Board 8 > My Top RPGs of All Time

(+) Yeah! (+)

2019 Edition!

ALSO SPOILER WARNING IN THIS TOPIC THERE WILL BE SPOILERS. SO IF YOU SEE IM TALKING ABOUT SEXY RPG FIGHTERS 4: THE QUEST FOR ELIXIRS KNOW THERE WILL BE SPOILERS ABOUT THAT GAME. BE SAFE

I've always wanted to do this kinda topic, and my disastrous FE Fates project was good prep how to do it. I love RPGS and no matter how many you play you never feel its enough, and well they take a lot of time which is a turnoff to many.

This won't cover ever RPG, its not possible thats why its MY top list. BUT anything I haven't played feel free to suggest, I'm always open to ideas just no promises I'll like said game.

So what this list will have or be:
-WRPGS, JRPGs, SRPGS, Action RPGS, Souls-like games

This list will not have:
-Zelda (voted by B8 as no)
-Metroidvanias (voted by B8 as no)
-Legend of Heroes Trails in the Sky (I am currently playing this BUT I like to sit on rpgs and let some time pass before ranking them. So expect this for 2020s version if the world doesn't end)
-Xenoblade Chronicles 1 (Didn't want to play it on Wii, the 3DS version looked like hell to play, was hoping this would happen and yea I'll be jumping into it)
-Trials of Mana and FF7 Remake (Didn't buy yet expect for 2020 version)

Sub things I'll be doing in this
-Worst 10 rpgs i've played
-5 Honorable Mentions
-Favorite RPG protags
-Favorite RPG Villains
-Worst RPG Protags
-Worst RPG Villains
-Favorite love interests

So yeah please guess what will end up where!

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MegamanX posted...

So expect this for 2020s version if the world doesn't end)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVxO12qXZkQ

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Honorable Mention #1
Hyperdevotion Noire: Goddess Black Heart

Is this game good? I don't really think so but I had an amusing time with aspects of the game. I think the parody thing they have going with this game is not bad. But having recently started the actual Neptunia series it really highlighted this games flaws. While the hub in this title and characters you recruit are parodies of gaming series and animoo culture the actual campaign is more void of jokes. Instead you play as uh you? Fanserviced into the game as this invisible character who serves to fawn over Noire. So the campaign really uh just parodies bad manga and slice of life anime? I dunno it seems very strange considering how full on insane the main Neptunia game is. When the main series is so hyper focused at dropping as many gaming jokes and even self referential jokes as it can Noires game shows its true colors a bit.

The actual game plays like a decently easy FF Tactics clone except until the back half of the game when the difficulty suddenly spikes. At that point only the Goddess characters really matter because they can transform from a normal powerful state to near unstoppable for 3 turns. A lot of this game will be about attacking with one unit next to another unit to build up ....kiss...points so that characters can constantly unleash their limit breaks. Early on it really isn't necessary but yeah that back quarter of the game is weirdly difficult. The kissing animation takes forever so I disabled it immediately but the game at least tries to service its fan service to you on the near constant. So props for doing the job you set out to do.

The main plot consists of Noire losing her stocks or shares for her Playstation land. She suspects its the other goddess are behind it but nope its the main bad guy from the first Neptunia game, I guess this is a what if scenario of the first game? The game has you then recruit a bunch of soldiers to your cause. In the main Neptunia series these characters at least from the first game seem to be based on different game developers and publishers, in Goddess Black Heart every character is based on a franchise. I like this idea and it really led to some interesting portrayals that I of course will break down cause these were fun

Lee-Fi: Shes chun li in looks but is an amalgam for all the street fighter character personalities. Super powerful techniques but very little MP

Lid: Shes Snake but she hides in a box cause shes afraid of social contact. Wasn't a fan not enough metal gear references, she also sucks in battle.

