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Wade Wilson
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Post by J is Justice on Jan 16, 2022 6:39:21 GMT -5
14. Final Fantasy VII Remake Well, that lived up to the hype. I felt like a kid again playing this. I absolutely loved the new battle system. I felt like they finally perfected what they've been trying to do since FFXIII. It's exciting and strategic, and each character has their own unique style. I liked how the game was kind of a mix between linear and open. XIII was too linear, whereas XV was too open. Of course, the graphics and music were amazing, but that's to be expected. As much as I loved the game, there were a couple of negatives. For one, there was way too much padding. Since the game only takes place in Midgar, they had to stretch it out and you can tell. My other complaint is how they handled Sephiroth. Basically, they ruined him. One of the best parts of the original was the build up to him, but in this game... he just appears right from the start. Wow. Haven't played Intergrade, yet, but hopefully I will soon.
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Wade Wilson
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Post by J is Justice on Jan 16, 2022 10:07:25 GMT -5
13. Dragon Quest XI This is just a classic JRPG in modern form, and I love it. It's just so unapologetically Dragon Quest. This game pretty much fixed the problems I had with VIII. There are more playable characters and the battle system has a little extra to make it more fun (Pep Powers). The combat is turn-based combat which I'm always a fan of. Speaking of the characters, they're great! Really enjoyed the camping aspect of the game, and from there you could craft new weapons and armour. There's bucket loads of content and a big, beautiful world to explore. Really, the only negative for me is the music, which they fixed for the Switch version.
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Post by Dr. T is an alien on Jan 16, 2022 10:59:32 GMT -5
13. Dragon Quest XI This is just a classic JRPG in modern form, and I love it. It's just so unapologetically Dragon Quest. This game pretty much fixed the problems I had with VIII. There are more playable characters and the battle system has a little extra to make it more fun (Pep Powers). The combat is turn-based combat which I'm always a fan of. Speaking of the characters, they're great! Really enjoyed the camping aspect of the game, and from there you could craft new weapons and armour. There's bucket loads of content and a big, beautiful world to explore. Really, the only negative for me is the music, which they fixed for the Switch version. This really is a fantastic game. Also, if you are a fan of the entire series as a whole the storyline is a giant love letter to the history of the franchise (and if you are into things like this, it makes it so all of the games can share the same canon). I've finished the main game but need to go back to finish the copious post game materials. You mentioned the characters, but they truly do make a solid foundation for the story. Rab and Veronica can both be a little bit much (for very different reasons), but even that is fun. Eric makes for a fantastic sidekick character with a rich personal history. Even Jade goes beyond her archetype. The surprise party member winds up being a fantastic addition to the merry band, despite all appearances to him being a stick in the mud earlier. Last, but certainly not least, if the best character in all of gaming - The Great Sylvando! When his fanfare starts up for the video clip reintroducing him to the party kicked in, I cannot help but to have gotten excited (and not simply because his return to the party meant a return of his boat as well). Also, the hero actually exhibits a little personality, a rare treat for DQ. I guess Sylvando wears off on people. I did, however, have to quickly switch out the outfit that Sylvando puts the hero in because he....prances in it. Not just in videos, but in the overworld as well. It's distracting.
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Wade Wilson
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Post by J is Justice on Jan 16, 2022 14:48:36 GMT -5
12. Yakuza: Like a Dragon As much as I liked the other Yakuza games, I always felt the combat was the weakest part. It could be fun, but it was basically mindless mashing and, thus, could get old. But that was fixed in Like a Dragon when they made the switch to turn-based combat. Now, the system has strategy and depth. Poundmates are a hilarious take on summons from FF games, there's a job system with literal jobs (like bartender and foreman), there's "magic". It's just so good. And it has all the strengths of the other Yakuza games, like a great story, fun characters, and amazing sidequests. One of my main complaints about modern JRPGs are the crappy sidequests, but Yakuza never disappoints and I always want to do every quest I can. The business sidequest, especially, is so addicting. This game is hilarious, fun and even emotional. I can't say any more good things about it. If you haven't played it, play it!
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Post by J is Justice on Jan 16, 2022 19:46:46 GMT -5
11. The Last Story My favourite Wii game! This game has incredible combat. It's actually quite hard to describe, but I don't think I've ever played an RPG with a battle system like this. I mean, to attack, you have to mash "up". But, yeah, it's strategic and exciting. The characters are great. Like the FFXV cast, they share some hilarious banter. Of course, there's some great music by Nobuo Uematsu. I love the main theme, especially. This game just has a nice, warm vibe about it. The fact most of it takes place in one city, and you and your friends hang at the inn all day, and the characters' accents, etc. But the best thing about the game is that you can trip people up with banana peels.
