to make concessions for the scope of the many towns in Alter Code: F. Every locale is noticeably smaller, with much fewer houses to enter. Even though it’s already a big and epic game, coming off the original and into the remake makes it hard not to notice how some aspects took a step back in order to achieve a fully 3D interpretation of the original Wild Arms.
Like many aspects of Alter Code: F, it offers plenty of improvements but also takes a step back in certain areas. One drawback, exclusive to the Western release, is the complete absence of voice acting. The Japanese release featured voice acting, but due to the messy localisation troubles and small budget, this was one of the casualties during its transition into English. It’s a shame because Alter Code: F is one of the more cinematic entries, beautifully capturing the Wild West style, and it would have been a hoot to hear the characters speak in varied Southern accents. Cutscenes play out with Sergio Leone-inspired camera angles and editing, homaging some of the best of the spaghetti Western genre; now it plays out like a silent film.
While not everything in Alter Code: F improves upon the original, the music certainly does. For Alter Code: F, series composer Michiko Naruke utilised the PlayStation 2’s hardware to record highly detailed, realistic instrumentation. The acoustic guitars sound crisp, the trumpet blasts pierce through battles with orchestral clarity, and mellow Western themes feature vibrant, authentic banjo samples. Looping dungeon tracks tend to be longer, giving the compositions room to breathe with slower build-ups, intricate progressions, and multi-minute runtimes before repeating. The original was already an exceptional soundtrack with delicious spaghetti Western flavour, but the remake does it even better.
