Wild Arms Playthrough (Part 1)

I've started up Wild Arms on the PS1, and so far it's pretty good! The music is excellent, and I love the PS1 era games with anime opening scenes, those have always gotten me excited, so I appreciate it here.

Something I've been surprised about is the lack of "wild west" theming. I played a bit of Wild Arms 3 on PS2 when I was younger and I seem to recall it feeling pretty desert-ridden in the little bit I played. So far Wild Arms has been very Fantasy style which I don't mind at all, just a bit surprised.

The combat is turn based, and I do like that. I feel that difficulty can still happen in turn based combat and strategizing around learning the attacks and patterns of an enemy can be for me just as (or more!) engaging than "live action" combat. There are some "interesting" quirks like how the ARMS work, requiring bullets and the like (a seemingly difficult thing to replenish, so far); they seem to be positioning the main character's ARMS weapons as almost like super weapons, doing multiple times more than a normal attack, so perhaps having that be somewhat limited is sensible. I've not had any trouble so far with combat, no deaths or anything, but it's been engaging regardless; I've read that the combat can get difficult so we'll see.

Another thing I'd be remiss to not mention is the "puzzles". The game definitely leans heavily on this aspect - move blocks around, stand on a tile to open a door elsewhere, and the like. I like it, it keeps me thinking and has the occasional "eureka!" moment, which is nice. I think it's a nice mix! I'm about 5 hours into the game now and still enjoying it so fair chance I make it all the way through, playing a bit each night before bed.