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Levantine posted:This a thousand times. PSIV is probably among my five favorite RPGs of all time. It's just so good for the period and is just the best distillation of old school Phantasy Star that exists. The music is awesome, the graphics are amazing for the time and the game is really long and has some cool story hooks. How is it if you've tried playing earlier games and they're just too archaic to enjoy?
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Apr 16, 2012 13:40
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Sakurazuka posted:How is it if you've tried playing earlier games and they're just too archaic to enjoy? PSIV is a lot less archaic and very very playable. The only real problem is that it makes like a trillion callbacks to I and II. You can play it without having played through those but it does lessen the experience a little as IV is the culmination of the franchise.
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Apr 16, 2012 13:42
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Sakurazuka posted:How is it if you've tried playing earlier games and they're just too archaic to enjoy? That I can't say really. I grew up with a Colecovision and got a NES when they were new so I've been playing since Dragon Warrior/Final Fantasy. I think mechanically it plays pretty well with a minimum of tedium but I'm not sure what your line is. The game starts pretty quickly though with a minimum of town exploration/talking before you head to your first dungeon. Combat is turn based with you selecting actions at the top of the round that execute based on speed. You can combo some abilities to make really powerful spells as well. PSIV came at the tail end of the 16 bit era so it's not as archaic as some. It's worth a try though if you have any love for that era at all.
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Apr 16, 2012 13:44
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Levantine posted:That I can't say really. I grew up with a Colecovision and got a NES when they were new so I've been playing since Dragon Warrior/Final Fantasy. I think mechanically it plays pretty well with a minimum of tedium but I'm not sure what your line is. I would say, more than anything, the big bar to enjoyment for PS is the spell names and the fact that they're not explained in-game. PS2 came with a big ol' foldout sheet of what everything did if I recall, but without that you're stuck trying to puzzle out or remember a lot of obscure spell names.
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Apr 16, 2012 13:50
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ImpAtom posted:I would say, more than anything, the big bar to enjoyment for PS is the spell names and the fact that they're not explained in-game. PS2 came with a big ol' foldout sheet of what everything did if I recall, but without that you're stuck trying to puzzle out or remember a lot of obscure spell names. I agree with that. I remember that sheet! PS2 was such a huge game at the time and was so different from anything else. And it was hard as hell too! It didn't rely on that sort of D&D inspiration and familiarity that Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest did and they went all in with creating a unique universe, spells included. EDIT: PS2 was extremely punishing. It had labyrinth style dungeons and extremely limited resources. I remember one of the early dungeons close to the starting town where god forbid if you run into a group of 3 or more Blaster enemies on the top floor. You would just plain die. Shortly after that was the weather control dungeon, Jesus Christ and don't get me started on the ice planet space port. But it was fun at the time! I remember having this weird green strategy guide that had maps in it and the game was still hard as poo poo. I can't remember if that came with the game or if I bought it separately though. Levantine fucked around with this message at 13:57 on Apr 16, 2012 |
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Apr 16, 2012 13:54
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ImpAtom posted:I would say, more than anything, the big bar to enjoyment for PS is the spell names and the fact that they're not explained in-game. PS2 came with a big ol' foldout sheet of what everything did if I recall, but without that you're stuck trying to puzzle out or remember a lot of obscure spell names. Honestly I think this is what did it for me, plus the lack of direction. I'm usually happy with most 16-bit era RPG's (the earliest game I can think of I enjoyed is FF 4, but that could be my familiarity with the series glossing over the rough edges), PS 2 felt more like something that belonged to the generation before.
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Apr 16, 2012 13:55
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Levantine posted:I agree with that. I remember that sheet! PS2 was such a huge game at the time and was so different from anything else. And it was hard as hell too! It didn't rely on that sort of D&D inspiration and familiarity that Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest did and they went all in with creating a unique universe, spells included. It came with the game, at least in the US version. Can't say I blamed 'em in that case.
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Apr 16, 2012 14:00
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Sakurazuka posted:Honestly I think this is what did it for me, plus the lack of direction. I'm usually happy with most 16-bit era RPG's (the earliest game I can think of I enjoyed is FF 4, but that could be my familiarity with the series glossing over the rough edges), PS 2 felt more like something that belonged to the generation before. PSIV still has the best RPG feature that never made it to later eras for whatever reason: talking. You can talk to your party at any time and they'll tell you exactly what your next objective is and what you're supposed to be doing. I can't tell you how many times I've started an RPG, gotten sidetracked by whatever, and come back to it forgetting what I was supposed to be doing.
