Board 8 > Hoping to get some help with a handful of PS1 JRPGs

(+) Yeah! (+)

Cant remember how long it has been since I posted here on B8, but I know this is probably still the right place for a question like this.

I have in my possession a number of PS1 JRPGs that Ive never played before, and Im hoping to get some opinions/guidance on things like which one might be best to start with, maybe the full order that anyone who responds would recommend playing them in, even just general thoughts on how good/bad they may be in general. Basically, if anyone has any kind of opinion to share on these, Im interested in hearing it.

The games are:

Vagrant Story
Suikoden II
Xenogears
Final Fantasy IX
Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete
Chrono Cross

Appreciate any thoughts people might like to share. Stay safe!

ff9 is very good
chrono cross is very bad

Vagrant Story - Meh
Suikoden II - 10/10 game
Xenogears - Pretty good, but goes downhill on Disc 2
Final Fantasy IX - Very solid game
Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete - Pretty good.
Chrono Cross - I liked it, great soundtrack

Just play them in whatever order you want. They all have followings for a reason.

Yeah, all these games are beloved. There's no guarantee which ones you'll like or not.

Personally, Vagrant Story, FF9, and Chrono Cross are three of my favorite games of all time. Lunar has a great story, but a very weak battle system.

They're all worth playing.

Vagrant Story is probably the shortest (like 10-15 hours), and Xenogears is the longest (probably 50-60+).

I'd say start out with Vagrant Story and Chrono Cross since they're a bit polarizing and VS is mechanically pretty different from the majority of rpgs.

And XG is the case of it being an interesting mess due to the scope and ambition of the game, since it's not well paced at all and a lot of things about the gameplay itself are half baked.

The other games are pretty standard fare and are pretty safe bets to give you what you're looking for if that's what you want.

Mr_Crispy posted...

They're all worth playing.

Vagrant Story is probably the shortest (like 10-15 hours), and Xenogears is the longest (probably 50-60+).

This actually raises one of the points Im mulling, which is game length. Ive read that Suikoden II has something like 100+ recruitable characters, so I figured that it must be very lengthy if one were hoping to get the full experience. About how long would you say Suikoden II is?

Chrono Cross would have been forgotten ages ago if not for the Chrono title and the soundtrack. Its a completely mediocre game.

Of these I've only played Suikoden II, and that's in my top 10 games ever... despite me playing it two decades after it came out.

It's not as lengthy as you might think with the 108 Stars of Destiny.

Suikoden 2 is not that lengthy. A lot of the recruitable characters join just by advancing the story. It's also very good.

I really love FF IX for the world building and visual direction and writing, but its gameplay hasn't aged terribly well. If you play the remaster with built-in speed up it's probably better.

Suikoden 2 is beatable in about 30 hours for a first playthrough if you want to get every character.

Vagrant story is at least not a good startergame due to how difficult it is

RikkuAlmighty posted...

Chrono Cross would have been forgotten ages ago if not for the Chrono title and the soundtrack

The soundtrack really is that good that it props it up a little, but the game's not bad either

I would heavily recommend playing the first Suikoden before the sequel. It's not like FF where every game is in its own world with no connections to others, there's a shared continuity with ongoing plotlines and recurring characters.

Vagrant Story - Loved it until the gameplay system stopped making sense. It kind of reminds me of a dark fantasy Metroid
Suikoden II - Overrated. Thought Suikoden 1 was more enjoyable.
Xenogears - Top tier JRPG and elite story line
Final Fantasy IX - Great
Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete - Haven't played.
Chrono Cross - Thought it was decent but stopped playing after about 8 hours

All six of those games are bangers. Youre in for a great time no matter which you go with

Ill go ahead and be one of the few people who defend Chrono Cross too. It was honestly a 10/10 back in 2000, and it holds up well today too

VectorAgent posted...

Cant remember how long it has been since I posted here on B8, but I know this is probably still the right place for a question like this.

I have in my possession a number of PS1 JRPGs that Ive never played before, and Im hoping to get some opinions/guidance on things like which one might be best to start with, maybe the full order that anyone who responds would recommend playing them in, even just general thoughts on how good/bad they may be in general. Basically, if anyone has any kind of opinion to share on these, Im interested in hearing it.

The games are:

Vagrant Story
Suikoden II
Xenogears
Final Fantasy IX
Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete
Chrono Cross

Appreciate any thoughts people might like to share. Stay safe!

