Lurker > AxemRedRanger

so the stuffer like legend of legaia huh

Leonhart4 posted...

Nominate Dragon Quest VIII

Seconding this if I havent already nominated it.

Suikoden II > Lufia II > Live-A-Live > Front Mission > Grandia > Secret of Evermore (only got like a quarter of the way through)

Suikoden II was lesser known around 2000 or so.
It isnt now.
this is only slightly less silly than including Earthbound or something would have been.

I wouldn't call Live A Live a top tier SNES RPG or anything either, but yeah these comparisons are dumb.

Paratroopa1 posted...

I might be the only person in the world who stans Lufia: The Legend Returns

I like it more than Lufia II!

it's got a good battle system but randomly generated dungeons for the entire game was a bad idea and additionally kills a lot of its Ancient Cave's value.
And while a GBC game probably wasn't going to have a great story anyways, I'm still amused at what they did here. The basic set-up comes off as one of the most no-effort retreads of prior series games I've ever seen in an RPG. Red-haired hero and blue-haired girl team up to fight the four Sinistrals? REALLY? GEE WHAT COULD THE PLOT TWIST POSSIBLY BE.

These purchase of game companies are big news no doubt, but they're hardly crazy.
I'd say something more like this for crazy:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/06/business/super-mario-bros-sale-record.html

Suikoden: 2 > 5 > 1 > 3 > Tactics > Tierkreis > 4?

Crescent-Moon posted...

Lufia?

2 is the only good game in that series, and the later games are generally considered somehow even gradually worse than 1.

2 being the only Lufia game that really matters is correct. 4 is supposedly pretty bad (I only played the first three) which I wouldn't say of 1 or 3. Not sure there is a consensus on 1/3/the 2 remake just because none of them besides 2 are that good but I personally would probably go 1 > 3, yeah.

I think we need the world's foremost Other M expert to weigh in on this.
@LinkMarioSamus

2

Mega Man X > X4 => X2 > X3 > X5 > X6 > X7

X8 is somewhere above X6 and below X2.

Consensus on Star Ocean is it peaked at 2 and got worse with every game afterward right? Hard to say where 1 or its remake fit into that though and nobody played Blue Sphere.

what nonsense are you talking about
their mouths move plenty in the codec calls

Dragon Quest VIII had a western release in late 2005 and that had a good dub!

Suikoden III has a lot of good parts to its cast and story but the pacing is really screwy leading to a pretty lengthy game where you backtrack over the same few areas over and over for like 50 hours or whatever before everything comes to a head and then it all leads up to a conclusion I thought was kind of abrupt, brief, and rather disappointing and that the "post-game" scenes (thanks for warning me I'd be locked out of screwing around with the theater or whatever, game!) don't really fix. I guess it's Skill system or whatever it was called was neat but the actual battle system was whatever and was a lot slower than the PS1 games. Graphics and soundtrack I don't recall being much to write home about either. I'd take Suikoden I > III.

Ar Tonelico I is definitely not better than FFX. From what I've played of it, II might be though!

Gen 1. Has the best rival, has Missingno., and is generally way lower on dumb stuff like friendship or held item evolution. And if I wanted the QoL upgrades and additional content enough to sacrifice Missingno., there's a remake available.
Maybe if I'd actually played the remakes, Emerald/Platinum, or gotten to what seems to be a fan favorite with Gen 5 I'd feel differently but I was already tried of this franchise's single-player by Diamond so yeah.

5

I don't think I've ever seen much in the way of people "building upon it and imagining" in regards to Link's Awakening's plot. I don't think the issue is that the storytelling isn't explicit but rather that the ending and related twist are just about the only aspect of the story that's even particularly noteworthy and it feels like people are projecting that back onto the rest of the game when there's just not all that much else to it, explicit or not.

Also while the ending and the few beats leading up to it are good, the...specific nature of it probably only really works well in the context of a story that isn't great or that prevalent to begin with. If I actually cared a lot about the plot and characters here, I'd have probably been annoyed at the ending instead of praising it! It's the kind of thing that can maybe elevate mediocrity a little but would probably take masterclass execution to not drag down a story that's actually good.

Everybody Hates Chris

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_game_consoles
https://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/en/finance/hard_soft/index.html
https://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/en/finance/software/index.html

i for one welcome our new ring fit overlords

Nominate:
Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain
Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver

KamikazePotato posted...

