Help me break my anti-rpg attitude....

[Kamino]

I will admit. I'm not much into rpg's. Being the guy who hates a short game, i probably should be.
But the shittiness that is POKEMON left a bad taste in my mouth....
the only rpg's i get into at this time are the super mario rpg's, and shadowrun...
can someone reccomend a good rpg that doesnt bear the name POKEMON or FINAL FANTASY, and isnt found on playstation(one persoal demon at a time, i'll work on my psx hatred another week)? domestic of course, i don't have and will not have import adapters etc. snes would probably be a good place to start.....
thanks all.

[Richter Belmount]

bahamut lagoon and tales of phantasia (english snes roms)
secret of mana

[josekortez]

Two words.

Harvest. Moon.

Changed my anti-RPG attitude.

[Kamino]

harvest moon..i have it. i see HM games as more of sims though....
to me, rpg means one of those games where you spend endless hours fighitng the same monsters over and over and OVER to level up so you have enough gold to buy a better sword and go cut some big boss's head off...
theres no leveling up in zelda or HM so i dont really consider them rpg's.

[Richter Belmount]

dude I dont really to many other rpgs , maybe you should give the dragon warrior series a shot? if not I still highly recommend ff5( cause i think its the less repettive one out there course no one listens to me , =P @ them)

[calthaer]

Have you tried Knights of the Old Republic, Baldur's Gate (not the PS2 one, the PC one) or any of its sequels (Icewind Dale series, Neverwinter Nights), Planescape: Torment, Freedom Force (more of a tactical RPG), Anachronox, Arx Fatalis, Arcanum, Morrowind...?

Most of those are PC games (KOTOR is available on the Xbox, as is Morrowind). I'm not sure you'll find any decent RPG on the PS2 that's not made by Square.

[webbb]

lunar and lunar 2 for the sega cd

[Querjek]

Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga for GBA.

[Kamino]

got that one querjek. that game rocks!

@calthaer: Yeah, pc is sort of out of my league, i didnt pay much for the vid cards in these things...lol. I've played baldur's gate on xbox, i might have to get it on ps2...i might have to get KOTOR though. if MGC were'nt coming up soon i'd just go to walmart and get baldurs gate right now...lol. they still have some non-gh packaging ones, under the gh price...

[ghostangelofcky]

Chrono Trigger, that was the one that turned my anti RPG attitude around.

[Kamino]

great suggestions here. i'm currently looking @ baldur's gate, might try chono trigger, earthbound, or lufia sometime this month. (i've read a LOT about lufia. very much interests me. i also seem to collect a lot of taito games so that helps me there too.)

[Aussie2B]

rpg means one of those games where you spend endless hours fighitng the same monsters over and over and OVER to level up so you have enough gold to buy a better sword and go cut some big boss's head off...

That really only applies to old RPGs. Modern RPGs are usually so easy that you don't even have to make any effort to level up. For the few that still retain difficulty (usually the ones that don't purely focus on story and FMV), they tend to have a lot of options to toy with, so you're expected to find a way to get past a difficult battle without just leveling up like crazy.

ANYWAY...

With the assumption that you don't want to spend a ton of time leveling up, Chrono Trigger would be a good recommendation. It's fast-paced for an RPG. You don't really have to purposely level up, but it still provides enough challenge to keep you from falling asleep. Nice graphics, music, and characters/plot too.

It might be wise to avoid most Enix-made SNES RPGs. Most of them are very old-fashioned. Same goes for the Breath of Fire games (and the Lufia games to some extent). I'd recommend Lufia 2 over the first one, and then you won't have the plot spoiled. ^_^ (Lufia 2 is a prequel, with its ending being the beginning of Lufia 1.)

[AB Positive]

There's a pretty good writer that seems to have a good grasp of these games:

*cough*shamelessselfpromotion (http://www.digitpress.com/columns/timetokill.htm)*cough*


;)


-AG

[MarioAllStar2600]

I am not a big fan of rpg's myself. Sims are decent thouugh.

RPG= REALLY PATHETIC GAME!

[Kamino]

haha thanks adam gallant, i'll read your article later, when i have some time to kill....

