I also thought the first enciunter with azela nd her dragon was very hard, imo an rpg doesn’t need to be challenging, the story and the fun u have is most important, shenmue 1 and 2 for isntance were very easy imo but I consider them to be the best games ever made
I found PDS to be challenging enough. There were many easy battles, but there were also a few really difficult ones as well (Grig Orig especially). It all balanced out, imo. I really love the fact that you had considerable control during battle and that your current level didn’t play a significant impact on the game like in other rpgs. I think the point was to let the player enjoy playing through the whole game without wasting time level grinding in order to face the next big boss.
[quote=“drunkensailor”]
[quote=“Kadamose”]Here’s my top 5 RPGs:
- Panzer Dragoon Saga (Sega Saturn) (S-Rank elitism!)
- Ys IV: The Dawn of Ys (PC-Engine) (Unbeatable soundtrack)
- Lunar II: Eternal Blue (Sega CD) (great endings)
- Emerald Dragon (PC-Engine) (great soundtrack and wonderful story)
- Cosmic Fantasy 4 Part I and II (PC-Engine) (like Ys and PDS, it has an epic story - good stuff)[/quote]
the ys games were only released in japan right??[/quote]
No, the Ys games came to the states. Keep in mind, the only true versions of the games are the Turbo Duo versions (due to the cinema scenes and the redbook audio). Ys IV never came to the states, but has recently been fan translated and patched.
Well, to be honest, I actually like FF7 as the best rpg. Its the first game that make me wanted to play other rpgs.
I notice many of you hated it because it was “better” than PDS, I understand, but Saga came during the dying days of Saturn, so hardly anyone knew about PDS. And FF7 became popular even today.
I think the reason why FF7 is so good is that the music is made by Nobuo Uematsu. The character arts looked really good. It has the best villain, Sephiroth and the coolest character, Vincent. And what makes it so good is two FMVs that changed it all.
htead dna larenuf fo sireA
With it being popular, it carried a legacy such as sequels and prequels of FF7 known as “Compilation of Final Fantasy VII”
If Saga came to PS also, both PDS and FF7 would become rivals like Sonic and Mario. I would like to see a remake of PDS and maybe FF7 too.
[quote=“Light Wing”] think the reason why FF7 is so good is that the music is made by Nobuo Uematsu. The character arts looked really good. It has the best villain, Sephiroth and the coolest character, Vincent. And what makes it so good is two FMVs that changed it all.
[/quote]
LOL, you just listed all the things that I dislike about the game. Also, main charcaters were dying in RPGs long before that flower girl popped her clogs.
But FF7 became popular even today so… I guess there’s really no arguing about that?
For myself I don’t even compare PDS to other RPG’s, it’s too exceptional (in the literal, descriptive sense) for that to really mean anything. It “lacks” too many little elements that are expected from the genre to ever rate as a real champion of the console RPG experience.
FF7 is simply overrated, but it’s not as if our opinion matters anyway.
You can’t make an RPG without appealing to the lowest common denominator now, so we have to prepare ourselves for more melodrama the likes of which belongs in a soap opera.
It saddens me to think that FF7 will go down in history as a “seminal” video gaming experience. Seriously, what a bloody joke.
Well it was flashy enough - and marketed well enough - to get a lot of people who’d never played RPG’s before to buy it. FF7 created it’s own brand new fanbase of people who, like Light Wing there, end up comparing every other RPG to their first RPG. And on the assumption that the main recommendations for the game were it’s visuals, inflated production, and melodramatic story… the fanbase it effectively created can be assumed to respond best to those elements. Regrettable, but understandable, priorities are defined by market reaction.
Final Fantasy VII, as well as most Squaresoft/SquareEnix RPGs, are about as dumb as they come. Will we ever see the day when these companies will no longer treat the masses like a bunch of braindead zombies? (Granted, it’s true that the masses are exactly that, but for those of us who don’t fall under that category, finding an intellectually stimulating game amongst all the garbage being released is rather frustrating.)
I have played very few games where the game, itself, doesn’t treat the player like a fucking idiot - and that’s quite sad.
I’m not a big fan of Square (especially nowadays) but I love Chrono Trigger. I also heard that Xenogears and Vagrant Story are pretty good.
I’m pretty sure Square can put the FF label on any piece of garbage and that would sell like hotcakes
Xenogears is a good game if you don’t mind the following:
- Very looong cut scenes and dialogue sequences
- Few and far apart save points
- Retro difficulty on the second disk
Also, the second disk is a let down as the game play becomes a series of interactive cut scenes where you don’t even get to explore the world until near the end where you have to fight the end boss.
That aside, it’s a has a very deep story line and it’s still easy to get around the retro difficulty by simply leveling up as much as you can on the first disk.
Since everybody is mentioning great RPGs, all of you owe it to yourself to play “Skies of Arcadia”- tone-wise very different than Panzer (and even the Square titles), but really some of the best developed characters and the best sense of “exploring” in game.
Skies of Arcadia gets my vote as well. It has mostly very traditional gameplay, but there’s something about it that makes it seem much more “alive” than many of the other RPGs out there.
Plus it’s rather funny in places. 
Skies of Arcadia is an awesome game. I loved the variation of the cities you go to. Too bad I misplaced my copy…I miss it 
Totally agree with you on it feeling “alive”- something was just so fresh and fun about it- it really just embraced the whole genre and smiled. Escapism at it’s finest …
I haven’t played it since it was new on Dreamcast- did the Gamecube additions add to the fun?
I only played the GameCube Version so I can’t tell.
On addition that was freaking hard was the Plasto side quest.
I’ve played through some of the Gamecube version, up to when you first get the Red Moon Crystal. There are some things better about it, and some worse.
Improvements - about 30% less random battles, extra boss battles and side quests.
Things that made it worse - poor sound quality. I believe the sound had to be compressed more to fit on one Gamecube disc, and unfortunately it’s quite noticeable.
So, in terms of fun, I’d say the Gamecube version would be more enjoyable, as the amount of random battles in the Dreamcast version does get annoying after a while. It’s just a shame that Sega had to go on the cheap, instead of putting the game on two GC discs.
Really? I guess that is a possibility, the GameCube disks are only 1.4 GByte in size. But the sound seemed fine to me.
What sounds are you referring to that sounded bad?
I also heard that the original was on two DreamCast disks. Now, considering that most games replicate content to prevent have to swap about disks, I’d say that the original would fit easily on a GameCube disk.
I’ve also heard that sound was a problem in the original (aside from the frequent random battles).[/quote]
Hmm, well I suppose I can’t say that the game coming on a single Gamecube disc was definitely the reason for it having worse sound, but it does seem the most likely to be the reason to me. Perhaps not so much the sound ‘effects’ themselves, more so the music did not seem as clear as in the Dreamcast version. After listening to one and then the other, the music quality in Dreamcast version comes out on top.
It sounds pretty clear to me. Especially the soundtrack which got me addicted along with the swashbuckling.
Also the use of one disk is still very unlikely to cause trouble. As I said before, most multi-disk games replicate content. I only recall the Legend of Dragoon and Atlantis III needing to swap to previous disks.