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Apr 16, 2012 16:10
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I actually just played PSIV for the first time a handful of months ago. It was a lot of fun and made me nostalgic for that era. I did look up all of the fusion combinations ahead of time since otherwise there's no way to really know which ones to use. I do agree more JRPGs need a shooting the poo poo option. Tales games have skits which are nice, and of course several Dragon Quests allow you to talk to your party while you muck around. Even the DS remake of FFIV got in on that action.
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Apr 16, 2012 16:22
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All this PSIV talk has me wanting to play it again! It was the game that got me into RPGs back in the 90s. I can still remember playing it on Sega Channel back when I was a kid  . It's too bad that the Phantasy Star series turned into an action RPG series. I'd love to see some more turn based Phantasy Star (or just more turn based RPGs in general  ).
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Apr 16, 2012 16:24
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I haven't been following up on The Witcher 2 on Xbox 360, since I own the PC version. But Steam is downloading an update as we speak, so I'm wondering if that means we're getting the extra content from the 360 version. If so, what is the content? Again, haven't been keeping up on the console version, so sorry if this is old news.
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Apr 17, 2012 00:30
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I went back through Phantasy Star 4 on my Virtual Console about a week or so ago. I really wish someone would do a clean up translation in areas. Still a good game, but yeesh.
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Apr 17, 2012 00:47
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iastudent posted:So this weekend was the new planned date for the new copies of Pier Solar to ship out. I wonder how that's going. What was the good news?
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Apr 17, 2012 01:24
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ImpAtom posted:PSIV is a lot less archaic and very very playable. The only real problem is that it makes like a trillion callbacks to I and II. You can play it without having played through those but it does lessen the experience a little as IV is the culmination of the franchise. Corrosion posted:I went back through Phantasy Star 4 on my Virtual Console about a week or so ago. I really wish someone would do a clean up translation in areas. Still a good game, but yeesh.
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Apr 17, 2012 01:45
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SolidSnakesBandana posted:What was the good news? The rest of the email they sent to me: quote:There seem to be some misunderstanding about the shipping fee. It shall be paid when the item is ready to be shipped, something which was written, but perhaps not bold enough. We charge 6usd for shipping.
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Apr 17, 2012 01:51
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Primoman posted:I haven't been following up on The Witcher 2 on Xbox 360, since I own the PC version. There's extended areas and an extended ending. That is what the update is.
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Apr 17, 2012 01:53
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So Pandora's Tower came out today in Australia, and probably Europe as well. I've been thinking of getting it just on being a RPG, but has anyone here got it? I kinda want to get some opinions of it before I buy it. Edit: poo poo sorry just found the topic. Still may as well leave it here in case any other Aus or Eurogoons just found out about it today like me.
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Apr 17, 2012 13:22
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Diogines posted:I missed out on the entire era of first person party dungeon crawlers ala legends of Grimrock. The only ones I ever played were Legends of Arkania and Wizardry 8. What games in the style of Legends of Grimrock should I try out? I want more games like this, though more story would be nice. I'll probably get flack for this but Shining in the Darkness has a pretty good story and is a fun dungeon crawler.
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Apr 17, 2012 13:54
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flyboi posted:I'll probably get flack for this but Shining in the Darkness has a pretty good story and is a fun dungeon crawler. No! You're totally on point with this. It's a bit of a rough game due to its age but it really is a lot of fun! I like its pseudo-sequel, Shining the Holy Ark as well, but it sure is hard to relive the Saturn days. On the SNES side I always enjoyed Arcana as well. It had a really good soundtrack.
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Apr 17, 2012 14:02
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Levantine posted:On the SNES side I always enjoyed Arcana as well. It had a really good soundtrack. Arcana was one of my favorite console dungeon crawlers growing up. It has its frustrating moments when you're first playing it (like that drat ice cave), but it's a pretty decent game overall. Speaking of the soundtrack, the guy that worked on it, Jun Ishikawa, is also the composer for the Kirby series and several songs in the game have a stark similarity to something that you'd hear in a Kirby game. Which is probably also why the soundtrack is good.
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Apr 17, 2012 14:35
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iastudent posted:Arcana was one of my favorite console dungeon crawlers growing up. It has its frustrating moments when you're first playing it (like that drat ice cave), but it's a pretty decent game overall. That Ice Cave is probably the high-water mark for difficulty. Everything gains status effects and enemies hit super hard and you don't have a full party for most of it I think. I did not know that about the composer though. I'll have to look up Kirby music!
