Lurker > KamikazePotato

Aria is great.

Super Mario 64
Ocarina of Time
GoldenEye
Mario Kart 64

SSB1 was popular but I don't think the series really hit its stride until Melee.

Oof

This isn't my playthrough topic so I'll be vague, but I'm currently on Case 4 and it is easily my favorite so far for multiple reasons.

I'm actually not a fan of 2-2 at all, so JFA was a real struggle for me to get through. I probably would've dropped the series if 2-4 wasn't incredible.

Paratroopa1 posted...

It's weird watching everyone just be confidently wrong about JFA being a bad game. I don't get it

It's the game currently rounding out the bottom two ratings! Although that probably changes after today, lol

To be clear I like JFA less than most people here I think. I threw it a vote in the 'worst AA game' poll that was held recently.

But it's simply not comparable to AJ. JFA just had cases that, while sub-par, didn't do damage to the series canon. They were just bad cases. AJ's fuckups required a soft reboot to fix, and some of the damage is still there.

The DS showing its age was a problem, but yes, the lion's share of the blame can be laid at AA4. There are certain entrants just suck the hype out of a franchise. Even if they survive, they're limping afterwards. Similar example would be Mega Man Battle Network 4.

DD and Spirit of Justice did okay (Capcom specifically said they 'met expectations') but they would have done better if AA4 wasn't bad. The reason the series keeps going is because new people keep discovering the games they actually love: AA1 through 3. Ace Attorney Trilogy is by FAR the most successful release in the series. Comparatively, the Apollo Justice Trilogy just released and is kinda bombing on Steam, because Apollo does not put asses in seats.

LightningStrikes posted...

The series retooled itself pretty effectively

Strong disagree there. AJ came close to killing the series, and I don't think that's a hot take. There's a reason that after AJ, we immediately got:

Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth
Ace Attorney Investigations 2
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy
Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright

For 6 years of spinoffs and rereleases that desperately harkened back to the old characters and old Phoenix design. Then, after sufficient time had passed, Dual Destinies came out. It immediately put Phoenix back in the saddle and tried to pretend his hobo era never existed. There was never a payoff, just scrambling to right the ship after a disastrous misstep.

EDIT: Also difficult to say there was a payoff when Apollo himself gets a new backstory every game!

LightningStrikes posted...

There are a lot of Apollo Justice fans out there. Well, its better than Justice for All at least!

JFA has 2-4. AJ is the kind of game where the series would be in a better, healthier spot if it never existed.

MacArrowny posted...

13 million just on PS2 is pretty good as well!

Well yes. I was using it as a reference point to the other guy saying that Gran Turismo outselling God of War was a knock against God of War, when Gran Turismo outsold everything that wasn't GTA.

The people making fan videos are crazy talented. Haven't seen this kind of immediate passion for a game release in a while.

I'll settle for my youtube algorithm being hijacked though.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=irs_XsDWI6o

I mentally associate RE4 with the Gamecube, yeah.

Silent Hill 2 would be on a personal PS2 Top 4 list but I couldn't quite justify including it. Stacked console.

I'm not totally averse to fanfiction but I don't think it would quite work for Signalis for me. If anything, I think fanfiction is paradoxically best when it's exploring something with wasted potential. While Signalis isn't perfect, it essentially accomplished everything it set out to do.

I kinda miss this game already.

MacArrowny posted...

https://www.gematsu.com/2022/07/ final-fantasy-x-series-shipments-and-digital-sales-top-20-8-million

FFX's pretty good, sales-wise.

That's FFX + FFX-2 + the HD collection. I was talking about just the PS2.

What I'm finding is that the Prince of Persia trilogy sold 14 million over a period of time, including rereleases. That's believable.

There is absolutely no way Sands of Time sold 14 million units, let alone 14 million on the PS2.

UF8 posted...

both main gran turismos overwhelmingly outsold both god of war ps2 games combined which is all that really needs to be said imo.

