So after the wild success of my last blog, I thought I'd give it another go on something that is near and dear to my heart: rpgs! This was kinda inspired by this blog and this one too! I think the majority of gamers nowadays don't necessarily like rpgs because they tend to be slow and involve lots of grinding. Nevertheless, I have basically always been hooked.
The first rpg I ever played was LOZ: Oracle of Seasons for the GBA. I know I missed like every major rpg that came out in the 90s but I had a good reason: My parents didn't like games with magic in it and banned me from playing basically any game they perceived to have magic. As a result I'd end up pretending there wasn't any magic in the game (Dragon Warrior 3 for example, I told my parents I'd only use the non-magical character; it's actually pretty doable until the end of the game) or by saying it wasn't really magic (Golden Sun and its psynergy). Anyway, anyone who has played the game knows that you can transfer a code over to Oracle of Ages which is the only way to kick Gannon's mighty pig ass. So I bought a strategy guide and I remember seeing a transfer code in it, so I put the code in and BAM! Didn't even need Ages anymore to beat up on Gannon thanks to random luck. I did get OoA later on too, and I highly recommend it.
This was the first time I controlled the weather, the second being Red Alert 2
Eventually my parents stopped caring about magic (this also happened to be when I got to read Harry Potter for the first time), and I started really getting involved in rpgs. Growing up I had always been a fan of rts like Command and Conquer, but rpgs took over because I had a console and strategy games and consoles don't mash well. I ended up spending ages 11-15 going through basically every major one that came out for the xbox, included KOTOR 1&2, Sudoki, Jade Empire, and Morrowwind. I also had major anger issues and a tendency to forget to save, so I went through a lot of xbox controllers whenever I lost an hour or two of progress.
Never could decide if I wanted to be good or evil in this game
When I grew older and found out more about the internet, I started using emulators to catch up on a lot of games that I missed playing from the golden age of rpgs. In fact, over the last 6 months I have gone through Chrono Trigger, Chrono Cross, FF7, 8, Secret of Mana, Breath of Fire 2, the original Star Ocean, Star Ocean the Second Voyage just to name a few.
I am currently playing through Final Fantasy 4 + after years, and am planning on doing FF6 next. Something that has really wowed me is how amazing the quality of story is from some of the earlier RPG series. I find myself being drawn in almost fluidly and I think the main reason for this is because there are no graphics or gimmicks that are used to tell the story. When there are system limitations, you can't expect a game to do well unless it is fun to play or draws the audience in. This was really portrayed to me as I went through these games.
I'll give an example from FF4. I'm going to spoil it just in cast you haven't played a game that is almost 20 years old... + Show Spoiler +
So, I load up FF4 and start playing. What's the first thing that happens? You're a bad guy! Not only are you a bad guy, you are the Captain of the bad guys. Not only are you Captain of the bad guys, you kill a bunch of innocent people and destroy a town full of people. It's about this point that you realize the King is corrupt and stop following his orders which makes him get very pissed off at you.
Normally when the main character who does bad things finds out his leader is corrupt, he usually changes right? NOPE NOT CECIL. Instead, Cecil embraces the darkness even more to accomplish his missions. "I'm not supposed to feel a think, I should get used to this darkness inside." Does that sound like the main hero to you?
This is the main hero?
So you basically spend the first 3rd of the game being the bad guy until you realize that darkness is never enough to conquer good at which point you become a paladin yay. The point is this is something that was very original and added a great element to the story telling narrative of the game. Instead of the typical "go here do this" drama that follows an rpg, you have to battle the desire to be evil and stay focused on the task at hand. It really sets the mood and the rest of the game is pretty dark which is unusual for the happy market nowadays. I'd definitely recommend getting it btw
I really wish RPGS could keep the creative story telling that they are known for. Although nowadays since it's more about money (expectedly), the only way rpgs can continue to exist in the mainstream is to have very casual elemts (such as basically being invincible in Fable 3). As a result rpgs are somewhat of a dying breed to the general public. In other words, they are practically dead mainstream. ARPGs are really popular (See Diablo), but the bread and butter ones are gone which makes me sad. This isn't meant as an argument since many ARPGs are just as deep if not deeper than rpgs.
