It mostly doesn't matter. Origins takes place way in the past, while Ys III takes place some time after Ys I, II and IV. It also depends on the version of it you're going to play. I'm assuming you're going to play Oath in Felghana, which is one of my favorites in the series and has some of the best music. So, if that's the case, then I can't recommend enough to play that one as soon as possible. The original Wanderers From Ys is enjoyable enough but Oath in Felghana is a much better take on it.

The other thing to be mindful of is that the "bump" attack mechanics in Ys I & II aren't used in the modern remakes and games (Oath in Felghana, Memories of Celceta, Ark of Napishtim and Seven), nor are they used in the original Ys III, which also trades the overhead view for side scrolling. So the gameplay mechanics are pretty different - it gets to be a much more frantic, fast paced action game, sometimes taking inspiration from shmups.

I've got Ys I and I've had a hell of a time with it. Is the key pretty much just grinding till you can beat the bosses? Or do I just suck?

Yeah, I pretty much just grinded in the field until about level 5 or 6, than did the rest of the leveling in whatever dungeon I was suppose to go to, grind up money and head back to Minea to buy a weapon/Armor upgrade, repeated until I have the best equipment and switch between rings (usually the ring for strength and healing) when I need to.



I see, thanks for the reply! Oath in Felghana is on my list definitely, and I am feeling anxious now and want to play it. I'll get to Origins later. So III comes after IV? Is the story a little confusing if I play III before IV, then? I'm very curious to see the mechanics after I & II, it can only go uphill.

That's basically the gist of it in the earlier games. Enemies in certain areas will absolutely destroy you until you hit a certain level. There's a level cap in most of the games, as I recall, so once you hit that point, it comes down moreso to skill (since you just can't grind anymore!). You do have to get use to the attack system though.



Nope, you should be fine with the story. While Ys I and II have a continuous story (they were, if I recall correctly, intended to be a single game), the rest of the games are mostly disconnected, story wise, outside of the occasional mention of Adol's past deeds, and in cases like Ys Seven, where you're still adventuring with Dogi from Ys 3.

Ys 4 is the only case where it takes place in between other games. The chronology is basically Ys Origin, Ys I, Ys II, Ys IV, Ys III, Ys V, Ys VI, Ys VII.

There are certain styles unique to different batches of the games though, at least since the remakes. While the original games largely featured the bump system from Ys I and II in their original forms, Oath in Felghana (Ys 3) and Ark of Napishtim (Ys 6) both use a faster paced, sword swinging action style of combat. Ys Seven and Ys: Memories of Celceta (the remake of 4 for the Vita) both have a party system, where you can swap between several different characters, and introduce a more robust weapon / item and skill system. They tend to be longer and less grind-y, from my experience.

Cool, thanks for the response, guys. I'm not much of a Ys fanboy, but I like the general setting and music of it. Nice little detour from the other games I've been playing, recently (still playing the Last Remnant, ugh 50 hours and counting, and Omerta: City of Gangsters).

Is Last Remnant worth it? It's one of those games I've sat on buying for a long time now. I imagine it's pretty cheap now.

On another gaming related note, I spent much of today at MAGFest, playing arcades and such. I was thrilled to see they had two Fist of the North Star Fighting Mania arcades:



I hadn't played one in years and got to a point where I was actually considering finding one to buy.

Last Remnant is a good hold-over RPG game. It's not the best or worst, but it's gameplay and presentation will keep you interested enough to at least complete it. I dug it for the 20 or so hours I played it before I got a major save game error which wiped my entire save ( ). It takes a little to get the hang of the team attacks and how to properly get execute shit, but I think for a week or two worth of playing you'll probably enjoy it. Just be sure to read a guide first to see what you should avoid doing as a noobie (i.e. don't enlist officers from early in the game; don't level up considerably until you get officers that are worth a damn).

Picked up Natural Selection 2 on sale yesterday and I'm having a lot of fun with it. Really reminds me of Aliens and it's nice to see a team-based FPS where people actually work together.