Gran Turismo 3 alone outsold MGS2/3 combined, Kingdom Hearts 1/2 combined, and FFX/XII combined.

UF8 posted...

even sands of time most likely outperformed them on ps2 alone

Not even close.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_PlayStation_2_video_games

MrSmartGuy posted...

There's a very odd pacing problem where this game actually goes a bit too fast imo. I know I complain about a lot of dialogue bloat in the genre, where AA and Danganronpa might be the worst offenders, and yet now I see what it's like without it.

I would agree with this, but I still prefer too-speedy pacing over bloated pacing. If only because my time is way more limited these days.

LightningStrikes posted...

The counter to God of War is the fact they had to release a God of War game in 2018 that was a total rebuttal to the earlier games because they aged badly and everybody got sick of them.

idk I think most of the people that liked the old God of Wars still do. Just as a different sort of experience than 2018 GoW.

Also side note, it's wild to look back and see how quickly games came out two decades ago. GTA3, Vice City, and San Andreas being released in a 4-year span is insane. These days a 4-year development cycle for one AAA game is considered brisk.

I mean DMC3 is way better than God of War but Kratos is like, THE Sony icon of the PS2 era and onwards

Hbthebattle posted...

I just think multiplats don't super belong on a console-specific rushmore

Both MGS2 and MGS3 were also released on the Xbox, for the record.

I would have pushed back against Mega Man 2 if I got to the topic earlier, but by the time I arrived it was too late

LightningStrikes posted...

I think its 3. It basically invented 3D open world game design.

Yeah, but San Andreas was the bestselling game on the system and I think has had the most enduring cultural impact out of the PS2 GTAs

But GTA3 is already off to a big lead so I might just switch anyway

We're really gonna need to settle on one GTA game because otherwise they're going to LFF themselves out of the picture

Metal Gear Solid 2
Final Fantasy X
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
God of War

Watching that clip felt like peering into an alternate dimension.

Just finished Case 2 myself. There's some some minor issues like evidence bloat and less polish compared to AA, but overall it's been pretty great.

To be fair, Lara has the movies which helped to cement her in the general public consciousness. She's only #1 on this list lol but I think there's a debate versus Samus.

The Rock is just over 50, which means he's hit the arbitrary age where some celebrities start acting like conservative dickeads

Although if the argument is 'the NES doesn't need RPG representation' I guess that's fine, but considering how many votes there are for the progenitor of a dead series (Mega Man 2) I'm not sure I buy the sentiment.

Hbthebattle posted...

DQ3 is the first game to have Classes be what JRPGs use them as today - skillsets where you can swap in and out of them, building your own ideal team. Notably, all of the class based FF games like 3 or 5 are using this system, rather than FF1's, which is really just picking 4 characters at the start of the game but not being able to change them on the fly or influence their growth.

In addition to this, Dragon Quest 3 set the standard for overall world/environment gameplay design. This is something that's difficult to describe but becomes apparent if you play the game and compare it to what came after. The overall ebb and flow of JRPG pacing comes mostly from DQ3.

Lopen posted...

Normally I'd just say "well must be a Japan thing"

In Japan DQ3 is culturally the most important (or 2nd-most important after FF7) JRPG to ever exist. It influenced LOTS of things. This goes beyond games - lots of other fantasy media, especially manga and anime, take all their cues from Dragon Quest III to this day.

Outside of Japan, it's still incredibly important. Even if the game itself didn't sell like gangbusters in the west, it has influenced essentially all JRPGs since it came out, including the ones we did take to. DQ3 laid the groundwork for the genre as a whole. FF7 is probably more influential overall due to how it shifted the genre's focus to cinematic storytelling, but it's a close race.

The original Dragon Quest is extremely bare bones by comparison and didn't set nearly as many themes/gameplay mechanics in stone. Leon's FF1/FF4 comparison is a good one.

LightningStrikes posted...

Yeah its like Dragon Quest III the most influential over Dragon Quest???

