Suggest a *good* GBA RPG.

[Balloon Fight]

I'm really looking for a good GBA RPG to kill some time. The only ones I don't want are Golden Sun (Since I already have it) and Mario and Luigi (since I've almost beat it).

I'm really thinking about Lunar Legend at the moment, but I'm not sure how well Lunar is on the GBA.

Any advice?

[Crush Crawfish]

Lunar Legend is decent, but it mostly feels like a watered down version of the lunar we know and love. I also didn't think golden sun was all that great.

As far as great GBA RPG"S go, my personal favorites are Breath of fire 2 and Robopon 2. Other great GBA RPG's are Breath of Fire, Demikids, Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, Fire Emblem, Mario & Luigi, Mega Man Battle Network 1-3, Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire, and Tactics ogre. There ya go!

[Balloon Fight]

Also, I wanted to point out that I hate FF Tactics and Ogre Tactics, and I prefer RPGS where you level up your guy.

BoF2 though, i may get that.

[Daria]

The Shining Force remake is looking pretty spiffy.

Lunar Legends sucked ass. Which was a shame because it was so damn pretty.

If you like Harvest Moon games at all Friends of Mineral Town was quite good. Like the PSX version without the aggrevating loading times.
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[ShinobiMan]

I am quite fond of Sword of Mana. I have always been a big fan of the Mana games.

Lunar is also highly recommended.

[-hellvin-]

I despise FFTA and Tactics Ogre so no vote there. I heard Sword Of Mana was pretty average. I would say pick up the Breat Of Fires series if you've never played em.

[Azazel]

I would maybe pass on a few that have already been mentioned unless you haven't played them already on other systems. I'm mainly talking about Shining Force, Lunar Legend and Breathe of Fire 1,2

There is a Lufia game that no has mentioned, as well as Shining Soul 1, 2. I only played a little bit of them but it looked alright.

I think there 2 or 3 Lord of the Rings but haven't tried any of them yet as well.

Probably the best one I would recommend to play would be Sword of Mana.

[spoon]

Sword of Mana

Car Battler Joe (Game is AWESOME)

Final Fantasy Tactics Advance

[atomicthumbs]

I really loved Lunar Legend. Yeah, it's a condensed version of the original and Complete versions, but it DEFINATELY has it's own charm! It has all new graphics (especially some VERY PRETTY character sprites), a great battle system and a new card trading game feature (which I never really got that into).

The only complaint I have about the game is that the music for the most part seemed faint (even with the volume all the way up). I'm guessing that it may have had something to do with the space they had to work with, but I LOVED the music anyway. In every way it was the story and characters that I love... Only portable!

Now if only I could find some sort of email address to ESP, MediaRings or someone to let them know that a Lunar Legend 2 would be a wonderful thing for them to make!

[hydr0x]

Lunar, Lufia, Golden Sun 2, Harvest Moon ;) , Mega Man Network Games, Boktai, FFTA (and all the other strategy-rpgs, fire emblem, ogre battle, onimusha tactics...)

sorry, can't think of more right now (there are more though), there's Shining Soul and Shining Force, Sword of Mana and Phantasy Star Collection and of course a lot of jap only rpgs but i have no idea if those are any good

[NintendoMan]

Well I was going to say Mario + Luigi Superstar Saga, but then you said you already almost beat that game.
The only one other than that I can recommend is FF Tactics Advance. Great game!

[Lady Jaye]

Except that he already specified that he doesn't like tactical RPGs.

If you're more old-school and don't mind the smaller screen size, you can always go for Dragon Warrior I+II (on one cart) and Dragon Warrior III, both released for the Game Boy Color (the level of the games is easier than the original NES versions, and there's a new translation that lets go of the "old English" style of writing.

Old-school wise, there's also Phantasy Star Collection, if you haven't played the games yet on the Sega Master System and the Genesis. It's direct ports of PS I, II and III on one GBA cart (via SMS and Genesis emulators). It's not perfect (there's a sound bug in the first Phantasy Star that causes the game to freeze, and you need to carry with you the equipment matchup poster, esp. for PS II and III, unless you don't mind buying weapons and shields for the wrong character), but it's still enjoyable.

