If you haven't played FFT, please procure that one at least. I don't agree with all of the changes they made on that port, but it is great to have another medium with which to experience an all-time classic! My number one for sure.

I booted up my PSP, and then...
There was a game to download!
I installed the game, and inside...
There was a classic RPG inside!
This purchase was a great success!
(Dumbass Geomancer: This is the way!)

This is the way! Hahahaha. Oh man thanks for that.

That reminds me: are there any games like FFT for PC? Ideally, ones where you can save mid-battle? I tried playing through FFT once but it was very frustrating because it was at a busy time of my life and I couldn't find a way to save mid-battle, and battles eventually get to be like an hour long or whatever.

Closest thing I know of is King's Bounty, but not really very similar.

FFT rules, another massive fan here. The PSP version isn't bad, although the slowed down magic spells blows, and to be honest I have nostalgia for the crappy original translation.

Jeanne d'Arc is very fun, definitely get that if you like these kinds of games. I marathoned it hard and beat it in a couple days.

BoF IV is more serious/"adult" than the previous games. It and III are both really good. I prefer III but that could partly be nostalgia.

Aye, same here. Maybe i need to uncloud my nostalgia goggles, but that is part of the appeal, at least personally... The whole 'Ye Olde English' thing on the port came off as kind of forced to me. I guess it is a more literal translation of the Japanese original, but ehh. I also hate how they changed all of the weapon/ability names, the DS port of Chrono Trigger was the same way with that, I had to re-learn everything. No patience for that!

If you're into action RPGs (moreso action games with light RPG elements at times), the PSP has Ys I & II Chronicles, Ys: The Oath in Felghana (amazing game) and Ys Seven.

The PSP version of Final Fantasy Tactics is alright, but I'm in agreement about the slowdown on the magic. The PSP also has a pretty solid port of Yggdra Union, an SRPG I dearly loved, and a questionable port of Knights in the Nightmare, an SRPG + bullet shmup hybrid (I liked this better on the DS, myself). Gungnir seemed pretty good from what I played of it. There's also Ragnarok Tactics (or whatever it's called) but I can't vouch for its quality. Other SRPGs on the system are Aedis Eclipse, Generation of Chaos, Wild Arms XF and some others I'm definitely forgetting.

You can also get nice ports / remakes of Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy II, Final Fantasy IV: Complete, Star Ocean and Star Ocean 2. Breath of Fire III is available in some regions and I preferred it to Breath of Fire IV myself. There's also a port / remake of Riviera (from the GBA / Wonderswan), Valkyrie Profile and various other RPGs of varying quality (like Brave Story, Dragoneer's Aria, etc)

Check out The Banner Saga. I don't think you can save mid-battle though, but I'd say battles are generally shorter than in FFT.

Anyone own Divinity: Original Sin here? It's definitely the best tactical, turn-based AAA RPG I've played in a LONG damn time, and it has excellent drop-in/drop-out co-op. If anyone wants to play with an above-average (but far from hardcore) gamer, let me know! Should be a blast.

Edit: And despite my reputation here... I'm actually not a particularly shitty human being in person .

The PSP has probably one of my favorite ports of FF4 (it's the GBA port but much better looking). Also I think on the PS Store there's FF3, which AFAIK is the DS version but without the online fuckery.

Oops, I meant to write that BoF III isn't available on PSN, not BoF IV. I barely played the first BoF, and not II. I loved III though, it's slow to start but becomes one of the deepest and most compelling jRPGs eventually. The story is fairly original (even though it doesn't start that way) and gets pretty heartbreaking at times. The only real downside is the soundtrack, it's pretty mediocre, which is a big negative in an RPG.

I haven't played IV much. I got it on PSN but lost my save to YLOD and had to start over. So far it seems almost as good as BoF III, with better music but worse graphics (they replaced many of the big awesome boss sprites with ugly-ass polygons... whyyyy) and more silly mini-games (which are mercifully short, but still). I need to play it more, though.

I think there's got to be a lot of nostalgia behind BoFIII, because I honestly couldn't get into it much at all back when I played it, which was after I had played BoFIV which to this day I still easily say is one of my top favorite JRPG's of all time. So I didn't think BoFIII even stood a chance in comparison. And I have a hard time getting into the first two since they are utterly bare bones in comparison. BoFIV was just way more serious and actually had a story.

One thing they did that I thought was amazing though, were the segments where you play as Fou-Lu, the main antagonist. I've only played it once and to this day I can still recall some of the moments he had, when some family took him in after he was found unconscious or something. His story was really awesome and it was cool to see a different perspective throughout the story.

The game also took place on two main continents, one side was the Empire and had a different battle theme. Remember this is late 90's we're talking, and multiple battle themes weren't that common in JRPG's, so it really stood out at the time and was cool. When I made it that far in, it was rewarding and refreshing to hear a new battle theme.