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Apr 17, 2012 14:44
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Levantine posted:That Ice Cave is probably the high-water mark for difficulty. Everything gains status effects and enemies hit super hard and you don't have a full party for most of it I think. The Ice Cave sucks primarily for 3 reasons. 1) As you already stated, you don't get a full party, something which you would've had the luxury of in the previous dungeon. 2) The only new party member you get is a physical attacker with very little in the way of spells, and strength-wise he's not all that much better from the main character. 3) The cherry on top is the cave itself. Lots of long, twisting paths that lead nowhere and serve no purpose other than to wear you down.
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Apr 17, 2012 15:26
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Philip Rivers posted:Answering my own question: Phantasy Star IV. This game loving rules, don't know why I haven't played it before. Yes. It really, really is great. I'd love a hack that increases the walking speed by 50% or so, that would be awesome. I've put so many hours into this game and never finished it. I reached what I *thought* was the final battle but just couldn't win. I ground out some more levels, fought again, couldn't win. This happened enough times for me to give up on it (And this was in 1999)I then sunk quite a few more hours into it in 2008, picking it up again. Didn't finish it either... now I have it again on PS3, maybe I'll end up finishing it at last... I tried PS3, but man... it just didn't grab me.
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Apr 17, 2012 15:41
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BadAstronaut posted:Yes. It really, really is great. I'd love a hack that increases the walking speed by 50% or so, that would be awesome. I believe PSIII was made by a different team and it really shows. I'm not sure what they were going for but the game is a mechanical mess in my opinion. I liked what they were going for with the whole "Generations of Doom" but the execution was terrible.
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Apr 17, 2012 15:45
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BadAstronaut posted:Yes. It really, really is great. I'd love a hack that increases the walking speed by 50% or so, that would be awesome. Actually Phantasy Star Collection on the Saturn has this. After turning down the walk speed to normal in Phantasy Star 2 I couldn't possibly imagine how someone could bear to play it in is original incarnation. (the Saturn collection was my first exposure to the series)
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Apr 17, 2012 16:41
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Levantine posted:I believe PSIII was made by a different team and it really shows. I'm not sure what they were going for but the game is a mechanical mess in my opinion. I liked what they were going for with the whole "Generations of Doom" but the execution was terrible. Two ways to tell really easily the game is a mess outside of a terrible difficulty curve: 1) There is a unique, although it does not let you continue, response to a glitch early in the game of using a teleport item to escape a jail cell early in the game. You can, despite this foresight, still completely skip the second act of the game by doing the exact same thing. 2) The final boss of the game is just hanging out in a generic treasure chest. You wander the dungeon and then open a seemingly normal treasure chest and boom, final boss.
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Apr 17, 2012 16:45
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PS4 hasn't aged perfectly, but it has done so pretty well. The lack of a run button is a little annoying, but they were kind enough to let you crank the talk and fight speeds, which rules. It's also absolutely gorgeous and has a rad soundtrack, so I guess what I'm saying is that it's easy enough to overlook the mediocre translation.
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Apr 17, 2012 23:02
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Philip Rivers posted:PS4 hasn't aged perfectly, but it has done so pretty well. The lack of a run button is a little annoying, but they were kind enough to let you crank the talk and fight speeds, which rules. It's also absolutely gorgeous and has a rad soundtrack, so I guess what I'm saying is that it's easy enough to overlook the mediocre translation. I seem to recall that on the PS2, Sega released remakes of at least PSI & II, not sure if they did IV. I'd have liked to see that stateside. Also the music being awesome is spot on. Dark Force's theme is really menacing and is one of the better boss themes in RPGs period. It helps that rear end in a top hat really backs it up by being tough as poo poo.
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Apr 17, 2012 23:27
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Levantine posted:I seem to recall that on the PS2, Sega released remakes of at least PSI & II, not sure if they did IV. I'd have liked to see that stateside. They also did 1, 2, and 3 on a single GBA cart. From what I can glean, it was all 4 on Saturn/PS2 (Japanese only, however).
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Apr 17, 2012 23:56
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ImpAtom posted:There's extended areas and an extended ending. That is what the update is. There's also about 100 small fixes and balance issues. I've started replaying it since the EE patch came out and for those who haven't got a pc and have a 360 get this game. If New Vegas didn't exist I would say it's the best western rpg that's been released on a console, but with New Vegas it's tied at first place in my book.