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Post by J is Justice on Jan 16, 2022 19:48:57 GMT -5
Alright, we're finally at the top 10! Any predictions? I think it's easy to guess what's coming up, but there might be a couple of surprises in there.
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Post by Ryback on a Pole! on Jan 16, 2022 23:07:32 GMT -5
Sometimes I feel like the only person who didnt like FF7R
The game peaked with Jessie's Mission. That was brilliant. A new take on characters. Fun. Interesting.
I was expecting more additional content and missions like that. Instead it was more "that thing that took 5 minutes last time now takes 2 hours."
And not because of extra scenes .... but because of pointless button pressing and lever pressing.
Worst bit was the monster that stole your key in the sewers. Solely exited to add an extra half hour to the game.
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Post by Dr. T is an alien on Jan 16, 2022 23:34:33 GMT -5
Sometimes I feel like the only person who didnt like FF7R The game peaked with Jessie's Mission. That was brilliant. A new take on characters. Fun. Interesting. I was expecting more additional content and missions like that. Instead it was more "that thing that took 5 minutes last time now takes 2 hours." And not because of extra scenes .... but because of pointless button pressing and lever pressing. Worst bit was the monster that stole your key in the sewers. Solely exited to add an extra half hour to the game. I do understand your complaints, but I will counter with the fact that it made some characters much more interesting to me. I actually cared about Jessie this time. Biggs and Wedge are more fleshed out as characters. Honestly, I did not particularly care about Aerith in the original game and did not see any reason why Cloud would have eyes for anyone when Tifa was around. In the remake, the extra padding helped me to actually love her as a character. The spirits that were trying to force the story to match the story of the original was an interesting twist. It's called a remake, but it is actually a secret sequel to the original FF7. That also explains why Sephiroth is involved so early in the story when he was built up in the original. I think we will find that in the end that there are two Sephiroths. The first that you encounter is the one who crossed over from the original game. I bet you'll find he is the weaker of the two because he was defeated a couple of times previously (in the game and in Advent Children). The second is the one that is native to the universe of this new telling of the story. I bet he'll be a lot stronger.
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Post by aka Cthulhu on Jan 17, 2022 3:45:08 GMT -5
15. Arc the Lad: Twilight of the Spirits Here it is—the ultimate JRPG hidden gem! The cool thing about this game is that there are two protagonists: Kharg, a human, and Darc, a deimos. And you switch between the two during the story. Both their stories are connected but most of the events happen away from the other. And they both have their own party of characters. Speaking of the characters, they are a varied and unique bunch. I slightly preferred Darc's party, though. This is a tactical RPG, though it's not grid-based. I guess it's more like Valkyria Chronicles, where you can move your characters around more freely. The story, the music and the graphics are all good stuff. It was originally on PS2 but it's now also on PS4, so I recommend everyone checks it out! I remember this game. It was either FFX or SO3, but I played the game after one of those two, so my experience of the game was affected by that. Gotta say I enjoyed the parts where Darc was the one you controlled. Game was also a lot easier so gameplay elements became a bit of a slog. Decent enough game, but when it comes to games where you end up in multiple POVs, you end up favoring one POV over the other. Like Suikoden 3, for example. You get to the interesting bits of one POV, but chapter ends and motivation drops down a bit.
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Wade Wilson
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Post by J is Justice on Jan 17, 2022 7:33:50 GMT -5
10. Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch This game came out during a dark age for JRPGs. In my opinion, the PS3/360/Wii gen was pretty lackluster for the genre. FFXIII had disappointed, there was no new Persona game, etc. But then this game came out and was the one shining light. Ni no Kuni made me feel like a kid again. Of course, it has that Studio Ghibli art style so it looks beautiful. And that's exactly what it feels like—as if you're playing a Studio Ghibli movie. The game is just full of charm, like Mr Drippy and his Welsh accent. There's a world map! Shocking after FFXIII. And the game's locations are all unique and look amazing. I'll never forget when you have to go inside Mr Drippy's mum's stomach. I suppose the most polarizing aspect of the game was the battle system. It was fun collecting familiars and sending them into battle. I'll admit, it is a bit of a mess. This game can be quite challenging, but it's probably just because the battle system is so f***ed up. But it's still a lot of fun for what it is.
