FYI: Rogue Galaxy is probably the most juvenile JRPG I've played in years. Exhibit A:Originally Posted by NayusDante
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhJfg9IxpI8
(vomit)
FYI: Rogue Galaxy is probably the most juvenile JRPG I've played in years. Exhibit A:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhJfg9IxpI8
(vomit)
My Collection
My Room of Doom
"One of the ways I gauge a DS game is by recharges. "...Tycho (Penny Arcade)
O_O
I might have to save that one to do on my Livestream when I get some friends to commentate. This could be funny. I honestly thought it might be GOOD, but wow... that's the complete opposite of what I expected...
I expected better from Level 5 since their previous game (DQVIII) was a masterpiece. Rogue Galaxy has excellent music and graphics, a so-so battle system, and chalkboard screeching dialog/plot. Play at your own risk.
I might have to save that one to do on my Livestream when I get some friends to commentate. This could be funny. I honestly thought it might be GOOD, but wow... that's the complete opposite of what I expected...
My Collection
My Room of Doom
"One of the ways I gauge a DS game is by recharges. "...Tycho (Penny Arcade)
The "old fashioned" Western RPG has grown on me a little, but there's nothing that says JRPGs have to be dumb or easy. Vagrant Saga does have a maze map, but beyond that it's very involving - almost more than it has business being.
Coming from FF10 I'd say any game you've listed seems like a good choice. FF10 is nothing more than switch characters then attack and repeat an endless amount of times. Every area is point a to point b. Terrible game. Blitzball is good though, one redeeming quality so keep your save file and do nothing but play Blitzball next time you play the game.
You already know what you're getting with FF9. A terrible storyline with gameplay that pretty much makes up for it.
Anyways, Xenosaga is the one with the best story of the bunch. Like mobiusclimber stated, you'll be watching storyline most of the time. Don't let this seem like a bad thing though. Xenosaga has one of the best storylines to an RPG. The level design on the game is fairly simple and has a lot of secrets and stuff. The battle system is the killer of the game though. The game has 90% storyline 10% everything else, then once you get to the last dungeon you'll be in battle the majority of the time as it's the longest dungeon in the game. It wouldn't matter if the game has a good battle system, but it doesn't, the battle system is one of the worst out there.
Xenogears has a great storyline. Platforming RPG and it does a great job at the battle system, great level design, amazing storyline, and also a few sidequests to complete on the second disc. The only problem with this game is that the second disc has three parts that are nearly an hour of nothing more than text and in game visuals where you have little control over. Even during that portion the storyline is still good, you'll just need to be prepared for almost nothing but story.
The gameplay to Xenogears is sort of Legend of Legaia lite. It's gameplay has a similar type of Legend of Legaia but not really in depth. A few good things is that it's more simpler to use and it's still fun, but it's not really anything really that in depth. Gears battles are only slightly different than land battles but really just the bosses in the Gears battles are the major focus of them and those are actually sometimes fairly difficult.
Finally. The music of Xenogears is some of Mitsuda's best work. Atleast I think so.
With Dragon Quest 8, if you're a fan of Dragon Quest you'll love it. The story really seems a bit of a step back from Dragon Warrior 7 and you feel too limited in comparison to pretty much every other game in the series since Dragon Warrior 3 due to the new system which you pick what abilities you want to level up. The graphics however are some of the best on the PS2 and the world is just beautiful. Overall, while I it's only better than Dragon Warrior 2 and definitely better than the original, it's still an amazing game. If you don't choose Xenogears choose this one.
Rogue Galaxy. The storyline isn't too good and you'll either be able to bear it and take it for what it is and find a great game, or you'll think the storyline is unbearable and hate the game. I for one enjoyed the game. It's overall similar to Dark Cloud 2 minus the town creation and better gameplay. I'd say choose this one if you skip choosing Xenogears or Dragon Quest 8.