Suikoden II*> Xenogears> FFIX > Lunar:SSC > CC > Vagrant Story

*make sure you play Suikoden I first

Suikoden I and II is an all-time JRPG in terms of character, world-building, plot and immersion. The battles are fun but simple. The castle-building and character recruiting aspects are iconic. A top 5 JRPG experience.

Xenogears is a masterpiece whose strengths overpower its notable flaws.

FFIX is a really solid entry into the Final Fantasy franchise, though I've grown to like it less as I've gotten older (I've also started to appreciate VIII and X more at the same time). It's a little too safe.

Lunar SSSC is foundational. I imagine it would be a rough first playthrough in 2024 though. Still have really fond memories of it though. Eternal Blue is better.

Chrono Cross... maybe I'll write my standard essay about why this game is disappointing later, but I don't think it's very good. Awesome soundtrack though.

Vagrant Story I never liked. Though if I'm completely honest I only played it that one time when it came out, and I dont think I understood its systems.

Ifrit posted...

Suikoden 2 is beatable in about 30 hours for a first playthrough if you want to get every character.

Good to know, thank you.

htaeD posted...

Vagrant story is at least not a good startergame due to how difficult it is

Ive heard really great things, but I think at least the combat system is supposed to be quite different from your average fare.

BlackMageJawa posted...

I would heavily recommend playing the first Suikoden before the sequel. It's not like FF where every game is in its own world with no connections to others, there's a shared continuity with ongoing plotlines and recurring characters.

colliding posted...

*make sure you play Suikoden I first

Oof. I definitely do not have the first gamebut, I suppose I could always put II on the back burner in case I come by the first one. I didnt realize the games followed from each other, I thought they might be standalones.

colliding posted...

Chrono Cross... maybe I'll write my standard essay about why this game is disappointing later, but I don't think it's very good. Awesome soundtrack though.

From what I gather (just based on poking around the internet), it gets mentioned as a bit of a disappointment more often than not, but also has a very passionate group of fans who swear by it. Im hoping Ill fall into the latter category when I play it. And to be fair, it not being a clear follow up to Chrono Trigger isnt necessarily a bad thing for me. While there were some aspects of that game that I thought were terrific, overall it didnt hit me quite the same as it seems to hit most people. I dont really have anything negative to say about it, just that it didnt quite reach the hype level for me. Anyhow, happy to read your essay if you feel like posting it.

Appreciate all of the thoughts so far. Aside from Chrono Trigger, other games Ive played that are related to any of the six, even if only tangentially, are FF4, FF6, and Xenoblade Chronicles. So I dont necessarily have the deep wealth of experience with JRPGs from this particular era that most of the people hanging out on B8 do.

I will say, for Lunar, you may be better off playing the PSP version if possible. Working Designs had a knack for screwing with the difficulty when publishing English releases, so the PS1 version isn't the intended experience. Maybe I'm alone in that though

VectorAgent posted...

Anyhow, happy to read your essay if you feel like posting it.

Okay well maybe a short version that doesn't mention Chrono Trigger, since you already said you don't particularly care how it measures up compared to its predecessor. How it handles the prior game's characters and resolves its plotlines is really only insult to injury.

Cross's story on its own is nonsense parading as intellectualism. I find the details of it utterly incomprehensible; it also lacks a strong emotional core to carry players through the density of its plot details. One reason it lacks a core is because it gives players the chance to recruit 40 terrible playable characters (only maybe 8 of whom are actually interesting). Instead of having characters participate in the plot in a meaningful way, the game just has throwaway boxes of dialogue at important moments in the game. Lots of playable characters works in Suikoden because there's a castle-building mechanic tied to the character recruitment mechanic. I'm sure some people love this aspect of CC, but none of them, including Poshul, really worked for me, and I would much rather have had a core group of 8 characters that could participate in the narrative. Right now, the game rests on how much you enjoy the character of Kid, which is problematic due to spoilery reasons.

Also it just isn't fun to play. Battles are slow, and in a game with really really good music, the battle theme is the most annoying nails on a chalkboard mess in any JRPG. I legitimately hate it as a piece of music. Both the regular attack mechanic and the magic mechanic are more trouble than they're worth. Regular attacks you have to chain together "combos," which makes battles go way longer than they should. With magic attacks, there's some kind of benefit to using magic of the same element repeatedly, but it's so rare that this ever happens that no one really cares. Again that also requires staying in a battle for a while, and you want to finish these as quickly as possible so you don't have to listen to the terrible music anymore.

the end

tazzyboyishere posted...

