Any RPG fans here?

[CMoon]

It's one of the best games I've played in a long time, and I'd rather talk about this or anything else that's actually an RPG than the shit that FF has turned into.

What's actually an RPG? The Japanese don't make those, don't you know. Whoa, I can play either the role of a shotgun dude or a sniper - this has to be an RPG.

It's all about gameplay, dude. Stop being so superficial.

EDIT:

What's actually an RPG?

[Slump]

The best dungeon crawler is and always will always be Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup (with ASCII only of course). Just you and an evil diabolical random number generator determined to kill you by any means necessary. Which goes to the earlier discussion, I love the simplicity of old dungeon crawler's/rpg's and I miss the lack of them this day and age.

[CMoon]

The best dungeon crawler is and always will always be Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup (with ASCII only of course). Just you and an evil diabolical random number generator determined to kill you by any means necessary. Which goes to the earlier discussion, I love the simplicity of old dungeon crawler's/rpg's and I miss the lack of them this day and age.

Have you tried any of them on the DS? Waiting for you to say that Dark Spire is too modern for you

edit:

[BryanM]

Bizarrely, I love Dungeon Master but can't stand Eye of the Beholder etc. The only thing I really hate about the game is there never really is a single moment of rest from the tension, and the magic system should've been much simpler..

Why the hell are we talking about FF? Is that even an RPG anymore?

Final Fantasy 8 was just released on the DS, but the most exposure it has is a review on the onion where all the comments talk about everything BUT the game. I've been playing it.... very.... slowly.... and will post impressions when I feel like I have firm feel for the thing.

Then I promise EO3 will be first in the queue. For cereal.

the grinding happens while I'm doing something else, and I'm never grinding just for the point of grinding.

It's the great illusion of the progress quest - when you have a quest on your quest, you feel like you're accomplishing much more.

Also, when you have to kill these 5 specific goblins over there, as opposed to killing 1000 goblins of any type in the world, those are two very different behavior pattens.

Lulu gets as much backstory as other characters.

All I remember was she was a guardian of the Mary Sue chick, and didn't have any text after the introduction scene.

Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together (the PSX port)

Is this in anticipation of the PSP port??? I kind of hated how ranged characters don't have to put up with the bullshit of counter damage, how the special attacks are handled (limited in number? ...from the bonus dungeon?), and how messy classes blurred together...

I mean really, Giant Octopus monster, it should at least be cool if it's going to be as effective as the monster class in SaGa. You know the kind - the ones with the stats meant to be slaughtered en masse by level 1 heroes with rusted tin swords...

[linko9]

Final Fantasy 8 was just released on the DS, but the most exposure it has is a review on the onion where all the comments talk about everything BUT the game. I've been playing it.... very.... slowly.... and will post impressions when I feel like I have firm feel for the thing.

Are you implying that you don't count 8-13 as real FF games, but 7 does count for some reason? For the record, I enjoyed 13 much much more than either 7 or 8, so I actually don't think the series is worthless like I did a year ago, but I understand the general dislike of the series among traditional RPG fans. Still, if you're going to hate on the "new" FF games, 7 is definitely what started it all, not 8.

[BryanM]

7 gets a pass because it's somewhat playable.

8 began the trend of gimmicky bullshit that's different for the sake of being different. You don't spend 500 hours drawing cards out of monsters to breed a pact to summon deities into battle by shooting yourself in the head in 7.

Granted, there are a few minutes of CGI. I stand by my inconsistent old man ways.

Edit: that is to say: what the hell are you talking about? Final Fantasy 8 is kind of neat - you just moosh a button and blam! your dude has his action for the turn. Dragon Quest 9's battle menu is a mess of jellyfish in comparison.

[CMoon]

I haven't played FF in a long time, which is why I asked. For shits and grins I picked up 11 sometime back, and returned it after about 30 hours of super-polished but ultimately hollow gameplay. I hated the character--feeling absolutely no attachment to them, and nothing in the story gave me any sense of accomplishment.

I think there's a whole lot of things that a good console RPG can be (Chrono Trigger and Demon's Souls can be side by side!), but when all that's left are fancy graphics and watching the game play itself, I just don't really get it.

That said, FF11 (and others recent entries so I've heard) have featured some really fine asses. Maybe that's what all the fuss is about.

[Slump]

The best dungeon crawler is and always will always be Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup (with ASCII only of course). Just you and an evil diabolical random number generator determined to kill you by any means necessary. Which goes to the earlier discussion, I love the simplicity of old dungeon crawler's/rpg's and I miss the lack of them this day and age.

