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I’ve been thinking about this a bit recently (especially what with playing Growlanser:HOW and struggling with Stella Deus recently).
In standard RPGs I’ve more or less decided that combat systems can be nice and add replay value, but the story is often what keeps me going.
In Strategy or Tactical RPGs more often it’s the combat system. FFT’s story was long, confusing and often contained a lot of stupid fluff (Malak/Rafa, Mustadio, etc) that wasn’t really compelling. I kept playing anyway ’cause combat was fun.
When I tried playing Shining Force, everything was too random for me. Double-hits occurring at the worst times, spell criticals, fudging on turn order calculations… it was too unpredictable.
I’ve played Disgaea, SF, Vandal Hearts 2 and La Pucelle Tactics and didn’t really enjoy them. I remember liking SF2 a lot, and Stella Deus is cool but really grind-heavy.
So I was wondering: What are your favorite ones or some good ones to try?
My top TRPGs are probably FFT, Growlanser: HOW (so far), FE:PoR, Saiyuki and Vandal Hearts 1. I liked all of them, but they each have little issues holding them back.
Hmm, this is tough to quantify in my mind. They all have their advantages / drawbacks, but the early ones I probably enjoyed best even if they aren’t as refined as newer ones. You’ve listed pretty much all of the ones I enjoy.
It definitely starts with the SF’s for me. I remember loving SF1 early in the genesis days but SF2 was the real prize. Plus the SF1 I always used to rent had a dead battery so I’d always get to chapter 2 or 3 and get screwed and have to start over when I turned the game off.
There is definitely randomness with these games in terms of turn order and the double attacks / misses. That’s all part of the beauty in my mind – sure you can feel snakebit at times but it’s rewarding getting those double hits yourself to kill an enemy at a vital time. In contrast with FFT you can totally script in your mind ahead of time who will go and when they will go. I think you need that random turn order otherwise it can become too predictable. SF just makes you become more conservative since it is harder in that sense that you can have a full life character get double hit (maybe even when he should have went before the enemy that hit him).
Anyway SF2 was great because it was much more of a RPG than the first one. Meaning it wasn’t just go from one battle to the next – story was a lot more prominent and there were far more side quests / characters to get. Plus the AI is light years ahead of the SF1 AI – in the SF1 AI for example you could get two spaces away from Balbazak and he’ll never move that one space to get to you. SF2 however enemies would have a range where they would pursue you, which you could still figure out if you were smart but it’s much less on an advantage for you. SF2 also keeps track of kills / deaths which is nice. And I really like the structured classes.
I wish Shining Force 3 would have came here. Sounded great…SF CD had some challenging gameplay and was long, but it was far too limited in story with no towns or anything to explore, just battle to battle.
Vandal Hearts is like that but happens to be a personal favorite of mine. I actually find the story interesting enough, despite the fact that you never walk around with Ash – this is a straight TRPG, from one battle to the next. The promotion system is a perfect combination of structure / freedom with two different paths for everyone. The Trials of Toroah are a decent enough ending sidequest even if it can be a bit tedious at times, and basically impossible if you don’t know which items to search for. Definitely a rewarding ending turning Ash into a Vandalier, being able to do anything.
Saiyuki was probably the most visually pleasing TRPG I’ve played and had a lot more depth to it and less linearity than Vandal Hearts or FFT. The Were option was interesting and the main hero being a Monk / Healer was an interesting twist from the usual completely dominant hero.
Growlanser might be the best JRPG / TRPG balance I’ve seen. The story is active enough, you don’t feel like you have to grind too much, and the gameplay is smooth and automatic if you want it to be. Missions require strategy and efficiency – plenty of times you’ll have to run ahead and take hits for villagers / NPC’s or end up having to cure them constantly.
Well I almost forgot Ogre Battle. Haven’t played Tactics Ogre but I hear that is considered best overseas pretty much, and definitely favorable to FFT. Anyway, March of the Black Queen on PSX was pretty fun especially the times where I didn’t ruin my alignment. It’s hard to keep up with all of the 40-50 allies in your units so if I put the game down for an extended period of time it’d be hard to get back into but the 2 or 3 times I played through it was a good time.
