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#unbump#

How do I turn it off?

I mean, GTN is a ... bot? There's a lot I don't know.

Mac Arrowny posted...

I hated the chest monsters enough to not enjoy that dungeon. Also Richard was a pretty awful villain.

Richard was one of the better villains, and a bunch better character than Weismann.

Just wanna give a shout out and thank the readers in this thread. I've been wanting to do a ranking list for a while and didn't really know how to go about it. I don't think there were many people that followed this, but thanks to all those who did. It feels as if it was something I needed to get off my chest. I've loved reading everyone else's ranking topics so I got the crazy idea to one of my own, with 100+ games! It was a wild ride. I don't think I'll do anything like this again, at least for a few years, but it was still a blast to write and share with those interested.

What does everyone think? Do you agree with some of my rankings, do you disagree? Let me know! :)

-Shit Tier-
101. Angry Birds
100. Adventures of Mana
99. Bravely Default
98. Suikoden Tierkreis

-Absolute and Utter Meh-
97. I Am Setsuna
96. Tokyo Xanadu eX+
95. Star Ocean 4
94. Super Mario Run
93. Star Ocean 5
92. Tales of Xillia 2
91. Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep
90. Candy Crush
89. Deus Ex: Human Revolution
88. Crash Bandicoot N-Sane Trilogy
87. Final Fantasy Brave Exvius
86. Cosmic Star Heroine
85. Final Fantasy XV

-Revel in Mediocrity-
84. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
83. n+
82. Skyborn
81. Radiant Historia
80. Cuphead
79. Mario and Luigi Dream Team
78. Tales of Zestiria
77. Brutal Legend

-It's Not Half Bad-
76. Rock Band 2
75. Arc Rise Fantasia
74. World of Final Fantasy
73. Indigo Prophecy
72. Horizon: Zero Dawn
71. Ninja Gaiden Black
70. The Wolf Among Us
69. Skyrim
68. Resident Evil 5
67. Ratchet and Clank: Tools of Destruction
66. Mario and Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story
65. Shadow Complex
64. Echoes of Aetheria
63. Final Fantasy XIII
62. Uncharted 2
61. LA Noire
60. Undertale

-Here Comes the Good Stuff-
59. Rock Band
58. Diablo 3
57. Battlefield 1
56. Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World
55. Ratchet and Clank
54. Ys SEVEN
53. Dust: An Elysian Tail
52. Grand Theft Auto 4
51. Tales of Xillia
50.75. South Park: The Stick of Truth
50.5. Borderlands
50.25. Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty
50. Ninja Gaiden II
49. Ara Fell
48. Metal Gear Solid 4

-Here Comes the GREAT Stuff, or How to Fill a Tier With RPGs-
47. Mass Effect 2
46. Xenoblade Chronicles
45. The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky the 3rd
44. Bioshock Infinite
43. Magna Carta 2
42. Golden Sun: Dark Dawn
41. Call of Duty: World at War
40. Final Fantasy Tactics A2
39. Grand Theft Auto 5
38. Crisis Core
37. Tales of Berseria
36. Valkyria Chronicles Remastered
35. Last Scenario
34. Tactics Ogre: Let us Cling Together
33. Donkey Kong Country Returns
32. Fallout 3
31. Final Fantasy Dimensions

-Awesome and Addicting-
30. Final Fantasy XIII-2
29. Super Smash Bros Brawl
28. The Last of Us
27. Ys: The Oath in Felghana
26. Devil May Cry 4
25. Final Fantasy IV DS
24. The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel II
23. Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance
22. Okami
21. Grandia II

-All Killer No Filler-
20. Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of DANA
19. Final Fantasy V
18. Fire Emblem Awakening
17. The World Ends With You
16. Stardew Valley
15. Exit Fate
14. Lost Odyssey
13. Mass Effect 3
12. Persona 5
11. The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel

-Top Ten-
10. Persona 3 Portable
9. Tales of Vesperia
8. Yakuza 0
7. The Last Story
6. Red Dead Redemption
5. The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky SC
4. The Legend of Heroes: Trails to Zero
3. Mother 3
2. The Witcher 3
1. The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky FC

I grew to like all of them and the game wants you to do this as it'll lock you out of them permanently once you reach a new chapter. Don't worry, if you liked that one particular town, you'll be back there in SC. When Joshua and Estelle reach a new town, the game goes on into story mode and basically let you explore the city and show/tell you what it's all about. It's all fun and games for Estelle and Joshua up till the final chapter. See, at the end of Chapter 3, Joshua and Estelle, along with fellow party members Agate and Tita and her grandfather Professor Russell, stumble upon a conspiracy involving corruption and a coup d'etat in Liberl's military. All of these scenes were done with great care and a bit of foreshadowing so it's not like they were pulled out of their ass. Reaching the capital city of Grancel, with its happy music, felt different. For Bose, Ruan, and Zeiss, the party was happy to be in a new city and ready to meet new friends and take on new Bracer gigs. With Grancel however, the mood is completely different. Joshua and Estelle know exactly what's at stake now, and are on a timeframe to attempt to solve this crisis that nobody else knows about yet before it's too late. I absolutely loved it.

The final chapter also succeeds in bringing back the rest of the party members together to save the country from the coup and the payoff is completely worth it. I spend a great chunk of the game getting to know Liberl and its history, so by the time I was midway through the final chapter I was ready to fight for this country that I felt like I knew so well. FC also sets up new plot threads and mysteries that are revisited in SC. The final reveal after the ending was out of left field but if you think about it, it makes sense and was foreshadowed. Same with all the other intricate plot details, like Kurt being "K" and his brainwashing being extremely relevant to the plot. I loved the final plot twist, and I was sad the game ended right there. Those of you who played this game more recently or when SC was already out didn't have to endure the long wait for the English localization of the sequel. I did, and it sucked. It sucked having to wait 4.5 years, more than half of those not even knowing if SC would get localized. I wanted to know what would happen and that information was readily available for me online but I had to force myself not to look at it.

Then there were all the other sequels -- TC, Zero, Ao, CS1-2. Luckily, I've now played almost all of them in English. So why is FC #1 on this list when SC is regarded by many as the clearly superior game? Fans will often say that FC is the weakest entry. Well, to me, this was more than just a game in the Trails franchise. It changed my view of RPGs and in some ways it changed my life. Just knowing that my favorite genre is capable of producing such quality releases like this left me with a warm, fuzzy feeling inside. Yes, the sequels were great, sometimes way better than the game it all started at, but they never replicated that feeling I got when I was playing through FC. I was more than highly invested. I even played this game again in 2014 when it released on Steam (Turbo mode is fantastic).

Thank you XSEED and thank you Falcom, you've done an admirable job. Like SMRPG, FFVII, Suikoden II, FFX before it, Trails FC joins the ranks of my favorite, "milestone" RPGs. It took all but ten years for me to find another one of these, just as my interest was waning. In 2011, shortly after playing through this game I was able to get my life back on track and finally start a career and become financially stable. I know, I know, this game probably had nothing to do with it, but playing it through that depressing period definitely helped prior to the transition. It renewed my interest in video gaming and JRPGs as well.