Resta: Had 0 clue where she was from, Wikipedia says shes an Agarest War parody...K? Shes a white mage and the games best healer

Estelle: Representing DQ she mainly just fights with the below character. Shes kinda whatever

Ein Al: She looks like tidus, shes a bit better than Estelle in combat. Yeah neither make enough references for my liking

Poona: Holy crap this character is annoying as hell. All her voice clips are just moaning. Shes an opoona reference, you know that gcn game you didn't play. Unfortunately shes a must as her spells are the strongest in the damn game and shes a great healer. dohhhhhh

Moru: Representing Monster Hunter, she does make a lot of references. But yeah cat girl means cat girl speech. :|. Shes strong but has no defense.

Ai Masujima: Based off idolmaster I guess? Her spells are so close range I barely used her

Ryuka: Representing Yakuza she uh doesnt really feel like Kiryu or Majima just some drunken mafia woman. Shes another glass cannon character

Blossom: A Sakura Wars rep, another low powered unit

Tsunemi: The Hatsune Miku character, she has some really devastating attacks but shes a close range unit which is fine until the last arc of levels where you want to be at maximum distance for safety

Wyn: Had to look up shes a Winning Eleven parody, she has some good distance stuff. Boring character though

Lady Wac: Its Pac Man! or Ms Pacman! Either way she has a lot of great lines, very very powerful unit

Generia G: Super Robot Wars I guess? Shes a mid tier unit

Saori: Wikipedia says something called Tokimeki Memorial, shes obsessed with love and shes not good. Bench

Vio: Based off Resident Evil, shes a fantastic unit and one of the few that can poison

Sango: Dynasty Warriors rep, shes a powerhouse unit but boring

Little Rain : Wikipedia says Neverland whatever that is, shes very whiny but her heals are good....except they take like all her MP


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Tag!

Hoping to see some Skies of Arcadia.

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Honorable Mention #2
Pokemon Let's Go Eevee

The big takeaway here is I still love first gen pokemon but man do I hate the forced motion controls in the game. It just never felt responsive and I wasn't interested in buying an accessory just to play the game.Graphically I love the game and it does this awesome thing where pokemon actually roam around in the game, a feature I was happy they look to be keeping going forward.

I think the overall look of the trainers and the world this game are really fantastic. This game does a real great job of making the world of pokemon seem full of wonder again. The only issue is that its really easy, and I mean I couldn't leave a single battle without gaining crazy levels. This was aimed at casuals and I knew it going in but I got enough out of this experience to mention it here.

My team for the record was: Eevee, Raichu, Blastoise, Vileplume, and Arcanine. (6th slot was just grinder for the dex)

Also Eevee is adorable and a god in this game


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The worst part of what made it easy was not being overleveled. That can be compensated by rotating enough Pokemon. The worst part was easily making affection and happiness the same thing. Horrible call.

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Honorable Mention #3
Mega Man Battle Network

This game has a lot of nostalgia for me, hell the entire series does. I first played this series as I was starting the 9th grade and would go on to play the next game in the series every june as they released. I also had a friend who did the same and from 2 on we'd link battle after beating them when we came back to school each September. My friend and I actually did this even into college with the Starforce games...though we both threw in the towel on the second game.

So yeah a lot of nostalgia and this themes a banger
https://youtu.be/jt0_1_FLq58

ACDC Town remains one of my favorite rpg towns regardless of pulling off the nostalgia glasses for games like this. A few years ago I replayed this game (2015 I believe) and really got to see this games holes. So many holes.

The entire premise is, you are this boy Lan and you get a netnavi from your father which turns out to be MegaMan.Exe. In this world Dr Light went into networking instead of robotics, this led to a world we actually live in sorta today where everything is a smart appliance. Where it went a bit nutty is that this virtual space was run by programs that could walk in a physical cyberspace.Navis were created as your personal assistants that would physically deliver your email by walking the internet. Somewhere along the way of course people started using these to battle each other and the standard Navi wasn't going to do so the NetNavi was invented. Owners could send in chip data and battle commands but the NetNavis were on their own. But How? Well the big difference is NetNavis are semi-sentient.

