Say I have a friend...

[A Black Falcon]

Star Ocean: The Second Story is probably the best PSX RPG-ish game that I've played... it's actually fun to play! That is far from a given in the world of menu-based-combat-random-battles console-style RPGs... (yeah, I have learned to tolerate them, but I still can't understand why they stopped paying attention to the developments of PC RPGs in the late '80s... it's like console RPGs cloned Ultimas 1-4 and the first seven Wizardry game, and dropped every innovation made in the genre since then...

Oh, there are other subgenres that partially "prove" me wrong -- "strategy/RPGs" which are really strategy games (Fire Emblem, Shining Force, Ogre Battle, etc), action/RPGs which change things by having "mash the buttons" combat... (Star Ocean, Tales, Mana, etc)... but where were they when Pools of Radiance innovated the PC RPG combat system, or when Ultima VII showed how open-ended a PC RPG could truly be, or when ... any PC RPG made in the last 12+ years... had an ingame map and quest log...

Yes, yes, I know, plot, plot... which is all well and good, but good gameplay is important too... otherwise I'd have managed to play more than an hour of Xenogears... not that I can't enjoy console RPGs, but when I compare them feature-to-feature they don't come close...

Oh yeah, and why the heck don't console RPGs use the start button to pause? Why do they always use some random face button? It doesn't make any sense...