And that's my story. What's yours?

One day, while surfing the RPGs: Everything Else forum, somebody mentioned that some game called "The Legend of Heroes" was coming out in the west and sounded excited about it. I had no idea what this was but checked out XSEED's site for it and was impressed by the artwork and the time they spent on it. There was a map of Liberl and I was curious because it looked quite detailed. The characters all sounded interesting and the cities looked really cool. Then somebody linked to a song from the series and I knew I would want to try out the game after listening to it. That song was:



Okay, it wouldn't come until the third game but it was still part of the series. So anyway, I bought the game and started to play it. There's a lot of information thrown at me early on and the game starts off like any other RPG for the most part. Nothing much is going on, I play as Estelle and Joshua and apparently they have a badass dad and they want to become Bracers. This is pretty typical storytelling for most JRPGs I've played since 1996, and I've played a lot, so for me it wasn't anything I would complain about as I was already used to something like this. The town of Rolent had a bunch of NPCs who knew Estelle and were all super friendly...yeah whatever.

Little did I know that this particular town was the starting point of one of the biggest, best RPG series I've ever laid my hands on. It's Trails of the Sky FC that completely warped my viewpoint of RPGs. Another milestone. What FC did was raise the bar extremely high when it comes to storytelling, worldbuilding, and characterization. If you've been reading up to this point, you'd know that I play RPGs for the story and characters, not for the gameplay (although bad gameplay can still ruin a game) and FC nails it. I mean, it was seriously difficult for me to go back to regular ol' RPGs after this, because FC showed me what JRPGs are capable of when it came to storytelling, when it came to dialogue, when it came to the world it is set in. Who knew this series which starts off with a boy and girl training to be Junior Bracers would turn into a large, interconnected adventure involving ancient floating continent, giant mechs, magical artifacts that can alter space and time, infernal castles and metropolitan cities?

People oft complain that the game's plot is minimal and doesn't really start until halfway through the game. I tend to disagree. I feel that keeping the player in the dark about what's going on behind the scenes is intentional. I was patient enough to endure maybe 20 or so hours of mostly worldbuilding and character crafting while the game fed me bits and pieces of foreshadowing and Chekhov'ing. Some people say, "Play until the play" because it's around that time that the story kicks into high gear. For me, Chapter 1 is when the story really came together. I wasn't exactly too excited about running around doing meaningless errands early on in the Prologue, and Rolent was my least favorite town in FC, but I do think that the Capua theft was when the plot truly started. When I reached Bose and met Olivier is when I realized I bought a damn great, finely crafted RPG. Oh Olivier, you and your lines. I laughed hard at mostly everything he said here and for the majority of Chapter 1 he stole the show. But it was the scene at the docks where Kyle and Josette meet with a mysterious masked man where I became extremely curious about the story. And it paid off.

Every piece of dialogue is well written, every NPC is named and has their own routine. Sometimes they are travelling on their own journey while you do yours. It's nothing like I've seen before. They change their dialogue after almost every event, and side missions are all mostly relevant and help develop not only the NPCs but the main characters. They'll even remember you and what you did when you check in with them in SC. Towns are huge and you'll spend a great deal of time in all five of the big ones.

To me, FFVII was a "milestone" RPG. Many RPGs came before that and after that, but FFVII was one of those timeless classics for me, a game I will never forget. A game that fits the definition of why I love video gaming and RPGs as a whole. The next "milestone" RPG that came after that was Suikoden II, which told a story like no other. FFVII's story was well thought out and developed, with many characters and two main overarching plots that develop into something bigger and a quest to save the world. But Suikoden II told a story about a country's struggle to defend itself from an outside force and the war that erupts within. It told a story filled to the brim with tragedy and other moments that tug on your heartstrings. It was fucking deep and I could not stop playing it. It also teased a much bigger world that I was highly invested in after playing the first two Suikodens. I believe the next milestone RPG was FFX, because of its tight pacing and absolutely fun gameplay.

I loved these moments. I loved this history of RPG'ing. It wasn't something I was ready to forget. That moment I first played a Tales game and realized that action RPGs do actually exist outside of Secret of Mana/Evermore. That moment I played FFT, that moment I bought the newest four-disc game. It's a shame that most of the PS2's life cycle had decent enough RPGs, but nothing at any point EXCEPT for maybe Suikoden V actually wowed me. There were also a few RPG Maker games that had amazing characters and well-crafted storylines. That was the most exciting part for me: Super Mario RPG was unforgettable for me because it was the first game that told a story. After that, I wanted more, and after FFVII and Suikoden II's detailed stories I wanted even more.

I was waiting for that game that would make me fall in love with the genre once more. Mother 3 came and I loved it. Persona 3 had some great moments to it. I liked the Baten Kaitos games too. But really, I yearned for more.

So the year is 2011. It was a dark time for me. I lived on my own in a shabby one bedroom apartment and didn't even make enough money working two jobs to pay rent. I had earned a license in a particular field but had no idea where to even start looking for a job. I spent most of my time indoors and I was extremely depressed. I never wanted to go out, never wanted to meet new people, I just had more fun playing a game or watching a TV show or movie at the time. I self-diagnosed myself with anxiety and depression at the time and also started to smoke. Didn't seem like anything was going right.

1. The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky First Chapter
Original Release: 2011 (2004 jp)
Year Played: 2011, 2014 on Steam
Developer: Falcom
Platform: PSP/PC
Favorite City: All of them



I'm going to get sentimental here. FC is #1 after all, and it would be right to give it a proper, lengthy write-up explaining the reason why.

Let's backtrack. The year is 1996. I'm an avid player of Super NES video games, mostly platformers like Mario or Donkey Kong Country. I don't know what the term "RPG" even means but I keep seeing it mentioned in the Nintendo Power mags I had my dad buy from the local EB. So naturally, being a big fan of Mario, I start reading about something called "Super Mario RPG" and becoming interested in it, though not really sure what it would actually be. It certainly looked odd from the screenshots, with the isometric view and all. I figured it would play that well and Mario would jump on Goombas from that perspective and it'd be pretty much like any other Mario. So we went to the local Blockbuster and I decided to play it. Initially, I was entirely confused as to what the hell I was doing...why am I going into a separate screen to input commands? Why can't Mario just jump on this Goomba or Koopa? I don't get it. Shortly after these realizations, I had my ass handed to me by the Hammer Bros. boss. But, having nothing else to play, I continued to fight around the first area and thought, "Well, they are dropping coins so that's good, and this Exp Points thing is good." Pretty soon I managed to get past the first boss only to get my ass handed to me by the second. Also, I think I was 8 or 9 at the time so reading wasn't a strong suit of mine. But hell, I was into this game. I loved the fact that my characters could get stronger any time I want by actually spending time with them and then being able to defeat the next boss and move on to the next cool area.

