RPG Thread: SaGa Emeril Beyond

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exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

It's weird seeing the revisionist perspective on RPGs from these forums. By that, I mean this prevailing viewpoint that "RPGs by their very nature should offer the most customization possible in an open world where every action has an impact." It's fine that people enjoy that particular variant of the genre, but by and large RPGs from both East and West have been on rails for a much longer period of time without protest. The first appearance of this relatively freeform, dialogue-heavy style that I can remember comes from Planescape: Torment, which was released in what, 1999? Maybe Daggerfall? I don't know.

I like RPGs and I don't particularly mind it when the whole story is laid out for me -- how could you not if you started playing them during the 90s? There were few other options. I like gaining levels and gear, watching a big plot unfold, and cinematics, so I like RPGs. My point is that everybody has diverse interests, and role-playing games in a broad sense offer many features to attract different types of players. What bothers me is the smugness of some people in hoisting up character customization in a title like Alpha Protocol as the trump card that defeats all other considerations for why people might enjoy a game, while calling people who dare to like Dragon Age 2 simple-minded idiots. This elitist attitude seems commonplace and reminds me of the infamous Roberta Williams interview where she stated that the increased affordability of PCs led to the demise of Sierra-style adventure games because poor people didn't have the brainpower to decipher her bizarre dream logic. Now, I haven't played AP or DA2, so I cannot adequately judge if one is better than the other, but generally I don't like to belittle the intellect of others based on what they enjoy, or make them feel bad for enjoying it. Is that really an unpopular perspective?

# ¿ May 7, 2011 22:16

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# ¿ Apr 25, 2024 18:48

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

Stelas posted:

We haven't at any stage been discussing which games are good or bad or worth playing or whether you're a terrible person for liking them, just whether they're linear or non-linear, or how much they respond to your choices. If you want threads where people are mad about DA2 they're all over the forums; all that was said here was that Dragon Age 2 is non-linear and doesn't pay attention to how you play your character, while Alpha Protocol does. I'll be the first to admit that outside of that, AP is a pretty clunky game.

Oh, I wasn't addressing my comments specifically to people in this thread; my apologies if it seemed that way. I'm just pointing out that linearity in RPGs has been around for much longer than "true" non-linearity and it's weird seeing people call into question the RPG-ness of newer titles while games like Chrono Trigger offer virtually no customization at all yet are unequivocally RPGs by almost every definition. It's okay if there's fluidity in the genre because every form of media experiences the same thing.

# ¿ May 7, 2011 22:38

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

The other day I felt some weird desire to complete the Xenosaga trilogy, having only beaten the first game some 11 years ago (yikes)! From what I've heard, the second's combat is really bad, but the third picks up somewhat and is generally regarded as the best in the series. So two questions: 1) Do all the meandering storylines ever begin to come together at any point, and 2) Do they manage to write Chaos, who in my mind represents all the worst trends in JRPG characterization, out of the plot?

# ¿ Jul 2, 2013 18:38

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

Not canon how, like they took the original director off the project?

# ¿ Jul 2, 2013 18:43

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

Shion didn't bother me too much in the first game, I spent most of the time being annoyed by white-haired god-child from another plane and a mysterious past Chaos.

# ¿ Jul 2, 2013 18:57

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

Fair warning, Divine Divinity is one of those games where you get a million quests at a time and there's no absolute clear direction of where you should go so it's easy to get lost. I liked the concept well enough but I've had a couple starts that completely fizzled out because I forgot what the hell I was doing, and the questlog is not very helpful.

# ¿ Jul 4, 2013 12:03

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

NikkolasKing posted:

I know I'm late but...

1. Like ImpAtom said, kind of. You get the definite impression some stuff was half-assed because they had to wrap everything up in a hurry. Episode 2 was such an abortion that a lot of the plot that was supposed to be developed in it had to be done in 3. Plus the series was repeatedly shortened until eventually it became a Trilogy. It really shows.

Also if you really intend to finish the series, do check this out.
http://zarathustra.kaisho.org/

It's a translation of Pied Piper, a Japanese-only mobile game that expands on ZIggy's backstory. It's actually really good I thought. I'm thankful that I read it before EP3 came out all those years ago as it really explains some things.

2. chaos does get a new voice-actor. You'd be surprised how muwh a voice can help a character and it does seem that most people vastly prefer the new dude.