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Post by Ryback on a Pole! on Jan 17, 2022 10:21:19 GMT -5
I do understand your complaints, but I will counter with the fact that it made some characters much more interesting to me. I actually cared about Jessie this time. Biggs and Wedge are more fleshed out as characters. Honestly, I did not particularly care about Aerith in the original game and did not see any reason why Cloud would have eyes for anyone when Tifa was around. In the remake, the extra padding helped me to actually love her as a character. The spirits that were trying to force the story to match the story of the original was an interesting twist. It's called a remake, but it is actually a secret sequel to the original FF7. That also explains why Sephiroth is involved so early in the story when he was built up in the original. I think we will find that in the end that there are two Sephiroths. The first that you encounter is the one who crossed over from the original game. I bet you'll find he is the weaker of the two because he was defeated a couple of times previously (in the game and in Advent Children). The second is the one that is native to the universe of this new telling of the story. I bet he'll be a lot stronger. I definitely enjoyed the additional character scenes. They were great. They did an excellent job of making Jessie an actual character. I also liked the scenes with Barrett that we got. My issue was solely with the maps and dungeons. It was clear they ran out of ideas to make the game longer so just padded it out with backtracking to press buttons and levers and open gates etc, which wasn't needed. I won't even call them puzzles, they weren't puzzles---if they were actual puzzles where you had to think on the solution, that would have been fine. It was just "put a lever at this end of the map, one at this end etc" I actually think if it was a 15-20 hour game without the padding in the dungeons it would have been one of my favorite games. Loved the combat, loved the character development and extra scenes. But the dungeons were an utter drag. Bad pacing too--- "Oh no, Shinra are trying to topple one of the plates... we better hurry to get there as fast as we can! Ah, but what about the ghost sighting at the train graveyard. We better investigate that on the way!"
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Post by dirtyoldman on Jan 17, 2022 10:30:05 GMT -5
I see the original Playstation FF trilogy has yet to make an appearance...
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Wade Wilson
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Post by J is Justice on Jan 17, 2022 10:46:11 GMT -5
I see the original Playstation FF trilogy has yet to make an appearance...
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Post by J is Justice on Jan 17, 2022 11:00:16 GMT -5
9. Kingdom Hearts Maybe a surprise choice, but I consider the first KH game to still be the best one. In my opinion, they peaked too early. For one, it has the most coherent story; they didn't go all out insane, yet. The number one reason for me, though, are the worlds. The worlds in KHII were so lifeless and boring, to me, whereas the worlds in this game were full of secrets and puzzles and platforming. The combat isn't as flashy, but there's a charm to its simplicity. It feels good when you finally unlock a cool new attack or summon, whereas, in the other games, every attack is cool. This is the last game I played that I get that childhood nostalgia for. The first Kingdom Hearts just feels like a more well-put-together package and I love it.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 17, 2022 12:37:17 GMT -5
I've gotta try out some of these games soon. Looking forward to the Top 10. > I've only played Pokémon (Yellow, Crystal and remakes), Final Fantasy IV to X-2, Chrono Trigger, and such out of this list... Final Fantasy IX is probably my all time favorite as I have so much nostalgia for it. Vivi's the best and I loved the card game.
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Post by J is Justice on Jan 17, 2022 16:00:46 GMT -5
8. Pokemon Red and Blue Had to put the original Pokemon games in the top 10. Even though I think Ruby and Sapphire are technically better, I just couldn't put them in my top 10, but Red and Blue are an easy number 8. Yeah, I know it makes no sense, lol. I mean, what can I say about these games that nobody else has? I loved them and I put hundreds of hours into them. Yeah, they're glitchy but the only one that really bothered me was ghost having no effect against psychic types. Although, I did catch a MissingNo. but that was my own fault. Thankfully, the remakes exist. If I had to choose my favourite Pokemon, they would have to be Charizard, Pidgeot, Raichu, Alakazam, Cloyster, Kingler, Scyther, Snorlax, Vaporeon and Mewtwo. Also, Red > Blue.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 17, 2022 16:27:31 GMT -5
If I had to choose my favourite Pokemon, they would have to be Charizard, Pidgeot, Raichu, Alakazam, Cloyster, Kingler, Scyther, Snorlax, Vaporeon and Mewtwo. Also, Red > Blue. My kind of team: Pikachu/Raichu, Chansey, Butterfree, Pidgeot, Primeape, Sandslash, Haunter/Gengar and Gyarados.