Now when this happens is unclear but Dr Wily appears seeking to take over the world with his organization World 3 which is also known as WWW (get it?). At the same time the internet goes from simply an occasional random bug to viruses becoming common place in society. So now Netnavis need to protect programs and navis trying to complete tasks, and must defend themselves. You see if a netnavi doesnt log out in time after losing a battle they are deleted and gone forever, these being semi living entities it would be wrong to make backups!

So this game is about new NetNavi owner Lan and his Netnavi Megaman.exe as he goes to school and has random encounters with deadly situations. You see Capcom snuck a lot of crazy stuff behind an E rating. Fireman.exe is the first villain of the game and hes setting peoples houses a blaze with his repairman operator pretending to 'fix things'. The third chapter features Colorman who makes all the traffic lights green so cars are hitting each other and exploding, cause in this world the cars are of course self driving. The series goes on with this including outright murder in the 2nd game (the npcs never show up again after the day is saved), and tanks steamrolling cities across the globe in another game. Yeah somehow the computer programs and minions of Dr Wily are more dangerous here than the classic platformer series featuring physical death robots.

Another great appeal about this game was that Lan befriends a few other characters that stick around with him for all 6 entries in this series. Mayl and Roll, Yai and Glyde, Dex and Gutsman join Lan throughout the series. With Lans rival Chaud and his Netnavi Protoman occasionally helping. Each game also features a redesign interpretation of a selection of classic mega man bosses.

The game is fun to play but it suffers heavily not from its story or battling but the internet. The world wide web you traverse looks completely the same in every area with zero detail to differentiate anything. It's an absolute pain to navigate and the random battles near constant. Because a majority of the game takes place in this space it really hurts the game. As many series go the first game isn't the best and it has kinks to work out.

Netnavis in this game
Roll.exe: Operated by Mayl the games love interest, Roll is barely animated which is ashame as its a pretty cool design. Roll attacks with her 'hair' arrows like a whip, and can heal.

Glyde.exe: Don't ask me why but Yai and her netnavi are based off mega man legends characters. Yai being a carbon copy of the quiz student in that game. Glyde never fights in this game or any game, he just makes comments at Yai.

Gutsman.exe: Operated by Dex who looks like if Gutsman was human. Gutsman is more construction bot here and designed to be very almost rectangle in his face and limbs. Being Lans whipping boy hes yeah a pushover

Protoman.exe: Operated by Chaud the youngest netbattler agent, uh yeah Protoman looks sick. Hes got the signature shades and fights with a sword ala Zero style of red robot.

Iceman.exe : Virtually the same except he talks like Mega Man from the Captain N Show. Hes operated by Dr Froid who was being blackmailed by Dr Wily, after this game hes a good guy for the remainder of the series though hes only fightable in the side games after.

Bombman.exe: Dumber than Gutsman he doesn't make complete sentences and was supposed to be the first of a series of Independant NetNavis

Colorman.exe: Original but also might just be clown man from mega man 8? Operated by Madd, neither her or her crazy robot ever return

Elecman.exe: One of my favorite redesigns as he has these cool electric coils on his shoulders and floats slightly. Hes operated by Count Zap whose kinda a loon, I believe he does reappear in Game 6.

Numberman.exe: Operated by Mr Higsby, hes a nerd who falls in with WWW until Lan knocks some sense into him. After he becomes a good guy for the remainder of the series. His netnavi is an extreme pushover that rolls exploding dice and uh...thats it.

Fireman.exe: Operated by Mr Match who would return a few times each time with a new fire bot, but this bot would be closest to his classic design. Fireman is well good at shooting fire out of his fire cannons in a big flamethrower, as a first boss it takes some getting used too but hes not hard.

Magicman.exe: Operated by Yahoot, His hands are red orbs and he looks like a lost Rayman wizard. Both him and his operator are barely in this game only popping up late to be an issue.