More than the plot twist, I just couldn't believe that a game called Star Ocean took 2/3 of the game to have basically anything to do about space

You started out on a generic fantasy planet, then left and promptly spent the rest of the game on another generic fantasy planet

I mean youre right that it doesnt make any sense that they pretty much actively murder the promise implied by the franchise title.

Unfortunately, thats Star Oceans standard M.O.

Nominate:
Star Ocean: The Second Story

Nominate:
Final Fantasy III
Resident Evil 2
Dragon Quest VIII
Suikoden
God of War (original)

3

pretty generic with playable characters who are particularly nonentities.
not even santa can save this one

2/10

Journey has some nice visuals but its a kinda nothing game that got hyped to the moon based on some pretentious omg environmental storytelling and minimal dialogue = art nonsense.

It's a quick play though so it at least wasn't a waste of time and based on how many people clearly got something out of the experience, the game is probably worth a try if you see it on sale.

But I am not one of those people.

3/10

Yes.

This game had maybe a little potential but it did not reach it, and whatever was attractive or novel at the time about its very particularly anime approach to the cast has been surpassed by hundreds of JRPGs since. It is generally kinda dull but it tries sometimes before ultimately giving up.

Things start off well enough if not exactly original but then a couple hours in stuff happens and suddenly all that's basically abandoned for the next dozen hours or so in favor of "track down the summon spirits." "Track down the summon spirits" is MORE OR LESS the story low point of every Tales game I've played that had this as a plot point and the first one is not an exception but it takes up a much larger percent of the game here. There's a slight blip upward for the hour or so around Arche joining just because there's SOMETHING else going on but it doesn't last. Then things finally pick up midgame for a few hours around the time stuff starts happening in Midgard and that's kinda neat but then everything pretty much gets buried for good once you go back to the future, I don't care about Cress and Mint's moment in that one snowy town those two are like the blandest implementations of their archetypes possible at least Arche has a personality Let's Go Arche, wake me up when it's time for the ending.

In summary, this game does not fuck like a tiger, does not DWELL AMIDST THE ABOUNDING LIGHT OF HEAVEN, and would probably be improved if its backstory really did involve an ancient marsupial-themed conflict.

4/10

2/10

I still really dislike the story for pretty much the exact reasons I really disliked that of the first game! Uh, copy/paste:

This franchise's dialogue has maybe the most painful combination of being long and dull of anything I've ever played and it's all in the service of such a nothing plot. Golden Sun's story largely felt like JRPG boilerplate, which wouldn't be that bad if it could just get to the point, but instead the dialogue takes like at least 5 times as much time as it should to convey its uninteresting narrative. I don't think the playable cast in this one is interesting or entertaining at all. Some of the other characters are better but anything they set up here doesn't end up panning out to much of anything cool in The Lost Age so it's hard to care much. I guess Saturos is okay?

I like this game's battle graphics, music, and dungeons a good deal and the battle and class systems are "good enough" but I'm pretty "eh" on the game overall and this franchise's story being for me a uniquely significant active detriment is why. I played this game a lot back in the day and on my second time through I made a dedicated save file just past the Flint tutorial so that I wouldn't have to play through the opening again in the future. I don't recall doing something like this for any other game that lacked branching paths.

For this game in particular, they took the previous game's silent main I didn't particularly care about (Isaac) but who I guess worked alright for what he was and gave him a lot of boring dialogue lategame like everyone else has, while taking the previously-intriguing sort-of-villain (Felix) and made him an uninteresting silent main. lose/lose on that trade imo

WarThaNemesis2 posted...

You have Barkley in your sig, but have a problem with Chinese businesses, lol.

Ha. You're right, that is rather funny.
not changing it!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_Games
OwnersTim Sweeney (>50%)
Tencent (40%)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tencent
Tencent Holdings Ltd., also known as Tencent (), is a Chinese

nope

6

Its a ~5 hour game (the majority of which is probably walking around looking for stuff and solving puzzles). While it did have some decent ideas I dont remember it being super-interesting or anything. I guess it was okay? Im not as high on the Kyle Hyde games by the same developer as some people but those were both better.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/1178-whats-your-favorite-final-fantasy
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/5727-from-the-last-27-years-which-numbered-final-fantasy-title-is

Theres also Squall/Vivi.

And Squall underperforming Aerith on Zelda in 2018.

And In FFVIII/Vice City, the Undertale spillover seemed to actually help FFVIII and that it would have failed to 60-40 Vice City without that probably isnt great.

There are various reasons to quibble with the individual pieces of evidence, but the overall picture with everything gathered together looks clear.