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Post by J is Justice on Jan 17, 2022 19:43:39 GMT -5
7. Persona 3 I never thought there would be a series that would compete for my love with Final Fantasy, but Persona proved me wrong! And it all started with 3. It's just such a cool idea. You got to school in the day and hang out with your friends, and then fight monsters at night. You form social links which in turn powers you up in battle. You increase your stats, such as intelligence or charm, by studying or drinking at the cafe. You've got to think about how to spend your time wisely because of the limited amount of time you have. Should you do this or that today? It's all just so addicting. If that wasn't addicting enough, you collect Personas and level them up. The battle system is great—hit the weakness of the enemy, knock them down and get an extra turn. Knock them all down and you get an all-out attack. There's definitely some challenge here—not so much the storyline bosses, but the mini-bosses, I found. By the way, you don't control your teammates in this game. Sometimes it gets annoying when they do something you don't want them to do, but, overall, I didn't find them that bad. The music is incredible, like all the Persona games. I mean, if I listed every song I liked I'd be here all day. The one negative of this game would be the dungeon. Tartarus is very bland and there's not much to it. But it's fine. The battle system is so fun, you just put up with it. I believe you can get the game digitally on PS3. Unfortunately, the physical copies are extremely expensive. The original might not be too bad, but FES and the PSP version are crazy.
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Post by J is Justice on Jan 18, 2022 6:36:25 GMT -5
6. Persona 5 Pretty much everything I said about Persona 3 applies to this game, but with improvements in almost every area. The palaces are a massive upgrade from Tartarus, having their own unique styles and objectives to complete. The battle system is, again, typical Persona fair. This game just oozes style, though, so everything is flashy and smooth. Love that characters get their own unique win pose after an all-out attack. The difficulty is a little disappointing, though, since a big thing about this game is gaining that preemptive attack. It's the only Persona game I play on hard. The characters are great with Makoto and Futaba being my favs. A criticism, though, is that Haru doesn't get enough screen time. I really like the story about how you're punishing corrupt adults. I liked how your fame increased the more missions you pulled off. Man, what can I even say about the music? The battle theme, the boss theme, Rivers in the Desert, Whims of Fate, Life Will Change, etc. My only real complaints would be about the pacing. The game takes way too long to start and it takes way too long to end. I was begging for the game to finish by the end. I won't spoil but the last 15 or 20 hours are just unnecessary, in my opinion. But everything in between is just incredible.
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Post by aka Cthulhu on Jan 18, 2022 7:38:01 GMT -5
7. Persona 3 I never thought there would be a series that would compete for my love with Final Fantasy, but Persona proved me wrong! And it all started with 3. It's just such a cool idea. You got to school in the day and hang out with your friends, and then fight monsters at night. You form social links which in turn powers you up in battle. You increase your stats, such as intelligence or charm, by studying or drinking at the cafe. You've got to think about how to spend your time wisely because of the limited amount of time you have. Should you do this or that today? It's all just so addicting. If that wasn't addicting enough, you collect Personas and level them up. The battle system is great—hit the weakness of the enemy, knock them down and get an extra turn. Knock them all down and you get an all-out attack. There's definitely some challenge here—not so much the storyline bosses, but the mini-bosses, I found. By the way, you don't control your teammates in this game. Sometimes it gets annoying when they do something you don't want them to do, but, overall, I didn't find them that bad. The music is incredible, like all the Persona games. I mean, if I listed every song I liked I'd be here all day. The one negative of this game would be the dungeon. Tartarus is very bland and there's not much to it. But it's fine. The battle system is so fun, you just put up with it. I believe you can get the game digitally on PS3. Unfortunately, the physical copies are extremely expensive. The original might not be too bad, but FES and the PSP version are crazy. I played the PSP, version. Funny memory about that, as on the way to work I was playing the game when I got almost robbed. Got knife pointed at me and everything. That said, my PSP was so old at that point where I had to replace one of the shoulder buttons with whatever I had at the time plus duct tape that they didn't bother taking it. Phone wasn't a smart phone at the time so it wasn't stolen either. The other people in the vehicle that were commuting at the time didn't fare as well, in terms of things taken. Aside from that, the PSP version allowed you to take control of the other characters in battle, which I guess made things easier. P.S. Mitsuru > every other girl in P3, as I recall.
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