Pharoahman.exe: Another independant Netnavi, he guards the deep dark web. Capcom turned him from cool speedy pharoah to....a coffin robot. Hard as hell too

Shadowman.exe: Operated by Dusk, hes a reoccuring antihero who doesn't pick a true side til the 5th game. As for Shadowman think purple ninja but floating and doing the naruto hand signal pose the entire time, very very fast

Sharkman.exe: Operated by Masa, he was originally intended to have the role he had in the anime but Capcom I guess wanted to solely focus on Chaud. As for Sharkman imagine a shark with two fin like arms that dives underwater on a grid battle system constantly...yea thats this guy.

Skullman.exe: Operated by the goth girl Miyu. Hes a robot that tosses his limbs at you like boomerangs. The anime used her a bunch but she never appeared in the games again.

Stoneman.exe: Another independent thats very dumb. Hes a giant gorilla-ish block robot. Also near immobile.

Woodman.exe: Being a block of wood usually a single fire attack can toast him hilariously. Operated by Sal she does actually return for Game 4 but serves as an optional fight here

Bass.exe: Bass is fully independent and free thinking, he actually serves the role Proto Man does in the classic series of a prototype robot thats slowly dying. In this case Bass is blamed for corrupting the alpha version of the internet, they attempted to kill him but he got away. But his data is quite literally memory leaking which is why he wears a cloak to hide the gaping space as his body starts to eat away.

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side question- what was the last RPG you found fun enough to play through a second time?

i have a bunch of games that i truly loved, but i can't make it through a second time

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banananor posted...

side question- what was the last RPG you found fun enough to play through a second time?

i have a bunch of games that i truly loved, but i can't make it through a second time

Radiant Historia.

I played the original on DS back in 2014 or so and I played the 3DS remake in early 2019. Other than that, I can only think of a handful of RPGS I have played through multiple times -

Final Fantasy
Final Fantasy IV
Final Fantasy VI
Final Fantasy VII
Suikoden
Suikoden II
Chrono Trigger
Secret of Mana
Final Fantasy Tactics - (although that one was mostly because I made it nearly to the end and my memory card got deleted....so I went through it a second time...)

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banananor posted...

side question- what was the last RPG you found fun enough to play through a second time?

i have a bunch of games that i truly loved, but i can't make it through a second time

I usually don't replay games to be honest. so its a rarity id play an rpg over

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#100 Miitopia (3DS)
Released 2017

This was a game I pretty much didn't know was coming. I wasn't interested in Tomadachi Life and I guess playing that game gave you a newsletter to know this game was coming the way people discuss it! Miitopia is actually a pretty basic game and if you lack the internet just throw this off the list (emulation users years from now will not get why this is good).

The beauty of Miitopia isn't that it lets you use your Mii its that you can randomize every NPC in the game you encounter to be a user created Mii. Now you maybe sitting there going but I don't wanna play as Jim or Bob.




Yea that was greeting me in the first town. Now if you are some kinda jaded soul-less monster, I get it you aren't amused. But this is kinda where Miitopia shines best. It is an entire universe thats like a crossover on drugs. Also yea these screenshots were shot directly off my phone 3 years ago so they ain't high quality.


Right out of a rick and morty episode almost


The dark lord Shaq, my villain in my game with the great sage Hatsune Miku


The Royal Family, everythings normal here

So is this enough to make this game an all time great? No literally this game is at #100 for a reason, its a single good rpg from falling off my list. The issue with this game is that they pad the game out extremely making you start over three times for each world. Your main characters forced to pick a new class and you gotta make 3 new characters starting from you guessed it level 1.

The first world of this game is fantastic with the internet Mii randomized in, I could not put the game down. But once you hit the 2nd world and you start to see they are just repeating most things, the miis barely show up and you just start to hear yourself groaning. There is only so many times you can go thru an auto scrolling dungeon choosing for the party to go up or down.

The worst part is the 4th act is entirely recollecting your party again but its random who you get and when so by the time you get your cool guy from World 2 you might be so strong with the 4 people you have it doesn't feel worth stopping to grind. At this point I wanted the game to just end, the magic had worn off because they washed it away and honestly stopped trying.

