PixlBit

I've taken a bit of a break from the RPG reviews to write this up for you.  I finished Golden Sun and moved on to other projects.  Here's a fun game- what are the names of the next two titles I'm going to review?  You are wrong.  The answer is Ninja Five-O and Esper Dream II.  Anyway, here is part of my long-running countdown.

130) Radiata Stories (PS2)-  This is a strange game.  I never finished it, but I did make it a good way through.  I felt that the game’s tone was completely….. off.  It played its situations more for humor than for drama, and I thought the thing came off as rather sophomoric.  It may have been a function of expectation, but I thought I was getting the next awesome Square epic, and instead I got this lighthearted romp with a bumbling protagonist who couldn’t do anything right and gained money by literally kicking every single thing in sight.  That’s right- there is a kick button, and you can use it on burly guards and bedroom furniture.  Sometimes you get an item or gold for your trouble, sometimes you get into a fight with an unbeatable foe.  It was pretty silly, and I quickly found myself saving everywhere for fear that I’d kick the wrong person and get attacked and killed.  The whole thing was disconcerting. Maybe it just was the wrong game at the wrong time for me.  Like The World Ends with You, I’ve been meaning to replay this one, but that backlog of over one hundred games that I’ve never touched demands more immediate attention.  I suppose….. who am I doing this for anyway?

The game is wacky and filled with "humorous" moments.

129) Destiny of an Emperor 2 (NES)-  Speaking of expectations….. I loved the first game in this series, so when I heard that a never-released-in-America sequel was floating out there, and it had a fan translation!..... I was the first person on board to play it.  Judging from its placement on this countdown, you can figure out what I thought of it as compared to its predecessor.  When I think back on it, I don’t really see many differences between the two gamesl; I bet if I looked at it objectively, I’d notice that this game has refinements the first game lacked that make the experience more pleasant.  But I can only rate it how I feel, and I felt that DoaE2 was more of the same, and held none of the novelty or charm that DoaE possessed.  You still collect generals who have funny faces, you still pick your favorites and then explore China’s towns and caves, and this time you travel over the water.  Your general’s troops function as hit points for your characters, meaning that every time you go to the inn to heal, you are resurrecting like a thousand dead soldiers.  Marring the experience further was the fact that I somehow found myself in an unwinnable situation while playing.  Having broken the game’s intended sequence, I triggered a cutscene that blocked me from going backward, but my boat was docked in one of those old towns that I could no longer reach and I was stuck wandering back and forth on a very narrow strip of land until I gave up in frustration.  Of course I had saved it in this unwinnable state, and was forced to give up on the game.  Luckily I had completed over 80% of the story, and had no desire to go back.  Another game in the fine tradition of “competent, but….”  Play the first one instead.

128) Fallout: New Vegas (Xbox 360)- I really liked Fallout 3.  I remember working late hours and then coming home at around nine, scarfing down dinner and then spending two hours with the game before bedtime.  I’d have a game plan- I’m going to completely explore the subways, or I’m going to finally head north and take care of those quests I have out in the wastelands.  I’d wander around and invariably get distracted by some shiny bauble or mysterious stranger doling out new objectives, and I’d never accomplish what I set out to accomplish.  But I never cared.  I enjoyed the dialogue, the world-building, the combat, the seemingly unlimited number of options.  I played dozens upon dozens of hours, and I only began to get bored near the very end.  Here’s how much I enjoyed its sequel- I forced my brother to play it while I pretended to watch.  I was really reading baseball stuff on the internet or making up tests most of the time.  I did see way more than enough of the game to say that it is an inferior sequel mostly because of the insane number of bugs we encountered, and because it may as well have been an expansion pack.  If you can’t get enough of Fallout 3, play this, and you will feel like you are playing a buggier version of Fallout 3.  If you began to grow bored of the original after playing for a hundred hours or so, then I recommend you avoid this weak copy.