[SoulBlazer]

No one better be disrepecting RPG's or Square here! :P

Pretty much everything I could suggest has been tossed out allready. I guess I should ask what are you most interested in -- a good story? Fancy graphics and FMV's? Interesting charcters? Great music? Quick and easy battles or long and drawn out ones? How many gaming hours?

The genre has grown so much and expanded so fast that just about everything has been tried and there's a game out there for EVERYONE, I promise that. I easily recall 10 years ago, during the early 90's, when I was lucky to see one or two RPG's come out a YEAR. Now we get that a MONTH. :D

[Kamino]

soulblazer...
i'm not looking for too much leveling up. leveling up gets VERY boring VERY fast to me! although i dont really want an EASY game here; a long battle is a good thing. graphics and fmv could not be LESS interesting to me...
a good story would be cool though, but then again, i am the guy who thinks that max payne and super mario rpg have good story lines...i don't mind a long long long game, but i do mind leveling up for years on end. sorry but fighting the same monsters over and over.....seems kind of repetive and simple. .

[ubersaurus]

Chrono Trigger is fantastic. One of the best games of all time.

Earthbound on SNES was the game that made me start to like RPGs...look into that one.

[Griking]

You say that you have a PC but that it isn't very powerful. Why not try some of the PC classics. If you've never played them before then you owe it to yourself to try some of the Ultimas (IV & V are my favorites), Bard's Tales, Wizardrys and Might & Magic series'. Also while your Pc may not be able to handle Morrowind you can probably play the earlier games in its series, Arena and Daggerfall. Planetfall: Torment may also run on your PC since its a few years old now as well.

Most of these games can probably be easily downloaded on the web since they're older now but they're still some of the best RPGs available. Computer OR console.

[punkoffgirl]

Have you tried any of the online RPGs like PSO? I wasn't that big of a fan, either, but it makes a difference when you can play multiplayer :)

[calthaer]

@calthaer: Yeah, pc is sort of out of my league, i didnt pay much for the vid cards in these things...lol.

The Baldur's Gate I'm talking about is simply called Baldur's Gate - and not the "Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance" game that's available on consoles. It's a top-down and largely 2D game that's still a lot of fun - it can also be played multiplayer-coop if you have a group of people. It's not quite as action-oriented and is much more of an RPG than a dungeon hack (which is what Dark Alliance was, more or less).

Because it's 2D, I highly doubt that your video card will need to be terribly sophisticated - I played it just fine with max details on my old Pentium II 266. I've recently seen it packaged with the expansion pack as "Baldur's Gate: Original Saga (plus Tales of the Sword Coast expansion)" for around $10.

The best thing is that you can take your character from the original Baldur's Gate and import him or her into BG2: Shadows of Amn (complete game + expansion is now around $20 new), or Icewind Dale / Icewind Dale 2 (both available together with the ID expansion Heart of Winter for around $25 new), and / or Neverwinter Nights (which is still a fair chunk of change with its expansions).

Ditto goes for Planescape: Torment, as it uses the same Infinity engine - you don't need a souped-up machine to run it. It would probably run fine on a pentium 500MHz.

[Kamino]

well thanks for the Baldur's gate clearup...
and in that case...
what are some other good dungeon hacks like DARK ALLIANCE?????
in the hour i played DA at a friends house it seemed pretty good. i mean the guy who has it is a dyed-in-the-wool RPG HATER and he has it....it certainly had enough action for me, and him.

[Daria]

For some variety I'd recomend trying Dragon Quest 5 (translated rom, snes), Dragon View (snes), LandStalker (genesis), Wonder Project J (translated rom, snes), Chronicles of Radia War (Translated Rom, nes), Dragon Warrior 4 (nes), Earthbound (snes), Sweet Home (Translated Rom, nes), Shining Force (genesis), Pirates! Gold! (geneis) and either Lunar (sega CD).

All very different types of RPGs and all very fun.

And if you like Super Mario RPG try Paper Mario (n64).
________
Free Xxx Stream (http://www.fucktube.com/)

[Mayhem]

Could always try the two Krynn games on the C64. Fighting, plot, intrigue, plus plenty of side quests... and very flexible and tactical.