To wrap things up, if you are interested in a few good RPGs that are more current gen., here is a list: Star Ocean 4: The Last Hope Lost Odyssey Fallout 3 Basically any Tales Game.
Wow, "not allowed to play games that contained magic"... I think that excludes basically all good RPGs
Baldurs Gate/Neverwinter Nights: yup, forbidden Diablo: Town portals, walking skeletons, etc. -> forbidden KotoR... well, you could argue that the force is not magic... nah, forbidden The Might and Magic series... yeah, "and Magic" Wizardry series... well, forbidden on the first 6 letters. Realms of Arkania... wait, Arkania... Arcane... forbidden Hmm... let's try RTS: Starcraft: Hight Templars -> forbidden Warcraft: Uhm... yeah, forbidden
Well, at least Fallout doesn't have magic.
I'm happy my parents never really cared about _what_ i played as long as i didn't play too much (which i did anyways).
Good write up. I have always enjoyed RPGs as well, including some MMORPGs too. The Tales games are truly my favorite though, despite having only played Tales of Symphonia and part of Tales of Destiny. I never really understood why parents didn't want their children learning about magic/fantasy type things. It's pretty silly.
Even the main world tune fits well into the mood of FF4.
That said, I prefer FF6 - I think you'll enjoy it a lot when you get to it! For a newer game, I can't recommend Xenoblade enough. It's easily one of the best JRPGs to have come out in the last decade.
FF4 is one of my favorite games of all time. I remember playing it when it was just "Final Fantasy 2" on the SNES. I played that game so much. Then when I was older, I went back and played it again, and the SNES version was so easy. I think I beat the game in like 10 or 15 hours, with my party somewhere between level 20 and level 30. But still, the story of that game really draws you in. It practically invented JRPGs with an actual story, and actual characters.
FF6 took all that stuff and improved it, but FF4 will always hold a special place in my heart.
The best SRPG (strategy roll playing game) of all time is Fire Emblem for the GBA. I remember going pure archer and having my 3 lvl 20 snipers (Rebecca, Will and that one blonde chick) get owned by that wyvern boss with the ridiculous javelin thing. I also remember maxing out Matthew (theif) with 2 boots and various hp boosters (I think he had 56hp) and OHKO-ing everything with silver swords, his special attack animation was BEAST.
On June 12 2012 14:56 mastergriggy wrote: The first rpg I ever played was LOZ: Oracle of Seasons for the GBA.
Thats pretty hilarious, truely have no idea what some parents have going in their heads. My father banned Power Rangers from me but still let me watch R-15, maybe R-18 action movies with him, never figured out the reason.
For me RPG's started from FF9, I had played Link to the Past, obviously Pokemon and some others before it but thats where it really started for me. After that I ventured to play many of the older FF's and picked up random JRPG's for my PS1 whenever I got my hands on one, Grandia and Breath of Fire IV were probably the most memorable ones outside FF.
More recent games that impressed me are Valkyria Chronicles if it counts as an RPG and Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky PSP version which to me felt like I was back in my childhood playing PS1 RPG's for the first time again.
Yeah, but Legend of Zelda is an adventure series, not an RPG series. I'm not sure why you want to call it an RPG considering that almost everything else you mentioned falls into that genre and isn't really similar to a game like Legend of Zelda. But I recently played through Link to the Past again, good times. I had almost forgotten about that Ice Palace thing.
I'm glad they eventually changed their mind but I know I missed out on a lot! Oh well nothing an emulator can't fix.
On June 12 2012 17:58 iTzSnypah wrote: The best SRPG (strategy roll playing game) of all time is Fire Emblem for the GBA. I remember going pure archer and having my 3 lvl 20 snipers (Rebecca, Will and that one blonde chick) get owned by that wyvern boss with the ridiculous javelin thing. I also remember maxing out Matthew (theif) with 2 boots and various hp boosters (I think he had 56hp) and OHKO-ing everything with silver swords, his special attack animation was BEAST.
I have played Fire Emblem, Fire Emblem 2 the Sacred Stones, and the one for the DS. I really like the series as far as srpgs go, but I also really got into Devil Survivor Overclocked and FF Tactics. There are some great ones out there.
