Wild ARMs 5

Wild ARMs 5, released in Japan as Wild ARMs: The Vth Vanguard returns us once again to the improbably disaster-prone planet of Filgaia.

Humans struggle under the rule of the Veruni, a highly-advanced alien race that conquered the planet a century ago. The world is full of Lost Technology, the most prominent ones being Humongous Mecha known as Golems and special weapons called ARMs. Those who search for this Lost Technology are known as Golem Hunters. The story focuses on one boy who starts with a simple dream of becoming a world-renowned Golem Hunter, but who soon becomes a leader for a much more grandiose cause.

Wild ARMs 5 uses the same engine and HEX battle system from Wild ARMs 4 but with several refinements and improvements. The number of members allowed in battle at once is reduced to three, and the use of tools to solve puzzles returns in the form of unique bullets for Dean's ARM. This being an anniversary game, it also includes a ton of references and cameos from previous Wild ARMs games.

Tropes used in Wild ARMs 5 include:

• Alien Sky: Filgaia has 2 moons in this game: a larger gray moon and a smaller bronze-colored one. They are visible when summoning Equites. Also, Southwesten Filgaia's pink sky.
• And Your Reward Is Clothes: Granted, some of them (i.e., the Shout-Out costumes) are among the best armors in the game.
• Arbitrary Headcount Limit: Although you eventually have 6 (7, if you count Asgard) party members, only 3 can fight in battle. If using Asgard, none of the other characters can fight.
• Awesome but Impractical: The Limit Break combo moves between two characters have some of the best effects in the game, but their damage output is less than spectacular. Especially after characters can use Finest Arts.
• Back-to-Back Badasses: The Trigger Rondo Limit Break, featuring Dean and Rebecca.
• Baleful Polymorph: The Misery status effect turns the character into an adorable anthromorphic cat version of themselves, as well as disabling all commands but Move.
• Beast and Beauty: Averted. Kartikeya is unusually friendly towards Avril when he first meets her, even calling her a "young lady". However, she has no interest in him.
• Big Damn Heroes: Dean, Rebecca, and Avril showing up just in time to save Chuck.
• Bizarre Alien Biology: Kartikeya in particular. However, all of the characters are just...odd.
• Carrying the Antidote: Persephone conveniently has the antidote to Pastel's Veruni-caused illness. What she forgets to mention is that the antidote is for Veruni, and that the effects on a human would probably be fatal.
• Catch Phrase: Dean's, "You can do anything as long as you don't give up!" He says it at least once during every story event.
• Chekhov's Gun: A couple of them. Dean tries to use the monowheel against Volsung, plus the bolt he's had since before the game gets used on Asgard.
• Combination Attack: One for each pair of characters, learned by battling together enough.
• Defeat Means Friendship: WA 5 really utilizes this trope. Every main villain (including Big Bad Volsung) except Complete Monster Kartikeya survives, and pulls a Heel Face Turn.
• Diary: Rebecca's diary serves as the narrator for the game.
• Did They or Didn't They?: Fereydoon and Lucille.
• Duel Boss: Everyone, except Avril, fight another member of the Quirky Miniboss Squad in a final duel.
  • Dean fights Nightburn, who betrayed the image he had over him.
  • Rebecca faces Persephone, both struggling because of their feelings.
  • Greg gets Kartikeya, who murdered his family).
  • Carol gets her mentor Elvis.
  • Chuck faces Fereydoon, who puts in question Fereydoon's blind loyalty and love for Lucielle.
• Diary: Used as a framing device to end each chapter. Rebecca reads her entry on whatever events have happened at the end of each "chapter." They also often foreshadow the Bittersweet Ending. Her diary also plays a minor role in the plot, first as an introduction to her character when Dean finds in the ruins, and later she tries to get him to read it to explain how she feels about him since she can't work up the courage to do it verbally.
• Exactly What It Says on the Tin: Golem Crushers and Golem Hunters.
• Expy: Dean, Rebecca, and Avril have drawn comparisons to the Power Trio of another cult-hit RPG.
  • Rebecca also resembles Yoko
• Fantastic Racism: The Veruni feel that the humans are lesser beings and treat them as disposable labor and entertainment.
• Feelies: The game came with an artbook depicting characters from the previous games.
• Five-Bad Band
  • The Big Bad: Volsung
  • The Dragon: Fereydoon
  • The Brute: Kartikeya
  • The Evil Genius: Elvis
  • The Dark Chick: Persephone
• Gainaxing: Rebecca, just watch closely when she's attacking.
  • The same is true with Persephone, though watching closely could result in severe whiplash.
  • Lucille too.
• Giant Space Flea From Nowhere: The Embodiment of Hatred, which rivals Necron in sheer randomness and irrelevance to the plot.
• Good Bad Translation: A french exclusive one. While the english translation was perfectly fine, the french translation was completly off. The translators included private jokes which were completly absent from the original script, affecting the personnality of characters, and the overall mood of the game. While some of these changes are funny (Go Goldorak, GO !!! upon the discovery of the golem), some are crossing a line, like a NPC who says in a dialogue the slogan of the actual french president, Nicolas Sarkozy : "Work more in order to earn more". A lot of french anglophones switched to the english translation because of that.
