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MrPopo wrote:Are you planning on going for the extra ending that was added to the Maniacs release (which is the version we got)? It adds in a long difficult dungeon and a new final boss who's hard as balls.

Indeed, I looked ahead to make sure that I gave myself that opportunity. I just doesn't feel right to play through a JRPG and not fight the secret bosses in my opinion.

Xeogred wrote:SMT III = Nocturne right? Damn you're making it sound awesome.

Still got that and the DDS's sitting on my shelves, gonna have to get to them someday.

Nocturne has really taken me by surprise in how enjoyable it is. It's pretty tough as far as RPGs go, which is good or bad depending on how you like your RPGs. I personally enjoy it when, for instance, a game is designed so that you won't be able to beat most of the bosses on your first try. You have to analyze ways you can counter their offense and how you can take advantage of their weaknesses (which will change depending on how you play the game, and often times have different ways of being approached anyway). Most bosses are decently close to save points to reduce the aggravation factor of that. It does have its frustrating points (good God demons are slippery, stubborn, expensive bastards in this one) but if you like hardcore RPGs it really is fantastic.

I've never played DDS though, that's the only Megaten series I haven't tried yet.

Started two new games over the weekend:

Final Fantasy IV Complete (PSP) - Thank god this game has an auto-resolve feature. Blessedly, the story really is pretty interesting so far, but there's only maybe a 50% chance I'll ever finish it.

Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga - The only Mario RPG game I've played to completion, but I absolutely love it. It's superbly written and the battle system is fantastic.

What do you mean by auto-resolve feature for FF IV?

I've started playing Super Mario RPG for the SNES. It's my favorite Mario RPG, and makes me really wish Square and Nintendo would work together on another.

You can set you party to automatically keep attacking until the battle is over, which is great because FFIV's battle system is dreadfully boring so far.

Yeah, unfortunately IV's battle system is pretty vanilla. Your physical attackers attack and your spellcasters use their spells. There are some utility skills but most of them aren't worth using. In V you start to get more interesting things like X-Fight and the various useful secondary skills for non-caster classes.

MrPopo wrote:Yeah, unfortunately IV's battle system is pretty vanilla. Your physical attackers attack and your spellcasters use their spells. There are some utility skills but most of them aren't worth using. In V you start to get more interesting things like X-Fight and the various useful secondary skills for non-caster classes.

I agree. I loved the extent to which I could customize each of my characters in Final Fantasy V (and the necessity of doing so to survive certain battles). I am not sure that any other Final Fantasy game has permitted that sort of character customization.

sabrage wrote:Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga - The only Mario RPG game I've played to completion, but I absolutely love it. It's superbly written and the battle system is fantastic.

I also really, really liked this game; so, I think that you will also enjoy Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story. Fawful returns as the villain, and the humor/writing is great. The new play mechanics for both Bowser and the Mario Bros. are also very enjoyable.

The complete lack of customization in FFIV is definitely a serious issue for me. I feel like I may as well be playing a visual novel. Which Final Fantasy games have actual player choice with regards to your party? I liked the sphere grid and FFX-2's class system, as well as the Tactics games.

I'll get to Mario's other RPG outings... Eventually.

II starts all your characters off as blank slates, so you can take them in any direction you want. Wanna be good with swords? Use swords. Wanna be good with fire? Use fire.

V has a huge amount of customization through the job system. Every job gets one open slot for abilities you've learned on other jobs, freelancer gets two slots and learns a ton of passives from mastered jobs, and mime gets three slots and passives (but Fight and Item count as abilities). III is essentially V-lite. You can change jobs but each job is self-contained; if you want to heal you have to use a healing job, you can't just put white magic on a knight.

VI has a large number of characters who each have a unique ability. Locke can steal/mug, Edgar gets tools, and Celes gets runic (magic absorb). Everyone can eventually learn all the magic so these abilities and the weapons they can equip differentiate them. You also have relics which alter how some characters play (you can get x-fight or jump through relics).

VII is customization through what material you equip and what limits you use. VIII has a bunch of customization in it that is completely meaningless because it's much more effective to stay at a low level and spam your limit break with 6k max HP at level 10.

Last month I started with the Ys series and I am playing the releases in order (as best that you can in America). I am currently on the PS2 version of Ys: The Ark of Napishtim. After I beat this I am back to the psp for Ys Seven.

I think I really just want to play Diablo, not Final Fantasy.