But the thing about it is that SMRPG managed to give Mario a personality, despite being a mute. Before this, I thought of Mario as nothing more than a sprite or pixel on screen. Here, despite being mute, he actually has character. So does Geno, so does Mallow, so does freaking Bowser and that was awesome. I also loved that there was a plot. I had never played any game prior to this that had an actual storyline. The most plot of any game I played was, "Princess is in another castle" or "Bananas got stolen." Here, we start off with a new enemy taking over Bowser's Castle. Simple enough, but there's a whole world to explore and Star Pieces to get. Along the way, lots of things happen. And I loved it. I wanted to experience it all.

That is the story of how I got into RPGs.

From that point on up till the last inch of the SNES life cycle, I rented and experienced various different RPGs that I never paid attention to before SMRPG got me into them. Breath of Fire 2 was the second one I played, and the more grown up plot and more "mature" (or should I say edgy) feel had me hooked. I'll admit I don't remember the third RPG I played, I think it was either FFVI (FF3 back then) or Chrono Trigger...or Lufia 2 or Secret of Evermore. I played the majority of RPGs on SNES and loved them all. But I didn't get to play much else after that as I owned the Nintendo 64, a system that had like zero RPGs. I knew nothing of the PSX up until a friend asked me to come over one day to play his older brother's Final Fantasy VII. The only thing I knew about FFVII was a few commercials which showed nothing but cutscenes and no actual gameplay. I didn't think FFVII was even RPG anymore, it looked vastly different from 2/4 or 3/6. But that time I spent watching my friend play it made me want to come back and watch it more. The story was phenomenal, I couldn't stop thinking about it. This game was something else.

The story is probably not the game's strong point. Basically, Geralt looks for Ciri and the Wild Hunt is a supernatural army who's out to kill everyone. It's the getting there that's the fun part. Some of the main quests, however disconnected they may be, are spectacular. I still have memories of exploring that abandoned island in Skellige searching for the king, or the Crones, or getting drunk with my friends at Kaer Morhen. It's all wonderful. The third act wasn't the greatest, in that it attempted to wrap up some of the story arcs in a hurried manner, but it was still interesting. I should also mention that I played Hearts of Stone, and a small part of Blood and Wine but never got around to finishing it. HoS has some fun and inventive quests and probably my favorite love interest out of all of them. It also had a creepy and devious villain, who is much better written than the actual game's villain.

So I can't really leave this here without talking about the game's characters. Most of it - the writing and especially the acting - is done well. Many of the characters quickly grew on me, except for maybe some of the ladies that were introduced way too late in the game. As I mentioned earlier, I hated the Crones from the moment I met them, not because I just didn't like their characters, but because of how despicable they were. It takes a lot to evoke that kind of emotion from me and I felt TW3 wrote their characters in such a way that allows its players to do so. The good guys grew on me as well, and even some of the shady motherfuckers in Novigrad like Dijkstra had their moments. Geralt himself was static, which can be explained by the fact that Witchers don't really have emotions, but fellow Witcher Lambert had much more character to him than Geralt for some reason (at least, he was mostly angry). Still, Geralt is acted well and has some cool/funny quips here and there. Also, Ciri is actually a fun character to play.

The game also is extremely simple to pick up and play. It easily marks the main quests on the map for you as well as the recommended levels for all the quests. I was never really lost. If I wanted to get on with the main story I'd go do the main quests...if I wanted to just venture out in the unknown and find new places to explore or loot, I'd go and do that too. Enemy levels are clearly marked. The lack of dungeons in the main quests was actually a breath of fresh air after Skyrim's intent on getting you to do that stupid clifftop dungeon which is shittily designed early on (don't get me wrong, there are many dungeons). There's plenty of loot to find and you have a ton of inventory space. The menus and interface are easy to explore and on top of it all, the game is beautiful. As for the combat, I've heard many who think poorly of it but I enjoyed the rather simple combat. Many of the signs were useful enough to give most of them a try.

The Witcher 3 impressed the shit out of me. Me, who doesn't think highly of WRPGs in general, and me, who isn't a big fan of open world (Skyrim, FFXV, and Horizon Zero Dawn are all of this list and ranked pretty low). TW3 also made me hate FFXV even more, but let's not get into that. It's simply beautiful. I laughed, I shed a tear, I was angry, I was excited...there were a lot of emotions involved. I spent maybe the first third of 2017 glued to the television playing it and I wouldn't take any of it back.

2. The Witcher 3 + Hearts of Stone DLC
Original Release: 2015
Year Played: 2017
Developer: CD Projekt Red
Platform: PS4
Favorite Romance Option: Shani



The term "open world" meant "vomit" to me when it kept getting thrown around after Skyrim's release. Honestly, at that point I never even bothered to try to play an RPG with an open world simply because I didn't like Skyrim. I also don't like the idea of having a million sidequests available to me with no guidance or course of action. This mindset lasted until I saw Final Fantasy XV's previews and trailers. The game looked amazing! Finally, an open world that is done right! Of course, we all know how that turned out.

But Final Fantasy XV ended with me yearning for more open world, because in the end FFXV's open world was small, shallow, and absolutely pretty lame. I felt like I was played, that I came into the game ready to immerse myself in a large, seamless world but ultimately did not get that at all. I wanted the perfect drug. So, Witcher 3 kept getting namedropped around this website when it came to open world. Also, at some point, Tabata actually mentioned Witcher 3 when doing one of the previews or ATRs or whatever. I don't remember the exact context of what he was trying to say, I think something about the dev team playing The Witcher 3 during FFXV's dev cycle (well that might explain why it took so long to get made). So, shortly after being done with that, I jumped in and bought the complete GOTY edition of TW3. I have not played any of the previous games in the series.

Man oh man, the moment the game started in White Orchard I knew I was in for a wild ride. The fact that I came into the game knowing what I would get and looking forward to that very thing made it even better. I may not have felt the same if I played it back when it first came out in 2015. TW3's world is large and immersive, divided into a few different regions, all of which are brimming with detail and things to do. Velen is one of the coolest regions in any game ever. On the surface, Velen, also known as No Man's Land, is a shitty swampland with a few downtrodden villages, lots of monsters and beasts, and both armies at each other's throat. I wanted to explore every "?" and nook and cranny the moment I started there, and to do that I had to level up, and to do that I had to do various sidequests, many of which are well written and interesting at the very least. I also love the open-ended feel of the quests in this region. The overarching story involves the Bloody Baron looking for his missing wife and child (who hate him and left him) and Geralt decides to help him out, leading him into an adventure with a fellow sorceress and also to the so-called leaders of Velen, the Crones. Oh, the Crones. These three were deplorable pieces of shit and I couldn't wait to kill them. They were well designed monsters that could give anyone nightmares, and I was happy to finally be rid of them near the end of the game.

Luckily, CD Projekt Red knows how to keep me interested because the next region of the game (Novigrad) was widely different than Velen. It's now mostly farmland and at the center of it all lies a massive city for where you'll spent most of your time. I couldn't even imagine the amount of work that went into designing it, and spending a good deal of time there and meeting all the different faces was as much of a delight as the storyline in Velen. Geralt's journey into finding Ciri later leads him to Skellige, which I wasn't a big fan of but fortunately it was beautiful and the scale of this area was amazing. Later on, Geralt goes back to Kaer Morhen for a brief amount of time and then finishes business up in each of the regions before facing off against the Wild Hunt.

