RPG Progress Report

[Ack]

It's a rule that you're not allowed to complain about obtuse RPGs until you play an 80's dungeon crawler.

Does Ultima count?

[BoneSnapDeez]

Rayearth is done. I've now played this both in English and Japanese multiple times. Many more times than it deserves to be played, really.

I need to take a break from gaming for about a week or so, as I have multiple household projects on deck. When I resume I'm gonna dive back into FDS Zelda. I may update my progress in this thread. Sorry Popo.

[Ack]

Rayearth is done. I've now played this both in English and Japanese multiple times. Many more times than it deserves to be played, really.

Well, yeah. I look forward to your blog post about it though. I want to know if my own memories on just how ridiculously easy the game is hold up.

[Exhuminator]

Which Rayearth are you guys talking about? There's like five or six Rayearth RPGs.

[BoneSnapDeez]

Super Fami.

Here's the thing, Ack - and I'll mention this in the blog - the pre-patched ROMs (ya know, the ones with names like "Magic Knight Rayearth (J) [T+Eng1.01_RPGe].zip") aren't just language-patched. They're additionally modified so that the knights regain all HP/MP when they level up. It's completely unneeded and makes an easy game insanely easy.

[Ack]

Wow, I don't remember that happening. I just remember your attack and defense values being so high that most enemies only did single digit damage to your characters while you had health in the thousands. The only part of the game that even approached challenging was the final dungeon, and that was still a cakewalk. Heck, I remember there was a fight that you had to lose at one point, and I fought for an hour before realizing that was what I had to do. I had to work to die.

[BoneSnapDeez]

Which Rayearth are you guys talking about? There's like five or six Rayearth RPGs.

Seven! Well, seven games. Not all are technically RPGs, though most are.

Two on Game Boy.
Two on Game Gear.
One on Super Famicom.
One on Saturn.
One on Pico.

The Super Famicom and Saturn installments are the best-known ones.

Heck, I remember there was a fight that you had to lose at one point, and I fought for an hour before realizing that was what I had to do. I had to work to die.

Yes, this battle was extremely poorly programmed. Thankfully I remembered to purposefully lose on this playthrough. Just selected the "run" command.... like 40 times in a row...

[Sarge]

I started the Chinese bootleg Tales of Phantasia. I was enjoying it up until characters started swearing in a really annoying Western way ("Piss off", "This band sucks ass".)

Looking it up Im guessing this is the DeJap translation, apparently things only get more graphic. Hopefully it doesn't take me out of the experience too much.

Yeah, there's a part where two characters are speculating about how good the others are in bed, and a line along the lines of "I bet she f**** like a tiger" or something. It's stupid and juvenile.

Honestly, if you're going to play Tales of Phantasia, go for the translation of the PSX version. That one is actually translated well, and it also improves the combat system a bit. A second option is the GBA version, which is a bit slower, but it's passable for a ToP fix.

[Exhuminator]

There are three full translations available for the PS1 version. I think this is the best one:

http://www.romhacking.net/translations/1214/

[MrPopo]

It's a rule that you're not allowed to complain about obtuse RPGs until you play an 80's dungeon crawler.

Does Ultima count?

Ultima 1 isn't too terribly bad, but Ultima 2 is pretty WTF in its lack of good direction.

Personally, I didn't find the DeJap translation to be too jarring. But I also played it back when I was in High School.