[captain nintendo]

Ok, I bought Cima "The Enemy" for the GBA but I am waiting for my "classic" GBA sp to show up so I can play the many gmaes I have bought for it ;)

F.Y.I. I guess Cima for the GBA is kind of hard to find ?

[Azazel]

Lunar, Lufia, Golden Sun 2, Harvest Moon ;) , Mega Man Network Games, Boktai, FFTA (and all the other strategy-rpgs, fire emblem, ogre battle, onimusha tactics...)

sorry, can't think of more right now (there are more though), there's Shining Soul and Shining Force, Sword of Mana and Phantasy Star Collection and of course a lot of jap only rpgs but i have no idea if those are any good

The only import RPG I've heard much about is Magicial vacation. It was made by a team of former Square employees and is suppose to be pretty good but I've never tried it out myself.

[Half Japanese]

Sword of Mana: don't bother with this crap. There are plenty better games out there that are far more deserving of your money and time. That is, unless you like leading around retarded AI lackeys, in which case, SoM may just be your game...

[Balloon Fight]

Well I'm leaning towards Lunar right now. Which BoF is better, 1 or 2?

Also, I haven't played the original Lunar, so I probably won't know what I'm missing. ;)

Sword of Mana sounded good until the Doctor chimed in. Thanks for all of the opinions so far.

If someone would like to list the pros/cons of SoM I would appreciate it. :)

[jerkov]

I'm going to second spoon's recommendation of Car Battler Joe. Awesome, very unique game. If a mixture of an RPG and car racing/battling sounds like something you might be interested in, track this game down now. Kind of reminds me of the Turbografx game Final Lap Twin.

[Crush Crawfish]

Breath of fire 2 is definitely the better of the two, if you can get past the mind-numbingly bad translation. It's got great characters, an EXCELLENT soundtrack, and an amazing story that isn't hampered by the translation as much as you'd think it would be. HIGHLY recommended.

[Half Japanese]

I haven't played Sword of Mana in a while, but from what I remember:

- You got new weapons often, which was cool, I only played for five hours or so and amassed 3 different weapons in that time (a sword, a bow and a whip-like thing), and the last weapon had transportation uses (swinging over pits and such).

- You had to wait until certain times for some things (you could speed up the time by simply walking back and forth until the screen changed). This was compltely unnecessary and seemed to be there only to add negligible length to the game

- You control one character who has a (retarded) AI character follow them around, and you can switch back and forth between the two. It would be better if the character weren't so goddamn stupid (walk around a corner, for instance, and they might stay back for a few seconds walking into the wall until they finally snap out of it and decide to follow you).

- The other character basically acts as something you have to babysit. You get better ones early on, but the girl I started out with was like putting a 12 year old boy in a heavyweight champ bout, fighting-wise, and kept sucking up my healing herbs.

- The only way to heal is to go two menus in and pick the herb or other healing item from a menu. The same goes for weapons if I recall correctly

Honestly, if this still sounds good to you, you should still go with SHining Soul, which is, at least from a brief amount of time spent with the ROM, more enjoyable. Those are just my two cents, and I'm sure someone out there has a counterpoint which is just as right (to them). The fun wears off quickly with this one.

[PyroPenguin]

Well, if you're like me and play Gameboy when you're not supposed to (such as in the middle of class) and you might have to put it away quickly then I'd go with Fire Emblem. It's a great game, but it also has an auto save feature during battle. Good stuff.

[Azazel]

I haven't played Sword of Mana in a while, but from what I remember:

- You got new weapons often, which was cool, I only played for five hours or so and amassed 3 different weapons in that time (a sword, a bow and a whip-like thing), and the last weapon had transportation uses (swinging over pits and such).

