Many game review websites (including this one) post disclosures at the end of every review, especially in light of the new FCC ruling about product reviewers disclosing any freebies they receive from companies. In addition to noting whether the developer or publisher provided a free copy of the game, these notices also often include whether the game was completed, and if not, how many hours of the game they completed. If you start paying attention to these notices, you’ll see that some websites have no problem playing only a few hours of a game and then calling their work a “review.”

You cannot analyze an entire game by playing only part of it. It’s misleading and unethical to post a review for a game you haven’t completed. To most readers and video game reviewers, a review is an assessment made after completing the game — seeing the ending, watching the credits roll, and completing the epilogue, if any. An assessment made after playing part of the game without completing it is called an impression, not a review.

Would you trust a review for a hotel from someone who only looked at the lobby? Would you trust a review of a restaurant from someone who only nibbled at an appetizer? What about a movie review from someone who only saw the first 30 minutes of a two-hour movie? Or a book review from someone who only read the first chapter? These would be good ways to get impressions, but you wouldn’t trust any of these for reviews. So why should you trust a review based on part of the game?

The biggest argument for the importance of completion is that games can have a sudden shift in quality. Almost every gamer knows this firsthand. The story takes a nosedive near the end, or maybe the gameplay suddenly picks up halfway through and becomes delightfully immersive.

If I had stopped playing Wild ARMS 4 or Eternal Sonata before reaching their final stages, I would have had better opinions of their stories. If I had stopped playing The Last Remnant before reaching the infamous fort battles, I might not have realized how punishing the game could be. Mass Effect annoyed me at the start and the story wasn’t that interesting. Then I figured out what I was doing wrong with the controls, the story started pulling me in, and I ended up cheering as I rocketed through to the spectacular ending. It’s now one of my all-time favorite games.

Here’s a recent example. If I had stopped playing Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days after only 5-10 hours, I would have written a very negative impression. After finishing the game, my opinion of it became positive (though I was still very critical of the game’s sluggish start). I recently read an overwhelmingly negative review of that game on another site, and the whole way through, I wondered if the reviewer had actually completed it. His descriptions matched everything for the first part of the game, but he never mentioned anything from the rest. Sure enough, in the last paragraph, he admitted that he’d only put in 11 hours. It’s worth noting that he thought the game was awful enough at first to make him stop playing, but that still only counts as an impression, not a full review. A full review looks at the full game.

By only playing through part of a game, you’re missing out on its full complexity — the character development, the increasing challenges, the big plot twist — or not reaching the point where the game suddenly turns sour. It’s also highly disrespectful to the developers and your readers; the former wants their work examined in a thorough and fair manner, and the latter wants to ensure that they invest time and money in a thoroughly worthwhile venture.

We have a simple but strict rule about our reviews. A reviewer can only post a review if he or she completes the game — that is, reaches the ending (or the “good” alternate ending that might change his or her opinion) and sees the credits. If a reviewer didn’t complete the game, he or she can post an impression of it instead. This should remain the standard for all reviewers, and anything less is a disgrace to the industry.

So when a longtime fan recognizes that the newest Wild ARMs title isn’t up to the series’ standards, you know it’s bad.

The story begins as a hunt for a stolen sword and some good old Wild West revenge, but it evolves into a political muddle with sci-fi and supernatural twists. It’s certainly not a bad tale, but as these things tend to go, it’s just poorly executed. Generally, the writing is mediocre with a few moments of cleverness, but on occasion the game forgets that it’s not a Working Designs title and spins out into the absurd. Characters spout atrocious lines like “I am the shield that breaks the wind” and “Your hoity-toity name makes my butthole itch.” Some of the characters have a bad habit of constantly reciting their one-dimensional personality descriptions. Labrynthia won’t shut up about how she’s a very capable 34-year-old woman, for example, and Felius ceaselessly broods over protecting people.

Cutscenes play out much like the ones in WA4, only without the 3D interruptions. The use of character art and dialogue boxes over landscape backgrounds works fairly well for a sprite-based strategy game, but at times the artistic licenses should be revoked for creating silly scenarios. Every time the dog is mentioned, a small square portrait of him pops up in the middle of the screen like a lolcat macro on a forum. There are also scenes where a character is supposed to be bedridden and ill, and he bemoans this fact while standing upright in the middle of the screen.

The worst part, however, is the voice acting. At times, characters sound bored, half-heartedly speaking lines with little emotion or obviously forced emotion if any. Far too often, characters will utter lines in a low, dramatic voice while the dialogue text is peppered with exclamation points and the figure art shows the character yelling. Unearthly growls and fearful shouts sound like belching and vomiting.