Have you tried any of them on the DS? Waiting for you to say that Dark Spire is too modern for you

edit:

All those sprites, it's too much! In all seriousness Dark Spire was great but I didn't spend too much time trying to overcome the crazy difficulty. But the Dark Spire, Shiren the Wanderer and the Etrian Odyssey series are definitely awesome throwbacks though and done really well on the DS. I also tried some of the other roguelike ports on the DS but the controls are just too frustrating for one accustomed to the keyboard.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Lulu gets as much backstory as other characters.

All I remember was she was a guardian of the Mary Sue chick, and didn't have any text after the introduction scene.

She was also a guardian of some other Summoner before, as well as the Wakka's late brother's girlfriend. And yes, she speaks some text in dialogues, even with voice acting. It's all around rather stomachable in the undub version (I can imagine the US voice acting makes quite a difference). There's plenty of optional dialogue acassible via chatting to the characters (if you give a damn, that is).

Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together (the PSX port)

Is this in anticipation of the PSP port??? I kind of hated how ranged characters don't have to put up with the bullshit of counter damage, how the special attacks are handled (limited in number? ...from the bonus dungeon?), and how messy classes blurred together...

I mean really, Giant Octopus monster, it should at least be cool if it's going to be as effective as the monster class in SaGa. You know the kind - the ones with the stats meant to be slaughtered en masse by level 1 heroes with rusted tin swords...

I've got a nice CRT SDTV with a SCART socket here and I suck for pixel art (not that graphics in Tactics Ogre are anything special). Otherwise I wouldn't bother enduring the extra loading times (not as painful here as in Chrono Trigger for the PSX, I must admit) and I can't imagine the fan translation of the SNES original being any dryer.
When there was a fire dragon in my party (before I had to start anew having saved in a hopeless situation), it was useful at least as a damage soaker. Now the octopus, I dunno, to render it useful I'd have to arrange a training session of four high characters standing around it in water so it can deliver Eddy to them. Just thinking about something this ridiculous turns me off. Did I mention that water maps tend to be slow? So yeah, not as clever a game as it thiks it is. The octopus is my favourite sprite thus far, though.
Still, I like how it's not all about shooting cannon balls from your butt and summonning the robots with angel wings. Rather it's about commanding your troops to do the stuff for you with the terrain and class system intricacies in mind. Like some tactics game in the vein of chess. Disgaea is, in short, too easy to overgrind. Tactics Ogre at least tries to be something Disgaea's given up on.

[BulletMagnet]

I hated the character--feeling absolutely no attachment to them

I find this interesting, since you're a fan of old-school dungeon crawlers, wherein you usually create your party members from scratch, and they never really "develop" in any way apart from stat enhancements and such - that doesn't bother you, but in an MMO somehow it does. I'm not criticizing you or anything here, I just find that viewpoint intriguing, since I have little taste for either setup personally.

You don't spend 500 hours drawing cards out of monsters to breed a pact to summon deities into battle by shooting yourself in the head in 7.

Yeah, you spend that time breeding a Gold Chocobo.

[CMoon]

I hated the character--feeling absolutely no attachment to them

I find this interesting, since you're a fan of old-school dungeon crawlers, wherein you usually create your party members from scratch, and they never really "develop" in any way apart from stat enhancements and such - that doesn't bother you, but in an MMO somehow it does. I'm not criticizing you or anything here, I just find that viewpoint intriguing, since I have little taste for either setup personally.

Yeah I find it funny too how we don't see eye-to-eye on this stuff given as we tend to like the same games (all the way back to Nocturne and so forth.) For me, the best RPGs involve lots of imagination on your part. I've never really liked having characters foisted on me, but if your gonna do it, at least do it well. FF11 felt completely vacant to me in this department. I'm forced to accept their ridiculous characters, but ultimately those characters don't really offer anything that's worth clinging too. To me, either go one way or the other. OR make the characters archetypal so your mind can fill in the blanks. *shrugs*

[BryanM]

Now the octopus, I dunno, to render it useful I'd have to arrange a training session of four high characters standing around it in water so it can deliver Eddy to them.

... eddy? They renamed Maelstrom... to eddy....?

The training system really is one big wank. Infinite levels, but you have to grind the exp raw in a masturbatory manner. Might as well have a "party level" and make all the minions set at that level, for the pokemon-esque way it offers up units.

The characters you can create with the bonus items are beyond ludicrous. You get spells that wipe everything you don't like off the board, characters who can't be hit, characters who move like a dozen times in a row, and as a lolertastic cherry on top, you can turn a dude into a sword that adds that dude's stats to the other dude.