On June 12 2012 16:11 Sentenal wrote: FF4 is one of my favorite games of all time. I remember playing it when it was just "Final Fantasy 2" on the SNES. I played that game so much. Then when I was older, I went back and played it again, and the SNES version was so easy. I think I beat the game in like 10 or 15 hours, with my party somewhere between level 20 and level 30. But still, the story of that game really draws you in. It practically invented JRPGs with an actual story, and actual characters.
FF6 took all that stuff and improved it, but FF4 will always hold a special place in my heart.
Honestly I was kind of blown away by 4. After the more recent incarnations of FF, I have come to expect very little from them, and then I played this and I was hooked. I do hear 6 is better (and it usually gets the vote for the best FF of all time).
On June 12 2012 15:25 Morfildur wrote: Wow, "not allowed to play games that contained magic"... I think that excludes basically all good RPGs
Baldurs Gate/Neverwinter Nights: yup, forbidden Diablo: Town portals, walking skeletons, etc. -> forbidden KotoR... well, you could argue that the force is not magic... nah, forbidden The Might and Magic series... yeah, "and Magic" Wizardry series... well, forbidden on the first 6 letters. Realms of Arkania... wait, Arkania... Arcane... forbidden Hmm... let's try RTS: Starcraft: Hight Templars -> forbidden Warcraft: Uhm... yeah, forbidden
Well, at least Fallout doesn't have magic.
I'm happy my parents never really cared about _what_ i played as long as i didn't play too much (which i did anyways).
I took the "It's not magic, it's future technology" approach with Sstarcraft, and it worked. Then again as a kid my parents were pretty much against everything, they wouldn't let me play Tekken 2 because they thought I would beat up my sisters after playing for a while.
On June 12 2012 23:39 Artunit wrote: I urge you to play the Suikoden series in ps1 ( 1 and 2 ). Suikoden 2 is the best jrpg I played so far in terms of storyline.
I've heard good things about these games. I'll have to look into them.
On June 12 2012 17:58 iTzSnypah wrote: The best SRPG (strategy roll playing game) of all time is Fire Emblem for the GBA. I remember going pure archer and having my 3 lvl 20 snipers (Rebecca, Will and that one blonde chick) get owned by that wyvern boss with the ridiculous javelin thing. I also remember maxing out Matthew (theif) with 2 boots and various hp boosters (I think he had 56hp) and OHKO-ing everything with silver swords, his special attack animation was BEAST.
I have played Fire Emblem, Fire Emblem 2 the Sacred Stones, and the one for the DS. I really like the series as far as srpgs go, but I also really got into Devil Survivor Overclocked and FF Tactics. There are some great ones out there.
On June 12 2012 16:11 Sentenal wrote: FF4 is one of my favorite games of all time. I remember playing it when it was just "Final Fantasy 2" on the SNES. I played that game so much. Then when I was older, I went back and played it again, and the SNES version was so easy. I think I beat the game in like 10 or 15 hours, with my party somewhere between level 20 and level 30. But still, the story of that game really draws you in. It practically invented JRPGs with an actual story, and actual characters.
FF6 took all that stuff and improved it, but FF4 will always hold a special place in my heart.
Honestly I was kind of blown away by 4. After the more recent incarnations of FF, I have come to expect very little from them, and then I played this and I was hooked. I do hear 6 is better (and it usually gets the vote for the best FF of all time).
If you wanna try out more older Fire Emblem games, the good ones are all translated if you want to play them on an emulator. "Fire Emblem" and "Fire Emblem 2 The Sacred Stones" are actually the 7th and 8th installations in the series. They just didn't release any of the prior ones in America, but their roms got fan-made translation patches. Fire Emblem 4 is considered to be one of the very best, and Fire Emblem 6 was good too (its the one with Roy from SSBM, is set to happen after the events in FE7 (the one with Eliwood/Hector/Lyn).
Beyond that, Ogre Battle 64 is my favorite Strategy RPG of all time. Its really good, outclasses both Fire Emblem and FFT imo.
Also, I'm pretty much sure that if you are blown away by Final Fantasy 4, 6 will blow you away too. Look forward to it.
FF5 is alright too if you want to play, and its job system is interesting, but its not as good plot-wise as 4 or 6.
EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/zQx0q.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/7FaQ5.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/uOA2r.jpg)
Man this is like a trip down memory lane haha
