Your Favorite RPG

Chrono Cross (I don’t see it as Chrono Trigger 2)



Forgot to mention this the other day. It's not a direct sequel so don't think of it as Chrono Trigger 2.

 

You liked Suikoden IV? Personally, I just couldn't get into it. I think it was the whole ship and ocean centralized theme. And I remember the Rune magic not looking as impressive. Which really bummed me out because Suikoden II was probably my favorite game of all time.

 

Serious lack of Xenogears makes me sad.

I’m surprised at all the suikoden mentions



Yes, Xenogears deserves its honorable mention. And at one point Suikoden was under appreciated but that's really changed over the last couple of years.




Sporadic wrote:
You liked Suikoden IV? Personally, I just couldn’t get into it. I think it was the whole ship and ocean centralized theme. And I remember the Rune magic not looking as impressive. Which really bummed me out because Suikoden II was probably my favorite game of all time.



Yeah, it’s actually the only one I’ve ever played. I’ve heard that the other ones are better but haven’t actually gotten around to trying them. I would agree that the whole ship thing is rather tedious though, there were times I was pressed to continue playing just because of having to sail around everywhere, it gets annoying. But overall I enjoyed the other parts to the game. Far from the best game in the world but I enjoyed it for what it was. Though I’m not sure I’ll be giving it another play through any time soon.

I first tried it ages ago on a demo pack and eventually ended up buying it. Maybe I’ll give II a try if I ever come across it.



You can always use a Playstation emulator and play Suikoden and Suikoden II. It's definitely worth giving them a try one of these days, those two have become very iconic RPGs.



LoD (Legend of Dragoon)

Nuff Said



Also a good game. I still have my black label copy for ps1. My friend and I bought LoD when it originally came out. We used to race to see who could beat the game first with the most overall completion.

Has anyone ever played Legend of Legaia?

 

Legend of Dragoon? Never got around to beating that one. I quit early on but that was because I was not in the mood. I did the same thing the first time in Lunar Silver Story and that one became a favorite.

The Lunar series and Grandia 1 (Grandia II was good too), proved to me that no matter how typical a story maybe, it is the characters that bring it to life.



I still have the Lunar Silver Star Story black label. I got the special edition set when it came out. Came with the OST and a black hardbound instruction manual. Grandia was another great series. I played Grandia originally on the Dreamcast. I loved that game.

The recent game topic in Skype was Golden Sun. I might replay it with Karma to pass some time while I'm sick.

 

I don't remember Golden Sun being stale. Then again I played it back when it originally came out. But I don't remember anything about the dialog being particularly dull. What I mainly liked about it was the djinn combinations for the different abilities and using the psynergy to navigate all the dungeons. It gave the added difficulty while roaming the dungeons instead of just easily passing through them like most RPGs.

Everything after Wild Arms I like. 2 was my favorite. It's another example of using their ARMS and other things to navigate puzzle enriched areas. The others also have their fun points.

Chrono Trigger was just a recipe for success. Square's Dream Team: Hironobu Sakaguchi, the creator of Square's Final Fantasy series; Yuji Horii, a freelance designer and creator of Enix's popular Dragon Quest series; and Akira Toriyama, creator of Dragon Ball. The game still holds up very well even today.

Chrono Cross I did like a lot. Granted the plot isn't very focused and sporadically jumps around at times. And a lot of the fun is in side stories with the other 44 characters. A lot of the side characters actually do have a lot to do with the game though. Maybe not in the grand scheme of things because its main focus is with Serge, Kid and Lynx. But a good deal of the extra characters do deal with progressing the story. And if 45 characters is too much for you then you probably hated Suikoden with its 108+ playable characters. Since there's so many characters and different story routes to take during the games progression you have to play the game at least three times through to get a full completion. Although after the first time you beat it and start a new game plus you get the fastforward button. Where it kind of lacked in story it well than made up for it with the depth in the characters. The world, like in Chrono Trigger, is still vastly unique and full of great artwork for its time. Not to mention its legendary soundtrack which is arguably the best soundtrack on ps1.

Has anyone played Vagrant Story?

 

Ah, yeah Neclord was a good villain. I love how they brought him back for the second one and that his castle becomes your headquarters. And yeah, Luca Blight. Who can forget that guy?



The Suikoden series, mainly 1-3 were legendary in their own right. I don't like comparing games from two different consoles because different things are expected from different eras of gaming.

Vagrant Story was cool. And I really liked how it took place in Ivalice. Final Fantasy XII makes a lot of Vagrant Story references. Yasumi Matsuno claimed during its development that Ivalice, the game world he created when he joined Square in 1995, is a complex world with a very long history and the stories of Vagrant Story, Final Fantasy Tactics, and Final Fantasy XII are said to unfold quite close on the Ivalice map.

Tactics Ogre was something I've watched my cousin play so I have limited memories of it. I hold a special place in my heart for Final Fantasy Tactics and have logged too many hours on that game. It's because I like FF Tactics so much that I will try Tactics Ogre soon.

 

Nice, the Persona series is something I still have to check out as well.