Finally there is FF12. I probably need to give this game another chance, but so far this is the only game on the list I haven't completed. I actually beat FF10, though believe me, FF12 is much better. The thing that I didn't like with FF12 is that you can either take much more time to choose your attacks by having to open the menu with O, choose what character(or the character it starts on,) choose an ability, then wait for the ATB to fill. Repeat for all your characters. If you need to use a different ability while a character is mid ATB, it resets and you have to wait for it to start all over again.
However, if you don't feel like wasting the time by opening the menu and then moving the option over to just attack which is mostly what you'll be doing on FF12, then you can just use the Gambit system which the characters will automatically choose these actions for you or whatever is best in each situation depending on how you placed it in the menu. This instead turns FF12 to a game that plays itself rather than you playing the game. Either way you're stuck with one extreme or the other, which is why I disliked the game. Also, treasure chests in the game are useless and you'll even be penalized later in the game for opening specific ones which you're given no clue which ones you can't open.
Now. Here is what I actually liked about FF12. The world map is again linked together. However, rather than being just point a to point b, you now have a huge detailed world to explore(as long as you can actually go to the area first.) You are limited by the barriers of each map, but still it's able to be explored. The best part about FF12 that I did like was the Hunter's Guild. Final Fantasy 12 is a game with quests that are done right, which is always a good thing(sitting right behind Arc the Lad 2 and Phantasy Star Online in how fun the quests are to do.) Sidequests are also fairly good in this game.
Actually, it's impossible to get into a random battle in mid jump. Once the game is going to start a random battle, it locks out the ability to jump, pause, and go to your menu then you don't get into the random battle for a full two seconds. The game is timed to go into a random battle seconds after it finds one.
If you never played the game on the original Playstation you should try it. You'll hear the disc drive stop spinning then start spinning again, at that point it locks everything down except movement and starts the time limit. PS2 doesn't make any sounds that will notify you that you're about to get into a battle, but once you're unable to jump you'll realize you are about to get into one.
Last edited by kupomogli; 12-09-2009 at 09:32 PM.
RRoD 4 Life!
I wonder too if anything has to do with the presentation.
Back in the day, no matter how old the characters were, they were all stumpy little nimrods with big heads running around. Kids/Adults looked the same. Maybe the visuals + voice overs of whiney kids *cough* Tidus *cough cough*
is throwing you off.
dang beat me to it.
Actually, it's impossible to get into a random battle in mid jump. Once the game is going to start a random battle, it locks out the ability to jump, pause, and go to your menu then you don't get into the random battle for a full two seconds. The game is timed to go into a random battle seconds after it finds one.
If you never played the game on the original Playstation you should try it. You'll hear the disc drive stop spinning then start spinning again, at that point it locks everything down except movement and starts the time limit. PS2 doesn't make any sounds that will notify you that you're about to get into a battle, but once you're unable to jump you'll realize you are about to get into one.
Aetherbyte: PC-Engine and more homebrew
If you haven't played the Shadow Hearts games then I suggest giving them a shot. The first one is an alright game with some really cool ideas but just wasn't executed as well as it could have been, but it was still a dark, foreboding, unique and overall enjoyable RPG. However, it lays the foundation and sets the story for the phenomenal big budget second installment Shadow Hearts: Covenant.
Both these game are fairly cheap and not too tough to find used. Similar to Panzer Dragoon Saga, there aren't too many other RPG's that you can compare them to. They have a fun unique battle system, very good Gothic story, and interesting characters. The games have an identity.
The third Shadow Hearts game is really good as well, but it seemed to take a few steps back from the first two games and fell into the standard JRPG template.
About Xenogears: I got into random battles mid-jump a LOT of times. So I was supposed to listen to my PS1 to find out if it was going to happen? WTF?! Come on guys, the developers shouldn't have made it possible for those random battles to occur when I was mid-air. It happened all the freakin time to me where I'd have climbed way up and then bam! random battle and once that ended I fell like a stone all the way back down.