• Gun Kata: Dean with the final boss.
• Happily Adopted: Carol adores her adoptive father, Elvis, and he loves her even more.
• Hopeless Boss Fight: Always immediately recognizable since attacks will have no effect and scans reveal that there's no experience for winning.
• Human Aliens: They're even called humans. Justified, since they are humans. Just ones that have had divergent evolution.
• Human Resources: The Locus Solus' main gun, the Darkness Tear, is powered by life force. Volsung fires off a warning shot powered by every Veruni aboard at the time, one of whom was 2nd in command Fereydoon's grandmother.
• Improbable Weapon User: Dean's main attack has him whacking the enemy with enormously-long ammo clips from his ARMs, Carol freakin' fires missiles from her backpack, and Chuck uses something called a "pilebunker" that is, apparently, similar in function to a jackhammer.
  • Don't forget that Dean's first weapon is a shovel.
• Infant Immortality: Averted with Greg's son. When Kartikeya threatens Greg in a flashback, his son steps in front of him. He promptly gets blasted, much to his parent's horror. Kartikeya then kills Greg's wife. Needless to say, Greg dedicates his life to getting revenge on him, but gets his things back in order after spending time with Dean and company.
• Interface Spoiler: The intro the game gives as soon the trio departs from Capo Bronco gives out your next three allies. However when they are going to join definitely is a completely different question.
• Interspecies Romance: This is quite common. Volsung's parents were a Veruni father and a human mother. Persephone's elder sister, now deceased, was once Nightburn's lover. Lucille and Fereydoon are glaringly obvious.
• Lazy Backup: Despite having 3 party members sitting on the sidelines somewhere twiddling their thumbs, it's still Game Over if the three currently in battle die.
• Ley Line: The ley points.
• Love Triangle: Triang Relations, Type 3. Both Avril and Rebecca are in love with Dean. Dean seems blissfully clueless about this.
  • Type 9
• The Maze: All of the bonus dungeons except Cocytus.
• Monowheel Mayhem: Dean obtains a monowheel for faster transportation around world map areas.
• Morality Pet: Elvis adopting Carol facilitated his Heel Face Turn. Its also the first clue that he's not a bad guy.
• New Game+: Of the "carry over items but not levels" variety. If you collected all the Ex File Keys, you'll get the Nine Lives/Knight Blazer armor for Dean as well.
• Not So Different: The game manages to milk a lot of drama out of Dean's ideals being uncomfortably similar to Volsung's. It's actually pulled off pretty well, considering the aforementioned anvils.
• One of These Doors Is Not Like the Other: You're inside a square room with 3 identical exits and one slightly different one. Most of the differences are obvious, but the last one not so much: Shooting the pot next to the correct door gives you money, the ones next to the incorrect doors are empty. Bonus points for starting a random encounter if the short time limit runs out.
• OT3: Avril/Dean/Rebecca is extremely common in Fanfic.
• Point of No Return: Save on a different file after beating Volsung the first time and heading to Locus Solus.
• Quirky Miniboss Squad: Fereydoon, Persephone, Kartikeya, and Elvis.
• Revolvers Are Just Better: The main trio's ARMs are all influenced by revolvers.
• Seven Deadly Sins: Each of the Memory Birds says something odd about one of the sins when you talk to them.
• Shout-Out / Mythology Gag: So many it qualifies as Fan Service. All the previous game's playable characters appear as NPCs and reference their previous roles and relationships. Some of the alternate costumes for the heroes also resemble outfits from previous Wild ARMs heroes.
  • A somewhat obscure one may be present in the form of Nightburn's name, which can easily be construed as a synonym-slash-homonym for Knight Blazer.
  • Apparently the Memory Bird in Harmonde plays Castlevania. "What is Greed? Nothing but a pitiful little pile of selfishness! But enough talk... Would you like to save your game?"
    • The Memory Bird in Laila Belle, on the other hand, had apparently watched The Goonies. "I once had a girlfriend named Sloth actually. She left me for a bird named Chunk."
  • The most powerful armor in the game, Nine Lives, has appeared in previous Wild ARMs games; however, this is the first time it looks like friggin' Knight Blazer. and even plays its battle theme!
• Single Tear
• Stable Time Loop: Avril's tragic role in the story. Events seem to slightly change for her every time, after she comments on something that hasn't happened to her before.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: Rebecca and Avril. Carol mixes both traits.
• Transhuman Aliens: The Veruni seem to be this. It turns out, however, that they left Filgaia centuries ago and are from the same genetic base as humans.
• Truman Show Plot: A variation. Duo's cameras are following the heroes every step of the way, so the whole world is watching their exploits.
• With a Friend and a Stranger: Rebecca, Avril and Dean