RPGs you don't like anymore but wish you still did.

[MeshGearFox]

I encounter this a lot. There's a sizable mass of games from my childhood/teenager years/early thir--(wait no that's not right) that I used to really like but now I don't, except I still wish I do. Why is this? Well, they usually have some sort of irredeemable gameplay flaw, but maybe other aspects I do like, such as the story, or atmosphere, or area design or whatever. Or sometimes I just played them too much and sucked all the fun out of them. Anyway, what are yours?

Wizardry 8:
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Crippling flaw? The battle system. 'Slow' doesn't really capture the full affect of HOW slow it is. See, enemies move in combat. And they move really, really slowly. Second, they usually encounter you from way off in the distance, so you're spending a longish amount of time just waiting around for minutes at a time until stuff comes into range. Third, there's also some weird pause when switching between attackers in combat. I think maybe it's running some sort of AI script or loading attack animations or whatever. I have no idea. Finally, attack animations ALSO take a really long time. Basically though, you have a huge amount of dead time in combat where nothing's really happening at all. What makes this worse is that you have an insanely low hit rate, dragging combat out further. Furthermore, insta-kills from out of the blue are more common than resurrection potions are. Finally, combat is pretty much constant.

Why I still wish I liked it? The atmosphere and story are great. There's lots of little details -- your party members talk, you have pre-made story characters you can meet and get into your party, etc. There's also a lot of really neat puzzles in the game.

I'm not really against replaying this if I ever find a way to mod it so, I don't know, you can actually hit enemies.

Albion:
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Critical flaw? Balance flies out the window pretty quickly. The spell system is odd and essentially broken once you get access to... I forgot what it was, but there's a very small set of spells you can get access to and level up, and basically spam your way through the rest of the game with them. In and of itself this wouldn't be a huge issue but it's a very combat intensive game and there's not really a lot to do that doesn't involve combat. And the battle system's the kind of battle system that would need to allow for heavy strategizing to be fun, and given the spell imbalance, you... don't really need strategy :(

Why I wish I still liked it? 1. Some of the best sprite work I've ever seen in a game. 2. Pretty nice music. 3. Awesome story that was basically the same story as Avatar only not completely idiotic. 4. The game looked like one of those old Yes album covers only you could like play around in it and there were giant mushrooms!!!. 5. Dungeons tended to be really interesting and fairly puzzle driven. I mean they were essentially first person dungeon crawl affairs, but there were lots of interactive bits, making them all feel really... unique and dynamic.

Legend of Mana
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Critical flaw? The gameplay :(

Why I wish I still liked it? Everything else :(

SD3
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Critical flaw? This is one of the buggiest things Square ever made. And the bugginess echoes upwards, having a weird effect on the balance, given that several stats are basically rendered useless by pointer errors, which in turn results in some bizarre issues in the entire class system as well. And then there's other stupid bugs like the ally death glitch.

Why I wish I still liked it? Okay, so in spite of the bugs, it's actually still a lot of fun, and the atmosphere is great. It's more just the overwhelming feeling that everything is going to blow up once you get to the second half that makes me not want to play it.

SD2
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Critical flaw? Again, lots of bugs. Broken stats, AI weirdities, and glitchy collision detection really irked med. Also I think leveling up individual spells was sort of a... bad idea. Per-element level ups would've worked better, given that some of the spells were really situational and could've been useful if you'd had the chance to use them enough to level them up, but...

Why I wish I still liked it? Same reasons as SD3, really. Early on it's fun, it just starts to break down later, and the atmosphere and story and aesthetics are all excellent. Also in terms of pacing I think it was one of Square's best games. I can't really describe how, but it flowed really, really well. Like one ginormous set piece. What's most annoying is that the problems are really not the SD2 dev team's fault. All of the little bugs were fixable, it's just that the game got stuck in development hell for so long because of factors not really within their control that this stuff started happening/couldn't get corrected.

Chrono Trigger:
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Yeah, as much as I complain about this, the real issue is that it's kind of linear and short and I just played it way too much over the years and there's nothing more for me to really do in it :( I can bring up complaints I have but they're nothing I'd actually call a critical flaw.

Xenogears
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I'm mostly assuming I wouldn't like this game if I replayed it based on FAQs and things. Anyway, here's the thing--I have a very odd relationship with this game which I will not be getting into. But for whatever reason I actually really liked a lot of the narrative content. I mean, not all of the specifics. Fei's... personality disorder was... bizarre, and there were a lot of rather stupid story elements, and you could tell they cut a lot out, but... whatever. I liked the narrative side of things, and I would really like playing it again for that. Again, my issue is the gameplay here. It's just... it feels like an afterthought. You have a combo system, but what's the point? There's rarely any reason to use anything but the best combo you've got available. Magic, similarly, is kind of useless. Gear battles are actually a lot more interesting but they're really few and far between until like, what, disc 2? Also Babel and weird, random difficulty spikes. I'm not against replaying this, though. I just don't think the results would be satisfactory.

Final Fantasy VI
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Critical flaw? I actually have a hard time explaining this. Everything feels really broken to me, with it. I mean, it has a lot of bugs. That doesn't help. But there are fan-made patches for those and I believe the GBA ports addressed those as well, so no big. But... I don't know. A lot of the character personal skills are... just... flatout not useful. Some of them are useful but annoying to do (Cyan's sword wait thingy gets tiring, as does inputting Bum Rush for the thousandth time). Apparently the second half gets really number wonkish and all character skills are useless by that point, though the last time I got that far was years ago. Some of the dungeon designs are kind of outright lazy too. Nowhere near, say, Chrono Trigger in terms of interesting features.

Why I wish I still liked it? Probably my favorite FF soundtrack, for one thing. The atmosphere was also... well, perfect. Stylish and baroquely steampunk, but also sad, wistful, and... strangely mysterious and kind of creepy/grotesque as well. Also I actually love late-game HEY LETS GET NONLINEAR stuff in FF games, and FFVI has tons of that. And in theory it actually has a proper mixture of unique character abilities + customization, (although as I said above I don't think that actually works out in practice. Still, the gesture that they have more differentiating them than, say, limit breaks is *nice*).

Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest
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Critical flaw? Unavoidable combat. Making battles not be random doesn't help if you can't AVOID them guys!!!!

Why I wish I still liked it? I am a hideous tool and completely adore this game.

Wind Waker
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Critical flaw? Motherfucking endless goddamn boat travel.

Why I wish I still liked it? Everything else :(

[Mickeymac92]

Pokemon - why don't like it? It hasn't changed enough in 10+ years. Still, it was the game that defined my childhood, so it would be nice to relive the memories, but memories is all I'll ever have in this case.

Digimon World series - why don't I like them? They're terrible games. Terrible, broken, idiotically designed games. But still, they were the games I spent a lot of my free time with as a kid.

If it counts: The Legend of Zelda series - They're like Pokemon in that it hasn't changed too much, except unlike Pokemon, it has a bunch of clones proving that the formula can be done better. But still, it would be nice if I could enjoy it like I did when I was a kid, before I realized how stale it was.


Other than that, I've only been playing RPGs for 3 years, so it'll be a while before I run into more games that I don't really like anymore.

[Dice]

I still like FFVI, but I have to agree about the character roster skills.  Relm is useless unless she's copying Gogo, Umaro filled up space, Terra, Locke, Sabin, Edgar and Celes were absolute tanks when everyone else fell short, the game was on whole too easy as well.  I loved the opera part, but I hate the cinematic that precedes a pretty tight timed-part.  I think, more than any other title in the series, this deserves a remake worthy on next-gen though.

And in regards to Wind Waker, I give the title credit for it's difficulty, one that was missing in Twilight Princess.  I actually enjoyed exploring the islands, but sea-faring sucked after a while (but they tried to help you with that).  I hated encountering monsters too - the ocean kinda scares me for that....
Then again, these titles have a fatal flaw in general: once you get more "hearts", it gets easier.  Any dungeon is hard when you have 3 hearts before you die, whereas late game 3 hearts is barely a scratch and you move on.

Now...

Persona 3 - Blasphemy!  I know, but I'm done with BABY BABY BABY, and I'm sick of the scheduling that was too akin to real life with the exception that I avoid my IRL friends while "making them" in the game for social links.  Fuck that noise, I'm done.  The story isn't even all that hot aside from the individual characters!  I liked it lots when it was on though.  And I do like the rewarding/punishing battle system despite it's basic execution.

Breath of Fire II - when this first came out, this was the first game I ever did fan art for haha.  I loved the title, great story, interesting/odd ball motley crew of characters, and (for the time) awesome graphics. ... ... ... The music makes me want to cringe, the difficulty spikes suck, and the dungeons are the fucken worst.  I made a point to remember (or youtube) the ending if I ever cared again.  One dungeon has moving holes in the ground - which is fantastic since your party doesn't go any faster than a walking pace... Shaman's were cool though.

Legend of Zelda, Ocarina of Time - the game is just not worth some of the pain in the ass dungeon mechanics.  That and the game started to get kinda creepy.. maybe its one part of the poor 3D, but why the fuck was the windmill man SO-EYES-RED mad???  When I played the game a lot, I actually had a save pre and post water temple just to make things easier.

Final Fantasy VIII - this weird odyssey was cool once, twice around... but then the oddball story, pain in the ass junction system, and the slow-ass Ragnarok made me care to never do it again.  It told an interesting across and up the globe though, and did it in an interesting setting.  And I miss some of the characters.  But hey.  Oh..and battles seriously took too long, if you were fighting a timed-boss, you'd be risking it with a summon haha

Digital Devil Saga - battle, walk, battle, walk, battle, walk, battle, walk, pretty fucken cool cutscene, battle, walk, battle, walk, push switch, level up odd-named spells.

Chrono Trigger - overplay.

[Yoda]

DDS has to be one of the most overrated games here.

I don't care how cool the story and design is, battling the same demons 1000 times while trying to walk 10 feet is not fun.

I doubt I'll play DDS2

[insertnamehere]

Each time I think about Star Ocean, I think WHY DID I LIKE THOSE GAMES?
SO 1 and 2 psp both have a stupid thing that would make me run around a field for a while just to attack even with an enemy just in front of me.
And both games are a jumbled mess of nonlinearity (optional private actions and story branches)
SO3 had an okay battle system that would frustrate me each time I used a massive attack (Gravity Bullet, Faerie Friend) on an enemy that starts guarding while taking damage because it bounce off a billion or so times and was still too nonlinear, but worst of all it had no world map and would take ridiculously long to go from place to place.
Most menus had stupid loading times too.
never played SO4 and it looks iffy
I think FF8 would be a good game to remake, since it had so much promise.
Make Laguna (and friends) and Seifer equally important as Squall and pretty much everyone else.
Have enemies stay at one level instead of leveling with Squall.
Give people a choice between drawing and using traditional magic (I liked drawing except with GFs)
Add in dating sim elements or add some form of depth to Rinoa and Squall as a couple so it makes sense.
Improve or remove junctioning.
And probably eliminate random battles.

[Danku]

Can I just say most RPGs on the PS2 and most of the current gen RPGs? I could go on forever, but like that other topic that is similar to this said. RPGs in general haven't delivered the goods, so I find myself playing other genres.

[Kevadu]

I still like FFVI, but I have to agree about the character roster skills.  Relm is useless unless she's copying Gogo, Umaro filled up space, Terra, Locke, Sabin, Edgar and Celes were absolute tanks when everyone else fell short, the game was on whole too easy as well.  I loved the opera part, but I hate the cinematic that precedes a pretty tight timed-part.  I think, more than any other title in the series, this deserves a remake worthy on next-gen though.

I agree that some of the characters were pretty useless but other character skills were quite powerful.  Cyan's lvl 7 swdtech was the most powerful attack in the game (at least against a single target).  And Umaro was a friggin tank statwise.  Who cares if you can't control him?  Just make sure somebody in your party can heal and you're good to go.  One of my favorite things to do was pair Umaro and Cyan because Umaro continues to attack while Cyan's swdtech charges.  And speaking of Cyan again, make him learn quick and you get to charge his swdtech at your leisure (and do it twice, no less).  The only other attack that is comparable is quintuple-ultima with the gem box and quick (and hopefully an economizer or else you will run out of MP doing that real fast).

I felt the best characters were Terra, Locke, Celes, Sabin, Cyan, Shadow, Umaro, and Gau (yes, Gau, at least if you spend the time to learn some good Rages).  Gogo is totally over-rated.  Sure he (she/it?) can use any skills, but his stats suck so he'll always be inferior to the original.  Edgar was good early on but felt completely useless in the late game.  Mog felt like Gau but weaker and with fewer attack options.  Strago had potential but never lives up to it.  Relm and Setzer just sucked.  Still, it's a big cast and half of them are in my 'good' categories.  And there is far more interesting diversity to them than in later FF games where characters are only distinguished by their stats and their limit break attack.

And yes, I have played way too much FFVI.  But I still love it.  A current-gen (side-rant:  These systems have all been out for several years now, why are we still calling them 'next-gen'?) remake of FFVI would make me so happy I would explode.

[Dice]

DDS has to be one of the most overrated games here.

I don't care how cool the story and design is, battling the same demons 1000 times while trying to walk 10 feet is not fun.

I doubt I'll play DDS2

At least watch a "Let's Play" for the cutscenes - it's an astonishing and deep wrap up to a twisted Earthen story.

Star Ocean at least does active battles quite well and I like the difficulty and extra dungeons.

Also... I must restate.  Breath of Fire II dungeons.....

[Fei]

...the bugginess echoes upwards, having a weird effect on the balance, given that several stats are basically rendered useless by pointer errors, which in turn results in some bizarre issues in the entire class system as well.

Double entendre? 

I think I understand this topic, but I will still say that if I liked the game the first time, it is to be considered a good game.  We have spoiler tags for the same reason... once you know a game carnally by sticking your dick or tits through the CD hole, you want it to leave first thing in the morning... now that you know, carnally, the challenge (game) is rendered pointless.  Round 2 means you are awesome, not the game.

I don't know why this forum makes me talk crazy.

[PotRoast]

A lot of butthurt in here. Really, it sounds like, "I've played this game a bajillion times, why I don't still love it to death?"

Newsflash: You're allowed to love a game and not want to play it again anytime soon.

[MeshGearFox]

Gau

Gau's actually one of the most brokenly overpowered characters in FFVI if you get him the right Rages.

Double entendre?

God what? How was anything I said a double entendre?

A lot of butthurt in here. Really, it sounds like, "I've played this game a bajillion times, why I don't still love it to death?"

Newsflash: You're allowed to love a game and not want to play it again anytime soon.

This wasn't actually what I was angling at even if I mentioned "overplay" in my own post. I was more looking for "I loved this game otherwise but it has some huge freaking problem and now I can't enjoy it anymore."

[Eusis]

A lot of butthurt in here. Really, it sounds like, "I've played this game a bajillion times, why I don't still love it to death?"

Newsflash: You're allowed to love a game and not want to play it again anytime soon.

And you don't have to be a jackass when people want to talk about why they may not like games as much as they used to or want to! Actually, people weren't talking about overplaying games too much in this thread. I know it can be obnoxious if people make stupid complaints, but it's just as irritating to see people complain that people dare criticize at all. Especially when said criticisms are generally reasonable.

ANYWAYS! I actually kind of have that feel with a lot of older games I try again. I remembered Mystical Ninja fondly when I rented it years back, but playing it again on the VC I have a harder time getting into the game.

[Fei]

Double entendre?

God what? How was anything I said a double entendre?

Bugginess, pointer, class, error.  There is a programming theme there.  Final Fantasy games use a pointer finger as a cursor, a class system between thieves and machinists, and uhh.. bugs and error.

Whether or not you meant for sarcasm to be a higher form of a double entendre, my brain is uselessly spiraling down that path.

...except if you did, that is cool.

edit:  On topic... Lagoon?

[MeshGearFox]

What no I mean SD3 has some sort of glitch with pointers/references and this makes the speed stat not work and it also makes crits not work. Because there are no crits, one of Kevin's top classes is completely useless, because its unique skill makes him crit constantly--only he doesn't, because crits don't work.

Also my second purpose is perhaps finding games that, if they exist for some platform or in some format that they're moddable, possibly spurring discussions into ways that crippling flaws can be fixed. For instance, Wizardry 8 DOES have editors, and I'm wont to believe that I could actually fix a lot of my issues with the combat using it. Similarly FFVII PC supposedly has mods that address the low difficulty and I'm interested in giving those a shot. Albion's also probably fixable but that involves hex editing and fuuuuuuu--

Also going to chime in with Dice about previously liking BoF2. For a lot of the same reasons. My only immediate issues were yeah, the music sucked, especially compared to BoF1 which had excellent music, and BoF2 Bow was gross looking whereas BoF1 Bo was a gorgeous werewolf that I wanted to marry I mean wait. However, my issue wasn't the dungeons, but how broken all the spells were. Like, literally, the game was hardcoded to make stat downers fail on bosses. WTF? BoF1 did the exact same thing, which killed it for me.

And I'm also going to add BoF4 into the mix. Different reasons. It actually had really solid battle mechanics from what I remember. BoF4's problem was that the map skills were just completely uninteresting, it was really slow, and the damn minigames were all terrible and largely mandatory. !@#%ing nautilus riding.

I never played BoF3, but the series really just stresses me out because for all the cool stuff it does, it also does something horrendously bad. Except for Dragon Quarter of course which from what I remember is AWESOME and I need to get back to it.

Actually I never got into BoF1 much back in the day. Briefly I got into it, uh, like, two years ago, because it had a lot of cool touches BoF2 lacked, but then I found out that it had the same sort of battle mechanic idiocy going on. BoF2 though I have really fond memories of, namely playing it on my GBA while being stuck in traffic going through Atlanta, Georgia. Or in the atrium of the OSU hospital when we were visitng my grandpa one Christmas. Also playing it on my GBA while going to some outlet malls in Jeffersonville, Ohio. Only I remember that happening when I was like, 14. And it didn't, because the damn game wasn't OUT yet, so yeah.

Same for BoF4. Got it after my freshman year of highschool, a few days before going to Gettysburg for the first time. Really strong summer-style nostalgia for that one :( I associate it with the smell of burning citronella that wafted in from the firepit through my open bedroom window for some reason (Some reason other than me playing it at night while citronella from the anti-bug stuff burning in the fireplace wafting into my window). Actually I should play it again. I'm trying to remember my mental state when I was 15 for various reasons I will not be getting into.

Holy hell I cannot form sentences.

[PotRoast]

This wasn't actually what I was angling at even if I mentioned "overplay" in my own post. I was more looking for "I loved this game otherwise but it has some huge freaking problem and now I can't enjoy it anymore."

My point was that you are confusing "enjoy it anymore" with "play it anymore." People are listing all sorts of reasons why they don't enjoy a game anymore, when it really sounds like they're listing all sorts of reasons they can't play through the game again. Repeatedly playing games brings an entirely different mindset that the first time. You put up with more because everything else is new and wondrous. The second time around you want to relive what was the new and wondrous, but you have less patience for everything else. For some of you this will make you not want to play the game again. You're still allowed to enjoy the game, despite this. You don't have to stop enjoying it just because you can't play through it anymore.

Maybe I'm arguing semantics, though.