Also, it has by far probably the darkest evil ending in a JRPG you can get, period. Not exaggerating on this one. There was also apparently some beheading scene I think that was censored or cut out in the NA release.

Also the music, my god that OST. So 90's and so powerful.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nUpHVVE3Hw

So yeah, BoFIV is legit and amazing, I wish it wasn't so underrated or overshadowed by BoFIII. Maybe it came out too late in the PSX's lifetime or was overshadowed by FFIX or whatever may have come out at the time? I have no idea. Barely feels like anyone ever talks about it anywhere.

I also liked the isometric view and sprites, I really wish Xenogears looked like that instead of the full ugly 3D. Morrigan is correct about the battle sprites/animations though, III looks cooler there.

Xenogears had sprites... though not very good ones, they were pretty messy and hideous compared to BoF III's. Also BoF IV had shitty polygonal bosses instead of the awesome sprites from BoF III, only the models were uglier than Xenogears's.

Beyond the sprites Xenogears was fully 3D, that alone with weird 2D sprites was an odd mix. Definitely hasn't aged as well.

I'm looking up BoFIV, maybe it isn't fully sprite based as I thought, but the fixed isometric camera angles were a plus, compared to Xenogears' free camera. It was kind of annoying navigating some cities and such sometimes. lol

Not like it'll stop me from replaying it though, hehe.

So, Paul Neurath (designer on Ultima Underworld and co-founder of Looking Glass) started a new studio and he's reviving the Underworld series. Interesting!

Gave up on Soul Reaver 2 on Steam (watched the rest of the cut scenes on Youtube XD) and started a LoK: Defiance playthrough. This one seems like a stable port at least, unlike the other LoK games, but I still had to fiddle like crazy to get proper controller bindings, though not as much as the other two games.

Ah, it's so good to hear Kain's voice again. I like Raziel and all, but I get giddier just playing my favourite badass and it feels good to control him again. This game has one of my favourite lines of his from the entire series:

Sarafan warrior: "Surrender, vampire, and we promise you an easy death!"
Kain: "I would promise you the same... but it would be a lie."



Game still looks amazingly good 11 years later (taken at 1080p so kinda cheating, but hey it stretched a bit so it evens out xD):



Good art direction can go a long way. Now imagine LoK with new-gen graphics...

I never actually got around to playing Defiance, though I got it on GOG so I'll be remedying that soon. I could never understand the Soul Reaver storyline as a kid, so I'm hoping to now that I'm a bit older. I'll have to grit and bare the poor K+M controls and go through the first two games again. It's been a long while, though I listen to the soundtrack quite often.

And yeah, graphically it looks good, as does Soul Reaver 2.

I can see why it would be hard to go from BoF4 to 3. I do think 3 is really good, though, especially once it gets going. Bit of a slow start.

I did play 1 and 2 years ago on an emulator, but they were pretty forgettable to me. Didn't beat either.

Somehow I became re-addicted to my favorite games from 6 years ago. TF2 and DOD:S for days! Awesome that they still have such active communities.

This is all inspiring me to break out my Legacy of Kain games and marathon it all weekend. I have the Steam ones, but I haven't even touched them, and will likely stick to the console versions.

For other Breath of Fire fans, did any of you try Dragon Quarter / have any opinions on it? I've had it on my shelf for some time but have yet to give it the time of day.

I played Dragon Quarter a little bit, it seemed fun! Definitely a departure, but pretty good at what it wanted to do. I regret not playing it more, the setting was interesting too.

Very wise choice. The only advantage to the Steam versions is the higher resolution. I don't recall if the console games were 60 FPS or 30, so maybe there is that too, but (other than Blood Omen obviously) I don't recall those games having significant performance issues on consoles.


Nope, never played that one. I hear it's... weird. Not sure I'd like it, to be honest...

Aside from the loading times in Blood Omen, I don't recall there being many issues either. I ought to try my Dreamcast and Playstation versions of Soul Reaver side by side and see how the two stack up.

I can forgive the camera because they didn't have it down by then. I do hate Xenogear's piss poor attempt at platforming. The camera just ruins that much more.

But the music at this part. Was wow. It made missing all the jumps more bearable.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2nI3FP6dmg

I've gotten used to the Gears fighting style. My regular characters walk around with 90+ Omegasols so dungeons don't serve as much of a challenge. When walking around with Gears it's such a wonderful feeling when you finally get to a point where you can heal and fill up your tank. It's like I'm out of Estus Flasks in Dark Souls. I didn't like before you could heal your gears. You were just hoping all the enemies die before you. Once you can heal your Gears the strategy becomes more interesting.

I still prefer walking around with my regular characters. I love boss fights where I coordinate all 3 party members to store up all their attacks and then unleash 6-7 combos per person and it just looks like such an ass beating.


I'm pretty much bored with modern games so going back to the classics I never touched feels great. I feel like I've been watching too many movies and TV and now I feel like I'm reading literature. Almost literally, because you had to do a lot of reading for these JRPGs.

Yeah the platforming in Xenogears is total ass. It doesn't help that it's bound to triangle (WTF? jump is X, always and forever, it is known), but it's clunky and PS1-era cameras being PS1-era cameras... gah.

The music is so goddamn good though. It'd be a much more fun place to visit without the platforming.

Shoot Many Robots is a pretty great side-scrolling shooter. It's bone-headed and strange in a similar way to Borderlands, but it fulfills my personal needs of needing to kill as many things in a short period as I can.

Seriously, why the hell is no one talking about Divinity: Original Sin? This is seriously the best turn based, tactical RPG I've played in at least a decade, and I haven't even started a co-op playthrough yet!

Steam has spoiled me, i'm waiting for a discount. but it looks fucking great.

I'm not ever gonna buy this game because of this:



You want to profess being a serious, deep RPG, and you have this? Yeah, fuck you.

Edit: oh, it appears they changed it to something slightly less bad (but still awful):



Still pretty WTF, and the original art is still on their official wallpapers. And the rest of the art direction isn't much better.

...said the person who's played (and bought, I assume) Dragon's Crown.

Kinda hard to say that Dragon's Crown is in any way a deep or serious game though

Indeed, plus I heavily criticized Dragon's Crown for the character design too. But at least it doesn't take itself remotely seriously, everything about it is cartoony and exaggerated. Still too sexist to my liking, and I would not have played the game if it were not for its very unique gameplay. There's literally (and that's a real literally, not a literally that really means "figuratively") no other game like it whatsoever out there.

I'm...not seeing the problem with that art? Looks fine to me, though I wonder where the chick's right arm is.

How can you possibly infer from marketing material whether it takes itself seriously or not? Because guess what, from the looks of it, it doesnt:

Dammit, Morrigan, there are two things that need to be understood: 1) Relationships are innately d33p, especially when involving warriors (one of them is even a woman!!!11!), and 2) women being nonsensically armored makes complete sense when you accept that all female warriors subconsciously want to be belly dancers instead of warriors.

Guys, it's a Larian RPG! For fairly long stretches of each of their games, it takes itself about as seriously as your average Monty Python sketch. So far, the biggest complaint that's been leveled at Original Sin is that it DOESN'T take itself seriously enough. Personally, I really enjoy the loving jabs it makes at both itself and the generic fantasy world in which it's set, and there's still enough 'heavy shit' to keep my "serious art critic" side sated.

Also, Larian has consistently been one of the only story-based RPG creators I can think of that goes to great lengths to make its female characters just as complex and layered as its male ones (including the PC, who can always be played as either a male or a female, even in the late 90's when this was far less common in 3lite RPG games because of the percieved 'male dominance' of the genre by marketers). Sure, it's still plagued with the ridiculous boob-plate and cat suits that would make even Emma Peel blush, but it's hardly abnormal in today's fantasy market. Sometimes, you have to take the bad...

That's what I wondered too. Hah.

The cover art is silly but not enough to put me off from the game. Cover art is very misleading anyway. Dark Souls cover art looks like Assassin's Creed 2.

Hmm, I was under the impression that Divinity games were not supposed to be comedic, based on what I hear from its fans (who rave at how deep everything is and how it's the bestest RPG ever (including your claims of "complex and layered"... yet it's as silly as Monty Python? does not compute)... of course, I just cracked up watching Divinity 2 a few years ago, both for its hideous art and astonishingly bad animations, so maybe I should have guessed that it's supposed to be a parody? Eh...).

Still no excuse for that stupid design though. Dragon's Crown's style doesn't excuse it, and neither does this. Fuck off shitty female armours. I used to be only mildly annoyed and roll my eyes, but it's so everywhere even nowadays that I squeal in fucking joy whenever I see non-shitty ones. It's that bad.

Also, for those who fail to see "the problem", guess what, you're part of it. [Edit: oh, it's Zelkiro, duh. Should have known watching so much waifu anime would rot his brains, no wonder he thinks this is "normal"... ]

Why is it fantasy armour always has massive, bulky pauldrons? I've never understood artists hard on for pauldrons. And yeah, boob plate. Ultra lame. I'm not even sure why they have to go with making armour look so ridiculous anyway since there is plenty of perfectly historical armour that looks really nice and even exotic that would work in a fantasy setting (maybe more bronze? Bronze always looks nice).

As for the topic at hand, I've never played any of the Divinity games but I got Divine Divinity off GOG. I'll be playing it soon, hopefully it's as good as it looks and holds up with other classic cRPGs.

Indeed. It's possible to draw really fancy and/or exotic fantasy armour without being so ugly. Examples: