Happy New Chapter! It is January 30, Shark Day. Sharks are magnificent animals, but encounter them at sea and you are dead meat. So what good are they, you ask? Well, they make great food items and ornaments… You get the picture. I’d leave them alone if I were you, though.
Previously on Wild Arms 3: The Prophets are defeated! Yggdrasil is deactivated! Janus died! Twice! As far as our intrepid heroes know, they just saved the world, and everything is going to be good forever.
The audience knows better, though, as the anime intro updated to include new threats. Also: there is still a videogame to play, which is a tipoff that there might be more dangers around the corner.
Virginia is trapped in the Daddy Zone.
It is nice that Virginia has gotten some time to spend with Werner recently. I bet her 10-year-old memories of her absent father were starting to degrade.
Hey, this could double as a recap, too.
Daddy come back. You can blame it all on me. I was wroo~oong, and I just can’t live without you.
“Sorry! Have to go be mysterious somewhere else.”
“Nobody calls me that, Virginia.”
Finally! Hugs!
Look happier!
Virginia! No! That is not how you show affection!
“Ugh… That dream again. Aren’t I supposed to have an Electra complex?”
Gee, I dunno, maybe because you have complicated feelings for the father that has abandoned you, like, four times at this point? Three times in rapid succession?
Or it is foreshadowing for him being the final boss or something? I don’t know. Focus on something else for a while.
BRIEF ASIDE: I mentioned it before, but Virginia has some surprisingly detailed wall decorations for a Playstation 2 game. I am almost certain that round picture in the middle is supposed to be some memorial for her mother, and the large building in the top right looks like Virginia’s home. I have to assume the red plaque at the bottom right is a science fair award from third grade.
“That Jet fellow is chewing on the doorknob. Uncle Tesla is concerned.”
Recall for a moment that Virginia was basically magic (science) poisoned when we last saw her. Remember? She passed out. It wasn’t great.
“Please… just get them out of my house… Now.”
Repress, Virginia! Repress!
Amusingly enough, you do have full control of Virginia for her walk downstairs to grab the rest of the party. Or you can wander out on the balcony, too.
… Man, I want Wild Arms 3 to be popular enough for there to be some glitch/clipping strat here where you finish the rest of the game with only Virginia.
Back to cutscenes.
Please break into a musical number, Virginia. Please.
“Your aunt has been making us supper!”
“Please, Virginia, they keep asking me for spackle. For dinner. It is unsettling.”
Love you, too, Jet.
“Also, Maya came by every day asking when you were going to get back to going to dungeons. She left a list of where she was going…”
“Are we saving the world again?”
“Painting a fence, actually.”
Hey! It’s the only other people in the world who ever hired us for anything!
Virginia isn’t kidding, as her raw optimism is going to power the Sandcraft at double speed.
For a guy that chaffed against his elders, Gallows loves having a leader.
And away we go!
Roykman is afraid of Virginia’s dog. It’s the little things that make me happy.
I believe literally every NPC on Filgaia now has new, quest-based dialogue to clue you into all the places you will go in Chapter 3. We will get into the nitty gritty of this section after our first mission…
Anywho, Janus is too dead to bug us on the way out of town this time, so it is off to the Ark.
All Wild Arms 3 vehicles have been parked by Boot Hill. Clive had a week to get everything back and accessible.
The Ark is a quick drive over from Virginia’s home.
Welcome back to our cult of choice.
We’ll get there eventually!
How did you get here if you need a friggen jet to get there?
“Yes. I have been sketching them on my notebooks since I was five.”
Come to think of it, someone really should tell Lamium that his “tree dream” was 100% real, and the whole party has been there. But nobody is going to do that.
“My Daddy saved me! And then I had a dream about shooting him. How are you doing?”
“Oh, that’s kind of ironic, considering we’re going to be responsible for your death.”
“Oh yes. I forgot how much you enjoy saying that.”
