*GRIPPING MUSIC*

SO YES. I've ventured into jRPGs for the billionth time, and after years (okay, about a year) of trying like a bleeding muppet I've pried FUN from their grubby mits. Right now I'm enjoying Lost Odyssey and Luminous Arc, and I plan to get right back into FF12 which I played for about 15ish hours then got sidetracked right out of. But that barely counts because its combat system is much better at fooling old Simon into thinking he wasn't playing something turn based.

Aaaanyyhooo. There's like a big world of stuff opening up to me now, and it's a little bit scary. I have this LEGION of anime guys running at me yelling "PLAY ME! SAVE THE WORLD WITH MEEEEEEEE!!" and some are like "..." but that STILL MEANS THEY'RE SAYING STUFF LIKE THAT WHICH THOSE OTHER GUYS ARE... ALSO SAYING! This is something I've learned happens a lot in jRPGs too!

So yes! Right! I'm a bit of a virgin lying here on my back biting a bit of.. pillowy.. fabric.. and semi expect the right.. er... kind of.. experience to.. climb on top of me. This I wager is best accomplished by starting a thread where people are all like "Hi!" "Hello!" "Yes." "You got it!"

And also, speak a bit about RPGs new and old that are cool. I'd appreciate if nice, useful analogies are made often for some kind of reference in terms of battle systems and whatnot.

I'm just gonna kick things off here with a specific series - but feel free to just throw whatever you feel is worth mentioning right at this thread. It'll stick, I promise. I've covered it in sticky stuff.. like.. glue.. and.. honey.. and orange juice. And jam.

YES! Specific series, right. Man I keep forgetting where I'm going. Shin Megami Tensei. I've read stuff about it and it seems quite interesting. Has anyone got any experience with any of those? Digital Devil Saga? Nocturne? Persona? Devil Summoner? I just ADORE Atlus art style and I'm really intrigued by the themes.

I think if you didn't follow my post that's just a sign of sanity. People usually bear with me though. :D

But yes! That's exactly what I wanted. Well I sort of think it'd be nice if there was a general atmosphere of mentioning what RPGs are worthwhile and stuff, from whatever era - not necessarily obsessively answering questions.

I'm interested in ANY RPG from ANY time, as long as it's humanly possible to get hold of them still. I'm not a huge fan of emulators on PC and stuff, but VC on Wii and re-issues on whatever new platform are A-OK. FFT I've actually bought already, sitting there waiting for me to finish Luminous Arc. I reckon I can keep one "stationary" RPG and one handheld RPG going simultaniously without one getting too much in the way of the other. Lost Odyssey would be a hassle to play while on the loo. There'd have to be mirrors and.. keeping doors open. Semi public pooping.

I keep hearing how amazing Suikoden 1 and 2 are, so I really should prolly just play them. I have this attitude right now of not being overly ambitious and mostly going for things that appeal to me a lot on the surface to ensure I don't get frustrated/bored before I can get thoroughly into it, and Suikoden doesn't really grab me stylistically. With the amount of praise it's getting though, I should prolly just grit my teeth and dig into it, trusting it'll absorb me eventually.

People talk about Chrono Cross alot too, but usually in the context of it almost being as good as Chrono Trigger. Have you played that? If so, how do you reckon they compare?

Yeah I've had FFX in my basket on and off because I keep hearing conflicting things about it. Some say Tidus is a complete twat and Yuna is blandness on two legs and that it all feels like Final Fantasy Sunshine, whereas others point to the actual story and what most consider the sweet spot of the Final Fantasy combat system.

The most promising thing I've heard that I can relate to personally is that it is fairly similar in feel to Lost Odyssey's combat system, and I'm really enjoying that a lot so.

Shadow Hearts: Covenant is another recommendation I get a lot, but that'll supposedly kick my balls until I fall over and explode. So I best hold that off a bit until I've.. well, levelled up my balls really.

I'm sorry alimo but that list is WRONG!

Uh, I got nothin.

@ alimokrane

lol, well yeah that pretty much sums up why I'm frozen in.. some kind of excitement/fear induced catatonic state. There are so many awesome sounding things to play.

I'll stress that Digital Devil Saga 1 is incredibly difficult to find - at least off online retailers - if you want the borderless full speed US version. I'd hurry and buy it off Ebay while it's still possible to get it in decent condition. There's also a PAL version which I can't imagine is *loads* worse, but you get the typical PAL PS2 RPG treatment of course.

You said earlier that you wanted tips on DS RPGs. I haven't really played anything besides Luminous Arc yet. I can tell you about that that it feels really basic and linear, but the characters really grow on you, the art is really good, and while the story hasn't really become overly exciting in 10 hours the character development is still appealing enough to continue. It has sort of an old school feel to it, reminicent of the early Shining Force games, but not quite as challenging. Not yet anyhow.

If you wanna check out strategy RPGs and feel that Disgaea or Final Fantasy Tactics are a bit too daunting an undertaking, then this is prolly a nice introduction. I got it for about a tenner, and for that price it doesn't really have to do anything amazing.

As for almost-DS games, there are the Fire Emblem games for GBA and those are fantastic. They may not look it, but they're VERY good. They really feel a lot like the reason Sega don't even bother with their original version of Shining Force anymore. If you're not bothered by the cart sticking out a little bit and one screen being unused - in short; playing GBA games on your DS - then FE is a sure fire bet.

Of course, if you wait around for a yearish or so there's apparently going to be a remake of the very first FE game for DS, and that might be all kinds of awesome.

I'm sure someone familiar with the buckets of Lunar and Lost Magic and Magical Starshine and Contact and.. etc etc can fill you in on other DS RPGs though. I'm a bit wet behind the ears yet.

Man, so many games to play! :O

So happy I managed to get into the genre finally. :D

How do people feel about Grandia 3 around these parts? A friend of mine said yesterday that he doesn't really give much thought about review scores in regards to RPGs because they say ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. It's so rare for RPGs to be truly borked after the years of refinement they've gone through (similar to my overall theory about games in general really) and he said that it's pretty seldom that something truly puts him off.

So I liked my limited time with Grandia, and while that's universally recognized as an amazing game, I'm sort of curious how people got on with 3 - subject of more lukewarm critical reception.

Yeah that's what I mean, by "borked" I mean broken or proper useless.

They're all so above competent that if you just like the themes and can lose yourself in the story, you can't go *really* wrong.

I love the sense of adventure and discovery in Grandia 1. The "coming of age" story is done to death but in Grandia it's done with such attention to subtleties that it becomes really moving. The harbour letter scene still makes me sad when I think about it. This is why I didn't feel drawn to Grandia 2 quite as much, because Ryudo was much harder to relate to, and I didn't find the supporting cast quite as engaging and likeable.

EDIT: for replies to editedness

Tales of Phantasia is a TYPICAL example of the sort of game that barely registered for me because I hated jRPG conventions up until my recent transformation. A mate showed it here and the lack of widescreen and my annoyances with it gave birth to Tales of Lobsterboy. The red body armour when stretched to 16:9 resembled just that. :D

I made a pic to illustrate even.



But yes! I'm told it's very good so I shall put it in my list for sure. I just have to find it.. it's very rare.