Disgaea does actually capture the true essence of these games..

[Obiwanshinobi]

Disgaea does actually capture the true essence of these games..

If by the true essence you mean "develop a bunch of super powerful characters by excessive grinding because you will have to grind anyway, so you can as well grind them levels good for it's the universal solution to all problems you can encounter in the game", then sure.
As I see it, Tactics Ogre is more about making good use of what's at your disposal (I don't have any super dudes with super unique abilities yet, nor any super equipment while we're at it). You could ask why did they they even bother with the experience points and levelling up, but the experience is something that real life soldiers actually achieve on the battlefield (or so I think). That being said, building up (and trying not to lose) morale would be more interesting.

The characters you can create with the bonus items are beyond ludicrous. You get spells that wipe everything you don't like off the board, characters who can't be hit, characters who move like a dozen times in a row, and as a lolertastic cherry on top, you can turn a dude into a sword that adds that dude's stats to the other dude.

Now this sounds like something straight out of Disgaea.
Tactics Ogre is more nerdy at heart if you ask me (which is not to say it's as good as it should be; rather it's a half-baked, generic game built upon a solid engine).

[Ganelon]

Tactics Ogre is more nerdy at heart if you ask me (which is not to say it's as good as it should be; rather it's a half-baked, generic game built upon a solid engine).

Uhh...

[professor ganson]

Disgaea does actually capture the true essence of these games..

Agreed. I do wish at least one of these grinding games would introduce a challenging mode with a scoring system-- something like the scoring system in Fire Emblem that penalizes significantly for taking longer to complete a level and so limits the amount of grinding that a score-conscious player will go for.

[Obiwanshinobi]

I do wish at least one of these grinding games would introduce a challenging mode with a scoring system-- something like the scoring system in Fire Emblem that penalizes significantly for taking longer to complete a level and so limits the amount of grinding that a score-conscious player will go for.

The original Valkyrie Profile (avoid the PSP port; it's the worst of two worlds and then some) effectively has a score system. It's not much of a grinding game (although you can grind in certain location) and the time limit is smoke and mirrors, but each and every encounter is a battle for the score alright.
Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter (BoFV) also rewards technical prowess rather than grinding.

[professor ganson]

Interesting, I'll have to look into those titles.

I should add that I'm a Disgaea fan because I do love the sandbox feel to the game: so many creative options available for completing the levels. Plus I love the look of the game in its PSP iterations. In fact, I'm thinking of playing Disgaea 2 on PSP soon. The cute halloween look is one of my very favorite art styles for gaming.

[CMoon]

Just unlocked sub-classing in EO3. Suddenly the game ramps up in all the crazy shit you can do. New skill/spell permutations that weren't possible before, plus you can make any skill/spell in the game cost 1 tech point (the equivalent of mana.) You have to have one character in your party sacrifice a turn, but damn. Starting to consider the chasers (attacks that chase other attacks) since I can have them for cheap. For instance, this one 'gun' class can shoot a volley into the air one round that hits all enemies the following round. That same round I can make that skill cost one point. The second round I can have another character chase every attack from that volley, and once again, use the skill that makes it only cost one point. Awesome!

[BulletMagnet]

The original Valkyrie Profile (avoid the PSP port; it's the worst of two worlds and then some)

Outta curiosity, what exactly makes "Lenneth" inferior to the original? I know it added in some CG scenes you can't turn off, but I haven't read much else about it offhand...if it's really that much worse it's a shame, since it's a load cheaper to get ahold of.

[sjewkestheloon]

GOG.com has the following for a few dollars each:

Baldur's Gate 1 + TOTSC
Planescape: Torment
Icewind Dale 1 complete
Temple of Elemental Evil

Enough said.

Been playing a fair bit of Phantasy Star Portable 2. Finished the story through with the good ending (not true) and now leveling up online and grinding for gear. Joined a game last night and got put into an Urgent Quest immediately that took us about 1 1/2 hours to finish up with some hard as nails enemies but it put me up 2 levels, increased my Type by 1 level and gave me a ton of new weapons, mostly 10* +.

Also completed my first Challenge mission which was a lot of fun. Fixed loot and levels with a strict time limit makes a change of pace to the constant grind.

Taking a break from Monster Hunter Freedom Unite as Tigrex keeps slapping me down in less than 5 minutes.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Outta curiosity, what exactly makes "Lenneth" inferior to the original?

