/jp/ - Otaku Culture

>Wild Arms 4/5 were pretty subpar
>yeah, stories got too fantasy and childish. 5th one didn't even feel like a western

Okay, this I'll argue. What part of 4 was childish? Because as I recall (and forgive me, I haven't touched my copy of V yet, nor dove hard into III), it skips the conventional themes of the predecessors completely.

Dim, no hope future (war-torn)
No hammering environmental message (no big Guardian presence at all save for battle attacks)
No enemy outside, just corruption within (humans thirsting for power = world destruction)
Grimdark the closer you got to the end, with no real turnabout (unlike the other two which got dark as a point to challenge/enable growth of its characters)
And a hard, almost insulting end (Boy saves the world, has an arguable BSoD moment, and forces himself to become some ranger/hermit, Arnaud & Yulie just settling wherever they landed, most of your supporting cast is dead in rather vicious ways. And FUCK THEM for what they did to Raquel).

If you're arguing that all that tripe was childish, then I have to wonder what you think of the previous installment's with their themes and story arcs (hope for humanity, kindness to the environment, determination in the face of bitter adversity, learning to understand self and others)