The People's Choice Thread

[Exhuminator]

Shit dude, that's quite the quality list.

Yep, and I haven't played a single one of them, so now you understand my conundrum!

[Sarge]

Alright homies, here are some RPGs I'm considering playing this year, give me the opinions!

Dragon Quest IX (DS)
Jean d'Arc (PSP)
Persona 4 Golden (Vita)
Radiant Historia (DS)
Rogue Galaxy (PS2)
Shadow Hearts Covenant (PS2)
Tactics Ogre Let Us Cling Together (PSP)
Tales of Symphonia (GameCube)
Xenoblade (Wii)
Ys Celceta (Vita)

Gotta concur with Popo, that's good stuff there. Hrm...

You know what? I'm going to go with Shadow Hearts: Covenant. It takes the core of Shadow Hearts, adds some silliness, and takes that excellent battle system and makes it even better. There are a lot of little individual mechanics that you'd think wouldn't work well, but they do. But almost all those are great choices!

For the others...

- Dragon Quest IX isn't my favorite in the series, or even on DS, but it might appeal. There's MMO elements that I don't really like, which drags it down for me.
- Jeanne D'Arc is a SRPG, and a solid one at that. I put in about ten hours, but SRPG. Yeah, I know, I'm weak.
- I'm actually playing P4 Golden now. I'm starting to see the appeal. It's like a slow-drip that keeps you hooked. You're always leveling up, getting small increases in stats, social links, and the like. It makes up for the repetitive, rogue-like dungeons. I'm not ready to proclaim it the greatest modern RPG like some, but I am starting to understand why folks like it.
- Radiant Historia is probably the best time-traveling RPG since Chrono. More asset reuse, but it's done well. Combat starts interesting, but eventually boils down to "use Aht's traps". Still, if you want something that feels like a long-lost 16-bit RPG (of the best kind!), it's splendid.
- I loved Rogue Galaxy. Loved it. Great combat system. It's also got a little too much going on, much like other Level-5 games. A lot of it is optional, though. Just give it a go sometime.
- By all accounts, TO on PSP is the definitive version. Lots of folks like it better than FFT.
- Symphonia is my favorite Tales game. If you're going to play one, play that one, and definitely make it the GC version.
- Covered Xenoblade earlier. I liked it better than FFXII, and I know you love exploration in your games, so this one might really appeal. You might not like that you can't really script the combat, though. For me, that's what kept it somewhat interesting, that you still had to manage positioning and triggering of skills.
- Celceta is one I want to get to this year. I've played a little bit, and it's good. I'm not sure it's sticking as well as Ys Seven, which is my absolute favorite in the series, but it's good. It also doesn't look very good on the Vita. Not sure why they've got all that filter crap going, but the game could look a lot better.

[Exhuminator]

Thanks for the info Sarge.

I'm especially vexed about the Persona series. The reason being, is that normally I like to start a series from the start. However, so many people on forums have told me that Persona didn't get good until P3. I mean, a lot of people say this. So I feel if I start with Persona 1, I won't like it, and won't bother to continue playing to get to P3 let alone P4. Also, it seems that P3 was a reboot for the series in a lot of ways, with P4 polishing that seachange. I'm not sure if I would like P3 or not, and I'm afraid if I play it before P4 and don't enjoy P3, then I won't play P4. But everybody and their mother says P4 is awesome, so I should just play that first. But then, if I love P4, I might not be able to go back to P3 and still enjoy it. Do you see my silly madness? You can see how the circular doubt problems go here. First world gamer problems.

[prfsnl_gmr]

Alright homies, here are some RPGs I'm considering playing this year, give me the opinions!

Dragon Quest IX (DS)
Jean d'Arc (PSP)
Persona 4 Golden (Vita)
Radiant Historia (DS)
Rogue Galaxy (PS2)
Shadow Hearts Covenant (PS2)
Tactics Ogre Let Us Cling Together (PSP)
Tales of Symphonia (GameCube)
Xenoblade (Wii)
Ys Celceta (Vita)

I love DQIX. It is a perfect "comfort food" JRPG with a phenomenal amount of content. I completed the main campaign in 60 hours, but I stopped playing after 125. Even after that much time with it, I still hadn't completed some of the coolest bonus challenges.

[MrPopo]

Thanks for the info Sarge.

I'm especially vexed about the Persona series. The reason being, is that normally I like to start a series from the start. However, so many people on forums have told me that Persona didn't get good until P3. I mean, a lot of people say this. So I feel if I start with Persona 1, I won't like it, and won't bother to continue playing to get to P3 let alone P4. Also, it seems that P3 was a reboot for the series in a lot of ways, with P4 polishing that seachange. I'm not sure if I would like P3 or not, and I'm afraid if I play it before P4 and don't enjoy P3, then I won't play P4. But everybody and their mother says P4 is awesome, so I should just play that first. But then, if I love P4, I might not be able to go back to P3 and still enjoy it. Do you see my silly madness? You can see how the circular doubt problems go here. First world gamer problems.

Persona 1 is pretty much all first person dungeon crawler with story rooms having you move a character around from an isometric viewpoint so you can talk to NPCs like a traditional JRPG. I haven't played Persona 2 yet. Persona 3 is a massive mechanical reboot that combines randomly generated dungeons with dating sim elements, while Persona 4 builds on and refines what Persona 3 does. Honestly, I'd say start with Persona 3 Portable which takes the refinements from Persona 4 and backports them. At that point, if you don't like Persona 3 then it'd be fair to say you wouldn't enjoy Persona 4.

[Exhuminator]

Honestly, I'd say start with Persona 3 Portable which takes the refinements from Persona 4 and backports them. At that point, if you don't like Persona 3 then it'd be fair to say you wouldn't enjoy Persona 4.

Thanks man. I'm taking this advice. I'll skip P1 and P2 for now, and play P3 before P4. However I'm going with the FES version of P3, after copious research comparing FES and P3P. If I ever feel like replaying P3, then I'll do P3P's female route for sure though.

I think that my next JRPG is going to be Radiant Historia. Everybody seems to enjoy it, and I've been itching to get some DS lovin'.

Oh, Popo, did you ever play Infinite Space? Thoughts?

[MrPopo]

FES is not a bad choice either.

Infinite Space is really fun, I thought. The gameplay can get a bit repetitive but it still has an addictive quality to what you're doing. It's a lot of fun customizing your ship and building out the crew, and the story was enjoyable.

[BoneSnapDeez]

Thanks for the votes all. Surprised to see some Jade Cocoon support. I'll give it another few days (I guess?) and then solidify the pick.

[ElkinFencer10]

Alright homies, here are some RPGs I'm considering playing this year, give me the opinions!

Dragon Quest IX (DS)
Jean d'Arc (PSP)
Persona 4 Golden (Vita)
Radiant Historia (DS)
Rogue Galaxy (PS2)
Shadow Hearts Covenant (PS2)
Tactics Ogre Let Us Cling Together (PSP)
Tales of Symphonia (GameCube)
Xenoblade (Wii)
Ys Celceta (Vita)

For what it's worth, I vote either Xenoblade Chronicles or Persona 4. I've only played about a third of those, but Xenoblade is in my top 5 favorite RPGs.

[Ack]

Thanks for the votes all. Surprised to see some Jade Cocoon support. I'll give it another few days (I guess?) and then solidify the pick.

Heh, my vote for it came from my curiosity about it. My copy has been sitting on the shelf for years untouched... Give it another day though and then go with it. If there is no clear winner, then try to go with something that got a lot of support.