RPG Progress Report

[BoneSnapDeez]

Also, Popo..... you been hittin' up the action-RPGs lately. Faxanadu, Zelda II, Faria..... now when is Ys I & II gonna be played?!

[MrPopo]

Probably not for a while. I've been trying to do my playing of games I have started, leaving games I purchased and never touched for later. Ys is in the latter bucket.

[noiseredux]

Ys I was an afternoon for me, so probably like a bowel movement for you popo.

[BoneSnapDeez]

The length of Ys ports varies quite a bit and is dependent on the amount of grinding required, not to mention the speed at which Adol moves. I can crush PSP Ys I in under 3 hours. Ys on Famicom is a nightmare that lasts for days.

[noiseredux]

I played it on PSP. Someday I'll go back and do it on PC so I can advance to II.

[BoneSnapDeez]

But the PSP version also has part II...............

The PC version (I assume you mean the one on Steam and GOG) is essentially equivalent to PSP. Just on a computer.

[noiseredux]

Right. Which works for me. I have a pc and no psp.

When I first was building my gaming PC, I sold off the bulk of my console/handheld collection. What made most sense was sell the shit I could just get again on Steam if I wanted to play it.

[MrPopo]

The length of Ys ports varies quite a bit and is dependent on the amount of grinding required, not to mention the speed at which Adol moves. I can crush PSP Ys I in under 3 hours. Ys on Famicom is a nightmare that lasts for days.

When I get around to it it'll be the Turbo-CD version.

[alienjesus]

I beat Ys 1 on Master System and enjoye dit well enough, besides the ridiculous amount of grinding needed outside the games first dungeon. It took hours.

[Exhuminator]

What made most sense was sell the shit I could just get again on Steam if I wanted to play it.

Personally I'd never sell any of the three PSPs I own, mainly due to copious exclusives (and portability). That said, at least there's a quality PSP emulator for PC: http://www.ppsspp.org/index.html

-

All this Ys talk has reminded me I was going to play Ys II on PSP this year. I guess there's still time.

-

As for my own progress in RPGs lately...

I'm about 2/3rds of the way through Shadow Hearts now. This is a replay for me, as before I'd reached the final boss but was unable to defeat it. What I found out later, is that late in the game once you reach the final dungeon, a bevy of sidequests open up in places you visited early in the game. There's no obvious way of knowing these sidequests appear, but doing them allows you to obtain the best equipment in the game. Having said equipment makes taking the final boss down much simpler. I can only assume the byzantine end game sidequest spree was put in as a caveat to sell strategy guides, because it certainly wasn't obvious the first time I played it. Anyway, I'm planning on doing the sidequests this time.

As far as Izuna goes, I'm kinda bored with it now. While I appreciate the roguelike nature of the game, its combat systems and gameplay quickly became one dimensional. It isn't as complex as something like Shiren or Nethack for sure. There are seven primary dungeons in the game, and I've finished three of them, but it's been the same thing each time, without much in the way of surprises. Not sure if I'm going to finish this one, but again that's out of boredom not frustration.

I also fired up Dungeon Explorer: Warriors of Ancient Arts on DS last night. The game has god awful graphics but its systems design and RPG stat elements are way more complex than I expected. And the music isn't half bad. I enjoyed the hour I put into it anyway, I'll dabble with it some more tonight. (From what I've read the PSP and DS versions are fairly different games too.)