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Hyakki · **02-18-2015, 09:59 PM**

(02-18-2015, 06:40 PM)Tshina Wrote: Legends of Dragoon

I like you.

Edvyn · **02-18-2015, 10:02 PM**

e.y.e divine cybermancy (it counts as a rpg right)
fable TLC, the sequels are trash
deus ex
system shock 2

Kage · **02-18-2015, 10:15 PM**

(02-18-2015, 08:47 PM)TheLastCandle Wrote: but one game stands alone as my all-time favorite. Here's a tribute to it from the great Brentalfloss.

I knew i loved you.

TheLastCandle · **02-18-2015, 11:01 PM**

love u 2 bae <3

Oh man, speaking of Legend of Mana. Last time I visited my brother, I brought some of my PS1 games for him to borrow, and that was among them. My 8 year old nephew (who was at the time in the middle of Ni No Kuni) was fascinated with the jewelcase art, so we fired it up and played a little in co-op. He was completely hooked within minutes.

I think LoM and other sprite-based games (every 16-bit RPG ever, Breath of Fire 3/4, Suikoden, Saga Frontier) have aged so much more gracefully than the blocky 3D visuals of other early PS1-era games. They have a timeless quality to them, and it probably helps that a lot of the indie devs are going with pixel art for their games as well.

Caspar · **02-19-2015, 08:14 AM**

Hm it was hard posting on my phone.
Here are the series and games that I feel most strongly attached to. I feel like rambling, sorry.

Suikoden: I mentioned it all before! My favorites in the series are in this order: II, V, I, III. But all are quite good. No other rpg really quite grasps that political feel and the sense that your actions are relevant within the setting like Suikoden did. Not only that, but it's amazing how much they were able to make me feel for single characters in a cast of literally over a hundred. They could really make you truly hate or love a character on a personal level, and in the older games, they did this using a mediocre translation. S2 especially, replaying it so many times made me realize how many mistakes were made in the localization; it was kind of a testament to how brilliantly resonant the story was that it didn't matter to me at all when I first picked it up.

Vagrant Story: In places where Suikoden was vast and epic, Vagrant story was compact and elegant. A tiny, intimate story most rpgs don't attempt to touch, given that it took place entirely within the span of a day or two, in one location, with a cast no bigger than a typical Shakespearian play. Everything about the game was designed meticulously. It was beautiful for a PS1 game, probably the pinnacle of its graphics, but more importantly every visual choice was made to accentuate the atmosphere, and it was "directed," as if it was a movie, with an eye for dramatic camera angles and scene pacing. The battle and gear system may have perplexed some and frustrated others, but its intense trial and error as well as complexity was really appealing to me and very much unlike most other games of its day. It really feels like a dungeon crawler precursor to some later PS3 era games like Demon Souls in how brutally it punished you for not thinking carefully or learning from your mistakes. The most remarkable thing about the game though is that it's actually an unfinished product-it was intended to be much bigger and a lot of its mechanics went into FF12, which I'm not convinced was better for it, personally.

Wild Arms: I've only played the 3rd-5th, and watched lp and read the story of 2, but it's still a pretty important series to me. Though the storytelling usually isn't that complex, the wild-west elements are really unique and the design team really did an excellent job of making the games feel like an anime. Not just adopting the aesthetic but going so far as to incorporate common plot structure and pacing from a typical popular anime, even having the opening play at the beginning every time you start up the game, but ALSO having an ending play when you quit, as if your play session was one episode. 3 was really aggressive about fighting back against all jrpg trends for reasons I mentioned earlier; it was an awesome game even when the translation was iffy. 4 brought in a really unique and fun battle system and 5 refined it further, with a really colorful aesthetic and simple (almost as subtle as sledgehammer) story that was fun light entertainment. Like almost every game series I enjoy, it has really strong musical work. Also underappreciated: its quality of life mechanics, including more ways to speed up battles or avoid them entirely than probably any other rpg I've played. 5 even allowed you to individually decrease the frequency of a character's voice acting in battles and the field if you found them annoying. That's just ridiculous...