127) Shining in the Darkness (Genesis)-  This was my first encounter with Camelot’s long running, loosely-connected series of RPGs that spanned mostly Sega systems, but eventually bled out onto Gameboys and Playstations.  It was my first, because I believe it was the first, a dungeon crawler with anime graphics and a healthy dose of console-friendly JRPG mechanics.  There is mapping involved, identical-looking 3D dungeons with traps and winding corridors, loot to be found, all that crap.  It was a pretty decent time-waster back in the day, though even then I kinda realized that this type of RPG wasn’t my cup of tea.  I preferred the spiritual sequels, the Shining Forces much more.  But overall I have pretty fond memories of this game, mostly of my friend bugging his parents to buy it for him, and then his giving it to me for free for me to play even when he wasn’t over my house.  That friend was a weird kid with a sad end.  His name was Snots.  Well, that wasn’t his actual name, but that’s what everyone called him.  Here’s a story about Snots- he used to carry this bag of colored powder around with him everywhere, he claimed he got it from a drug dealer.  Why, we never knew; he was strange.  Sometimes the powder was white, sometimes it was blue or orange, I’m not shitting you.  He usually kept it hidden in his bookbag, and would call people over at lunch or after school, covertly point to his sack and then in the most conspiratorial way possible, grab and show you the illicit powder.  He never explicitly claimed that it was cocaine, but I know that’s what he wanted us to think.  Anyway, here’s the funny part.  We were on the football team together, and during one game we had taken our reps and were kneeling on the sideline together, coach between us.  He pssssssts me, I look over, and he opens up the flap on his pants where the shin pads went, and produced that fucking bag of orange powder.  Right in the middle of a game, for no reason at all, he just had to show me that he was playing with that bag of powder nestled inside beside his pads.  He was strange.  But he did give me a copy of Shining in the Darkness, bless his soul.

When you aren't in the dungeon, it's nice looking.

126) Atelier Iris (PS2)-  My one and only foray into the Atelier series, the one that features anime girls and alchemy.  I thought it was a pleasant game, but nothing special.  I liked going into dungeons and collecting items that I could use to make into other items.  I liked the music in the town, Town of the something Chimes (I’ll link it below); it’s one of my top 250 game musics….. uh oh, another countdown on the horizon?  Maybe if somebody asks.  I’m a glutton for countdowns, though I doubt I could write intelligently about something that comes down to taste and nothing else.  I doubt I can speak of the merits of soundtrack composition like I can speak of the merits of RPGs in general.  I’m not a music critic, dammit!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCd2Y1HlAnA

125) Tales of the Abyss (PS2)-  The second PS2 game in a row.  I look at my chart as a whole, and I try to figure out which was the best RPG system.  Maybe PS2?  Maybe SNES?  Time will tell?  Oh yeah, maybe PS1, that was a good one, too.  I don’t need to say much about Tales of the Abyss, because there are other Tales games on this countdown, and they are all identical.  There is literally nothing at all to distinguish this game from any of the others in the series.  It has the same graphics and soundtrack, the same characters and the same story.  Then why do I rate this one at 125, and Symphonia in the top 20?  Who the hell knows!  This is completely arbitrary, all of it!  No, seriously, there are little things that separate the games in this series, and my job is to figure out which of those things make the games worse, and which make the games better.  Abyss is a middle-of-the-road title that wasn’t quite as interesting as some of the others in the series.  It’s pointless debating the quality of characters or story, because they are practically interchangeable.  I usually just go by intangible qualities, or that effervescent playability.  The reason why Abyss is ranked outside the top 100 is not because of any inherent problem with the Tales formula, but because there was a fairly large bug that weirded me out and somewhat marred my experience.  About fifteen hours in, I walked out of a town onto the world map, but the town music kept playing.  I wondered whether I had hit some point in the story where the overworld music changed, but it was just the cd loading up the wrong music.  This continued for about eight hours….. that damn town music just kept playing no matter where I went.  World map, dungeons, other towns, etc.  It didn’t play during cutscenes or battles, but any time my little character wandered around anywhere, I was listening to the subtle strings of peaceful town music.  For that reason, and for that reason only, I dropped this game a bunch of spots.  I think it would’ve probably been fifteen or so higher if not for the bug, but playtest your games, dammit!

124) Wild Arms 5 (PS2)-  Three PS2 games in a row.  Is that a record?  The PS2 was an awesome system for role-playing games.  WA5 ditched a lot of the strange revisions made to the series by part 4, but kept the hex-based battle system.  It’s a more traditional game than 4, where you traverse a worldmap and don’t seem to be running in a straight line the entire time.  It’s also a game that seems to have been made on a shoestring budget, as it looks, for lack of a better word, like shit.  But graphics are not the most important thing in the world to me; as a matter of fact, they are one of the least important components in the RPG stew.  So I can forgive.  But the game is rather generic, as well.  Again, I can forgive cliché, and hearing the protagonist shout “I can do it!”, or “I’m going to be as powerful as my dad!” certainly qualifies as cliché.  Actually, I don’t know if the protagonist says either of those things, but he is a plucky youth who is looking for adventure and guilt by association and all that.  So I realize writing this that my countdown is sorta stratified in the following way: 

230-191- RPGs that suck.  Only play them if you want a few laughs and a lot of frustration.

190-141- RPGs that aren’t really worth playing because there are other RPGs out there that do everything better.

140-101- You might want to play these, but they are kind of generic.  They are made well, for the most part, but are carbon copies or outright clones of great games.

100-51- Games that just miss greatness, either due to budget problems or due to lack of…… some defining element that sets them completely apart.  These games are pretty much must-plays, but not everyone will think so.

50-1- All of these are worth playing, or I have some odd nostalgic attachment. 

Anyway, Wild Arms 5- you might want to play it, but it’s kind of generic.  It’s made well, for the most part, but is a carbon copy of some greater game.  It takes place in the old west.  Here is a song from it that I like.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBMmnmqQ9Ls

123)  Star Ocean (SNES)- I feel like I’ve reviewed this one.  I keep rejiggering the numbers on my countdown, and get all these repeat entries.  Maybe I just posted my review on it.  You should read that.  Go back through all my old articles and read my review of this game.  It’s probably slightly informative and slightly funny.  Here’s a quick recap: Star Ocean fools you by its title into thinking it’s a Sci-Fi game, but it isn’t.  It takes place on planets with no technology, and you are fighting the demon lord, like in every other game.  The graphics are really pretty, but clutter the screen.  The battles are kinda innovative but not really.  There’s a crafting system that I never used.  The music can be good.  I feel like this series has a completely undeserved reputation as one the premier RPG series, and I can’t really tell why.  Is my perception off, or are people so starved for science-based RPG experiences that they will play anything with the word “Star” in the title?  The more I think about it, the more I realize that the series isn’t so good.  The best one had one of the silliest plot twists in the history of games.  Hey, maybe that’s another countdown- dumbest plot twists.  Let me think on that.

122)  Grandia II (Dreamcast)- What can I say about Grandia II?  It’s the second best RPG on the Dreamcast.  I’m sure it was ported elsewhere, but I’m too lazy to look it up, and god knows that it wouldn’t be second best RPG on any other system.  Look at my entry for Wild Arms 5, where I tried to be funny and generic, as befits games of this stature.  Grandia II could be the textbook example of a retread RPG.  Doesn’t do anything wrong, but you are left feeling empty, as though you consumed a copious amount of sugar.  You aren’t filled up by a long shot, and you wonder whether you ate anything at all.  You probably like anime girls and battles with action twist, and you probably won’t hate this game.  I doubt it’ll inspire much of anything, and I’d love to hear if there is anyone who tirelessly defends this game.  But man, in Japan, 10% of the population must be devoted to designing girls with big eyes, big tits and colored hair or creating stories about collecting four magic items and fighting a resurrected god.  So many of these games have the same plot.  Jesus.

121)  Mass Effect (Xbox 360)- And here is where you and I differ.  I don’t think the Mass Effect series is the best RPG series of all time.  I don’t even really think it’s an RPG series.  The first game entertained me for forty hours, but many other games entertained me for much longer.  I am partial to JRPGs, and I’m sure that was a big part of it.  I’m not enamored of dialogue trees, and a lot of this game is dialogue trees.  I don’t love first person shooters, and this game is a first person shooter with RPG mechanics built in.  The story was suitably epic, and certainly at least as sophisticated as Star Wars, the series to which it is often compared.  I don’t know if Star Wars had any boring, repetitive exploration sequences on identical planets involving a rover that is difficult to control.  I never even made it through part 3, I was so disenchanted by the streamlined action of part 2.  My loss, I know most people will say, but different strokes, I guess.    

A lot of people like this sort of thing.  Whoa, his eyes are sorta unfocused and creepy.....