2006-10-20T15:12:00.000-07:00

It....just....won't....stop.

2006-10-09T21:50:00.000-07:00

Will this crap never end? Seriously.

2006-09-11T20:48:00.000-07:00

RPGs…a genre that I can say I have definitely grown out of. I used to be enthralled by anything that involved evil empires, spunky protagonists and menu based combat, but now not so much. I think the main reason is I simply don’t have the time. I played the most RPGs when I was in middle school and early high school. Back then, my only obligation then was school (which wasn’t very difficult) and mowing the lawn once a week. Nowadays, I have much more school work, a fairly time consuming job, a girlfriend and a nagging desire to have a social life. That kinda cuts into the time I could spend leveling up spiky haired heroes. It doesn’t help that RPGs are much more time consuming than they ever were. Also, I don’t really know what happened, but somewhere along the line, the storylines in these games just became kinda…lame? A combination of angsty, unlikable heroes and too much religious symbolism (see also: Grandia II) helped kill my interest.

Despite all of my negativity towards RPGs nowadays, there are a few absolute classics that are among my favorite games of all time. Most are games you will probably recognize, but I’ve managed to play a couple weird things that people rarely think of when they hear the words “classic RPG” Here’s my top 10:

#10 Ogre Battle 64: Person of Lordly Caliber

The N64 certainly was not a developer’s first choice for RPGs. Thanks to the overall lack of storage space, most RPGs went to the Playstation. But what exactly DID they do with that extra storage space? Lots and lots of FMV. Enix managed to create a kick butt game that didn’t have a bit of CG movies in it. OB64 is a strategy RPG in which you control several small groups of warriors on a battlefield. When you run into an enemy unit, both sides attack and the side that took the most damage is forced to retreat. It’s incredibly deep with over two dozen types of units, hundreds of items and innovative alignment and reputation systems that determine what characters you can recruit, what path through the story you take and ultimately which ending you get. At first, OB64 looks daunting with tons of menus and icons, but a very useful help feature (just press START anywhere) that explains every feature of the game painlessly. Lots of games could benefit from features like this.

#9 Dragon Warrior

See all of your Final Fantasies, your Chrono Triggers, your Xenosagas? It all started here. Dragon Warrior was the first true console RPG and it set the basic framework for what we consider an RPG today. It is very primitive however. To give you an idea of how barebones DW is, the story is not any more complex than “kill the Dragonlord and save the princess,” all the battles are simply your character versus a single enemy, and the two offensive spells of the game are called HURT and HURTMORE. The game is addicting though. DW’s appeal does not come from reaching the next plot point or watching an FMV cutscene, the appeal comes from killing a hundred wolves so you finally have enough money to buy an axe so you can kill them in one hit! This game takes a little getting used to (it’s pretty slow), but it’s surprisingly rewarding.

#8 Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars

In 1996, Nintendo and Square teamed up for a very surprising and ambitious project: to make a Role Playing Game based on the Mario universe. Mario had been thrust into different genres before, but never anything like this. It seemed wonderful and completely sacrilegious at the same time. As one can imagine the competent minds at Square and Nintendo pulled it off quite well, putting ten years of Mario lore into a well crafted RPG. It introduced the concept of Timed Hits (pressing the A button right before you attack to increase the damage) and special commands used during magic attacks to make battles more interactive. It also had very witty dialogue (a rarity for the time), and great looking graphics (few games pull off prerendered graphics this well). I only have one complaint: the Mario universe is gigantic, with tons and tons of interesting characters, so why do we need to introduce new ones like Mallow and Geno? And where the hell is Luigi?

#7 Paper Mario: The 1000 Year Door

Mario makes the list twice in a row! It’s none too surprising considering how excellent it is. PM’s most interesting feature is it takes the action game aspect (i.e. timed hits) of Super Mario RPG and takes it further. For example, in the Paper Mario series, you can jump on enemies or use your partners’ special abilities in the overworld to get a preemptive strike. Paper Mario’s biggest strength probably lies in the story in dialogue. Seriously, PM: TTYD has some of the wittiest written dialogue this side of Earthbound. It makes actually WANT to talk to all the NPCs, AND use your partner Goombella to give you the background information on each NPC (and trust me, there’s a lot of them). The story, which culminates in Princess Peach getting possessed by a demon (SPOILER ALERT! YOU HAVE JUST READ A SPOILER!), is really dark. You have to see it to believe it.

#6 Final Fantasy VI

A popular favorite among RPG nerds. FFVI(aka FFIII) has been creating fanboys out of gamers since 1994.….It’s one of the first RPGs whose story went beyond a simple “good vs. evil concept. For the first time, the story became the main focus in a Final Fantasy game. It’s no slouch in other departments either. Thirteen selectable characters each with unique abilities, and you better use them all because the final dungeon requires every person in your party. The battle system was great too; each character has a unique ability. Who could forget Sabin’s special moves done with fighting game motions, or Setzer’s slot machine attack? FFVI is good. Really good, but not without a few big flaws. The first half of the game is some of the best RPG goodness you’ll ever find, but the second half of the game (that is very open ended) feels very disconnected from the rest of the game. It ends up being just one sappy scene after another. Also, there are so many exploits and glitches that make the game really easy. I’m not trying to hate or anything, it’s just a few blemishes on a great game.