Valkyrie Profile: Great game with a wonderful aesthetic, unique battle system, gameplay and story pacing that reflects the setting, and one of the strongest soundtracks ever created. There's honestly not much I can say about this game other than everyone who likes jrpgs should play it, if only for the uniqueness of the experience. The second game is a bit more of a hit or miss, but I still loved it all the same. The fact that every party member had to die in some way to join your party (not much of a spoiler given that the lead is a valkyrie.) appealed to my tragedy addiction, even if this storytelling method limited how much they could be developed. Also some characters were just useless. I'm looking at you, Grey.

Persona: I'm one of the few who played Eternal Punishment before P3 came out and became hugely popular. I never thought I'd love a disgruntled, middle-aged tap buster and extortionist who wears loud golden suits so much. The high random encounter rate was irritating, but the negotiation system, which I liked in Nocturne and other SMT games, was still fun, and the story involving kotodama (rumors becoming reality) is madly appealing to my modern fantasy sensibilities. I think Persona should be respected as a rare rpg series to not be sci-fi or fantasy; that is something people really take for granted. I just wish I'd played Innocent Sin back then, though there wasn't a port, so that was pretty impossible. It's really only half a story. P3 and P4 were great games and some of my favorite ones, but P2EP still holds a lot of weight with me, mostly because it dealt with adults with believable, modern, adult problems, something you don't see in a lot of games.

I also really liked Xenogears, Tales, and Star Ocean. I played Shadow Hearts Covenant and loved that game as well. I could ramble for ages about these games and pick apart why I liked them again and again and it'd never be enough. If even a little bit of these games enters a newer title, I'm at least somewhat positively disposed towards it.

I have to admit I'm a little disgruntled. I feel that to many in the West, jrpg was defined entirely by FF, yet most of the games I enjoyed avoided the pitfalls that later damaged FF and by extension the jrpg's image in the west. (Though that was IMO also due to aggressive marketing from Western developers.) As someone who never really "got" the more freeform, choose your own adventure style wrpg, I've got a huge bias, to say the least. Games like Baldur's Gate 2 and Fallout were fun in their own ways, but failed to engage me the way a lot of console rpgs did. I guess I was just a sucker for getting railroaded.

SicketySix · **02-19-2015, 08:18 AM**

The Elder Scrolls:Oblivion
The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim
Dragon Age: Origins
Dragon Age 2
Dragon Age: Inquisition
Dragons Dogma
Two Worlds

Caspar · **02-19-2015, 08:21 AM**

(02-19-2015, 08:18 AM)A Wrote: The Elder Scrolls:Oblivion
The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim
Dragon Age: Origins
Dragon Age 2
Dragon Age: Inquisition
Dragons Dogma
Two Worlds

I've been meaning to try Dragon's Dogma. I love that you can't fast travel and you must suffer the dangerous wilderness, especially at night. That sounds really cool.

g0ne · **02-19-2015, 08:32 AM**

Let's see...

Skyrim
Dragon Age: Origins (did not like 2 for some reason :/ )
Persona 4 (haven't played 3)
Shin Megami Tensei 3: Nocturne
Shin Megami Tensei 4
Devil Survivor 2Â
Kingdom Hearts
The World ends with You
Chrono Trigger (still need to finish it! T^T)
The Last Story (this is an absolute gem on the Wii)
Radiant Historia (ohmigosh!!! I LOVED this game!!)
Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate (waiting to buy New 3ds and mh4u)
Pokemon (who could forget Pokemon)
Etrian Odyssey series

I know there's more... Hmm... Let me remember...

Fire Emblem (only played Awakening though)
Breath of Fire 2 (had it on my Gameboy Advance, lost it before I could finish it!!Â Cry

Â )

Kage · **02-19-2015, 11:36 AM**

Ohhh right Xenogears and Wild Arms! D: Suikoden was more of a "duh" moment since others had mentioned before me.

I really enjoy a lot of RPGs but I will still say that I absolutely love, love, love Chrono Trigger and Earthbound.

Those two are forever in my heart type of loves.

I'm sure there are other RPGs I've really enjoyed but I can't quite name them all. There's been a few PSP games that I also enjoyed. Nintendo DS...

Legend of Heroes..
AHHHH GOLDEN SUN HOW COULD I FORGET YOU

Kismet · **02-20-2015, 05:09 AM**

Legend of Dragoon is not only the game that got me into JRPGs...

It's the game I have to thank for even making me a gamer.

