23rd May 2004, 10:02 PM
(This post was last modified: 23rd May 2004, 10:24 PM by Dark Jaguar.)
Some people enjoy FFX, and yeah the battles are fun I guess, but it's SO linear you are LITERALLY walking on ONE path the ENTIRE game up until the end.
Oh and, Weltall, I really need you to tell me if the other Silent Hill games have that one thing I really didn't like about Silent Hill 2 that sorta killed the whole experience for me. That is to say, walking around about a million places that look exactly the same. Honestly, I really got bored to actual frustration with the boredom wandering into about 50 or so empty apartment buildings that all looked alike just for the chance to get to the good parts of the game.
Chrono Cross got very mixed reviews, but as far as I can tell those who didn't like it went under the assumption that it would be a game that was all about the combos like CT was. CC actually is all about it's own unique battle system involving building up your strength through each battle. The way some describe it, it might sound tedius, but it really is fun. I really enjoyed how each battle actually rose to a climactic clash rather than starting off with the super mega stuff. Ya basically have to use physical attacks to build up your meter allowing for higher hit percentages with your strong physical attacks, as well as being able to use the really strong level spells. THEN you can wail on the enemy. The goal of the battle is strategizing on how to survive when you are weak and use the right amount of mid level attacks so you can both survive and get up to a level where you can finally destroy the enemy with super powered attacks. It's really fun, for me anyway. Also, it's the sort of game you HAVE to play over and over again because the choices you make througout it on who to add to your party will eliminate chances to get other party members later. There are 40 characters, meaning MOST of them aren't very well developed, but they DID do a very good job of developing the actual main characters, about 5 of them actually. The main story is VERY confusing, but it's good. Anyway, the game itself I gotta say is one of the best RPGs I've ever played and it has a very original combat system at that. That's just my opinion of course. There are mixed reviews of it. I still say lazy needs to play that game at least once since all he has to go on are the reviews.
If you are wanting PS1 games as well, as others are suggesting games like Chrono Cross above, I must recommend Xenogears and all the FF games you can get ahold of. PS1 did FF right, though FF8 has mixed reviews (Personally, I loved that one too, but that generation I was handing out the love to all sorts of games that many didn't like, so take that as you will). I will say this. The first 2 Final Fantasy retro collections really screwed up. FF5 and FF6 are straight ports, except they did a really poor job. FF5 only came out here ON the PS1, so that's the only way you can play it. The load times there are decent enough you won't notice much fortunatly, but the speed on a lot of effects and the sounds are really "off". FF6 has load times you can defeat with the PS2's quick load feature for PS1 games. It's not perfect, but it'll make it easily playable. Only problem there is the same bad emulating that FF5 has, plus at the very end, the ending song is out of synch with the scenes, and that song and scene synching is REALLY important to the whole experience there. You'll see what I mean. FF4 is the unaltered original with a brand new translation that doesn't censor anything. You'll get it all from the love triangle that motivated Kain to turn to darkness to the fact that Cid was actually thought to be dead, not just "jumping off here" for no reason. The load times are nonexistant because the entire game is dumped into the PS1's RAM from the start except the music. However, again the emulation suffers from bad sounds to slowdown. Finally, CT. Well, get the SNES version please. Sure it's got bonuses like the FMVs which DO look great and really make you feel those moments (I LOVE when Frog pulls the sword from the ground and slices open the magic cave), and also a full beastiary and treasure maps of all areas, but the emulation is the worst here. The sounds are mostly spot on, but that slowdown is still there occasionally. Worse yet, while the Japanese version of this remake had zero load times, I'm afraid the US version has the worst load times of all these games. Simply aweful.... Unplayable even. In fact, you will pretty much HAVE to turn on quick loading if you want to be able to enjoy the game. Without it, starting a battle will take about 30 seconds or so. Anyway, I can say this. Final Fantasy Origins, two COMPLETE and TOTAL remakes of Final Fantasy 1 and 2, are the best of the lot. NO load times, NO slowdown, NO poor sound emulation (because it's not being emulated). It's how remakes SHOULD be done. The graphics were totally redone (for Wonderswan Color yes, but they do perfectly here and they actually ported rather than emulated it all), and look great, and the sounds were also completely remastered (NOT the WSC version, totally new to make use of the better sound features of the PS1 over the WSC, which used NES level sound anyway). The sound effects sound very genuine, and the music seems to be real instruments. It's Chrono Cross/Final Fantasy IX quality music, if you've heard that. The bonuses are unlocked through things you do DURING the game as well, so they basically added little collections quests for you to do, like fighting every monster in the games to complete the beastiaries. Very fun experience. However, you may want to wait for the GBA version. I fear the music will suffer a downgrade on the GBA (unless they compress it MP3 style for the cart and play it back that way), but it'll have a lot more gameplay stuff added. Oh, I'm pretty sure even if the music is kept, the FMVs will be going bye bye. So anyway, that's my rundown of the various FF ports. 4 of them aren't exactly the best in the world, though a few are certainly worth getting, but 2 are far superior to the originals. Get Castlevania Symphony of the Night as well. If you like Metroid, you'll also like this. It's about the same sort of experience, only with special item drops and levels. Honestly, I still prefer Metroid because it LACKS those things :D, but it certainly has it's own charms because of them and all those Metroid style Castlevanias are VERY fun in their own right. Plus, ya gotta kill Dracula in SOME game in your life time. It's like a requirement.