Personally I didn't play the PSP version, but from what I know:

- they put in the infamous voice acting from the first US localisation, BUT
- none of them improvements of the first US localisation (you will browse through the menus quite a lot, so it's not a minor deal)
- filtered loutishly some of the best pixel art out there
- loadings from UMD are apparently quite long (on the other hand, the original VP CDs are particulary prone to scratching, hence buying used ones is more risky than usual).

Last but not least, the game itself seems not terribly well suited to portable gaming. I found some of those Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V dungeons rather confusing. It wants your whole afternoons of concentratrion. New cutscenes, however, shouldn't hurt, even though there was nothing wrong with the old anime ones.

[TrevHead (TVR)]

Ive been thinking of trying out another PS1 era JRPG but I dont want another repeat giving up half way though like i did with Lunar SSS, due to each encounter taking too long (even the victory scene was too long). I tend to prefer short fast battles like those of the original Phantasy Star games or if the battles are long i like them to be intresting so that they keep me involved like the Tales games or at the very least only have a few battles per dungeon so to not feel grinding

Does anyone have any recomendations?

[Obiwanshinobi]

Ive been thinking of trying out another PS1 era JRPG but I dont want another repeat giving up half way though like i did with Lunar SSS, due to each encounter taking too long (even the victory scene was too long). I tend to prefer short fast battles like those of the original Phantasy Star games or if the battles are long i like them to be intresting so that they keep me involved like the Tales games or at the very least only have a few battles per dungeon so to not feel grinding

Does anyone have any recomendations?

Suikoden I&II have short battles. Frequent random ones, but short. II is one of the best jRPGs out there, but I suggest to play through the original (not too shabby either) first, then start II with a save from the first.
Persona 2: Innocent Sin - dunno how it runs on emulators with this patch, but on the PS2 it's completable. This being Shin MegaTen, the combat is pretty good and not just a filler. I liked it a lot better than Persona 3 FES. No waiting sim in 2, the dungeons are designed etc. Lovely soundtrack, forsooth.
Valkyrie Profile (the US version) - some battles are quite long, but as you play each one for the score, you don't mind. The combat, once you get the hang of it, is ace. No random battles in this one.
Bear in mind that there's a few so called "action RPGs" on the PSX: Alundra, Brave Fencer Musashi, Legend of Mana...

[TrevHead (TVR)]

THX for the tips after checking out a review im gonna give Suikoden 1 a go, i never knew it was a striaght JRPG i always thought it had battles like SRPG (not that i dont like Srpgs as Warsong is one of my fave 16bit games)

As for Alundra ive loved that back in the day with it been the first ARPG i played.

[BryanM]

Suikoden always reminded me a bit of Phantasy Star..

[TrevHead (TVR)]

Suikoden always reminded me a bit of Phantasy Star..

well if thats the case ill absolutley love the game since PS1 and 2 are absolute gems and were the first to do many things. I like the fact that in PS1 the plot wasnt just saving the galaxy but the fact was Alaisis was out for revenge. (stil some dungeans at the end were way too hard, thank god for FAQ) Also the best plot twist in PS 2 is fucking brilliant. JRPG fans always rant about Aerith dieing in FF7 but PS2 was the first to do it. And back in a time when story twists like that just wasnt seen in the UK in games, comics or anything else, as this was b4 anime and manga was introduced to the UK. It just totally blew me away.

Cos i only rented PS2 for a couple of weekends ive never finished it (MD console games were expensive so i rented most of my games) I keep telling myself that ild go back and finish it one day. Still it would be nice if the Sega Ages remake got fan translated, usually i prefer the original but since ill only play a RPG only once i might aswell go for the remake.


Talking about fan translations. Dont you think its about time someone translated Love-de-Lic's Moon RPG Remix Adventure? http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/lovede ... edelic.htm

[Lordstar]

I play a lot of table top RPGS. Thursday is my game night. We just wrapped up Call of cuthlu and now were starting shadow run.

[Ganelon]

Also the best plot twist in PS 2 is fucking brilliant. JRPG fans always rant about Aerith dieing in FF7 but PS2 was the first to do it.

Ha, you need to go beat PSII. Then, you'll see the real plot twist. And you really ought to go play PSIV as well if you haven't already. The game box doesn't lie: PSIV really is the "explosive finale."

As for Suikoden and Phantasy Star? Hmm, well there are a lot of interesting characters, intermeshing chronology, and colorful visuals in both.

[ZOM]

<3 Phantasy Star IV. Unleashing uber-destructive macros is the definition of fun.

[BryanM]

For some reason, dual-wielding boomerangs isn't as cool as you'd think.

.. maybe it was just 'cause it compensated for her lower attack power than the other character.. or mayhap the concept is flawed fundamentally..