Until I came across a demo for it (back when demo collection disks from Toys R Us were a thing), I had always considered video games to be dumb time-wasters for kids that I'd eventually grow out of. But then I encountered LoD... 4 delicious disks with 20 hours' worth of content each. Man, what a fucking ride. It was like... the Wheel of Time of JRPGs.

I will never, ever, EVER forget that game.

Now that my fangirl explosion is done, some others:

Wild ARMs (1, 3, and 5 are my favorites)
Persona (3 and 4)
Star Ocean (3 and 4... I don't care what people say about the plot/terrible dub, I enjoyed The Last Hope)
Eternal Sonata (beautiful game)
The World Ends With You (a DS gem)
Kingdom Hearts (1, 2, and Chain of Memories... Don't care for the other three spin-offs)
Chrono Trigger (should be self-explanatory)
Golden Sun (1 & 2, GBA gems... don't care for the DS one)

Honorable Mentions:

Lost OdysseyÂ --Â SURPRISINGLY good (and DEPRESSING) story undermined by a really sluggish first half, and a combat system some may dislike
Drakengard/Drag-On Dragoon 3Â andÂ Nier (either version) -- Okay, I confess. I haven't played either of these. The gameplay... leaves much to be desired in either, imo. But I adore their plots, characters, and soundtracks. The world building and composition was amazing in both of them.

SicketySix · **02-20-2015, 09:06 AM**

(02-19-2015, 08:21 AM)Caspar Wrote:
(02-19-2015, 08:18 AM)A Wrote: The Elder Scrolls:Oblivion
The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim
Dragon Age: Origins
Dragon Age 2
Dragon Age: Inquisition
Dragons Dogma
Two Worlds
I've been meaning to try Dragon's Dogma. I love that you can't fast travel and you must suffer the dangerous wilderness, especially at night. That sounds really cool.

Oh man, if you like slightly more old school rpgs that don't hold your hand thru the game, you will not be disappointed! Although it's not as hard as Dark Souls, from what I hear.

Maia · **02-20-2015, 09:39 AM**

I really loved a lot of the other ones mentioned in this thread (Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana, etc.), but I think my favorite RPG series is still Suikoden. Heck, I based my entire LS concept around it (partially!) Wink

TheLastCandle · **02-20-2015, 10:00 AM**

Square and Enix have a lot of classic titles just sort of floundering about. FFVII: Crisis Core and Valkyrie Profile have yet to see a digital release, which is terrible. I want to play these on my Vita, especially the latter.

Illusion of Gaia on the SNES was one of my all-time favorite action RPGs, but Enix hasn't seen fit to release it again in any form since. Same with its predecessor, Soul Blazer.

Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door is another favorite. Colorful, beautiful even by today's standards, with plenty of humor and pirate bob-ombs.

[Image: 2436635-sezhy.jpg]

Square's Super Mario RPG was pretty rockin' for its time, but I personally feel TTYD surpassed it in every way.

Finally, I'm glad to see the love for Lost Odyssey in the thread, but sometimes I think I'm the only one who actually liked Blue Dragon. It had a ton of charm, Akira Toriyama-designed characters, and a job-change system that reminded me in some ways of Dragon Quest's. It was one of the first RPGs brought to the 360 and I think it's still the best looking one on the system.

[Image: WFYN3Ri.jpg]

Also, nothing can beat the hilarity of its boss battle song, written by Nobuo Uematsu and sung by Ian Gillan from Deep Purple. An unholy partnership if ever there was one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUjxPj3al5U

Kage · **02-20-2015, 10:27 AM**

I sucked hard at Illusion of Gaia. I'm sorry Will T_T:

I never got into Dragon Quest itself but I enjoyed their Monsters chain.

Breed the very best. Dragons. And ... Tigers? @_@;

Inessa Hara · **02-20-2015, 10:58 AM**

My current favorite RPG's are Square Enix's 'The Last Remnant' and any Bethesda game. (IE:TES or Fallout)

Give me an MMO with guns, warzones, tanks and sci-fi ships with 500+ people fighting all at once and that involves strategy and cunning to win and I will be the happiest MOFO alive.

Also looking forward to Star Citizen. I want 360 degree dog fights in space with the Oculus rift.Â @__@

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RPC has moved! These pages have been kept for historical purposes