- You had to wait until certain times for some things (you could speed up the time by simply walking back and forth until the screen changed). This was compltely unnecessary and seemed to be there only to add negligible length to the game

- You control one character who has a (retarded) AI character follow them around, and you can switch back and forth between the two. It would be better if the character weren't so goddamn stupid (walk around a corner, for instance, and they might stay back for a few seconds walking into the wall until they finally snap out of it and decide to follow you).

- The other character basically acts as something you have to babysit. You get better ones early on, but the girl I started out with was like putting a 12 year old boy in a heavyweight champ bout, fighting-wise, and kept sucking up my healing herbs.

- The only way to heal is to go two menus in and pick the herb or other healing item from a menu. The same goes for weapons if I recall correctly

Honestly, if this still sounds good to you, you should still go with SHining Soul, which is, at least from a brief amount of time spent with the ROM, more enjoyable. Those are just my two cents, and I'm sure someone out there has a counterpoint which is just as right (to them). The fun wears off quickly with this one.

Here I'll offer a slight different opinion on SOM.

I played about as far as you did for Sword of Mana. I only remember that one place where you had to wait till nightfall to get in, and didn't see that as huge problem. It was the place you get Salamander but I don't remember it's name anymore. Personally I found that if you controlled the male character it's works out a little better. The female never did much damage and I just used her for the spells. Most of the time the guy will kill a normal enemy with a swing or 2 so it's not a big issue. You can change the AI for the other character like in the other Seiken Densetsu games. Did you try that? It could be part of your problem. I know when I played Seiken Densetsu 2 the AI was pretty good. I would generally control a maigc person and let the fighting people be controlled by AI and generally they fought pretty good and didn't too many dump things.

Even know it hasn't been touched on yet I think the way that you cast spells was done really bad in the game. It took me like 15 minutes to figure out how to cast spells. Not to mention if you want to do good damage with the magic like in the first Seiken Densetsu you have to spend time and built up your spell casting power. There are already plenty of times where I used a spell and got the wrong spell

Actually for healing the female can use the the heal spell as well. I think the guy can probably as well once you get the spirit that teaches heal. Generally I just had her heal herself as needed and use the candy or whatever it's called on the guy. Although so far I the guy hasn't taken much if any damage other than the boss fights so it's hasn't affected me much.

Personally even if some of the flaws this game is still the best action/RPG on the system and much more fun than Shining Soul.

I also personally thought the first Breathe of Fire was much better than the second. I've beaten the Snes 1 4 times and I still haven't gotent he motivation to finish part 2. At least you don't have to level up as much in the GBA versions or at least it seems that way.

[suppafly]

hmm is advance wars an RPG game? because that sure was a kick ass game!!!

[Azazel]

It's more of a stretegy game.

[Balloon Fight]

Thanks for all of the help so far. I'm split between SoM, Lunar, and Fire Emblem. Basically whichever one I find cheapest I'll get.

[Aussie2B]

I'm guessing Lunar would be the cheapest of those since it's the oldest. SoM and Fire Emblem haven't been out especially long, so you'll probably only find those at the original MSRP (or used for just slightly less). However, I'd recommend Fire Emblem out of those three, as far as pure gaming enjoyment goes.

I wouldn't rule out the Breath of Fire games, if I were you. If you want something traditional, I'd recommend them over Lunar, and you could probably find them for less than any of those three games. I picked up the second one for $15 brand new a few months ago, and the first for $20 a year or two ago. At this point, the second would probably be easier to find, and I think it's better too.

[Lady Jaye]

Then again, you never know... I received a CDN $20 mail-in rebate coupon from Nintendo for registering two games in mynintendo.com. The MIR was applicable on a few GBA titles, including Wario Ware (which I already had), Sword of Mana, Splinter Cell: Pandorra's Tomorrow GBA and a couple of others.

This just goes to show... registering your games with nintendo might not be a bad idea at all. Incidentally, the two games I registered to receive this coupon were Mario & Luigi and Metroid Zero Mission.