#5 Shining Force II

It’s hard for me to like a strategy RPG. Especially turn based one. Most of them are far too complicated for their own good, and you can get screwed over if you’re not careful. Fortunately, SFII remains simple yet challenging. Think chess, but with RPG conventions (i.e. stats) and you have a basic idea of what the game is like. You get to build an army of over thirty characters consisting of centaurs, archers, werewolves, magicians and more. Nothing about the game is really standout spectacular. The story is kinda uninspired, the graphics are cute but not mind-blowing, same for the music. What makes SF II great in the end is the simple, but addicting gameplay. Some of the battles might take a while but after a short break, you’ll be eager to head back into things.

#4 Secret of Mana

Secret of Mana is one of those games that probably are not that good in the spectrum of RPGs but that poison known as nostalgia has tainted my opinion of the game. SoM could be classified as an “action- RPG.” About the only difference between this and a regular RPG is that you walk up to your enemies and hit them rather than just choosing options from a menu. Radical. Another interesting feature of SoM is that it’s multiplayer! Your two companions can be controlled by humans if you so with. And you probably should find some friends, because the computer in this game is braindead. This game is yet another victim of Square’s “courageous boy and friends defeat an evil empire” cliché, but still manages to be entertaining.

#3 Chrono Trigger

Chrono Trigger was meant to be a blockbuster hit. It is the culmination of a developer dream team that was made up of developers, artists and musicians from Final Fantasy, Dragon Warrior and Secret of Mana. CT has all the markings of a great SNES RPG. Beautiful graphics and music, a fast paced, gripping plot and a battle system that is simple but rarely boring. Fortunately, CT brings some new things to the table, like the time traveling aspect of the plot and the ability to combine special attacks with your party members (which produces some pretty awesome results). The time travel gimmick of the game is implemented pretty well, but isn’t without its plot holes(which are pretty unavoidable when you think about time travel). Chrono Trigger isn’t especially deep on any level, but it just looks, sounds and plays so damn good that you won’t care.

#2 Final Fantasy IV

FFIV (AKA FFII) is a very special game for me. It was the first RPG I ever really played. It was pretty revolutionary too. The story had something RPGs at the time lacked : drama. At its heart, FFIV was a simple good vs. evil plot, but characters would argue, fall in love, leave your party and even die as a part of the storyline. Nowadays, most of the story comes off as pretty predictable, clichéd and hokey but back in 1991, it blew the minds of the gaming world. Scenes like Cecil’s ascension to Paladin status or Tellah’s valiant sacrifice are burned into my memory. FFIV also introduced Active Time Battle system here which basically meant that battles kept going even when you were making decisions on your menu, forcing you to be quick. FFIV is a little rough around the edges, but it still manages to be completely awesome in every way, from the revolutionary, character driven storyline to the ATB system.

#1 Earthbound

Ah, my personal favorite RPG of all time. Largely ignored by critics in its day due to its simple graphics and even more battle system. One of the main points of interest about this game is that it takes place in a modern time, unlike most RPGs which take place in a fantasy or sci fi era. Thus, instead of drinking potions to restore health, you eat a burger. Instead of riding on an airship, you take a bus. For some reason, normally mundane things become interesting when they’re in a video game. Earthbound has this weird, indescribable charm about it. Not everyone “gets” it, but for those who do, EB quickly becomes one of their favorite games. The plot is not very complex, the gist of it is that four kids have to stop an alien. It seems simple and childish, but it ends up being very moving via the dialogue and music. If the ending of the game doesn’t have some sort of effect on you, then you might just not be human.

2006-08-29T10:54:00.000-07:00

Well, it had to happen. School came along and before you know it, I had two hours between my classes with jack crap to do. So why not start up this again? Like my old blog, almost everything is gonna revolve around my favorite pastime- playing video games. Hopefully, I have enough time to actually put some decent work into this.

I've been playing lots of fighting games recently. Well, I've always played lots of fighting games, ever since I bought Gamepro's Street Fighter II Turbo guide and learned how to do my first two-in-one, I've been addicted. My interest comes and goes in cycles, but I bought Street Fighter Alpha Anthology (great game!) during the summer and it got me hooked all over again. To be quite honest though, I'm sick of not having any real competition. A majority of the fun in fighting games comes from playing against living, thinking opponents. Sure, I can find competition, but I'm leagues ahead of them. I'm not bragging or anything, I'm pretty sure I'd get my butt whupped against someone who knew what they were doing. Actually, playing scrubs is making my game WORSE. For example: jumping in randomly is usually a high risk strategy. You're liable to get anti-aired most of the time against someone who knows what they are doing, so it's better to stay on the ground. But if most of my opponents don't even BLOCK my jump-ins, what should stop me?

Street Fighter Alpha 3's Dramatic Battle mode

It doesn't help that the AI in most fighters is balls. Hyper Street Fighter 2(PS2) is especially guilty of this. Characters like Guile don't have to charge to do their special moves and when the difficulty is turned up so is the amount of damage that is done to me! That seems like an artificial way to pump up the challenge doesn't it? Few developers have went out of their way to make games with good AI. Virtua Fighter 4 is kind of an exception to this, with it's AI based on ACTUAL TOP PLAYERS. How come more games don't do that? Of course, it's also true that the "human factor" is pretty much impossible for AI mimic at this point. Still, I feel like developers could be doing better than they are, but in a genre that is much more about player vs. player competition, does it really matter? You don't really see developers putting a lot of work into the "bots" of FPS games.

Virtua Fighter 4

The arcade scene around here is pretty nonexistant and getting together with people who can actually play around here is a pain in the butt. One of my few realistic options would be Xbox Live. I used to not be the biggest fan of the Xbox, but there isn't much of a fighting game scene around here. There are plenty of fighting games availible on Live, maybe I should give it a closer look.

Sam's Game Blog