A practice in objectivity

[Crown Clown]

After reading a couple of the posts in the thread about overrated and underrated games, I can't really understand why people would dive head first into a battle which is simply waiting to happen, one which nobody could ever win. It's basically an exercise in who can outshout the person standing on the other shore of the ocean known as an opinion. Which is inevitable to be sure, but as I am curious to a fault, I wanted to set up a interesting practice of objectivity.

It's simple. I'll start of be naming a game that I didn't enjoy too much, in this case Final Fantasy XII. Then I will bite my tongue and think for a moment, and form 3 positive points and 3 negative points about said game. I will then name another RPG, which the next person will form 3 positive points and 3 negative points on, after which he/she will state another RPG and so on. As this is a practice in objectivity I would appreciate if we could do it without having to endure statements without any fair meaning or which are designed only for provocation.

I'll start things off.

Final Fantasy XII
+ The elimination of random encounters.
+ Entertaining side quests.
+ Very good voice acting.

- The Gambit system makes combat more hands-off.
- Not a very engaging plot, partly due to characters somewhat lacking in personality.
- Dull environments.

Then I'll choose the next title. As such, I'll choose a title close to my heart, namely Legend of Legaia.

[Losfer]

Ooh, I like this.  Good idea.

Legend of Legaia.

+ Interesting and fun battle system.
+ An ending that was actually pretty cool.
+ I liked Noah's design.

- Hello, it takes ten years to walk anywhere on the map.
- Characters lacked any personality at all.
- Dull, dull graphics.

I choose you, Tales of Symphonia!

[Prime Mover]

Tales of Symphonia

+ Great Voice Acting
+ Wonderful Character Portrayal/Dialog
+ Impecable pollish on the overall feel

- Story becomes convoluted and padantic
- Battle system could have allowed for more freedom
- Some main characters don't really get developed as fully as they should

And now for one of my favorites, and one of the more controversial uber-popular games out there:

Final Fantasy VIII, I choose you!

[Masamune]

Final Fantasy VIII

+ Complete control over difficulty of the game
+ Excellent Soundtrack
+ Triple Triad

- Storyline goes astray at the end in typical Final Fantasy fashion
- Not many options for equipment
- Draw system could've been better, using magic should not take away from your junctioned spells.

 
I choose Suikoden II

[macirex]

Suikoden II

+ Good storyline with pretty sad moments
+ More than 108 characters you can recruit each with an interesting flavor
+ OH! the castle...

- Most of the characters were useless
- Strategic battles were kinda dull
- Bad translation

I choose you Wild Arms

[Losfer]

Wild Arms, eh?

+ Wild West feel is really unique for a genre riddled with dragons and knights.
+ Beautiful music.
+ Rudy's /spoiler/.  That's so fucking cool.

- Most God ugly battle graphics I have seen in anything.
- Said battles were a little too...  Straight forward.
- Harken was cooler than any of the characters you could play as...

Up next, Dragon Warrior.  Yes.  The original.  :O

[MeshGearFox]

because the internet is made for conflict, basically, to answer your *grist* question

[Bernhardt]

Sorry, but I got ideas of my own: Suikoden IV.

+ Islandic setting = vacation in your living room
+ Relaxing soundtrack
+ Awesome plot; it's interesting to see how it all fits together in the end, what the motivations of certain characters are, and how some of them related to each other

...

- Sailing is far more tedious than it needs to be, given poor controls, length of distance between destinations, and random battles consisting of weak enemies.

- Voice-acting was uneven in places, and some scenes that could've used voice-acting didn't get it; these days, not giving voice-acting to a scene is like saying it's unimportant; at the very least, you may not remember those scenes as well as those that are voiced-over.

- Too sensitive about when you could or couldn't get certain characters; some characters, namely Ted and Snowe, had very narrow windows of opportunity to recruit; if I wasn't following a walkthrough, and closely at that, I would've been fucked.[/i]

[Ramza]

Sorry, but I got ideas of my own

YOU CANNOT THINK FOR YOURSELF! FOLLOW THE RULES!

That said, someone needs to do Dragon Warrior. And it can't be me because I have merely dabbled and not finished said classic NES title.

[Losfer]

wtf

Yeah, I agree with Ramza.  Rules exist for a reason.

*Kicks a chessboard over.*

I fuckin changed the rules, I WIN!!!

[macirex]

ermmm... have someone actually finish dragon quest?? cause I gave up half way... maybe we should change the game...

[Eusis]

FINE GUYS

Dragon Warrior:
+ Started the JRPG Genre
+ Relativley accessible yet rewarding to explore
+ Original release came free with Nintendo Power for awhile

- Can require too much grinding
- Some silliness due to an unrefined design, notably going through a menu just to do anything at all, even climbing stairs.
- One save point total

BONUS NEGATIVE: - Japanese sprites always faced the screen.

I avoided stuff like story since that's too easy, and I considered putting 'hasn't aged well' except the negatives are supposed to point out WHY that isn't so. I only beat the GBC version admittedly, but I think you can safely do this based off that and basic experience with the original.

Next up... Let's make this one anyone can do to get the ball rolling again. Final Fantasy VII Or if you want an alternate, Persona 1.

[TurnBasedDude]

Final Fantasy VII
+Gave RPGs a mainstream appeal.
+Good graphics (for the time) and audio.
+Lots to do

-Good story initially, fell a bit all over the place later on.
-Characters are quite hit or miss
- Materia system gave much less individuality to characters.

It was solid game overall, but I don't find it to be the greatest FF games ever.

Next: Skies of Arcadia

[RPGRocker]

Skies of Arcadia

+Lengthy, dramatic story
+Great soundtrack
+Tons of Discoveries and sidequests

-Magic can often seem useless
-Battle engine (character and ship) feels very linear
-Characters are meh

Also wanted to add that there's very little FMV in the game. Not as important to me as to others, but I still feel it's a strong negative today. Good game, nonetheless. One of my favorite modern RPGs to date.

Lunar 2

[PKProductions]

Lunar 2

+Cool how the game goes on ever after the credits
+Working Designs did an awesome translation/voice acting to really bring out the characters, sweet collectors box set
+Lucia gets naked :)

-The game was extremely linear
-Why oh WHY did they ruin the Nall character from the first game?
-Fairly basic battle system copypasta'd from the first game

Lunar 2 is still the shit, not sure if its as good as the first Lunar game, but still a worthy succesor... now for a game no one is going to expect

Shenmue