GC Zeldas should be the favorite over Skyrim and given a good chance against FFX. 2015 FFX looked fairly bad three matches in a row. while it can maybe be excused for MMX and Chrono Trigger, I dont think Half-Life 1 had any business coming out of that contest looking good after how hard Half-Life 2 fell in 5 years and Gordon getting tripled in 2018 when basically nobody even thought he would get doubled.

Auron also fell off hard in 2018 against what he used to be capable of against Sub-Zero and I think he even lost ground against Solid Snake relative to 2010 - and Snake was definitely weaker 8 years later.

also:
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/6149-best-game-ever-day-26-round-3-final-fantasy-vi-vs-zelda-the

not a lot of room for FFX to not face at least a serious threat from GC Zelda before youd have to start questioning FFX/FFVI

2

This franchise's dialogue has maybe the most painful combination of being long and dull of anything I've ever played and it's all in the service of such a nothing plot. Golden Sun's story largely felt like JRPG boilerplate, which wouldn't be that bad if it could just get to the point, but instead the dialogue takes like at least 5 times as much time as it should to convey its uninteresting narrative. I don't think the playable cast in this one is interesting or entertaining at all. Some of the other characters are better but anything they set up here doesn't end up panning out to much of anything cool in The Lost Age so it's hard to care much. I guess Saturos is okay?

I like this game's battle graphics, music, and dungeons a good deal and the battle and class systems are "good enough" but I'm pretty "eh" on the game overall and this franchise's story being for me a uniquely significant active detriment is why. I played this game a lot back in the day and on my second time through I made a dedicated save file just past the Flint tutorial so that I wouldn't have to play through the opening again in the future. I don't recall doing something like this for any other game that lacked branching paths.

Lightning Strikes posted...

Cindy remains one of the worst character designs in a FF game.

so are you more a sandy or a mindy type of guy?

The importany thing to keep in mind for VIIIs strength isnt its own franchise name, but that of 2021s #3. If Resident Evil VIII can beat a game, then if these GOTY polls hold up at all, Tales of Arise can at least get really close to beating the same game. And Tales of Arise being particularly strong doesnt seem that likely.

Think I'd favor Sephiroth over Mega Man/Crono/Pikachu nowadays whereas he'd have probably lost to them last character battle (he might have still had a chance against Sonic though!) but I still don't really believe in him against Solid Snake.

Metroid Dread vs. Link Between Worlds, who ya got?

Wow. I knew I was stubborn but you peoples games are so good compared to mine.

tossup between a bunch of NES games, some of which are fairly obscure.
of the ones that arent obscure, its probably between:
-Shadowgate (I already didnt particularly like Maniac Mansion but screw this stupid thing. 80s PC games must have truly sucked for this to be one of the notable ones.)
-Dragon Warrior (Ill agree with others that the likes of Lufia 1 and Golden Sun Dark Dawn arent exactly excellence in JRPG design but they look pretty damn good compared to the sheer boring, grinding nothingness of this thing. This was already a dreadful game 5 years after release let alone now.)

Dishonorable mention to the original Fire Emblem as well.

Seeding probably doesnt necessarily relate to nominations that closely.

CATS is maybe the most ridiculous example. Did CATS really suck just enough from nominations alone to consistently get exactly a 16 seed three character battles in a row but then when the field gets almost cut in half by the female bracket he still has enough to squeak into the field in 2006 when Donkey Kong, Knuckles, Kefka, Magus, Frog, Vercetti, Liquid Snake, and Revolver Ocelot couldnt? Obviously not. Either his joke nomination support back then was way better than his seeding suggested but CJayC set him to 16 because its friggin CATS or he just got thrown into 2006 despite lacking support because CJayC thought his presence was funny.

Skyward Sword, strong? Seems unlikely.
Skyward Sword, among the top 128 strongest games of last decade? Thats not a high bar at all but that seems extremely probable.

Rip demons souls

I think his point is more or less that in the long-term, substantially lessening the spread without pretty much shutting down society for the next decade or whatever is no longer possible.

Metal Gear - 3/10

Not actively annoying or offensive, a decent setting and premise, and there's one good twist. Willing to give it what I gave FF1.

Ive watched the first 516 episodes of the funimation dub. That dub is good, yes.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/5051-who-is-your-favorite-major-third-party-video-game-publisher

konami has since committed Sudoku so Capcom certainly beats them now. Not sure on Bethesda. Think theres a lot of Japanese LFF there and 2021 Bethesda isnt going to be seen nearly as positively as in 2013 but thats a big gap to overcome.