The graphics have vibrant colors and decent details. Character art is quite good, and some of the class costumes are very stylish. However, aside from one illustration in which a female character, due to the unfortunate placement of a dialogue box, seems to be performing a lewd act, the visuals will not be stimulating to most players.

Music and sound effects are passable and not memorable. The tunes are mostly imitations of Michiko Naruke’s style, and nothing is worth adding to your iPod or Winamp playlist.

The big draw of Wild ARMs XF is that it takes the HEX battle system from WA4 and 5 and expands it into a HEX-based strategy RPG. It succeeds at turning an interesting and obvious concept into a system that actually works very well. Instead of the standard four directions, the HEXes give you six, and this changes the way the player has to consider movement, executing straight-lined and ranged attacks, and casting multi-target magic. Dungeon puzzles, the staple of the WA series, are even played out on HEX battle maps, and there are stealth objectives as well. It’s a welcome deviation that freshens up the strategy RPG formula. Like any good strategy RPG, Wild ARMS XF has a ton of classes with unique and unusual abilities, and the game follows through by adding a lot of creative battle objectives that require the use of specific classes or abilities. A few of these objectives are pretty fun.

Sounds great, right?

It’s not. Some of the objectives are difficult and unfair to the point of being outright cheap, requiring up to 30 retries before completion. For example, some battles require the player to reduce the enemies’ HP without killing them. It’s challenging enough to create a strategy for this, but when the game doesn’t give the player a way to turn off the characters’ counterattack abilities, an automatic counterattack at the wrong moment destroys all one’s hard work. Challenge is one thing, difficulty is another, and outright sadism is just wrong. Regular battles outside the storyline, in contrast, are tedious and boring, sometimes consisting of a long walk across a large map just to beat up some birds for meager experience and class points. The numerous classes and objective requirements instill an urgent need for class level grinding because you never know when you will need to equip that one obscure ability on your characters in order to clear that one annoying objective in that one infernal place.

Though it has a great battle system, Wild ARMs XF is one of the most disappointing games in the series due to its ridiculously difficult objectives, wretched voice acting, and pervading mediocrity overall, even for a WA game. It should appeal to hardcore SRPG fans, but aside from experiencing the battle system, the game isn’t worth the effort.

Wild ARMs 5 focuses on Dean Stark, a small-town teenager with unbridled enthusiasm for golems, ancient technological marvels that are now scattered in broken pieces throughout Filgaia’s rocky soil. Dean loves to dig for golem remnants, and this passion leads to the highlight of his young life – the day a golem arm falls from the sky with a mysterious amnesiac young woman named Avril enclosed in its hand. She remembers nothing except the name Johnny Appleseed, and she presents Dean with a pair of guns – his very own ARMs and his ticket out of his humble hometown. After tending to the obligatory “boy leaves his home and embarks on a journey” matters, Dean tumbles out into the rugged terrain of Filgaia, a world once depleted of its vitality by now-lost technological advancements. His quest to assist Avril in her search for Johnny Appleseed naturally evolves into a fight to save Filgaia, but it also confronts issues of race and class conflict. There are classic Japanese RPG cliches here and there, but the main story is well-written and the subplot is quite developed. Players may even be jolted by the game’s relatively mature twists.

Characters tend to stay within the parameters of their respective stereotypes, except Dean’s childhood friend Rebecca, who receives the most character development. Though she fills the boots of the sassy-girl-with-a-soft-side stereotype, she wears them quite well and even accessorizes with complexities. Some less-sensitive players may be annoyed by the way cutscenes stop so that Rebecca can write out her afterthoughts on the situation in her diary, but this imposition of retrospective provides important insights regarding character and story development. It also reveals an undercurrent of character thoughts that cannot be expressed adequately through regular cutscenes.

All this is spelled out neatly and clearly on the screen, thanks to a quality localization by XSEED that is free of grammatical errors and extraneous punctuation. The localization team even tucked in humorous references to The Goonies and Independence Day.

Most of the graphics in Wild ARMs 5 are very crisp, vivid, and vibrant – quite an accomplishment for a game set on a mostly arid planet. The exception is the overworld, which lacks the clarity of other areas in the game and almost resembles a slightly compressed jpeg. Though it is disappointing that a game that tries to incorporate so much nostalgia lacks a good old uplifting anime introduction, WA5 manages to incorporate anime techniques – such as mannerisms and certain visual effects – into its 3D introduction and in-game cutscenes. It doesn’t compensate, but it’s a nice effect. A few of the cutscenes are very memorable, such as a dramatic Hollywood-style scene where Dean stalks Greg on a train, because of the way they were animated.