===Tidbits
1.A lot of lets players on Youtube trashed this game at launch because they didnt connect their 3DS/2DS to the internet for the miis kinda removing all the humorous situations that can appeal
2.The director of this game was the director of Brain Age

===Good Jams Alert
https://youtu.be/Nl-Gjf65mUU - The inn theme
https://youtu.be/2Ioj3xqARrs - The Kings theme
https://youtu.be/CbiwSaWqMLk - Battle Theme World 1

Next time #99 we make contact with other dimensions


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bump #99 in the am

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#99 Contact (DS)
Year: 2006


I feel like this was a game that came out as and so many people looked at as this earthbound wannabe because it had some graphic similarity with one of the screens. At the time this came out I was just playing whatever DS games I could, it was my main system. It's probably the only reason I checked out Contact and boy its a game.

This game is largely credited to be the brainchild of Akira Ueda who was behind the GBA Shining Soul games and unfortunately after this helped plan Sticker Star (thunder claps in the topic). If you looked at this at a quick glance you would think it was a Shining Soul 3 for DS since the graphic style is pretty similar. At least on the bottom screen! So heres the thing about Contact, the top screen is SNES earthbound style while the bottom is more detailed 2D art thats appropriate for DS capabilities. This is the big draw marketing wise but it doesn't tell the whole story here.

You see the game actually is made of 3 parts.

1.The professor who wants to escape the planet after crash landing
2.Terry the boy enlisted by the professor to find the cells to get his ufo working whose kidnapped from his home
3.And you

Yes you the player are a huge part of this story. You see in a strange twist maybe suggesting that the Professor is a '4D Being', he can see you playing the game. And because he doesn't know if this teenager can due the task he enlists you to help him by 'suggesting' what Terry do using the power of uh playing the game! The professor is desperate for some reason to keep Terry from knowing about the player, and sadly this is never really explained.

Actually a LOT in this game is never explained. In fact the one thing that is explained is probably the craziest part of all. The games kinda pacing along as a quirky action rpg when suddenly it just dips towards the ending without warning. Terry is fighting for the last crystal when the professor swoops in, takes it and flies away laughing. Terry washes up on the beach then confronts YOU the player. He knows hes being literally played and challenges you to a fight as he hates your guts.

You beat him by tapping the screen like a giant poking an ant. At this point Terry is gonna give up, Mint the leader of the gang that just happened to have a dragon comes in and asks Terry to join her. He does and goes off to be a dragon gangster I guess.

So uh thats it? Nope because then you get this



You read that correctly, they literally just ran out of time and had the 'professor' send that to you. It's such a wild thing to acknowledge of oops we ran out of time and money so games over go home! While a more common practice and result in the gaming world than you'd think this is still such a wild thing to admit...in your crazy botched ending.

But that's not all...

At the very end of this letter the professor reveals that he is the boy? What.

So yeah this ending is a real head scratcher on MANY levels, infact that Mint girl serves as a plot device to rescue you. There actually is a love interest Nadia but uh she just vanishes in the later part of the game. And the professor just leaves his dog behind. Strange stuff.

There is a really interesting aspect that you are the villain controlling Terry, and the Professor is screwing with you for revenge. Around the 2nd or 3rd crystal you collect you start getting dialog that points out another group is after the crystals (not the Aliens chasing the professor) and question is brought up by the NPCs of you not being in the right.

So enough story whats the rest of this game like? Pretty generic action rpg. In a lot of ways this plays like the first shining soul game on GBA which was extremely shallow in its combat. This is a game where equipment feels more cosmetic than anything as the game doesn't really have much challenge aside from the final boss. There is a huge theme to push home that Terry isn't in control. His weapons almost don't matter, you can change his outfit at will, and the implication his 'love interest' vanishes and he goes with the enemy Mint implies he wasn't even seeking that romance with Nadia.

Contact is a short game on two little screens about perception and control. It's a game I always suggest to people knowing how short it is and how decidedly strange it is.

Next time: A bunch of my party members fused together in one turn


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Tag because battle network was here

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