Also, to the earlier poster saying EP3 wasn't canon, then EP2 shouldn't be either. That game had such Executive Meddling that Soraya Saga, the director's wife and one of the main writers, complained about it on her website. She was also fired from the team. The fallout of Episode 2 is directly responsible for why 3 didn't really match up with the director's original vision.

But his original vision or not, Episode 3 is at least interesting. Episode 2 is just...boring, in both gameplay and story.

Thanks for the write-up. I decided that I'd just rather watch longplays of XS2/3 and zip around to the most salient moments because the game honestly makes my brain hurt and I like the concept of playing them rather than actually doing it.

# ¿ Jul 7, 2013 17:38

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

OSheaman posted:

Speaking of ARPGs, I know everyone hated Dungeon Seige 3's PC version because of the controls (which have since been patched) but I heard good things about the story and the battle system/skills progression. Is it worth playing with the controls patch and DLC or should I just stick with DS2?

It's okay as a standalone title but neither the story nor gameplay have much to do with the previous DS games. It basically feels like S/E wanted to release a Dungeon Siege title after they bought the franchise rights and asked Obsidian to slap a few throwbacks into their own half-finished IP to make it fit. The story is completely forgettable although you can make a few choices that affect the epilogue and the camera suffers horribly in multiplayer because it stays fixed onto the hosting player's character only. Loot just makes the numbers on your dude go up, nothing flashy or exciting about it. All that being said, the single-player combat is pretty fun on higher difficulties and the story is engaging enough for a full playthrough, but not much more. It's thoroughly average.

# ¿ Jul 19, 2013 21:36

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

CommissarMega posted:

Okay, so you lot have convinced me to give DS3 another chance- of the protagonists, who has the best personal storyline?

Anjali feels the most like she's supposed to be the "main" character of DS3, followed by Lucas and then the other two. Reinhardt is the most entertaining companion but when you main him you miss all the best quips, so I would not suggest doing that.

# ¿ Jul 24, 2013 22:08

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

A long time ago somebody compiled all those RPG cliches into a website that I've since forgotten the name of. My favorite is that the main character always mercifully starts out in a town with only giant rats and spiders to worry about while the people in subsequent areas who've got killer robots and demonspawn in their backyard are totally hosed.

# ¿ Jul 31, 2013 14:10

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

The Soul Reaver series has some cool combat, although most of it will seem simplistic by today's standards. There are fewer things more satisfying in this world than beating a vampire into bloody submission, picking up a pike from the wall, and throwing it right through his heart.

# ¿ Aug 12, 2013 22:56

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

I wasn't too crazy about Origins when I played it, although the amount of storyline variation that can come out of the choices you make during events like the Landsmeet is pretty impressive. Interestingly enough, Dragon Age became a lot more interesting to me once I began playing Inquisition, because you spend more time outside of Ye Olde Generic Fantasie Settinge and there is some good balance to the environments. DA2 I didn't play and didn't feel like I missed that much for skipping it while doing DA:I.

# ¿ Dec 5, 2014 21:54

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

Quest For Glory II posted:

Why are you considering this

stop it

It's Xenosaga

"Oh, so I guess that's what anime is, then." - Me, age 16, after completing Xenosaga Ep. 1.

# ¿ Dec 10, 2014 21:10

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

I missed DA2 entirely and yeah, it's completely skippable. You can alter the world state in the Keep and get a five-minute narration of every major plot point. So little actually happens in it compared to Origins that whatever references exist don't leave you lost at all.

# ¿ Dec 18, 2014 16:37

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

Gyshall posted:

Does DA Origins stuff import into Dragon Age Inquisition or is it just like a "new game" thing that asks you about your choices from the first games through dialog?

There's the Keep, which will let you save and alter the worldstate from the first two games for every conceivable decision point. Otherwise it will just stick you with a default world state if you don't want to bother loading your previous saves or altering anything.

# ¿ Dec 18, 2014 17:10

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

Gyshall posted:

Just read about the ending which is the most obvious/lol choice ever. I guess that is the plot for DAI? Templars vs Mages?

That's the backdrop, but then it quickly moves in a different direction following the first act.

