Oh, FFL isn't hard. Just use mutants instead of humans. you can get them up to about 999 HP pretty damn fast (second world for me), give them a weapon that works off their... intelligence skill (or agility I guess, like rapiers and guns), and use that powerup skill thing. They just sort of suck in the beginning.

Hm...

1) Wizardry IV
2) Betrayal at Antara
3) Daggerfall

Ones I'd actually want to plaY:

1) Nethack
2) Dragon Wars
3) Gothic

The rap sure as hell beats that stupid buttrock boss music for Blue Dragon. My god, that's the worst thing ever.

that's how I feel about PS2 and 3. What's your reason for that with 1, I'm wondering?

For me with 2 and 3, I like how the characters are balanced in 2 -- specializing in different magics and the like -- but I hate how the dungeons are. Same for three, basically, although 3's dungeons are just boring and not so obnoxious. And I like the stories and settings in both but in both instances, the writing leaves... things to be desired.

I don't mind grinding in them though. It's not level grinding which is annoying. It's money grinding, which I'm okay with because a new weapon is a much more interesting carrot on a stick than some arbitrary numbers.

DQ's sort of a roguelike. Anyway.

Originally did not like:

Nethack - Did not have an overworld like ADOM, sort of silly, less robust skill system.

ADOM - Lacked Nethack's dungeon complexity, seemed to have less item interaction, static overworld, a bit too long for not having permasaves.

Dwarf Fortress - The interface REALLY takes awhile to make sense

ZAngband - They updated the damn thing and removed everything I liked about it >:| Actually, I still hate the new version. Wups.

Gearhead - I originally was trying to use some really bizarre ASCII version of the program or something. I can't really remember *why* it bugged me so much initially.

The UnReal World - Sort of odd movement system.  It's also probably the hardest out of the lot ('cept Nethack).

Bah. I read some faq and thought the game had about 90 quests, then realized at least 20 of the ones listed were actually minstrel stories and that there are only around 50 quests. Bummr.

Oh god. FFT battles were long :( And not even suspend saves? :(((

btw Eusis, some of the areas in  RS are sort of 'hub' areas and they have a rather DQ8-overworld feel to them. Not a lot of areas, but a few.

Also, anyone know if anything carries between games? usaga had the shop rank thing and sgf had the Secret Bonus Area, but does RS have anything? I'm thinking no, but I just started Hawke (YEY BOAT!) and i dunno if I really ought to finish claudia first.

shining force is another game I'd've rathre had savestates for. probably my PC gamer mindset again. i'm used to being able to save in battle. I sort of feel the same way about FFT maybe?

DQVIII didn't really have an overworld. No more than Morrowind did.

I think console RPers were so used to crappy, crappy overly linear 'overworldless' setups like FFX and SO3.

I mean, in the sense that it's a big, naturey open hub area and not just some straight connecting wilderness dungeons, yes, it's an overworld. In the sense that your guys get tiny and everything goes zoomed out then no, it's not an overworld.

Anyway, I guess I should try WA2 again sometime. That other thread I made? I think it would end up in there. But yeah, I have to say that I think WA1 was better. Not really the best battle system, but the game just had a lot of stuff beyond that.

I mean, remember how if you bombed barrels with an item in it, the little item sprite flew out and you had to run over it to pick it up? I loved that. Tiny detail. Doesn't matter. But it adds flavor.

There's this lines in "Come Down Stairs and Say Hello"

To tell you the truth I've said it before tomorrow I start in a new
direction
I know I've been half asleep I'm never doing that again

That's really how I was feeling when the album came out. 15, sophomore year of HS, not really knowing WHAT I was planning on doing, and feeling like I was wasting time. Summer had just ended and I'd just gotten back from DC and was with a headache in a rainy town I used to call home. Listened to the album a lot. Really wanted to change or something or be more active and stop watching time fly by.

Now I'm a sophomore in college (really, had the rank since last spring, but this is year two) and, let's see... Second half of my senior year of HS, most of my junior year, first semester of college... Nothing worth remembering which I guess is good because I don't really remember it anymore.

Anyway.

This really really lovely live version of J. Newsom - Cosmia with a singing saw and wahtnot.

And, of course, suite judy blue eyes.

I should also mention that a lot of games that would be really, really annoying without savestates became sort of favorites for me as soon as I started emulating (Persona 1, probably some (S)NES games, Phantasy Star 2 and 3).

the knife - djeep cuts

of montreal - stanic panic in the adttic


spoon - ga

baudelaire and marx ride again - another few miles of concrete forests.

Actually, RPGs, obviously. Anyway, this happens to me a lot, I guess. Most recent example is Skies of Arcadia Legends. It's sort of hard to explain why, but I think I'll say that I somehow didn't catch the grace of the dungeons the first time I tried playing it, and also never new how to get new Special Attacks, which make battles really quite interesting.

Also, I guess FFVII and FFIX, but I can't honestly remember why. I like materia. I like the limit breaks in 7. I like the characters. Same for FFIX -- I love the whimsical design and learning skills from weapons and, at that, just the massive amount OF skills.

Oh, and FFT. Because the first three missions are just really gawdawful AND long.

1) Holy Crap, Dorter! Holy crap, long and confusing cutscene about a bunch of people I don't care about!
2) Oh Hey Random Battles.
3) Let's Rescue Whiny Bitch who's getting attacked by chocobos or something!
4) Holy Crap These Black Mages Are Obnoxious!

Then you get to the desert hideout and start getting new classes and it becomes awesome, because, see, you have to figure out how to get your guys into the base, for one thing, while coordinating a sort of flanking thing and not dying at the same time. Previous mission was just LOL BLACKMAGES MAKE YOU BURN and was mostly luck. And then a few missions later you get that REALLY BADASS SCENE.

Dungeon Master. My initial experience was with that terrible, buggy Dungeon Master Java port. Bad, bad indication of the game. Playing a different windows port that's accurate to the original, you can see all the neat subtleties of the original's dungeon layout, how graceful the interace is, how ATB seems to have originated in DM (sort of).

Legend of Mana. It's way too easy on normal mode, and initially it didn't seem to have any storyline. I mostly shelved it for a few months and read an FAQ out of boredom one day. Found out about all these interseting, complex little details, the hard modes, and how the plot's structured. Downloaded some gameshark emulator thing, turned on the difficulty modes.... game is much, much more interesting when pretty much every enemy can kill you in one or two hits ;)

Xenogears. Mostly because Norturne is the worst dungeon in any game ever (excluding Daggerfall, in which ever dungeon aws the worst dungeon ever somehow). I don't really remember why I liked it. I think part of it was because I'm terrible with symbolism so I couldn't really be all FEI IS JESUS!?!?! and instead was captivated by the surreal and vaguely grotesque imagery that kept coming up. I also rather liked the second disk. it felt weird and dissociated and creepy.

Hrm. Is there gonna be another shipment?