Yes, absolutely

Super Mario Bros.
Super Mario Bros. 3
The Legend of Zelda
Dragon Quest III

DQ3 is maybe the most influential JRPG ever released. Only thing that compares is FF7.

TomNook posted...

Did the posted article edit that out, to sound less awful?

The shame contained in that [a] is palpable

Sonic the Hedgehog
Sonic the Hedgehog 2
Sonic the Hedgehog 3
Sonic & Knuckles

I never owned a Genesis so this is my equivalent of contributing absolutely nothing

TomNook7 posted...

alolan form

Back in my day we called these Palette Swaps

Alolan Form is funnier though

ZenOfThunder posted...

Xenoblade came within two votes of Mario Kart Wii on the last page, but then two people changed their votes FROM Xenoblade and some more Mario Kart Wii votes trickled in. As this was happening I could sense KamikazePotato suddenly cry out in terror before being suddenly silenced.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glN0W8WogK8

I can't imagine the Empire was/is much better than the Eusan Nation. Would be fitting to the games' themes if the galaxy is just trading out one dystopia for another.

For me the scariest part of the game was realizing that Persona Degradation is just a replika naturally growing and becoming their own person. Can't have that in a dystopia society full of cogs that are supposed to act in predictable ways. Don't worry, it's fine to decommission them - you can just make more.

I actually decided to play the game because you posted music in a random topic recently and it sounded neat. I've had the Signalis icon on my desktop for a while now, and that was the final push I needed.

More thoughts.

I think the biggest thing I'm still wrapping my head around is location. For most of the last 1/3 of the game, I thought Ariane had crash-landed near the mines somehow. Turns out she just went flying out into space for HUNDREDS OF YEARS, and is still out there. Falke discovering the red gate below the mines was technically a different incident. Apparently Ariane was such a strong bioresonant that she reached them across the universe.

Although that ties nicely into the themes of their oppessive/repressive society. Bioresonance is the backbone of their civilization, and some people up top are even worried about what will happen when the few people capable of bioresonance die out. But they stifle Ariane at every turn, to the point where she can't explore her own interests, to the point where the only person who ever figures out she's bioresonant is an enemy spy. If they had allowed her to flourish, they could have had a new supreme leader to lead them into a golden age.

Instead she fucks off to deep space, gets cancer, gets put in cryosleep, and turns reality into meat moss. Whoops.

UshiromiyaEva posted...

Artifact is a rabbit hole that is going to lead to even more brainworms than you have now, so watch at your own peril (you'd have to actually beat the game from scratch again anyways).

I did look that one up, and I'm okay with ignoring it. Seems more like a reference to similar Silent Hill endings than something to focus on as part of the plot.

Speaking of Silent Hill references, Isa's death is a super good homage to Lisa Garland's death in SH1. I was actually expecting it to happen in that exact way because I had the reference pegged from the very beginning. Their names are only one letter off!

Current random thoughts.

The specific mechanics behind the respawn system is that Ariane rewrites a random nearby LSTR unit to have Elster's memories. That's why there's random bodies left behind despite time looping weirdness, especially in the elevator shaft where Adler pushes you.

Alina Seo DID exist, but the original her died decades ago. Then she gets revived as a sorta-ghost by Ariane due to memory shenanigans. And then metamorphosis'd into Ariane anyway. So Alina actually died twice before the game even starts. Bummer.

Despite being initially depicted as the antagonist, it's funny that Adler didn't actually do anything wrong. In fact he's 100% in the right if you fail to get the Promise ending.

KamikazePotato posted...

I don't really have the time to replay games anymore, but that's what youtube is for.

Decided not to do this as it wouldn't have felt right. Reloaded an earlier save and manipulated some stats until I fulfilled the Promise ending.

Damn.

I think most people putting Xenoblade on the list are aware it was a footnote. We just don't care. I'm not filling a Rushmore with 4 variations of 'Wii ____'.

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