[davidleeroth]

I recommend Panzer Dragoon Saga. I hadn't played a RPG game since I lost the plot on FFVII (and soon after that my game save) but I was very pleasantly surprised by Saga.
It's not an epic-leveling up-lose the plot- type of game which ruined RPG's for me but more like an adventure with some RPG elements.

[-hellvin-]

Final Fantasy IV....love the story, pretty mediocre gameplay. Chrono Trigger....awesome story and awesome gameplay. Get em.

[SoulBlazer]

Well, in my mind, Final Fantasy 4 and 6 will always be the 'classics', but I was trying to think of other good games.

How about the Suikoden's? All of them are good, but the 2'nd is the best one far away. They combine RPG battles with tactical fighting and adventure hunting down people. Great games. Too bad the second one is so hard to find. You can have mine over my dead body. :D

[calthaer]

what are some other good dungeon hacks like DARK ALLIANCE?????
in the hour i played DA at a friends house it seemed pretty good. i mean the guy who has it is a dyed-in-the-wool RPG HATER and he has it....it certainly had enough action for me, and him.

You may want to check out Dungeon Siege. You can get it for like $20 right now - it's the "Legends of Aranna" expansion pack but the box says it includes the full version of DS with it. I say "the box says" because I have both the original and Aranna, so...

Lots of action in Dungeon Siege...it's a little more simplistic than Dark Alliance and doesn't have the kind of options to build up your character with all the powers, necessarily...still a very cool game. I think the graphics are way better than Dark Alliance. Dungeon Siege is also multiplayer coop, and you can play with up to 6 people. Let me know if you get this one; I've wanted to play it multiplayer. You might need at least a GeForce2 *non MX* to run this game decently. Siege also has a bit of party-management to it, although it's action-based.

One game that is apparently very good but that I don't own and have never played is Diablo 2. I hear people rave about it, and those games have almost defined the dungeon hack genre in recent years. This is also multiplayer coop, I believe. I'm not sure what the vid requirements on this are.

There is a game that is a bit older - Darkstone. Decent dungeon hack. I think it also came out on PS1. You get two characters.

That's all I can think of off the top of my head and by browsing through my collection. The Baldur's Gate line of RPGs have their fair share in the way of "dungeon hack," but it's not as action-oriented because you usually pause the game, give your guys orders, and then let the blood flow.

"Adventure...excitement...and steel-on-steel. The stuff of legends, right Boo?!"

[Crush Crawfish]

Chrono Trigger and Earthbound are the 2 best RPG's ever, IMO. I also HIGHLY suggest disgaea: hour of Darkness for the PS2. It's a Fast paced and hilarious strategy RPG.

But seeing as you don't seem to like traditional RPG"S much, I highly suggest you check out Tales of Destiny 1 & 2 for the PS1. Outside of battles, they play like any RPG, but in battle, it's more like a fighting game and in real time. If you like those 2 also check out the upcoming tales of symphonia for gamecube.

[jerkov]

I hadn't seriously played an RPG for a long time until I got into Golden Sun for the GBA. I put about 16-18 hours into it until I got busy with other things and didn't have time to play, and I haven't had the time to go back yet. However, it's a game I really want to finish, especially since I have a sealed copy of the sequel sitting here waiting to be played (as well as a copy of Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga that I got for Christmas that I haven't even bothered to open yet, but it's another one I want to play).

Car Battler Joe for the GBA is a pretty unique game if you can find it.

I also have copies of Chrono Trigger and Earthbound that I purchased for the SNES that I haven't really played at all yet.....I have a lot of games that I want to play, just haven't had enough time to seriously dedicate to them.

[Azazel]

If you want to avoid leveling up both of the Lunar games are pretty good and don't require much if any leveling up.

No one's mentioned the first Lufia game yet. I can't remember if it has much leveling up but it's oneof my favorite Snes RPG. It's was much more enjoyable for me than Chrono Trigger will ever be. :D

Faria on the NES and Terranigma on the Snes is one of my favorite action RPGs but it does have some puzzles and leveling up as well. Well at least for Faria it does