I will say, for Lunar, you may be better off playing the PSP version if possible. Working Designs had a knack for screwing with the difficulty when publishing English releases, so the PS1 version isn't the intended experience. Maybe I'm alone in that though

It's been a decade since I played the PS1 version. I remember it being extremely easy. Didn't know it was a tweak by Working Designs.

colliding you usually have such good opinions what happen

GranzonEx posted...

It's been a decade since I played the PS1 version. I remember it being extremely easy. Didn't know it was a tweak by Working Designs.

From what I remember, they made the difficulty of bosses adaptive. So no matter what level you were, bosses would have something like HPx(four times Alex's HP) and Attackx(twice Alex's level) or something like that. It made it so you never had any reason to grind, which of course made it feel easier than the original version.

psp lunar loses some of the charm imo. that game has its roots as an old skool 90's sega cd game, and the new art style in the psp version made it feel cheap/generic. ps1 version or bust

TomNook7 posted...

colliding you usually have such good opinions what happen

bad case of bonkus of the konkus

Many Working Designs games have an unpatch that keeps the game in English but reverts all the terrible gameplay changes they made

Chrono Cross is the best game on that list

VectorAgent posted...

Oof. I definitely do not have the first gamebut, I suppose I could always put II on the back burner in case I come by the first one. I didnt realize the games followed from each other, I thought they might be standalones.

You can play 2 standalone technically (the overall main story is stand alone) but it has characters and a few minor plots that return from 1 that enhance the overall experience if you know about them beforehand.

The Suikoden series is basically a series of wars taking place in different countries in the same world at different points in time. Some characters are travelers that happen to get involved in multiple ones, some influential characters have their fingers in the pies of multiple countries, etc.

There is also technically a meta-plot binding it all together as well going on in the background but sadly it never got resolved before the series essentially got soft canned by Konami being Konami.

Oh and to kind of expand on the "Why does Suikoden's massive cast work for it but not Chrono Cross's" discussion- Suikoden's storylines are specifically framed as macro storylines that affect entire countries. While the core story may involve the main characters the most, they're not the only ones that have reasons to participate in the conflict- armies are formed, cities are invaded, and life is generally upended for everyone, even regular NPCs. This is not the case for Chrono Cross. Chrono Cross's storyline is generally very personal to the protagonist and their friend group with little immediate effect on the wider world, and many characters just join you 'because they can'. They don't really have a stake in anything or reason for coming along, they just do, with little if any reason given.

I do like Chrono Cross personally, but that game has a lot of flaws.

VectorAgent posted...

Cant remember how long it has been since I posted here on B8, but I know this is probably still the right place for a question like this.

I have in my possession a number of PS1 JRPGs that Ive never played before, and Im hoping to get some opinions/guidance on things like which one might be best to start with, maybe the full order that anyone who responds would recommend playing them in, even just general thoughts on how good/bad they may be in general. Basically, if anyone has any kind of opinion to share on these, Im interested in hearing it.

The games are:

Vagrant Story

Complex crafting system and unorthodox battle mechanics. Some people loved it, but I could never get used to it.

Suikoden II

Excellent game. If you have a Suikoden I save, then have that on your memory card.

Xenogears

If you can overlook its late game flaws (you'll know them when you see them), then it's pretty good.

Final Fantasy IX

A bit more lighthearted than VII and VIII. I enjoyed it, but it wasn't revolutionary.

Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete

If you're ok with Working Designs and their localizations, then this would be a good option.

Chrono Cross

I hit an absolute roadblock of a boss fight and couldn't finish. If you want to play this, the load times are probably faster on the remaster.

tcaz2 posted...

Chrono Cross's storyline is generally very personal to the protagonist and their friend group with little immediate effect on the wider world,

Disagree pretty hard with this. The story is mostly about the world and not the characters.

pjbasis posted...

Disagree pretty hard with this. The story is mostly about the world and not the characters.

The story ends up being about the world, yes, but it doesn't start or progress that way for the majority of it. Its pretty railroaded on being about both Serge and Kid's personal plots for over 2/3rds of the story and the cast doesn't even know there's anything more going on. Most of the cast has no reason to actually care, and that's not even getting into the truly random party members like Skelly, Starky, and Turnip that join just... because.