I'm sorry, but I have no interest in devoting my time to learning a completely new language, which is why Xenogears and Xenosaga really didn't do anything for me. Xenogears would throw out all this annoying babble that doesn't make any sense until you've played the game for twenty hours, but of course by the time you get to the point where something that was said twenty hours ago makes sense, there's already been ten billion other cutscenes that don't make sense. If this was just a movie, it wouldn't matter. You'd get the info you need to decipher wtf is going on soon enough. But in a video game, it just doesn't work. I get the feeling some people had more time on their hands than I did when I played it because I never really understood much of what those anime cutscenes were getting at. The storyline that you actually PLAY made sense, but they kept switching. You'd play as one character (Fei?) and view everything through his eyes, until an anime started up that seemingly had nothing to do w/ the main plot (and wouldn't find out what it had to do w/ anything until twenty hours later). It was just frustrating.
Xenosaga, on the other hand, wasn't as bad in that most of it made sense almost immediately, but there'd be all these terms that you had to look up in your in-game dictionary to understand what they were getting yet. YES YOU HAD AN IN-GAME DICTIONARY. So if you like reading encyclopedia entries on everything while watching a movie and barely playing a game, you might like Xenosaga. Unfortunately, the gameplay was awful. Not only was the battle engine terrible, but what passed for gameplay at times was just "walk from one end of the ship to the other." So you have this long ass movie to watch, then you'd get control of your character and you'd literally walk from one end of the ship to the other. What was at the other end of the ship? A boss battle? A treasure chest? Please God the end of the game? Nope, just MORE movies! The game actually had a movie that was so long they gave you the option of saving in the middle of it.
So that my post doesn't end up being nothing but me bitching about a couple of RPGs, here's a list of some that I absolutely love and that you may or may not have played:
Koudelka, Shadow Hearts, Shadow Hearts: Covenant - I still haven't played "From A New World" or whatever it's called. Koudelka is for the PS1 and is only tengentially related to the other two games. It's also the most broken. I liked it for its atmosphere and storyline, but the gameplay really wears thin. Weapons break in the game, the battles are laid out like a cross between strategy and regular turn-based combat, so they take forever and happen way too frequently. Shadow Hearts is my favorite of the three. Covenant does have improved gameplay, but it's a comedy whereas the first game was more of a horror title. A cheesy horror title, but that's what made it awesome. Gameplay is excellent in both games, but Covenant just refines it.
Tales of Symphonia - Yeah the storyline is seriously cliche in parts, it's more how they tell it and what they do to change it up and make it different that sets it apart. That, and the battle system is just amazingly fun.
Dragon Warrior VII - Parts of this game get seriously dark. I love the chances Enix took in this game too, particularly the beginning of the game. Its the last game I really felt like maxing out my characters in.
Some other games I love that are JRPGs without being tradition JRPGs: Vagrant Story, Parasite Eve, and the Wild Arms series.
I'm also wondering if you aren't maybe just getting burnt out on newer (PS1 & up) JRPGs. Maybe try taking a break and play some old school stuff. Dig up games you haven't played yet. There's gotta be some old school JRPGs you haven't played. Here's some quick recs:
For NES: Crystalis, Faria, Magic of Schehezerade, Destiny of an Emperor, or maybe some fan-translated Japanese-only releases.
For SNES: Shadowrun, EVO, Inindo.
For Genesis: Only one you might not have played would be Beyond Oasis, your only other choices are the Phantasy Stars, the Shining games (including Shining in the Darkness, which is awesome) and Shadowrun and a few others developed by US companies (Warriors of the Eternal Sun, Faerie Tale Adventure, etc). Can't think of any good JRPGs that aren't obvious.
I guess what I'm getting at is that there ARE a lot of different JRPGs out there. Some games do tend to play the same cards that have always been in that deck, so it's just a matter of figuring out what kind of game it is.
For me, I always thought I was outgrowing RPG's, as while the 16 bit and 32 bit era's of gaming where current I played more JRPG's then any other genre. Then after FFX everything went dowwnhill, I just cant seem to care for them anymore. To be honest though FFX isnt an RPG, its a "Let us hold your hand and walk you through a story" action adventure.
I keep on purchasing RPG's and have all the ps2 RPG's I could ever want along with everything from this gen, but have yet to find anything that has enticed me to play through to completion. Then mai reason is the story to action ratio, take something like Wild Arms, I loved the story so much that anything gameplay wise that seemed a chore was overshadowed by it, then take LO on the 360 and while the gameplay might be good I am completly bored by the narrative so I notice the bordem more.
Maybe its me, maybe its a genre running out of orginality due to the ever increasing development costs.
My personal suggestion try the new horizons series on the super nintendo. Its literally a pirate simulation rpg and its pretty complicated , plus the story is rather boring for a younger audience but I can imagine older people getting into it.
Last edited by Richter Belmount; 12-10-2009 at 01:18 PM.
Why should there be obstacles in a video game?!
http://vimeo.com/25686273
Pretentious Archiver , because games are important and stuff
i think this has been touched on a little, but with the current state of video games, the more in depth the story is in a given game, the gameplay suffers. on the other side, in an MMO, the gameplay and exploration are phenomenal, but the story is minimal.
it is very difficult to balance the two
I found that to be really amusing, yet would not want to be caught dead actually playing the game. I can only imagine how it gets later on
I thinking saying I've "outgrown" something sounds too... snobbish to me. I prefer to simply say that my tastes have changed. Just like they've changed for a lot of things over time (music, movies...)
Time will be when the broadest river dries
And the great cities wane and last descend
Into the dust, for all things have an end
I just picked up Valkyrie Profile 2 at a pawn shop, and I'm actually finding it somewhat enjoyable. The character design/story could have used some work, but in terms of gameplay it's very much unlike other RPGs I've played. It has a battle system that's very fluid and action-oriented, but I still feel like I'm in control of the game, unlike in FFXII. I think I may have to give this one a shot. Not that it's really a classic game or anything...
While I haven't outgrown the JRPG, I have definitely moved on from Final Fantasy to games in the Shin Megami Tensei series. FF was by far my favorite RPG franchise though FFVIII. I didn't care for X or X-2 and was unimpressed by IX. I enjoyed XII for the gameplay, which was fantastic, but couldn't get into the story. If not for the battle system I probably would have avoided it.
SMT: Nocturne was my first game in the SMT series and it blew me away. The story was more mature and I loved the gameplay, art and music. I've since played through Persona 1-4,DDS 1+2 and the English translations of SMT and SMTII on the SNES. I might give FFXIII a try at some point, but unless it's a masterpiece I don't see myself going back.
I haven't grown out of playing JRPGs and still love them as I did years ago. Though I've steered away from most of the generic sword/sorcery games that dominate the genre. I like a modern setting for my RPGs, so I've found the Megaten series a godsend. I'd recommend Devil Summoner 2. The game takes place in Japan during the '20s, and you're a detective solving cases involving demons. Battles are done in real time a la .Hack and there is plenty of sidequests.
I so can't stand FF10 most the time, not just for the Sphere System. The Dress thingamaboober system in X-2 made more sense.
Anyhow love Xenogears. The story has so much emotion to it: happiness, confusion, even parts that would bring a tear to your eye. I really should get to finishing it...
My Gaming Collection (Now at Google Docs!)
FF7 was the beginning of the end for me. I've gotten very selective since then. Either the game has to be a rougelike or dungeon crawler, heavy in exploration (Wizardry/M&M etc), very action/reflex orientated (Diablo, PSO etc), or straight up strategy (Ogre Battle and Dragonforce converted me to Stratism) where movement, formations, micromanagement and such is a major battle system factor over the usual one-side of the screen vs the other, tap A to win, menu battles.
There are some good JRPGs since FF7; Valkyrie Profile, SMT: Nocturne (I find that I don't care for the Persona's much), DQ8 and FF12 looked interesting enough for me to pick up, but I'm very FF shy these days. I'll get to ut eventually though. I could go either way on it still. Depends.
For a genre I used to really be into, the games take to much time to finish and the payoff for all that investment is usually lacking in luster. Makes you feel cheated. Few JRPGs escape this, at least it seems so to me.
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I think Final Fantasy VII and X were worthwhile for the storylines. 9 was good in some parts but horrible in others. 8 was torturous and pretty much made me weary of other FF games. Actually X was also a real mixed bag, but I loved the ending and that sort of made up for it. At least the last boss wasn't a jack-in-the-box villain. X-2 and XII I gave up on. XII I found myself really enjoying the battles in, but eventually the whole game was just monster hunter with a stupid storyline.
The Dragon Quest series really seems to work better for me, tho most of them don't have the greatest storylines. They're more about character development and the way they tell the story than the actual story itself.
I've been playing the SFC remake of Dragon Quest II for the first time the past two weeks, and I must say I love it. In that game, you are only given vague clues of where places are, and you have to do some real aimless exploration to find the places you need to go. Sure, some might find this to be frustrating, but I love the fact that you have to do some real exploration. It is a wonderful game, but the fan translation has some showstopping bugs, so beware.
The only recent JRPG I have played lately is Star Ocean. It featured crappy Final Fight inspired battles, a major letdown in the storyline (seriously, the apocalypse happened on Earth, and that aspect was thrown to the wayside in favour of some girly-boy elf?) and way too many enemy encounters. I played FFX for about two and a half hours, and there was about 10 minutes of actual gameplay.
I think the major downfall of the JRPG is that after FF7, there was far too much emphasis on flash at the expense of gameplay and exploration. I mean, I was watching my brother play Xenosaga, and there seriously were points where you had to sit through over an hour of cinema. If I wanted to watch a movie, I would buy a movie! Dragon Quest II is still more fun than any console based RPG that I have played that has come out in the past decade, because it brings out the adventurer in me.
<Evan_G> i keep my games in an inaccessable crate where i can't play them
Star Ocean and Final Fight? o_O Now that's a comparison I've never encountered before nor expected to.
Are you kidding? When I first started doing the battles, that was the first thing that came to mind. Maybe the first three games in the series are different, but the Xbox 360 game had a fighting system that worked almost exactly the same as an old style beat-em-up.
And I should mention that games like Final Fight bore the hell out of me with their repetitive nature and enemies that take a lot of hits to defeat.
<Evan_G> i keep my games in an inaccessable crate where i can't play them
Ah, I assumed you were talking about the original Star Ocean. I wouldn't say any of the others remind me of Final Fight at all and I've never heard anybody bring up Final Fight as a comparison to them, but I haven't played Star Ocean 4 yet and wouldn't know what people would compare it to.
The last JRPG I had played was FFVII, then right around the time I finished it, I was out of video gaming for several years (almost ten!). When I returned, I played Morrowind on Xbox and was ruined forever for linear RPGs.
My Consoles:
I feel bad for anyone who can't enjoy older RPGs anymore. In the past year, my girlfriend has discovered how much fun older rpgs are so we play them together. We are running though all my old NES, SNES, and PS favs and I still enjoy them all. (PS games are still not as great for me because I seem to not enjoy 3D gameplay).
I don't really outgrow games I like I suppose. I actually have trouble getting into newer games. I have had a ps3 for years and I still don't own a single game for it (but I have the 60 gig so awesome backwards compatibility), and the only thing my 360 gets touched for is Rock Band. There is something about older gameplay that is missing for me now, and I can't let it go.
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