Wild ARMs 5 certainly excels in the sound category. The best aspect is the proliferation of Michiko Naruke’s distinctive musical style, the true flavor of Wild ARMs music. The other composers complement her work with their own excellent pieces, and the music quality is nearly on par with Wild ARMs: Alter Code F. Sound effects and voice clips are clear, crisp, and pleasant as well.

As for dealing with the necessary evil of combat, Wild ARMs 5 employs a modified version of the HEX system of its predecessor, Wild ARMs 4. Most of the original HEX system is intact – turn-based combat, elemental leypoints, Force, character combination attacks – but only three characters may participate at a time, though other team members may be swapped in if the character is standing on a particular HEX. One notable refinement is that each character can now move to a different HEX and perform an action in the same turn, thus hastening the progression of combat. Another refreshing change is that in boss battles, the HEX layout is reconfigured to create a new kind of battlefield and, subsequently, a slight variation in strategy. Clearly, the beta HEX system that emerged in WA4 has now evolved into a real combat system, and an enjoyable one at that.

Character development is limited to ARMs cartridges, armor, badges, and equipped Mediums, which bestow various skills and require investments of points for growth – another modified import from Wild ARMs 4. Each character has additional unique skills that can bolster certain Medium and equipment setups. Dean’s critical hit damage is automatically doubled, Rebecca randomly gets two or more shots per turn, Greg can shoot and then immediately assume a guarded stance, and so forth. It’s quite easy to fall into categories of “fighter,” “healer,” and “fast sharp-shooting hot redhead in Daisy Duke shorts who can steal items left and right,” but badges provide a decent amount of customization.

Perhaps the best gameplay aspect of Wild ARMs 5 is that the game returns to its roots in many ways. Dungeons and puzzles mostly achieve the complexity of the first three-fifths of the series, and though there are still no character-specific toolsets, Dean is armed with the next best thing: guns with different types of bullets. Ice, fire, hookshots, and much more are all accessible by spinning the chamber of Dean’s ARM and targeting a switch, box, or treasure chest. It certainly beats lugging armloads of junk around a room in order to complete a sham of a puzzle, which was WA4’s odd idea of fun. The worthwhile tricks of WA4 – platform jumping, sliding, and stomping – have been included, and this action combines nicely with the “tool” bullets.

Another nostalgic feature is the expansive world map, with its many hidden goodies and picturesque nooks. The best way to unwind between dungeons is to cruise around on the monowheel, explore the far reaches of Filgaia, and search for useful treasure and addictive puzzle boxes. There are plenty of sidequests and bonus dungeons to keep players occupied for many hours. There are also lots of cameos scattered across Filgaia; every member of every main cast in the Wild ARMs series can be found somewhere in WA5, and finding each one is like crossing paths with an old friend. Unfortunately, there are some minor complaints. The most noticeable one is that Dean’s ARM relies on automatic targeting for dungeon puzzles. In spots with multiple targets, one must carefully adjust Dean’s position so that he targets the appropriate switch or box, and this can be very frustrating. Manual targeting, like in the Xenosaga series, would have been enormously helpful. Another issue is that enemy AI in combat can be counterproductive to their cause or even outright ridiculous. This is most noticeable in the last third of the game. Sometimes, enemies will move to another HEX then instantly warp themselves back to their original panel, which may leave the player wondering if they merely wanted to dazzle the competition by showing off a spell they just learned. Enemies will also wastefully cast Isolate, a move that spreads out the party, when the characters are already standing on different HEXes. On a related note, the golem fights are controlled by customizable AI, so helplessly watching the golems duke it out gives the player time to mourn the wasted potential of this feature. In addition, instead of being labeled “Blown Away!”, a phrase that seemed to refer to the way fatal gunshots in western films knocked a victim backward through the air, fatalities in WA5 are marked as “Blow Out!”, which evokes the image of shredded tires lying along the highway.

The worst offense, however, is in the ending. The main plot reaches a suitable conclusion, but the highly developed subplot has no resolution, as if someone decided to take the cheap and easy way out and let players – and fanfiction writers – decide the outcome for themselves. Had this subplot not had so much development, such a move could be excused. This is Wild ARMs 5’s only real disappointment, and fortunately it does not detract from the rest of the game.

In spite of the occasional quirks and the disappointing finale, Wild ARMs 5 is an excellent addition to the series. The sprawling overworld that invites exploration, the remixed HEX system, the challenging puzzles, and the stirring soundtrack all make it a worthwhile experience for any Wild ARMs veteran.