# ¿ Dec 18, 2014 17:47

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

I don't remember much about playing Suikoden 3 at all except the music, which was really good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQOJuj4ZaZo

# ¿ Dec 20, 2014 23:34

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

Shakugan posted:

So I'm in the mood for a good sci-fi RPG. It's really quite disappointing how rare sci-fi settings are compared to fantasy settings.

I've finished (I'm sure I'm going to forget a bunch):
Xenogears
Xenosaga games
Xenoblade
Anachronox
Deus Ex
KOTOR games
Mass Effect
Star Ocean games
Final Fantasy games

Are there any good sci-fi RPGs that I'm missing?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhWmboM0zFc

# ¿ Dec 27, 2014 10:10

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

corn in the bible posted:

i liked that half the sidequests in LR are to find something the person has been looking for for centuries and you find it for them in like five minutes

I like it in RPGs when I help a dude and he's like "oh thank you, take this heirloom which has been in my family for generations" which I promptly sell for 15g at the next vendor.

# ¿ Jan 6, 2015 01:01

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

corn in the bible posted:

this very thread told me to play it because it is the "best bad game ever"

I'm intrigued now because I don't think anything could ever beat Trespasser.

# ¿ Jan 26, 2015 04:22

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

Alpha Protocol would have been a lot more interesting if it were in literally any other setting than a modern spy game. It held my interest for one playthrough but I've never seen all the possible permutations because that kind of genre is so boring to me, personally.

# ¿ Jan 29, 2015 02:21

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

corn in the bible posted:

That one was especially bizarre because I genuinely didn't know if it was supposed to be funny. Eventually I decided that it was still funny to me, and that's really what matters.

These are my exact thoughts on Kai Leng in ME3.

# ¿ Jan 31, 2015 18:43

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

Roobanguy posted:

i liked suikoden 3 alot and geddoe is a cool protagonist.

Suikoden III is often viewed as a letdown from II but it's probably the most memorable of the ones I played, if only because I was 17 years old at the time of its release and my Tolerance for JRPG poo poo was at an all-time high. Also this music:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQOJuj4ZaZo

# ¿ Jun 22, 2015 03:36

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

I've always liked pure turn-based or pure real-time combat better than any hybrid ATB system. FFX was one of my favorite Final Fantasies because you knew what was coming, and so wouldn't be afraid to use all but the most spammy abilities.

# ¿ Jun 30, 2015 14:43

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

FFVII has a lot of old-school RPG design artifacts that I don't think would fly with what modern consumers are used to. It probably has too many party characters and is too text-heavy in places.

# ¿ Jun 30, 2015 15:43

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

closeted republican posted:

The difference is that the RE1 remake appeared like 5 or so years and the original game had several sequels that are more regarded than the original, while it's going to be about 20 years between the original FF7 and the remake, the original is still praised as one of the best games EVAR, and there's a huge amount of people that misinterpret the game.

REmake is over 13 years old now. Unless you meant in the other direction.

# ¿ Jul 1, 2015 01:33

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

Cross-posted from Steam thread:

Is there any modern-ish RPG that's like Solar Winds? As in, you just fly around in your spaceship talking to aliens and solving problems while chill music plays in the background and you look at the pretty space graphics? I've already played the entire Mass Effect trilogy -- I'm thinking something more dialogue heavy, with less focus on combat.

# ¿ Jul 2, 2015 19:31

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

Out There looks kind of involved, like an FTL. I'm thinking something much more chill and exploration-based, less so on punishing resource management.

# ¿ Jul 2, 2015 19:39

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

GrandpaPants posted:

It's not modern (although it has yet to be surpassed in what it does, which is kind of astonishing in its own way), but I think what you're looking for is Star Control 2.

Yeah, I kind of missed the boat on Star Control 2 and I regret it because it's a little hard to look at nowadays.

# ¿ Jul 2, 2015 19:52

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

Delsaber posted:

There is at least an HD version now, but that's maybe not a huge help since it's just remastering a lot of really old assets.

At least it's free and open source now, so I'll give it a go. Is this what Star Citizen is trying to emulate, besides just taking a lot of people's money?

# ¿ Jul 2, 2015 20:15

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

Delsaber posted:

I think Star Citizen is trying to be more like Elite or Freelancer or Battlecruiser 3000 or a bad pyramid scheme, while Star Control has always kinda been its own thing. There are bits and pieces of Star Control in other games - Escape Velocity's combat, Mass Effect 2's resource gathering - but nothing I've seen has really tried to imitate it completely.