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Apr 17, 2012 23:59
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Levantine posted:I seem to recall that on the PS2, Sega released remakes of at least PSI & II, not sure if they did IV. I'd have liked to see that stateside. Yeah, you're thinking of Phantasy Star Generation 1 and 2 -- a PSIV remake was planned as well but ended up being cancelled. Oyster was going to translate and LP Generation 1 but then real life poo poo happened and he didn't; I was helping edit his script, and still have the translated dialogue from the first few towns sitting around on my computer. In addition to modernising the graphics, they completely overhauled the game mechanics (not always for the better) and added a lot of extra dialogue, including an option to talk to your party members PS4-style.
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Apr 18, 2012 02:35
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gently caress you Tactics Ogre I'm in that battle where you have to rescue a girl and there's a dragon and stuff. First time through I'm doing great, picked up some neat new class cards, doing just fine, the girl manages to block almost everything coming her way. There's one guy left on the battlefield, he gets a critical hit and she dies. I thought you could use the Chariot to turn back a couple of turns but nope, Game Over. Fine whatever I'll do this again. Every other try she's been dying on like, the 3rd turn, turns out I just got really lucky the first time. Ugh. Can I just choose the second option and let her die?
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Apr 18, 2012 07:11
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Yeah, if you pick the second option you can let her die. It may change the plot a bit but thats it IIRC.
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Apr 18, 2012 07:39
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Thuryl posted:Yeah, you're thinking of Phantasy Star Generation 1 and 2 I hope some day these get translated so I can play them. I got about halfway through the second dungeon in PSII and the same for IV and really enjoyed them both, but there was other, newer stuff out that I chose to play instead. I'd love to play an updated version of at least II, though. Speaking of older games, I just started playing SaGa Frontier for the first time since like 1999. I never got very far in that game either. I remember playing as Lute, getting a full party of characters, going through a dungeon or two, then somehow triggering a story advance and getting thrown in a dungeon with some impossible boss and just giving up after that. This time I'm starting out as Blue. Can anyone tell me which schools of magic I should choose? Actually, I already chose Rune, but I still have the choice of Light or Shadow because I haven't committed to either of the trial dungeons associated with those schools yet. Also, how do stat increases work? Is it like FFII where you get gains based on your actions in battle? Can you attack other party member to increase their HP? Any other general tips would be appreciated; I just don't want to use an FAQ because I'll invariably accidentally read about some super secret hidden thing that I have to get and from there it's just a downward spiral to total FAQ-reliance. I can't help it.
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Apr 19, 2012 04:16
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For Blue's quest, Rune, Light, and Time magic are good choices. You'll get all the magic after killing Rogue, anyway. Stat increases are based on what weapons and spells you use, you don't have to take damage or hit your allies (you can't anyway). There's nothing in this game that really requires a guide, except for the monsters. There's a great guide for them on Gamefaqs. It really helps to have a plan for what forms you want your monsters to have. Also Lute's story dungeon is the final dungeon for him. That's why you got stuck at the end.
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Apr 19, 2012 04:27
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Mill Village posted:For Blue's quest, Rune, Light, and Time magic are good choices. Get Mind as well; it pairs with Evil, which you can't learn anyway, so there's no tradeoff here.
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Apr 19, 2012 04:50
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Oh man... I love saga frontier. I never managed to get all the endings on one save though for the special ending. I have a 3-ring binder around here somewhere filled with gameshark codes I got from online/made myself. The first time I played it I got stuck on assellus' story because I couldn't figure out what the hell to do. The skill system is crazy as hell. I might have to play this now... thanks guys... The debug room is awesome because you can add any loving character that exists to the party and the game is coded so losely that it gives no shits. Some of the characters I've never actually seen in game.
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Apr 19, 2012 04:52
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And then the gamefaqs saga board led me to romhacking.net where I picked up 3 new snes game translations I have to play. live-a-live, feda the emblem of justice, and burning heroes here I come. I have a bit of adhd... 
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Apr 19, 2012 05:20
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Kharmakazy posted:I have a bit of adhd... Not a single thing is wrong with leaping between longer-form RPGs as you go. Hell, on Steam alone I have a bunch installed I keep hopping between: the Avernum remake, Geneforge 2, Gothic II Gold, and even the abominable Winter Voices because of the beta.
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Apr 19, 2012 05:30
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Live-A-Live is good if you have ADHD because it's several tinier campaigns with varying levels of complexity so you can do one and then drop out really easily.
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Apr 19, 2012 05:46
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