The group must use their respective skills to navigate through the wastelands and dungeons of Filgaia, and prevent an otherworldly threat from reviving their lost leader and destroying the world.

Alter Code: F features a new graphical style, an expanded script, a remastered soundtrack, more playable characters, and additional gameplay scenarios.

The player controls the party of three characters, Rudy, Jack, and Cecilia, as they explore the world of Filgaia, navigate its environments, battle enemies, and solve puzzles.

As the game's story proceeds, the player goes through various dangerous areas filled with enemies that appear randomly as well as set piece boss encounters.

Characters progress and grow more powerful by gaining experience points after a battle, finding ARMs (Rudy), discovering crest graphs used for magic spells (Cecilia), and mastering sword techniques prompted by various events in the game (Jack).

Cecilia's magic has a variety of effects, including restoring hit points to the party, raising or lowering statistics, and damaging enemies with harmful spells.

For example, Cecilia's "Mystic" ability allows an item to be used to cast a spell, while Jack's "Accelerator" lets him get a guaranteed first action in the combat round with a small damage boost.

[6] A thousand years before the main events of Wild Arms, a great war engulfed Filgaia between its original inhabitants, the humans and Elw, and an invading race called the Metal Demons.

Supporting characters include the scientist and golem-enthusiast Emma; Jane Maxwell, another wielder of ARMs like Rudy; and the sole remaining Elw in Filgaia, Mariel.

The main antagonist group is the Quarter Knights, dedicated to the Metal Demon's cause: their leader Zeikfried, the scientist and magician Alhazad, the warrior Belselk, and the swordswoman Lady Harken.

In order to spare the remaining people of Adlehyde, Cecilia gives Belselk her family heirloom, a pendant called the Tear Drop that has magical properties which can be used as a catalyst for reviving the demon's leader Mother.

[quote 5] The invaders leave, but Rudy, Jack, and Cecilia decide to oppose the demons and restore the weakening balance of Filgaia's elemental forces.

[quote 7] Utilizing ancient Elw technology in the form of teleportation devices, the group travels the world to stop the Quarter Knights from destroying the statues, but they fail in each attempt.

With his inhuman interior revealed, Rudy is shown as a Holmcross, an artificial being designed as a weapon that shares the same basic physiology as the Metal Demons.

The Metal Demons find the tower of Ka Dingel and raise it to skyward to connect with Malduke, an ancient giant structure on one of the moons orbiting the planet.

The studio was founded in 1993 by several members of Telenet Japan who had left the Riot division after having worked on the RPG series Tenshi no Uta for the NEC PC Engine.

A classical theme is also present in many tracks with the melody being provided by string instruments and deep drums to heighten the mood or increase tension.

[18] The game's overworld theme "Lone Bird in the Shire" contains the melody from Ennio Morricone's "The Ecstasy of Gold", originally from The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

[19] The opening video sequence to Wild Arms was created by Japanese animation studio Madhouse,[12] with the accompanying music track "Into the Wilderness" composed by Naruke.

The policy change was generally linked to Sony securing the then-upcoming Final Fantasy VII to be a PlayStation game, of which there were high expectations.

1 in January 1997,[24] the full English version of Wild Arms was made available in March of the same year by Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA).

"[44] Next Generation emphasized that "Even with Final Fantasy VII around the corner, Wild Arms still packs a strong visual punch that won't soon be forgotten.

"[37] RPGFan approvingly wrote that Wild Arms is "very well designed and is a lot of fun to play" and concluded that it "has a great English translation, interesting ideas and makes you use your brain to solve puzzles.

Bryan Cebulski particularly praised composer Naruke and character designer Yoshihiko Ito in a 2021 review, saying that their great work both defined and sold the fantasy–Western feel the Wild Arms series would become known for.

These included 5 other console video games, mobile phone adaptations, a manga,[48] and Wild Arms: Twilight Venom, an anime distributed by ADV Films.

King Records released a soundtrack CD featuring Naruke's remixed tracks for the game, Wild Arms Alter Code: F Original Score, in January 2004.

[54] Jeremy Dunham of IGN overall enjoyed the game, praising the redesigned dungeons and puzzles and remixed soundtrack, but considered the new graphics bland and unimpressive for the PS2.

[52] Bethany Massimilla of GameSpot thought that while the experience was overall good, the battles were both too frequent and too slow, with characters uselessly milling around and taking too long to perform their actions.

[50] Greg Sewart of Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine was lukewarm, saying that the game was "serviceable" but did not stand out compared to PS2-era RPGs such as Dragon Quest VIII and Digital Devil Saga.

[56] Matthew Demers at RPGamer thought the remake was underdone and needed additional work, especially criticizing Agetec's English translation and localization as poor.