-Shit Tier-
101. Angry Birds
100. Adventures of Mana
99. Bravely Default
98. Suikoden Tierkreis

-Absolute and Utter Meh-
97. I Am Setsuna
96. Tokyo Xanadu eX+
95. Star Ocean 4
94. Super Mario Run
93. Star Ocean 5
92. Tales of Xillia 2
91. Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep
90. Candy Crush
89. Deus Ex: Human Revolution
88. Crash Bandicoot N-Sane Trilogy
87. Final Fantasy Brave Exvius
86. Cosmic Star Heroine
85. Final Fantasy XV

-Revel in Mediocrity-
84. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
83. n+
82. Skyborn
81. Radiant Historia
80. Cuphead
79. Mario and Luigi Dream Team
78. Tales of Zestiria
77. Brutal Legend

-It's Not Half Bad-
76. Rock Band 2
75. Arc Rise Fantasia
74. World of Final Fantasy
73. Indigo Prophecy
72. Horizon: Zero Dawn
71. Ninja Gaiden Black
70. The Wolf Among Us
69. Skyrim
68. Resident Evil 5
67. Ratchet and Clank: Tools of Destruction
66. Mario and Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story
65. Shadow Complex
64. Echoes of Aetheria
63. Final Fantasy XIII
62. Uncharted 2
61. LA Noire
60. Undertale

-Here Comes the Good Stuff-
59. Rock Band
58. Diablo 3
57. Battlefield 1
56. Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World
55. Ratchet and Clank
54. Ys SEVEN
53. Dust: An Elysian Tail
52. Grand Theft Auto 4
51. Tales of Xillia
50.75. South Park: The Stick of Truth
50.5. Borderlands
50.25. Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty
50. Ninja Gaiden II
49. Ara Fell
48. Metal Gear Solid 4

-Here Comes the GREAT Stuff, or How to Fill a Tier With RPGs-
47. Mass Effect 2
46. Xenoblade Chronicles
45. The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky the 3rd
44. Bioshock Infinite
43. Magna Carta 2
42. Golden Sun: Dark Dawn
41. Call of Duty: World at War
40. Final Fantasy Tactics A2
39. Grand Theft Auto 5
38. Crisis Core
37. Tales of Berseria
36. Valkyria Chronicles Remastered
35. Last Scenario
34. Tactics Ogre: Let us Cling Together
33. Donkey Kong Country Returns
32. Fallout 3
31. Final Fantasy Dimensions

-Awesome and Addicting-
30. Final Fantasy XIII-2
29. Super Smash Bros Brawl
28. The Last of Us
27. Ys: The Oath in Felghana
26. Devil May Cry 4
25. Final Fantasy IV DS
24. The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel II
23. Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance
22. Okami
21. Grandia II

-All Killer No Filler-
20. Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of DANA
19. Final Fantasy V
18. Fire Emblem Awakening
17. The World Ends With You
16. Stardew Valley
15. Exit Fate
14. Lost Odyssey
13. Mass Effect 3
12. Persona 5
11. The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel

-Top Ten-
10. Persona 3 Portable
9. Tales of Vesperia
8. Yakuza 0
7. The Last Story
6. Red Dead Redemption
5. The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky SC
4. The Legend of Heroes: Trails to Zero
3. Mother 3
2. ?
1. ?

2011
The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky FC

2017
The Witcher 3

update soon.

LordoftheMorons posted...

Does Mother 3 fix the dumb super limited inventory system of Earthbound?

IIRC it doesnt.

I actually played it on an emulator on a PSP ;\

The game's world is incredibly small but fun to explore, especially when you find out that it's all that's left (again, putting the pieces together). You'll spend the first few chapters in different character's shoes before Lucas becomes the main. Also, Ness is dead. What a dark twist to a happy ending from Earthbound. Anyway, there's some inventive level design here. The main forest changes every time you explore it, as does the town as discussed already. You do get to explore a typical ice and lava level later on in chapter 7, but during that chapter there is a high sense of urgency and some great storytelling. Oh, and there's a level where you eat magic mushrooms and go on a hallucinatory trip.

I also feel the need to mention Porky, the game's antagonist. What Itoi did was not even introduce this guy until the last chapter. Thing is, he doesn't really need any introduction. He's responsible for all evil in the world and he also had a major role in Earthbound. If you wondered whatever happened to him, well, this game tells all. It's insane. Porky is one of the few villains that succeeded in destroying the world, after all, and his sins in this game are unforgivable. He's Cartman mixed with the embodiment of Satan.

I never really got gud in the rhythm battle system but I appreciated it. The battle music was mostly really good, but it's the town and dungeon themes that shine here. I especially loved the Pigmask army leitmotif.

Do I wish the game was longer? Maybe a little, but at the same time I don't really know how they could've gone about in doing so. The game is extremely focused and story driven, if it were longer I'd be worried about padding. The story's just really damn well done. It's dark, it's creepy, but it's got lighthearted moments, which can at times seem humorous and at other times be inappropriate for the mood. 2010-2011 was an extremely dark, sorrowful time for me...we'll get into that when I do FC's write-up but Mother 3 was one of the games that shined a light through my depression at the time, despite being quite depressing itself. Oh, yeah, I know the game came out in 2006, and I'm actually surprised it took that long to get made. I would love a proper Mother 4 but I doubt it'll never happen. Don't really know what Itoi's up to these days. And no, Undertale doesn't count. Maybe we just need more Super Smash Bros. iterations of Mother characters.

3. Mother 3
Original Release: 2006
Year Played: 2010
Developer: Brownie Brown/Nintendo
Platform: GBA



First off, I don't really like Nintendo (anymore) nor its fanboys, but fuck them for not even giving this game a fair chance in the west. Seriously. And it'll probably never happen. Oh well, I doubt I will ever own a Nintendo console again unless my future kid(s) wants one.

Second, it's interesting that two of my top five are both fan translated games (this and Zero). Shows how much I would have missed out if there weren't awesome people that existed who were also big fans of the games. I love you guys.

Anyway, so the reasons I've heard on why Nintendo decided not to localize this was because the story was too dark yet mixed with cutesy Earthbound graphics and I'm sure they were worried that kids would get their hands on this and see stuff like weird hairy crossdressing men (oh yeah, Nintendo, maybe you should think again because it's fucking 2018 so release this already). Whatevs, I'll stop complaining about them, because we did get a really, really good fan translation after all that Nintendo would never be able to match. Ugh, I'll stop now.

Mother 3 is an exceptional game. It didn't take me long to realize this. The first hour or so of the game was typical. Basically another Earthbound, really. Then came this: "I found it pierced through your wife's heart." After that, I knew I was in for a wild ride. I should mention that the 2D sprite animations in this game are absolutely terrific, especially during that particular scene. I also forgot to preface that I loved Earthbound back when I played it in '96 or '97, and at the end of the day I think Mother 3 is actually better despite being half the size. It tells a hugely captivating story that's quite messed up in so many ways but is also darn focused. It also contains a lot of subtlety. It doesn't treat the player like an idiot and sometimes lets him or her figure out certain plot points on their own. To elaborate, the entire transformation of Tazmily Village from the way it was in Chapter 1 up to your last visit near the end of Chapter 7 is always visualized. You're never explicitly told, "The Pigmasks came and turned this place into a metropolis then told everyone to go to their city where everything is better so now it's abandoned." You instead find this out over the course of the game, and it's quite sad when you put the pieces together. It's thematic. Family and the simple life is paramount; money and greediness is the root of all evil. So are happy boxes.