Yeah, it's a good game, I'd recommend it. The story so far is OK, even though the main character is goofy as fuck and some of the voice acting is.. well it's a JRPG. Combat is pretty fun, and like you said, presentation is slick as hell. At 50 hours, though. I'm just kinda slogging through at this point. Maybe I should stop doing sidequests, but I've been conditioned by games like Baldur's Gate to always do them!

Do lot's of people play Natural Selection 2? I had been waiting for it for a long time as a Natural Selection fan from back in the day, but when it finally came out I was pretty indifferent to it. If you used to play the first one, does it compare?

Too bad you didn't get further Ozzy, the battles and some of the extra bosses towards the end are pretty damn fun.

Really good game with awesome music.

Yeah, a corrupt save file really pulls a handbrake on further playing. I just didn't want to have to play another 20 hours immediately after just to get to the place I was at.

Seems like you guys are more into fantasy type of stuff here, if I've been reading correctly. That's interesting. I've only played some fantasy games, but never saw a huge amount of appeal in fantasy as a genre of any media (even literature and movies).

Yeah, it has a healthy and sizeable community, which is amazing for an indie multiplayer game with a high skill ceiling. Those types of games usually have people saying "fuck it" and never touching it again after getting wrecked by someone with solid mechanics. The developers also continue to add tons of content and support the competitive scene so I see this game having a decently sized community for quite a while. And yeah, it's a great continuation of the first game.

Speaking of corrupted-ish saves...

I've been playing through The Witcher on I think the medium difficulty and I think I may be stuck at the stupid Beast. His goddamn stunlock is ridiculous. Apparently Abigail sold some Spectre Oil recipe that would make the fight almost trivial by massively increasing damage vs. the beast but I never bought the recipe and now all of my save files are from after the point where I can buy the recipe. Maybe there's some way to cheese this fight but it's pretty lame that the way to beat it was an obscure recipe the game never even hinted at being important or anything.

Reminds me of Morrowind. You're like 30 hours + into a game and when you go to load it one day "X spell or X random thing is corrupt, can't load.", death knell sounds.

The music is spectacular, although the battle music gets a bit repetitive after a while, but that's a major gripe for me in regards to pretty much all JRPGs. Luckily they tend to cycle quite a few different battle songs depending what environment you are in, what part of the game you are at and if it's a boss battle.

I also like how occasionally you run into those rare monsters which are basically bosses in their own right. Sometimes they've caught me off guard, as they tend to look similar to normal enemies so you fight them while linking 2 or 3 other encounters and get your ass handed to you.

And batman, that's weird about the Beast, I don't recall that fight being very tough. That being said, a major part of that games difficulty is strategic use of potions and whatnot to gain an upper hand in battles, so you have to make sure you have a decent stock of potions and the like. You never know when you'll need them! Luckily the Beast isn't very far in the game (if I remember correctly), so maybe you could restart?

I mean, I've probably put ten hours into the game already.

The shitty thing about potions is that it wipes all of your potions before the fight, so you can't go in prepped, and if you try to use them at the beginning of the fight you get swarmed with dogs while you're standing there drinking potions like a moron. Anyway, I think I found a way to cheese the fight some, so I'll give it a try. Still dumb as shit though.

I picked up Spelunky during the steam winter sale and have really been enjoying. Seemed a little too casual a game at first, but navigating the continuously changing dungeons in the most time-efficient way possible while saving your health is quite the challenge.

Playing a puzzle-platformer like that got me thinking of Super Bomberman 2, a favorite of mine on the SNES in grade school. Thinking of dusting off the SNES emulator and giving it another crack. Anyone else ever played it?

Shit that's ten hours? I knew it was near the beginning but it's been a few years since I played it and the game is pretty long. And yeah, I get ya' on the standing around drinking the potion like an idiot thing. Can you use that shield magic thingy yet? Either way, I think it's more of an issue of just keep on trying. You'll get the bastard!

^ Dude those old JRPG's were probably longer than almost any game listed on here... Legend of Dragoon and FF7 were the longest games I remember ever playing, and I have wasted my life on a LOT of video games.

Edit: I did cheese The Beast to death. After an unsuccessful near hour of kiting him around and trying to whittle him down with the fire sign, I eventually switched to a different tactic: kite around like an idiot spamming Aard as often as possible until, finally, one Aard stunned him and I moved in for the easy 1-shot.

Of course all the combat since then has been a walk in the park. The dreaded cockatrice is a joke compared to The Beast.

I've put 400+ hours into Skyrim... *coughIswearI'mnotahugenerdcough*

^ I'm guessing you've put a lot of time into extras, like online multiplayer stuff. Because I played Skyrim a bit before and I don't remember it being something that'd get anywhere near 400+ hours of gameplay.

But anyway, FF7 and Legend of Dragoon... Longest games I remember playing, ever. Then there was also the first Legend of Legaia game where you'd get killed all the time so getting through one boss was like going through a whole game itself. So even if you didn't officially get the hours you played, 100 hours usually meant 200+... And I think that game ran for longer.

While I'm getting all nostalgic, does anyone remember the old Turok games? Those were THE BOMB. Whoever designed the game was on a serious acid trip though. I don't remember a time period where iron-forged daggers, Native Americans, and dinosaurs existed at the same time.

Nah, there's no online in Skyrim. It's a huge game if you do all of the dungeons and missions. Plus I have it on PC where you can download mods for the game. Not to mention making every kind of character you can imagine!

The beast certainly serves as a wake-up call for new players. This isn't Elder Scrolls. In the Witcher world, potions and oils and shit aren't small buffs but near-essential parts of combat, especially on the harder difficulty. I rather like it myself. The sense of satisfaction you get from winning a tough fight after a great deal of effort preparing for it really pays off in my opinion, and I enjoy the concept of actually readying yourself for a fight that's coming.

Of course, for someone who has only just stepped into the world of the Witcher for the first time, it's probably a little too harsh. Seeing all the Dark Souls love on here though, I can't imagine that'd be too big an issue.

Well as I said all the prepwork in the world meant literally fuckall in that fight as every single buff gets wiped right as the fight starts so you have to choose between buffing back up while getting mauled by tons of barghests or just doing what you can then hauling ass.

rexxz: Alright, I get it. I didn't get too into Skyrim to be honest but it is a decent game. Me and a buddy played using his copy together at his place along with his girlfriend. I don't have one myself... I'm more of a person that currently prefers more of the stealth (stealth-based combat in Batman games is awesome!), adventure, puzzle, RPG, and action type of stuff rather than anything straight fantasy like most of you guys seem to be mostly into. That surprised me to not see people taking about FPS games like Call of Duty, Killzone, Medal of Honour, etc here. Where did your bloodlust go, people?

I love the Arkham games, I was actually playing Arkham Origins a few days ago. I need to beat it! But lately I've been playing that new Assassin's Creed: Black Flag. Such a glorious piece of awesome pirating goodness.

As good as the first one is, Turok 2 is a-maz-ing. Music is incredible even on the N64's shit audio, the levels are unbelievably massive and the weapons kick so much ass (cerebral bore, anybody)? The game is very, very difficult and the first level took me like 3 hours my first playthrough. It is worth it, though.

Black Ops killed it.

I really liked Turok 1, 2 and Rage Wars even though that last one was totally different from the others and kind of charmingly shitty rather than straight up rad like 1 and 2. Turok 3 was mostly stupid and the ones since then have been utterly meh. But yeah man, 1 and 2 are divine.

Rattus, I like lots of genres. I just happen to be playing a fantasy RPG at the moment. Next on my list after Witcher is Serious Sam 2nd Encounter HD, F.E.A.R. Extraction Point and Shadow of the Colossus.

Hmm, it's been a while since I played the first game, so I could be mistaken, but I don't remember buffs being deactivated through cut scenes. Blade oil coatings definitely not, at the very least. Potions are quick enough to take mid-combat anyways once you knock the foes back with a quick Aard - the time it takes for the majority to get back up and in front of you is longer than it takes to chugg down a potion (which is very lore-breaking, but eh).

A question: are you playing in over the shoulder or isometric? In the first Witcher, positioning is very important. If you ever allow an enemy at your back, you're in trouble. Isometric helps with this. If you notice an enemy behind you, double click behind him to vault over him and put all the enemies back in front of you and in an exposed radius for an Aard. Remember to keep mobile as well by double clicking in isometric, or double tapping a movement key in over the shoulder, so as to avoid enemies and obtain new positions in combat. It's quite tactical really, not like the more action-based combat in the second (which is still good, mind).

I'm playing over the shoulder, and as I said everything else in the game is extremely easy. The fight wipes your buffs because it elapses enough time that any potions you take before the cutscenes have expired, with only the 24-hour blade buffs (such as the Spectre Oil that you're apparently supposed to have to even make this fight possible) still remaining.

I understand how to do everything you just explained and use all of these tactics on a regular basis, but that's still no excuse for a poorly set-up boss fight like The Beast. My main problem stemmed from not having access to the oil you were meant to have in order to be able to win the fight and nothing more, really.

Ozzy: explain. I don't think I played that.
Diamhea: I think I remember that one, used to play it as a kid. Good game. I'm going to sound old/bitter but the new modernized "military man" Turok just isn't doing anything for me. It takes away from the fun of the absurdity of the whole series.
rexxz: yeah they're great, but I'm a bit hesitant to play Arkham Origins as I've greatly admired the voice actor of The Joker and I know he's not voicing him in the Origins game. He did awesome voice work and I don't want that to be ruined for me, but I love my Batman games. I have a thing for all things Batman, actually.
iamntbatman: yeah but damn a lot of you guys play a lot of fantasy games. Not saying anything's wrong with that; it's an interesting surprise. Since I've been observing this thread, it's almost exclusively fantasy games discussed here.

It was just a terribly scripted and unsatisfying FPS experience. The single player aspect was annoying to get through and since COD4 I've disliked the multiplayer aspect of the series. The slickness is just not my thing, plus the fanbase makes the whole the fun factor less... fun. Battlefield 2 was the best FPS multiplayer I was ever part of, but once the fans moved from that to the next title it died. That's something I generally dislike about FPS' now in general when it comes to having a release every year or two - the core reason to play it is short-lived.

I played the entire thing, but I remember the first mission above all else being the biggest waste of time. This video is a must-watch for what I mean: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RULv6HbgEjY.

I realized by then that this was the trend with AAA FPS' and I gave up playing them.

If that's a reflection of the overall gameplay, it doesn't look like a game worth buying. Also, multiplayer on some CoD games my friend got me to play is not fun at all in general. There's people who memorize spawning sites and they just kill the fun. I kept dying like every 2 seconds and I don't suck THAT hard at FPS games. The same friend I just mentioned is awesome at those games and only lasted slightly longer than me. Now Nazi Zombie mode, that was fun. Can't remember which CoD game that was on.

Edit: gonna go play some of The Last of Us. I got it free with my new PS3. And it's the holidays so I don't have to care about the time just yet.

I get your frustration, but I honestly had no problem with the beast, even on hard. I don't know why you had such a hard time with him since you seemed to have been doing everything right. Oh well, you're past him now, and on to the meat and potatoes of the game anyway.

Did you have spectre oil?

Yeah, I'm on to the next chapter and having fun doing all sorts of quests in town.

I can't remember. It's been so long. I kinda wanna go back and play it again, though. I really loved the Witcher. It was especially nice how they pretty much eschew the whole Bioware light/dark good/evil dichotomies and just go with choices where something shitty happens no matter what. The second one is definitely a treat too. It's more of an action game, but it is slick as hell. They really stepped up their game on number two.

Yeah I love the game, and honestly at this point it feels like it's not a proper RPG unless there's some really shittily implemented element somewhere or other, haha. The moral choices are fantastic and do a great job of capturing the "everything's a gray area" vibe the books have going on. Definitely looking forward to playing the second game, though it'll be a while before I get around to it as I like to spread things out a bit.