Artimicia's JRPG battle

[Rucks]

^ you're right.  I just didn't remember seeing it when I played it as a kid.

[Artimicia]

Ok so 1 - 0 LUCT wins

Right here we go

Bloodborne



vs

Vagrant Story

[Arvis]

PFFFFFFFFFFFFFFT Vagrant Story by like... however many miles exist.

[Klutz64]

Everybody kept saying "Play Vagrant Story, its so great! You'll love it!"

Never bothered to tell me anything about the game

5 Hours in: "This game is horrible, does this first dungeon ever end?"


So I vote for Bloodborne because I was pleasantly surprised instead of completely misled.

[Aeolus]

Everybody kept saying "Play Vagrant Story, its so great! You'll love it!"

Never bothered to tell me anything about the game

5 Hours in: "This game is horrible, does this first dungeon ever end?"


So I vote for Bloodborne because I was pleasantly surprised instead of completely misled.

It has some decent camerawork during the cutscenes which were, and still are, rather rare in the world of videogames. It's kinda like Ico or Shadow of the Colossus in that regard.

The actual gameplay though was kinda cumbersome, even back in the day, let alone now. Also, Lea Monde isn't just the first dungeon as its the entire game (barring the opening), which is both kinda cool and also incredibly restrictive. Its kinda like a hybrid of Symphony of the Night meets Parasite Eve 1, but clumsier than the former and more in-depth than the latter. Also, it exists for OCD spergs to go crazy on due to the game's weapon crafting mechanics.

Its also infamous for requiring the mastery of a pair of rather poorly explained mechanics to actually beat the game's final boss due to the utterly bullshit inflated stats it pulls on you (its more designed around a refight after the game's sudo-NG+ mechanic, which unfortunately requires beating it the first time to reach).


That said, of the two, it's the only one I've played, so it gets my vote. Also, it's peak Alexander O'Smith.

[Klutz64]

Yeah, that's what I meant. Nobody bothered to inform me when recommending the game that the entire thing was one dark, dreary dungeon. Had to figure that out with a little research after I thought I was doing something wrong.

[Artimicia]

Ok! Looks like maybe a 2 - 1 Vagrant Story over Bloodborne.

ahem ahem ahem

Final Fantasy I: Origins edition



vs

Final Fantasy II: Origins edition

[Artimicia]

Everybody kept saying "Play Vagrant Story, its so great! You'll love it!"

Never bothered to tell me anything about the game

5 Hours in: "This game is horrible, does this first dungeon ever end?"


So I vote for Bloodborne because I was pleasantly surprised instead of completely misled.

It has some decent camerawork during the cutscenes which were, and still are, rather rare in the world of videogames. It's kinda like Ico or Shadow of the Colossus in that regard.

The actual gameplay though was kinda cumbersome, even back in the day, let alone now. Also, Lea Monde isn't just the first dungeon as its the entire game (barring the opening), which is both kinda cool and also incredibly restrictive. Its kinda like a hybrid of Symphony of the Night meets Parasite Eve 1, but clumsier than the former and more in-depth than the latter. Also, it exists for OCD spergs to go crazy on due to the game's weapon crafting mechanics.

Its also infamous for requiring the mastery of a pair of rather poorly explained mechanics to actually beat the game's final boss due to the utterly bullshit inflated stats it pulls on you (its more designed around a refight after the game's sudo-NG+ mechanic, which unfortunately requires beating it the first time to reach).


That said, of the two, it's the only one I've played, so it gets my vote. Also, it's peak Alexander O'Smith.

I agree on everything even though I'm not voting except one thing.. I think the final fight was actually the best part of the game... and why even X number of years later I think the game is at least worth playing.

I didn't expect them to kind of break the repetitive patterns of either ultra long boss fights with repeateable ultra powerful phases, or kind of singular easy to beat ones.. it's sorta in the middle with weird mechanics that either make you think it's really hard to really easy but is often neither.

[Klutz64]

Ok! Looks like maybe a 2 - 1 Vagrant Story over Bloodborne.

ahem ahem ahem

Final Fantasy I: Origins edition
vs
Final Fantasy II: Origins edition

PFFFFFTT!!
(fun fact: I had completely forgotten this was Arvis' reaction to the last pairing until after I posted)

...Oh you were serious.


Okay, okay. Honestly FF2 isn't as bad as I sometimes feel like it is. More like an experiment gone wrong than anything else. Plus to it's credit it was kind of the start of the FF series always trying something new without ever (present entries aside) going too far off the rails.

Still, FF1 feels more polished, more streamlined, and better paced by a mile.

[Mickeymac92]

Let me see, one of my favorite Final Fantasy games, which is also the start of a good franchise, and the version that fixed the major problems without dumbing down the gameplay like later versions did...

...versus the prettier version of a complete mess of a game, with few, if any attempts to fix said mess?

I think it's obvious I'd choose FF1: Origins by a country mile.

[Aeolus]

I for one will vote for FFII on the grounds that FFI felt like a D&D campaign converted into a videogame whereas FFII tried to be a new and different thing (even if it didn't really succeed at being good) and set the stage for the SaGa series (and the Mana series to a lesser extent). And yes, I know I'm comparing the definitive version of FFI to the not even definitive version of FFII.

I will concede that FFIII was the best Famicom era FF game by a country mile or more, but that's beyond the scope of this discussion.


(Plus, giving credit to where credit's due, FFII introduced many of the series' main staples such as Chocobos, Cid, and playable female characters.)


Posting Milestone Edit: Aaannnd, I just hit the posting limit cap.

[Frostillicus]

I for one will vote for FFII on the grounds that FFI felt like a D&D campaign converted into a videogame whereas FFII tried to be a new and different thing

Speaking of the OG Famicom versions, ^that's exactly why I appreciate I over II. I played tabletop D&D with my older brother and his friends before getting into video game RPGs, so of course I felt more "at home" with I.
II is steaming garbage. One of the worst RPGs I've ever played. I recognize it for it's innovations, but it just feels like a near-broken game to me. One of the few FFs I didn't finish...

[Mickeymac92]

Yeah, "converting a D&D Campaign into an RPG" is actually pretty impressive for an NES game. Really, I always felt it was relatively polished an entertaining for its time. I mean, most other RPGs at the time were trying to pull that off, especially on home computer, and I always felt like what we got were inspired in the right ways while streamlining enough that it didn't become a total slog like many of its contemporaries.

Really, FF2 might be historically important, but if I didn't know all that, I'm not sure I'd even bother finishing it, whereas I rarely lost motivation with the original FF, even on the NES.

[Aeolus]

Posting Milestone Edit: Aaannnd, I just hit the posting limit cap.

*equips his ultimate weapon and releases the seals using both the Sigil and Crest to obtain the Break Posting Limit skill*

I for one will vote for FFII on the grounds that FFI felt like a D&D campaign converted into a videogame whereas FFII tried to be a new and different thing

Speaking of the OG Famicom versions, ^that's exactly why I appreciate I over II. I played tabletop D&D with my older brother and his friends before getting into video game RPGs, so of course I felt more "at home" with I.
II is steaming garbage. One of the worst RPGs I've ever played. I recognize it for it's innovations, but it just feels like a near-broken game to me. One of the few FFs I didn't finish...

I only played OG FFI about a year or two prior to Origins coming out, so I didn't have the nostalgia for it like others do. But having said that, in FFII's defense, most of Square's output was near-broken. FFVI is an infamous example due to Sketch breaking the game so bad it nukes its own save files among other issues like Mog Celes, Terra's transformation damage overflow, lost Interceptor, Gau's Rages, M.Evade, and the list goes on.

Realistically, if you remove the style from Square's output, you're generally not left with a whole lot of substance. FFII just so happens to be the exemplar of that rule as it doesn't really have that strong of a style to defend it from the critics.


But then, who am I to talk, when I willingly took the plunge on Legend of Legacy due to its similarities to the SaGa series.