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I'd like to add that Zero also has some of the best dungeon design in the Sky games. There's the obligatory ruins-type dungeons - three of them, to be exact: an ancient fortress, a tower, and a temple. These are, of course, extremely plot relevant and become important later on. The rest of the dungeons are smaller and mainly take place in the Geofront, which is basically an underground infrastructure for Crossbell. I actually like what they did here. It's like an underground sewer but it's not really a sewer. It's a construction site infested with monsters, and there are three of them and they all look slightly different and pretty cool.

Oh man I cant believe the end is in sight.

For those of you who were interested in Star Door 14 in the 3rd, the backstory there is highly elaborated upon in Zero. In fact, it becomes the one of central foci of the plot later on as Renne returns. She wasn't my favorite character in the Sky games, but here she grew on me. Joshua and Estelle also return and are as badass as ever. As for the new characters, I did think their personalities were lost in the (shoddy) translation but even so, I still liked watching them grow and trust each other. I'm sure they will get developed more in Ao, but they are a better cast than Sky and Cold Steel's mains, specifically because of their bonds with each other. You also get a cool police dog who is actually plot relevant.

The battle system remains largely unchanged from the Sky games, except now you can use team attacks which involve all four party members. Again, it's not that big of a change. I will say that the battles can get pretty hectic sometimes, especially the last battle.

Zero also has my favorite Falcom soundtrack out of all the Trails games.

While the game sets things up for Ao, it actually does not end in a cliffhanger. Sure, there are lots of unanswered questions, but this could be considered a standalone title based on the happy ending we get. Of course, that doesn't mean you should skip out on Ao. I was still left with wanting more despite this.

The only thing I disliked about the game is sometimes it felt padded. The first mission in chapter 2 involves you going to a farm and eliminating seven or eight skunk monsters. These battles took me forever, and they weren't difficult just long. There really was no reason to make this a mandatory quest, because it has no bearing on the plot. It's just..there. It should have been a side mission. No other mission really felt like this, as even the most inconsequential ones did something different like develop a certain character.

So yeah, Zero! Despite the terrible translation, I was still able to enjoy the hell out of it. I will replay it with Geofront's translation whenever that comes out, and I'm looking forward to the unofficial Ao translation that should be releasing soon as well. Dunno if XSEED will ever get around to releasing them officially, though I'm kinda hoping they're working on Cold Steel 3 instead.

4. The Legend of Heroes: Trails to Zero*
(aka Zero no Kiseki)
Original Release: 2010 JP, 2017 unofficial English translation
Year Played: 2017
Developer: Falcom
Platform: PC
Favorite New Character: Rixia Mao
Favorite Returning Character: Renne



*This is the unofficial name given by the current translation team on Geofront, instead of "Trails of Zero". The localization is in its editing phase and 60% done as of March. That being said, I played the rough translation that was released midway through last year. It's not a very good translation, but it's playable. For those who are interested, I suggest waiting for Geofront since they should be done soon.

Anyway, despite the shoddy translation leak, this game is still #4 because it's still very much playable and understandable, and very very good. Falcom strikes again, continuing the Trails franchise and starts up a new story arc that is also probably the best one. Crossbell is such an amazing, detailed place, and shifting the focus from Bracers or students to the police department works out really well.

See, unlike the Sky games, Zero (and Ao) takes place in Crossbell state and some of the surrounding regions and towns. The world is pretty small compared to Liberl, but the highlight here is the city itself. Comprised of at least 10 different maps, each section of the city is vastly detailed and has its own personality. There are several factions and many new faces to meet here. This is the epitome of "hub" town, except the majority of the story and action actually takes place here. You'll get to explore almost the entirety of Crossbell state by the end of chapter 1, but you're still less than a third of the way through the game at that point. Most hub towns are just there so you can do some minor story progression and buy new equipment before moving on to the next story location, but Crossbell is different. It also helps that the several background themes that play while exploring the city are extremely good. Take the tune above, for example, which never got old.

Being part of the Crossbell police force (SSS), your story missions are basically cases and side missions are basically police work. Of course, there are still monster elimination missions and the like. Each chapter, there's a major case to solve but like in FC everything is connected, and the finale is absolutely epic. You'll spend much of your time in Crossbell doing rounds and talking to various NPCs (all of which are named and have their own personalities). Their dialogue changes after every story event. I actually had a ton of fun running around town and talking to everyone...it's like I didn't want the game to end. Normally I would hate this sort of thing, but exploring Crossbell is just too much fun. I was invested in the SSS and the game quickly drew me in, especially after chapter 1. There are lots of interesting ideas and characters to meet, and mysteries and revelations are revealed on a regular basis. The city also constantly changes. For example, in chapter 3, which takes place over the course of five days, the Founding Anniversary parade comes to town and you're tasked with doing police work while the city is at its busiest time of year. Balloons and confetti fly around, everyone's going crazy, and tons of new faces appear in town. There's a huge twist and revelation near the end, and the final chapter and final dungeon pay off really well. In fact, the final dungeon was actually a ton of fun to explore, and you'll learn more about the big bad and his motivations along the way, too.

I also have to mention Joshua's lack of screentime. I do wish there were more playable segments with him like in Chapter 4. We spend so much time with Estelle looking for Joshua while occasionally watching a scene with Joshua at the beginning or end of a Chapter. How about being able to play the Hamel section with him? Or another mission with the Capuas? Hmmm. I suppose I should also mention Cassius, who is an impossible character. Everybody seems to worship him, or be afraid of him. He's like all the Marvel Avengers rolled into one. How is it possible that he was in charge of Liberl's defense in the 100 year war but also an S-Rank Bracer and leader of the military, while also being able to live at home peacefully with his daughter and adopted son? The amount of praise he gets in this game is overkill.

The other nitpick I have is the difficulty. Normal is way too easy and sometimes mindless. I was never too tense in the boss battles except for a few where I had to use a specific strategy, but I never needed to rework my entire strategy to beat a certain boss except or the Abyss Worms and Loewe. Some of the latter bosses are more frustrating than difficult, but overall this game faces some of the same balancing issues that seem to plague most Trails titles. The game starts off tough but gets easier as you progress. Normal is easy and Nightmare is unfairly rough, at least in my eyes.

So that's that. Everything else about this game is excellent. Did it live up to my four years of waiting? Absolutely! And then it left me wanting more, as SC really sets in stone the shared universe of Zemuria (luckily Cold Steel came out two months later!). It ends Joshua and Estelle's story on a bright and positive note, and that is highly satisfying. Obviously, it didn't leave as much of an impact on me as FC did, but it made me love the series even more. What an amazing series.

After an epic Chapter 6 came Chapter 7, the weakest chapter in the game. This one was just sort of annoying. In this chapter, you're stuck on an airship unable to leave as you automatically go through four separate dungeons and fight the Enforcers at the end of each one. If Chapters 1-5 were considered formulaic, this is even worse. The dungeons themselves aren't designed too well, either. They're just boring otherworldly mazes. I did like the Aureole data that was found in each and every one, and I know that these places were necessary for the main plot, but it still felt like padding to me.

Then, Chapter 8 comes around and you're tasked with revisiting all of Liberl, AGAIN, except with no air travel and no Arts being used (and no Olivier). A lot of people didn't like this chapter, feeling like it's a massive chore to get through the same exact locations. I would feel the same, except I actually enjoyed it for some reason. Dunno why, but I felt that the story was on point again here. I also loved the freedom of being able to go anywhere in Liberl and there were enough sidequests to make it great. But here's what I think they should've done: Combine Chapters 7 and 8 together. Let me have the ability to use the Arseille in Chapter 7 to go anywhere in Liberl while still mandating the four towers, then take the Arseille away in Chapter 8. This would've given everyone more time to take in the free Liberl again, because the main plot in Chapter 8 is still pretty minimal.

The Final Chapter brings us to a completely new regions which is a massive ancient city and the location of the Aureole. I loved this setting and it was quite a detailed location that reminded me of something from Xenogears. Tons of shit happen here but it never felt very final dungeon-y. The actual final dungeon is just a linear straight shot to the top of a tower. There were problems here, mainly because each of the villains, fought once again in the final dungeon, had connections to the main cast. Now, you need to have Estelle and Joshua in your party at all times, which leaves room for only two characters you can switch out. What's really annoying is that if you want to watch specific scenes involving a villain and a hero, you'd have to trek all the way back to the beginning of the city and switch them out, each and every time (this would total out to four separate times, then once again for the final few battles). This did get a bit annoying.

The characters from the previous game all return and join your party fairly early on, at least in the first few chapters. You'll now have the ability to switch who is in your active party much earlier than you did in FC (which was all the way in the final dungeon). Many of the returning characters also get a fair bit of development. Agate receives a TON of characterization and develops a cute if maybe a little creepy bond with Tita. Nevertheless, he's one of my favorite characters in this game as his backstory is quite provoking. Falcom also wasn't afraid to take supporting characters from FC and turn them playable, and that's always cool. Early on, a new character named Kevin Graham joins your party, and at first he seemed a bit pointless, but the mysteries surrounding him were some of my favorite parts of the game. I feel that XSEED/Carpe Fulgur absolutely nailed his dialogue and the way he should sound. This is important, as he is the main playable character in the next game, and he also became my favorite Trails character ever. Estelle is probably my second favorite. In FC, I could care less about her as she was childish and came off as sort of stupid, but she happened to grow on me. I always found Joshua to be the main character in FC, but the focus changes to Estelle in SC. She's in the group from beginning to end. She turns into an extremely strong female lead with little to dislike. Even Trails to Zero showcases her personality well. She's also got some of my favorite lines: "Let me remind you that I have a BIG STICK! *angryface*"

One of the things I yearned for more in FC is more strategic battles. The final battle in FC was fun because it required me to actually think about character placement and strategize ahead of time. I wanted more long boss fights with giant opponents, and I got it here. The battle system also adds Chains, which I tried once and never used again. Felt it was useless. Other than that, the combat is the same as it was before, except now you're stronger. The Third makes the combat and battles even better.

The new music is amazing, too. This has one of my favorite final boss themes in the history of JRPG. Listen above.

So why? Why is this ranked below FC? See, the thing is, FC was the game that turned me into a Falcom fanboy. I had no idea this series even existed before playing FC. I was awestruck with FC and how it forever changed my view of RPG storytelling. SC promises early on to defy my expectations but I still felt like it sometimes missed the mark. It's an 80-hour game after all, but there are so few new areas in the game I'm spent running through the same exact regions for almost three quarters of the game. I'm not the biggest fan of recycled content, and I appreciate Falcom finding ways (story and gameplay wise) in making these reused areas inventive. But then, we also have the fact that the same exact enemies from the first game return, often in the same exact locations, except their stats are buffed.

The game makes you revisit all the same regions from FC not once, but twice. Chapters 1-5 are all about doing this, and honestly, that's a lot of game. I also didn't really care much for the story in these segments, except for Chapter 3's main plotline. It's basically rinse and repeat: Return to a region to find an Ouroboros member terrorizing that region, find them, stop them, and move on. I think I probably enjoyed the side content in each of these chapters more than the main content, especially in Chapter 2. Chapter 3 was much better because it had a pretty good plot twist and also involved the villains from the first game making a comeback and somewhat atoning. Chapter 5 was also decent, with Agate taking center stage. But still, this first half of the game felt a little too formulaic. I still enjoyed the hell out of it, and I don't know how they could've made it better, honestly.

5. The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky Second Chapter
Original Release: 2015 (2006 JP)
Year Played: 2015
Developer: Falcom
Platform: PC
Favorite Character: Kevin
Favorite Chapter: Finale



Spoilers

BLASPHEMY~!

Yes, I ranked SC below FC. Hear me out before you untag everything.

SC is a game I was looking forward to since I finished FC for the first time in 2011. That's...April 2011. So effectively, this is a game I was waiting for over four years! That's the longest wait for any game on this list, or possibly ever (although Cold Steel 3 and 4 could beat this). The worst part is that the game just needed to be localized, so I had to also avoid spoilers and the urge to watch them and/or other gameplay videos on YouTube this whole time. After the fiasco at the end of FC, this was extremely tough. And I will admit, I had doubts that this game would ever be localized at any point. XSEED didn't even make the announcement till mid-2013, and then there were troubles with the translators and their livelihoods. One of them almost committed suicide, and the link below describes the nightmares everyone faced in bringing this game across the pond:

https://kotaku.com/the-curse-of-kiseki-how-one-of-japans-biggest-rpgs-bar-1740055631

Quite a good read. But finally, October 2015 saw the release of my most anticipated game ever, and it was easily the best game I played that year. (This game also made Tales of Zestiria look like shit, as I was sometimes alternating between the two they got released a week apart of each other.)

SC starts off right where FC ends. It's almost like I'm playing the same game and not even halfway through it to boot. Originally FC and SC were going to be a single game, but due to limitations this was not possible at the time. Holy crap, can you imagine if it was all one game? It would be the longest RPG ever made, and you know, this is entirely possible in today's day and age. Anyway, players who started to play the series or FC after SC was already localized were extremely lucky, unlike others like myself who had to wait. We'll talk more about FC when we get there, but anyways SC features ten chapters (prologue and finale included) revisiting Liberl where the stakes are higher and the story becomes more serious. You'll revisit each of the regions and learn more about Ouroboros, Joshua's past, and the mysterious surrounding the Aureole and Liberl's history.

Alright let's finish this once and for all! Yes, I realize there are three Trails games in the top five, I'm a big fan.

TOP FIVE

2010
Mother 3

2011
The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky FC

2015
The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky SC

2017
The Witcher 3
The Legend of Heroes: Trails to Zero

The pacing slows to a halt immediately after that mission as there are a handful of them left. This is an extremely odd maneuver because the tonal shift here is extreme. John is now back to the farm with his family and the rest of the missions involve helping around the farm. I've never seen anything like this in a video game story that wasn't part of the ending (but I have seen it in movies). Rockstar could have ended the game right there, as soon as John reunites with his wife and son, but they they opted instead for a tragic ending. I totally get what they were going for here-- John accomplished his mission but he cannot escape the demons of his past doings. Rockstar wanted to establish a sense of security with the dragging farm missions but any player would know that something bad would happen at the end (after all, it would be disappointing if I had to do ten of these missions and then the game ends). These sections of the game are also highly emotional: Jack wants to get an education instead of being relegated to any sort of criminal lifestyle like his father, and he's on the right track up until John dies. Abigail dies soon after, and Jack becomes the new protagonist for the post game, a basically copy and paste version of his father. Dunno about you, but this was extremely heartbreaking. When I avenged John by killing Edgar, and the screen froze to show 'Red Dead Redemption' and switched to the credits, I can't lie, I shed a few tears. What an amazing, memorable game. RDR2 has a lot to live up to, but I'm sure it will meet expectations.

It's funny how Rockstar's flagship series is GTA but RDR clearly runs circles around it. Everything is better. I also bought this game on a whim and I did not run into any glitches like many others, so I'm sure that helped me like this game more. It helps that the story is much better than anything GTA in the HD generations, the characters are (mostly) better, the soundtrack is fantastic, the missions are just as good as GTA5's missions, and the gameplay makes really good use of bullet time which is often an overused mechanic. Man this game was good. RDR2 can't come soon enough.

6. Red Dead Redemption
Original Release: 2010
Year Played: 2010
Developer: Rockstar
Platform: XB360
Favorite Character Design: Uncle



I think this is the last non RPG on this list. Yeah, it is. It's also the best sandbox-style action game I've ever played. It's better than GTA4 and 5 in more ways than one. It just does things so well and tells a compelling tale to boot, something that Rockstar struggles with.

The west, for how barren it is, is a ton of fun to explore. Unlike GTA4 which took place in an almost metropolitan setting, or GTA5 which had a world that always felt way smaller than it should have been, RDR's setting feels more like what I wanted as a follow up to San Andreas. There are multiple regions each with their own centers of civilizations and nooks and crannies, and these regions open up as you progress. The first arc of the game takes place in a sorta generic old west-style setting with Texan saloons and rolling desert dunes with cacti and canyons and stuff, complete with a marshland-like setting toward the east side of the map which reminds me of Lousiana. This arc of the game takes a while to get going, because during this part of the game you're doing generic GTA-style missions for odd characters. It takes a while to realize that this game perfects the shooting and cover mechanics that were introduced in GTA4. Once you reach Mexico, the missions get better, the story gets better, and the new characters that are introduced are much more interesting. At this point I was actually genuinely interested in John Marston as a character.

It's really unfortunate that there were parts of the story I think should have been expanded upon more, but this will most definitely be addressed in RDR2. Specifically, the Van Der Linde gang and John's involvement in it, and how he gets blackmailed by the law. Edgar Ross had too little of a screen presence to be a final villain in the game, as are certain characters that should have had more scenes. That said, the story is still absolutely terrific and also terrifying. The game nails it in the final third, with a setting reminiscent of the Trapper west, taking inspiration from movies like Unforgiven. It gets darker and more personal for John at this point, culminating in an amazing climax with Dutch at the top of his hideout. The mission "And The Truth Shall Set You Free" is one of my all-time favorite gaming moments.

It's not a terribly long game, and most of that has to do entirely with its focus. There's very little filler and side content and what IS there is still focused and still connected to the main plot as it serves to build upon the already extremely strong character development and plot. The final act is quite epic and has some of the coolest setpieces and boss fights, with a memorable one occurring on a certain ship with a certain villain. I forgot to mention that even the villains are given tremendous character development to the point where it's hard to even call them villains anymore because you can sympathize with them.

SPOILERS BELOW

And yes, I enjoyed the final big plot twist that happened near the end. It came out of nowhere, and although it was set up to be incredibly obvious -- Dagran completely disappears from the game up to that point -- it still caught me off guard and made my jaw drop when it actually did happen. As I mentioned, the voice acting and scene layout was done extremely well and that helped his case. The game was also near the end of a climactic hell of a ride with its amazing third act.

I guess the biggest drawback is that there's no sequel and it's unlikely there will ever be one. Like Lost Odyssey, this thing has been out for 6+ years and Mistwalker's kept quiet. I would love a shared universe with the two games but that's not gonna happen. I just want a sequel, please!

I'm sorry but no matter but what anyone this game runs circles around Xenoblade Chronicles. It's terribly underrated too.

7. The Last Story
Original Release: 2012
Year Played: 2012
Developer: Mistwalker
Platform: Wii
Favorite Character: All of them



It's kind of funny how Xenoblade was the game everyone was looking for when it came to Operation Rainfall, but The Last Story, at least in my opinion, came to be the much better release. This game didn't look good initially, appearing boring and drab and nothing special compared to XC's colorful, vibrant world. But look beneath the surface and you'll find a highly emotional and engaging tale involving love, loss, racism, friendship and camaraderie, and betrayal. This is Sakaguchi at some of his finest.

Hajime Tabata, take note. THIS is how you do party banter. FFXV highly advertised the party interactions between the four during your field travels but I felt this fell flat because the characters were uninteresting one-note dorks. This is not the case here. You play as Zael, who is part of a mercenary troupe consisting of his leader and mentor Dagran, Lowell, Yurick, Mirania, and Syrenne. Zael is also probably the least interesting character of the bunch. The group is hired to protect an island nation from an invading force of half-human/half-beast creatures called the Gurak. Through the journey Zael meets and falls in love with the princess, crosses swords with both the Gurak and usurper jackasses from the Lazulis nation, and best of all learns more about his team. Zael is also granted the power of the Outsider, which is like the Macguffin special power here that plays a role in the battle mechanics.

I'm not going to talk much about battles because, frankly, I don't remember how exactly they work. It's been several years since I played the game, and the combat is quite complex. I do remember having a lot of fun with it, especially in the later boss fights. You get to deploy your entire team to battle and some of them can become chaotic in a good way.

The game is extremely linear, and takes place in a rather small area. You'll spend most of your time in the city, castle, or a mini-dungeon or other similar-type location over the span of 40+ episodic chapters. In some chapters, you get free reign of the city which, while big and empty at first, gets more interesting (complete with battle arena) as the game progresses. I felt the linearity worked to the game's advantage as the game was focused on telling a story instead of letting you go free and do whatever you want. And oh boy is the story good. Like I mentioned earlier, party banter is a big thing here and the characters develop quick and become extremely likeable - ALL of them, very early on in the game. The interactions you get with them while traipsing through dungeons and fighting off enemies are classic, and the amazing British voice acting only help the situation. I loved each and every one of these guys to death. In any other JRPG, Mirania would have been an annoying sidekick character who just loves food. In TLS, she's got way more heart than that. Yeah, the game hammers it down that she loves to eat, but she's got many more qualities, on top of kicking absolute ass in combat. Lowell and Syrenne develop a thing for each other which is a pretty fun love story that reminded me Ming/Jansen in Lost Odyssey, only better.

I dont

The game does have some serious pacing issues, mainly because of the two protagonists. You'll play two chapters, then switch to the other character to play two chapters and switch back. Often times, the game leaves one character at a cliffhanger and then cuts over to the other. This can get annoying because the story was just going from great to amazing. I wish instead that I was able to switch between Majima and Kiryu anytime I want and play their scenarios in any order up till the finale, GTA5 style, but I'm getting ahead of myself. The game also forced me to fight the same boss FIVE times, with minor changes. Kuze was a great villain but he just never learned and I got sick of beating him up at the end. The combat itself can get repetitive when fighting random thugs, but luckily you can avoid them if you throw money at them. Boss fights, besides the aforementioned Kuze, are quite exciting. The last few are well choreographed and intense. The combat system is copy-and-pasted to Kiwami 1, where it's a bit more polished though.

Speaking of the villains, the characters and the acting are superb. Majima is one of the coolest protagonists I've ever been able to play and has some of the funniest lines in the entire game. Kiryu is cool, too, as always. The villains, many of whom are based off of real-life Japanese actors, perform well too. Especially the three Dojima Captains. The story has plenty of twists and turns to keep you invested, with a central mystery that slowly unravels over the course of the game. Best is the ending, which is probably about an hour long.

What makes Yakuza 0 such a great game and top ten worthy is that it blew all my expectations away, and got me addicted to a series I've completely avoided for some reason until now. The other thing, is that it is one of the few JRPGs (shoot me for calling it that, I don't care) I've played that is aimed at a more mature audience. No more teenage heroes solving teenage problems while saving the world, no more awkward romances, this game runs with the rule of cool and turns out to be... manly. It's awesome how far this series has come and I'm glad it's getting more mainstream attention now, because I'm now a big time fan.

8. Yakuza 0
Original Release: 2017
Year Played: 2017
Developer: Sega
Platform: PS4
Favorite Villain: Tie between Kuze and Nishitani



Okay, so I had like no exposure to this quite amazing series since before playing Yakuza 0. The five games (and spinoffs) came and went and I paid zero attention to them. I do remember a college roommate playing the original Yakuza back in 2006 but I totally forgot about that game. It's not till Yakuza 0 and the solid word of mouth that got me interested. Seeing as how I was a big gamer in 2017, as you would surmise if you've been following this list, I had to check it out. I watched YouTube vids and reviews and read reviews and still couldn't figure out if this game was going to be a Japanese GTA or a JRPG or what, and I'd say it's neither but leaning towards the latter there. I loved the game. And here's the thing: This series has been going on for a while, and very rarely has one game in a long-running franchise got me hooked enough to play the other games and start following them. After finishing up Yakuza 0 in late December - this is the last game I played and finished in 2017 and on this list unless you count Cuphead and fuck Cuphead - I've completed Kiwami and 6, and playing through 5 right now while eagerly awaiting Kiwami 2.

Yakuza 0's an easy game to pick up and play. Kamurocho is small but well designed and brimming with detail. It's even more interesting if you've played the city's renditions in the other games. The 80's setting was really cool because of the culture shock, like watching people waving and throwing yen at taxis to hitch a ride. Basically the game amounts to nothing more than going from point A to point B, watching a scene or two, beating up some dudes or a boss fight, and moving on. Sometimes there's a 'long battle' which is like a beat-em-up style "dungeon" of sorts where you move through a building and face a boss at the end. But yeah, that's most of the gameplay in a nutshell. There's a ton to do, many mini-games to play and sidestories to tackle. The sidestories have a sense of humor that's quite wacky, and I kept wanting to do them just to see what crazy situation Kiryu or Majima would get themselves involved in. Being set before the rest of the series, Zero also has plenty of nods to future entries, like Daigo showing up.

The thing is, the "big" mini-games are actually extremely fun and time-consuming. They ARE optional but they net you some awesome rewards. Think Blitzball from FFX. It's not very often a game designs a very addicting mini-game, but managing Cabaret clubs was a ton of fun. It's incredibly intricate in being able to play dress up with your hostesses and then managing a small simulation where you're trying to please customers. I only wish the game was a bit longer or introduced this mini-game sooner, as the story isn't long enough to accomodate a mini-game with this much content. You'd have to grind it out if you want to finish it before the final boss.

Update soon

Fortunately the game still remains fun and has a sweet battle system, one of the better Tales ones. Going into overlimit is fun for the ability to spam skills as much and as often as possible (Destruction Field!) and this pays off in the arena, which is actually a fun diversion unlike most of the Tales coliseums. There are a few other side activities you can do here and there, although I'm not really sure what the whole point of Aurnion was. The world could've been a bit bigger. Strangely, you get the airship halfway through the game and you can go pretty much anywhere at that point, but the world ain't that much bigger and the next mandatory locations just pop up out of nowhere at that point.

So yeah, this could have been my favorite Tales if it wasn't for the plot oddities and that third arc. But it's still a heckuva lot of fun and well deserving of all the praise it continues to get. I wish Namco gave it more respect and HD released it, along with the additional PS3 content.

9. Tales of Vesperia
Original Release: 2008
Year Played: 2008
Developer: Namco Bandai
Platform: XB360



I go back and forth between deciding which Tales is my favorite, but usually it's something like Symphonia for 1, Legendia for 2, and Vesperia hovering around there being either 2 or 3. Neither of the other two game are on the list so let's talk about Vesperia. This is the last truly great Tales game, everything after this was good at best or pure garbage. For a game over ten years old, Vesperia still looks amazing. The visuals are colorful and beautiful, and part of the reason they've aged well is because of the fixed camera. In the newer entries, you can rotate the camera 360 and so the devs have to manually add detail to every nook and cranny in each room and it's never enough, while in Vesperia this is not the case. Honestly though, I wish more games used the fixed camera because Tales doesn't really benefit from 360 rotation all that much. Xillia suffered because of it. This is also one of the last Tales to use a fully fledged world map, and it look astounding after you gain your airship.

It's also got a wonderful cast, with Yuri being the highlight. Repede is one of the better Tales playable characters. Think about that statement. A freaking sidekick dog that doesn't talk is better than most Tales party members! Yeah. The cast has great dynamics and chemistry with each other and the skits are finally voiced. I did get annoyed when the entire crew kept calling Raven (35 years old) an old man, but whatever it's a JRPG.

There's some pacing issues with the main storyline. It's divided into three arcs and all feel vastly different from one another. I preferred the first arc's empire vs guild angle over the second arc's search for Phaeroh angle but there's a really good payoff in that one. It did feel sometimes that different writers were involved in each third. The problem is the third arc. The big bad guy is killed at the end of the second arc and then the game gets all weird and nonsensical, and I didn't like where it headed. The final boss was just a guy who disagreed with you but wasn't a bad guy, and certain arcs are either unresolved or wrapped up way too neatly. Yuri vs. