General RPG Thread

[Leo656]

Not everything must be Shakespeare.

It's just fan-wank, that's all it ever purported to be. That's fine. It was pretty much exactly what I expected and I'm fine with that.

I'm not expecting something made by a bunch of f*cking Japanese people to make much sense. As awful as that sounds. But "style over substance" is like their national motto. I knew what I was getting.

[Prowler]

Japan does tend to do two things in the anime industry that annoys me:

1) Specials and OVAs. Like in Initial D, Iketani and Mako have a crush on each other but never ended up going anywhere. Then there's a special direct to video episode about them meeting again. Do they hook up? No. They meet near the end and talk for like 3 minutes "I guess we'll just remain friends then" and then never meet each other again. What a waste of 30 minutes

2) Reusing content frequently.

Why do a lot of anime series get a 90 minutes long "movie" that's just a recap of the whole season or series?! They just show the major events that happen but don't show any of the stuff that happened in between which is also important. Thus it ends up being a mess of a recap movie that doesn't flow naturally. You're not better off watching the recap movies of Initial D than the TV series. Trust me.

[TMNTFanatic4Life]

In FF 8 I took a different path than I did in FF7. I read about a low level but stats like you are high level strategy. And plus a high level run means your enemies also level up with you but doesn’t mean squat when you face the PS Version of Omega Weapon who is level 100 whether you’re at level 20 or 100 but more on him later.

The music in this game, like FF7, was so good. It pumped me up during the battles. I think if there’s one thing that can be agreed upon by everyone who plays the FF games is that the music is enjoyable.

I beat Ultima Weapon fairly easy. Omega wasn’t easy but challenging because of his level 100 HP. I pretty much used Squall and Selphie’s Ultimate Weapons at 255 Strength as basic attacks while my 3rd party member was on stand by to reapply Holy Wars to keep us invincible to Omega’s deadly attacks….took about 30 minutes this way but I beat him. I never tried to trigger Selphie’s The End attack to end Omega in one blow. Afterwards, I got the message that congratulated me for beating Omega lol

Other notes….I did obtain all the GF even though I barely used them. I was more interested in the abilities you gained from them. I also got everyone’s Ultimate Weapons and every single Card. The card games were fun for the most part. Spent a lot of time with those to get a bunch to turn into magics and other stuff.

Overall, I haven’t played a lot of FF games….VII, VIII, X and X-2 so I would rank them for me….FFVII>FVIII>X>X-2
When I was younger, I went along with the hate for FF8. It wasn’t anyway near the greatness of FF7 but after playing it again last year after FF7….I came around to really liking FF 8 and putting it on a tier just below FF7. I think what separates both games for me is that the characters and story in FF7 are more lively than FF8 which isn’t to say that FF8 is a bore fest. Just that I would take Cloud, Tifa and Sephiroth over Squall, Riona and Ultimecia.


Oh and as far as the side quests stuff….I did most of it. The Chocobo stuff I did all of it. But there was one quest where you had to “talk to the rocks” to move in certain directions to find something…..screw that lol. I spent like an hour doing that and didn’t find the hidden item so I said enough and moved on. That was pretty annoying lol

[Prowler]

Chocobos...

I didn't like them in FFX. Disliked the Chocobo obstacle race or whatever massively.

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by TMNTFanatic4Life

Overall, I haven’t played a lot of FF games….VII, VIII, X and X-2 so I would rank them for me….FFVII>FVIII>X>X-2

I'd rate them, personally, in order of best to least good...

FF IV
FF VI
FF VIII
FF IX
FF VII
FF V
FF II
FF XII
FF XV
FF XIII
FF X
FF III
FF XIII-2
FF XIII: Lightning Returns
FF X-2
FF I

[Leo656]

Interesting, I've never seen II ranked so high! That's interesting. Most people say it's "the worst". I haven't played enough of the series to know or to rank them, personally. But that's a bit unusual to see. I have no problem with it, just saying, you don't see that too often. I liked it for what it was, myself, I had fun with it.

Any "Tales" series fans? I have a bunch of them but I've yet to play a single one.

I have "Secret of Mana" for SNES on my shelf and I'm contemplating trying it out when I get done with my Batman games run. Anyone have anything to say about that one? I'm aware it has a pretty great reputation.

How about action RPGs? Everyone knows I'm not a huge Marvel fan, but I sincerely loved both X-Men Legends games, as well as Marvel: Ultimate Alliance. Those were great games, and I've always been sad that Justice League: Heroes didn't sell better so that a sequel could have gotten closer to being what those games were. It was clear that's what they were going for, but they didn't have the resources to get there right out of the gate and so the game ended up being a much more scaled-down thing, which was still enormously fun for what it was. A more fully-developed sequel with four party members per mission instead of two and a much longer game would have been epic. It's a real shame they never got that far. Every time I play X-Men Legends I start thinking of how awesome a game Exactly Like That but with DC characters would have been. I'm sure that's what JL:H2 would have been, if only.

[Prowler]

From my observation, VI and VII seem to be the most popular Final Fantasy games. And those who like VI the best often seem to consider VII overrated.

I wonder if it's similar to the A Link to the Past vs. Ocarina of Time debate?

[Wesley]

I used to like rpgs a lot when I was younger. Pokémon, Paper Mario, Golden Sun, Shining Force, Phantasy Star, Skies of Arcadia and Sonic Chronicles among others, though I never beat some of them.

I still love Tales of Symphonia, Phantasy Star IV and Tales of the Abyss.

I can’t count myself as a Tales series fan, as I’ve only played the previously mentioned games and Dawn of the New World, but I found Symphonia the most enjoyable of the three.

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by Leo656

Interesting, I've never seen II ranked so high! That's interesting. Most people say it's "the worst". I haven't played enough of the series to know or to rank them, personally. But that's a bit unusual to see. I have no problem with it, just saying, you don't see that too often. I liked it for what it was, myself, I had fun with it.

It's the most epic. The underworld, traveling to the moon? Traveling by chocobo, airship or spaceship? Marrying the girl and becoming king? It's awesome. There's a reason it's one of the few FFs to get its own direct sequel.

I have "Secret of Mana" for SNES on my shelf and I'm contemplating trying it out when I get done with my Batman games run. Anyone have anything to say about that one? I'm aware it has a pretty great reputation.

It's the only one of that series worth playing. Part 1 (Final Fantasy Adventure) was pretty forgettable, and part 3 (Seiken Densetsu 3/Trials of Mana) was too nutty. Legend of Mana didn't even feel like the same series.



But man, that music. Epic. I feel 12 years old every time I hear it. I hold Secret of Mana in the same esteem as I do Crystalis (which is to say, very high). Also, I'm pretty sure Secret of Mana invented the "ring menu" that is adopted by many games even today.

[Prowler]

Originally Posted by Wesley

I used to like rpgs a lot when I was younger. Pokémon, Paper Mario, Golden Sun, Shining Force, Phantasy Star, Skies of Arcadia and Sonic Chronicles among others, though I never beat some of them.

I still love Tales of Symphonia, Phantasy Star IV and Tales of the Abyss.

I can’t count myself as a Tales series fan, as I’ve only played the previously mentioned games and Dawn of the New World, but I found Symphonia the most enjoyable of the three.

I played the first Shining Force on the Mega Dtiva Collection a couple of years ago. Good game. Similar concept to Fire Emblem.

I also played II, but kinda put it on hold sometime ago. Will need to go back to it sometime.

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by Leo656

How about action RPGs?

The Zelda games have basically become action RPGs. You could call a lot of the early ones "action/adventure" games, but you'd be hard-pressed not to say "Breath of the Wild" is such.

But back in the day? "Soul Blazer" from Enix. Badass.



As well as the aforementioned Secret of Mana. And Crystalis.

[neatoman]

Ah, are we talking music here? Allow me to introduce you to Terranigma.


And here we have one from OC remix:

[Andrew NDB]

Ah, Terranigma. It and Illusion of Gaia are supposedly pseudo sequels to Soul Blazer.

[Prowler]

The Witcher III is an action RPG openworld hybrid sort of game, so it fits this thread.

Been playing it on and off for a while and got back to it again recently. So much stuff to do. I love it. About 75 hours in. 15 of those must have been spent playing Gwent

NieR Automata is also an action RPG + hack n slash combo. Played it when the Switch version came out. Amazing game. It doesn't hit you until the 3rd play through (you have to play it 3 different times through the eyes of 3 different characters, essentially) but by the end of it you do get why it's so loved.

Both games would crack my top 10 of Switch game and I don't see that changing.

[TheLabRat]

I played CRPG(mostly is DnD game), whatever is new or old games

Fallout(1, 2 and New Vegas)
Baldur's Game
Neverwinter Night
Pathfinder
Underrail
Divinity Original Sin 2
The Temple of Elemental Evil
Warhammer 40000: Rogue Trader
Knight of the Chalice 2
Solasta

[Prowler]

Originally Posted by neatoman

Ah, are we talking music here? Allow me to introduce you to Terranigma.


And here we have one from OC remix:

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

Ah, Terranigma. It and Illusion of Gaia are supposedly pseudo sequels to Soul Blazer.

Fun fact: Terranigma came out in Europe, Australia and New Zealand, but not in USA and Canada. It's the only SNES RPG that us folks from the PAL regions have over the US/Canada people. We did not get Earthbound, Super Mario RPG and Chrono Trigger.; for some odd reason. But, like you guys, we did get Act Raiser Secret of Mana and Final Fantasy VI, at least.

[neatoman]

Thought I remembered talking about Terranigma in some thread. Anyway, the game will soon get a modern release. Here's a trailer and the GOG link:


https://www.gog.com/en/game/terranigma

[Andrew NDB]

That's not much of an enhancement. They couldn't even make it widescreen?

[neatoman]

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

That's not much of an enhancement. They couldn't even make it widescreen?

Might not be possible. Even if they have access to the source code (which they may very well not have) then it might screw up the design in some way to make it widescreen. The GOG version of FFVII, which I think is made from the old PC port without any source code, does feature some enhancements but obviously does not make it widescreen because they would have to re-render the backgrounds and cutscenes for that. With Terranigma it's not hard to imagine that trying to make the game widescreen could do something like cause enemies to spawn in too early or at least cause you to see outside the map.

The interesting thing is that this release is done by the same company that did the Zero Wing re-release. What I found odd about that one is that it's a port of the arcade version but they decided to include a recreation of the infamous opening from the Megadrive port, they even included the broken English on purpose. And if they were willing to do that, why not also include the PC-Engine port's cutscenes and soundtrack? Those really did enhance the game instead of just making it a meme.