“Remember when you exploded our last site? Well, we need you to do that on purpose this time.”
Basically, monsters are spawning there, and I guess Lamium here thinks that is something that can be stopped.
“Don’t ask me, I just work here. Ha ha ha. But seriously, I have no idea how we do things.”
Virginia already considering how she could, like, unexplode a mine.
“I mean, it’s not like anybody died.”
“Oh, it’s funny you say that, because we are going to be responsible for…”
“Stop it!”
“So we’re only going to charge 96% of our usual fee.”
Does anyone actually give directions like this? Like you have to yank out a map, and check for something that exists on an imaginary line between two places? Fly to Greece! It is halfway between Italy and Turkey.
At least it is a short trip.
Looking for a mine…
Here we go.
And you must be the woman that actually knows what is going on.
Just hanging out in a cave filled with monsters, waiting a week for Drifters to arrive.
“Explode. Mine. Thank you for listening.”
Wouldn’t want anyone else to do that.
So all we have to do is walk to the back of the mine, press the bomb’s on switch, and then dash the heck out of Dodge.
But the place is lousy with monsters, so that’s where our combat-hardened living fodder comes into play.
“We might explode. On purpose!”
Gallows is all about wanton destruction.
Have we seen Jet buy anything… ever?
“Yes, it appears we gots to get paid, son.”
“Once we have confirmed explodies.”
Really appreciate Virginia’s negotiation eyes here. She’s learning!
“We might die!”
“13,001.”
I bet Lamium would have bargained a better fee for the Order. That’s why he’s the cult leader.
Virginia says no, and the game just ends.
Or not.
“Orphans. This is where we get all the orphan hearts that power our sandcrafts.”
“This is a hot dog mine!?”
“Jet, did you steal assorted meats from Virginia’s house?”
Virginia never really thought about where her ARMs came from. I mean… “Daddy”, but not further back than that.
Clive is in professor mode, so we’ll learn more details from him later.
And away we go!
So this time we actually know this dungeon is going to explode, so we know why there will not be any treasure chests.
Just random monsters/puzzles for today.
For instance: did you know you can throw a crate at a switch? We are really easing Virginia back into adventuring here.
These jump plates are all over the place. I wonder if we are due for a new tool…
Babble on the big bridge.
“Remember seven seconds ago when I asked a question and then you said I had to wait? Can I ask that question again now?”
Oh. We’re at the bone store.
This has been lore, in one way or another, for every Wild Arms title at this point. Any machines on Filgaia trace their origins back to partially mechanical creatures generally labeled as dragons.
In the case of WA3, the dragons were distinctly created for the big ol’ demon war that has been looming over the plot from the beginning.
“Do you think they were friendly?”
“The war weapons bred for destruction? Sure.”
And, yes, the ARMs are directly manufactured from dragon bits.
Gallows, have you not noticed that we collect and use "dragon fossils" every time we upgrade the Sandcraft? What’s that? You forgot we could upgrade the Sandcraft? Oh.
Just think real hard at it for critical hits.
Thank you for that setup, Virginia. Now we cut to…
Siegfried, a half tissue, half machine creature.
“Are you talking about this planet-this planet, or another planet?”
“Another planet. Now shut up.”
“Probably what happens with a bunch of man-gods running around.”
“With war came rapid advancements in technology, which further escalated the evolution of technology. War was bringing about advancement. It was the neosapiens who began to recreate and improve themselves in order to win the war.”
So you were already at god level, and then war made you, like…. Kirby-Gods?
(Are you talking about “Jack Kirby Gods” or “Kirby the Pink Ball Gods”? Yes.)
But then Siggy stops talking when he’s getting to the good parts.
So that’s how this dungeon is going to go: a complete history of dragons and neosapiens interspersed with some good ol’ JRPG’ing. And we’ll see it all next update!
Next time on Wild Arms 3: The boots that broke the world.