Yeah, it seems like all modern space sim games just miss the mark for me. Just give me a little ship to upgrade, aliens to talk to, and a vast galaxy to explore without all the spreadsheet bullshit and boring-rear end resource management. Be chill, no need for a thousand laser guns.

# ¿ Jul 2, 2015 21:40

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

Delsaber posted:

Ambrosia hails from a very specific period in the 90s when shareware was on the decline but digital marketplaces had yet to emerge, so I guess anyone developing games of that scale, especially on the Mac, could kinda arbitrarily pull prices out of thin air and get away with it. Maybe developers like that just never catch up, or never feel the need to bother. For what it's worth I think Ambrosia long since switched entirely to mobile app development.

It's a shame too because while I doubt they really move too many copies of Escape Velocity: Nova at $30 a pop in 2015 via their website alone, they could probably do really well for themselves on Steam cutting the price to $10 or $15, especially now that space sandbox games are resurgent. Feels like they're leaving money on the table. I for one would buy it again at that price and with Steam support in a hot second.

If you're looking for something similar to Nova that is on Steam and is also only about $15, I've heard good things about VoidExpanse.

I was looking at VoidExpanse but the negative reviews say it's really light on content right now. Maybe I'll revisit it once some more mods come out.

My main hangup with most space sims is that thanks to EVE Online et. al so many of them are obsessed with the mining and resource collection aspects like they're the most mindblowing things in the world.

Edit: Have any of y'all played Drox Operative? That seems to be getting at the core of what I'm looking for the most.

exquisite tea fucked around with this message at 10:47 on Jul 3, 2015

# ¿ Jul 3, 2015 10:41

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

Golden Goat posted:

Nah that's just the Dwarfs in general. I think they just used the same animations for dwarfs as they did for other sized races and didn't account for the slight changes in proportions they put in for the MC ending up with sections where crossing your arms puts your hands straight through one another.

Man I loved DA for the sheer amount of graphical glitches that ruined scenes. If you played a ranged and summoned a companion the game just freezes their model and leaves it on screen resulting in some amazing cutscenes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDanX-beShQ

# ¿ Jul 3, 2015 13:31

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

FFX gets a lot of praise because it was a good Final Fantasy game. The main advantage it has over FFXIII is that the world it creates is imaginative while also not being totally incoherent. Last I checked they're the two most financially successful FF games besides VII and the MMOs, so they're both very well-liked.

# ¿ Jul 5, 2015 17:47

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

Tae posted:

She was told to mimic the japanese VA's

Square was really bad at localizing

When FFX came out I think Square didn't want to shell out for reworking lip synch for the English cast, which is why all the characters speak in that offbeat ...Itjustisn'tfairyouknow tempo to match the Japanese dub.

# ¿ Jul 5, 2015 17:57

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

Neddy Seagoon posted:

It was also their first actual effort at voice acting wasn't it?

Yes, I remember that being a huge selling point. The voice acting in games of that era was pretty rough overall.

# ¿ Jul 5, 2015 18:06

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

hubris.height posted:

if you think about it, geralt in combat is really just lightning in combat in the witcher universe

Assassin's Asylum XIII: The Witcher of Mordor Returns

# ¿ Jul 6, 2015 13:38

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

Endorph posted:

jesus you've been missing out

Excuse me, but the man has already played Star Ocean 4, something no JRPG past present or future can ever hope to surpass.

# ¿ Jul 29, 2015 17:45

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

Overminty posted:

I'm playing the mass effect trilogy after I got 3 for cheap. About to start the second one and was looking at what dlc I don't have. It looks like it's just Arrival; is it worth getting?

Arrival is merely okay as far as ME2 DLC goes. Gameplay wise it's weaker than Shadow Broker (must have), Kasumi (another must IMHO) and Overlord.

While it does explain why Shepard is grounded in ME3 there's nothing that you can't really get from reading a brief plot synopsis somewhere. If you really like ME2 though it's perfectly fine.

# ¿ Dec 26, 2015 16:01

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# ¿ Apr 25, 2024 18:48

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

Zaeed you always get with buying the game new.

# ¿ Dec 26, 2015 16:34

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