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Huo Hu's Adventure started Destiny of an Emperor hackingHow about the static/dynamic games?
i.e. static would be something like Vandal Hearts, where you’re pretty much either actively battling or preparing to battle.
Whereas dynamic would be something like Growlanser, where you can move around freely as long as you’re not especially busy with something.
I’m not sure where Shining Force, FFT or GL2 fit in. One of the things I particularly disliked about GL2 was that it felt too stilted; the out-of-battle portion felt sort of tacked on. SF is sort of the same way, in that there are only a couple things you do between battles; look for characters and buy new equipment. Not much story and no side-quests. FFT is more balanced.
I think this is a question of flows (see this review) (/blatant plug). Now I want to take a page from Jay’s book and write up flows showing why I don’t enjoy some TRPGs :)
Although I like dynamic systems, some more static ones I work fine with. Warsong and DL have slower-paced battles so I’m fine with their mental clutter. In fact, no equipment in Warsong – battle preparations take 5 minutes at most. But half an hour or more of moving characters across a desert (lookin’ at you, SF) and THEN, after that, having to worry about character placement when most chars can only move 2 spaces… is not fun.
Oh hey, for some reason I didn’t see you responded to this.
You make some good points about dynamic / static rpg’s, and flow in general. Looking at it that way it’s a bit easier for me to distinguish between games.
Static RPG’s can give you a consistently good game but dynamic SRPG’s that have RPG elements also seem to be the ones that jump out at me most, like SF2 in the old days and more recently Growlanser HoW.
SF 1 is definitely very raw and slow in it’s actions, something I take for granted when I play on emulator because the speedup button masks a lot of those flaws (traveling in the deserts is just as bad in SF2 for knights, archers, etc). FFT to me always seemed static – sure there are more ‘story’ scenes throughout and side quests (at the end at least) but it’s still battle to battle with even more generic characters / personality’s than SF1.
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Huo Hu's Adventure started Destiny of an Emperor hackingHoly crap, there are actually other people who have played Saiyuki.
I love TRPGs, though I tend to take forever with games like Fire Emblem, where if a character reaches 0 HP, they actually die, since I try to get all the Gaiden stages done and keep all characters alive. In fact, I just got Jeanne D’Arc for the PSP about eight hours ago. It has some interesting elements to it so far, though I am only on the first chapter out of five I believe.
Yea I’ve heard good things about that game. Nothing revolutionary but definitely sounds fun – even if Jeanne seems way overpowered, since most hero-type characters are.
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Huo Hu's Adventure started Destiny of an Emperor hackingI loved saiyuki,
I have been thinking about picking up Jeanne, but have been to engulfed in finishing persona 3 and aedis eclipse, GOC. I however have to throw the SNES ogre battle ion the mix as my hands down favorite strategy rpg "like" game I loved this game from the first time I played it, 12+ years ago until now.
Aedis Eclipse! So that was the PSP SRPG I heard about that sounded sort of interesting.
How is it? That and Tactics, and to a lesser extent Jeanne have been tempting me to get a PSP…
lordyuanshu said:
Yea I’ve heard good things about that game. Nothing revolutionary but definitely sounds fun – even if Jeanne seems way overpowered, since most hero-type characters are.
ACtually, Jeanne is supposed to be an above average stat character, who only becomes overpowered when she activates her armlet, which is kinda like the Were ability in Saiyuki, and there are a couple of other who have armlets as well, so she isn’t God-like in that respect.
truth
Were ability is cool. Well that’s a little more respectable since she’s just overpowered with that.
I am playing Shining Force II currently and am getting close to the end. Life is fun with Pegasus Knights.
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Huo Hu's Adventure started Destiny of an Emperor hackingFor some strange reason, I take great joy in killing the English and their demon allies in Jeanne, and I happen to be part English.
Aedis eclipse is pretty good man, I have both, the 2nd one is called aedis eclipse: GOC and the first is just called generation of chaos, the 2nd one is really long, there all 3 stories to play and they don’t really intertwine at all, it is quite enjoyable though.
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