Anyway, there are a lot of things to try out on the PS1, and a bunch to get on PS2 as well. It all depends on your tastes.
Oh and, Weltall, I really need you to tell me if the other Silent Hill games have that one thing I really didn't like about Silent Hill 2 that sorta killed the whole experience for me. That is to say, walking around about a million places that look exactly the same. Honestly, I really got bored to actual frustration with the boredom wandering into about 50 or so empty apartment buildings that all looked alike just for the chance to get to the good parts of the game.
Chrono Cross got very mixed reviews, but as far as I can tell those who didn't like it went under the assumption that it would be a game that was all about the combos like CT was. CC actually is all about it's own unique battle system involving building up your strength through each battle. The way some describe it, it might sound tedius, but it really is fun. I really enjoyed how each battle actually rose to a climactic clash rather than starting off with the super mega stuff. Ya basically have to use physical attacks to build up your meter allowing for higher hit percentages with your strong physical attacks, as well as being able to use the really strong level spells. THEN you can wail on the enemy. The goal of the battle is strategizing on how to survive when you are weak and use the right amount of mid level attacks so you can both survive and get up to a level where you can finally destroy the enemy with super powered attacks. It's really fun, for me anyway. Also, it's the sort of game you HAVE to play over and over again because the choices you make througout it on who to add to your party will eliminate chances to get other party members later. There are 40 characters, meaning MOST of them aren't very well developed, but they DID do a very good job of developing the actual main characters, about 5 of them actually. The main story is VERY confusing, but it's good. Anyway, the game itself I gotta say is one of the best RPGs I've ever played and it has a very original combat system at that. That's just my opinion of course. There are mixed reviews of it. I still say lazy needs to play that game at least once since all he has to go on are the reviews.
If you are wanting PS1 games as well, as others are suggesting games like Chrono Cross above, I must recommend Xenogears and all the FF games you can get ahold of. PS1 did FF right, though FF8 has mixed reviews (Personally, I loved that one too, but that generation I was handing out the love to all sorts of games that many didn't like, so take that as you will). I will say this. The first 2 Final Fantasy retro collections really screwed up. FF5 and FF6 are straight ports, except they did a really poor job. FF5 only came out here ON the PS1, so that's the only way you can play it. The load times there are decent enough you won't notice much fortunatly, but the speed on a lot of effects and the sounds are really "off". FF6 has load times you can defeat with the PS2's quick load feature for PS1 games. It's not perfect, but it'll make it easily playable. Only problem there is the same bad emulating that FF5 has, plus at the very end, the ending song is out of synch with the scenes, and that song and scene synching is REALLY important to the whole experience there. You'll see what I mean. FF4 is the unaltered original with a brand new translation that doesn't censor anything. You'll get it all from the love triangle that motivated Kain to turn to darkness to the fact that Cid was actually thought to be dead, not just "jumping off here" for no reason. The load times are nonexistant because the entire game is dumped into the PS1's RAM from the start except the music. However, again the emulation suffers from bad sounds to slowdown. Finally, CT. Well, get the SNES version please. Sure it's got bonuses like the FMVs which DO look great and really make you feel those moments (I LOVE when Frog pulls the sword from the ground and slices open the magic cave), and also a full beastiary and treasure maps of all areas, but the emulation is the worst here. The sounds are mostly spot on, but that slowdown is still there occasionally. Worse yet, while the Japanese version of this remake had zero load times, I'm afraid the US version has the worst load times of all these games. Simply aweful.... Unplayable even. In fact, you will pretty much HAVE to turn on quick loading if you want to be able to enjoy the game. Without it, starting a battle will take about 30 seconds or so. Anyway, I can say this. Final Fantasy Origins, two COMPLETE and TOTAL remakes of Final Fantasy 1 and 2, are the best of the lot. NO load times, NO slowdown, NO poor sound emulation (because it's not being emulated). It's how remakes SHOULD be done. The graphics were totally redone (for Wonderswan Color yes, but they do perfectly here and they actually ported rather than emulated it all), and look great, and the sounds were also completely remastered (NOT the WSC version, totally new to make use of the better sound features of the PS1 over the WSC, which used NES level sound anyway). The sound effects sound very genuine, and the music seems to be real instruments. It's Chrono Cross/Final Fantasy IX quality music, if you've heard that. The bonuses are unlocked through things you do DURING the game as well, so they basically added little collections quests for you to do, like fighting every monster in the games to complete the beastiaries. Very fun experience. However, you may want to wait for the GBA version. I fear the music will suffer a downgrade on the GBA (unless they compress it MP3 style for the cart and play it back that way), but it'll have a lot more gameplay stuff added. Oh, I'm pretty sure even if the music is kept, the FMVs will be going bye bye. So anyway, that's my rundown of the various FF ports. 4 of them aren't exactly the best in the world, though a few are certainly worth getting, but 2 are far superior to the originals. Get Castlevania Symphony of the Night as well. If you like Metroid, you'll also like this. It's about the same sort of experience, only with special item drops and levels. Honestly, I still prefer Metroid because it LACKS those things :D, but it certainly has it's own charms because of them and all those Metroid style Castlevanias are VERY fun in their own right. Plus, ya gotta kill Dracula in SOME game in your life time. It's like a requirement.
Anyway, there are a lot of things to try out on the PS1, and a bunch to get on PS2 as well. It all depends on your tastes.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)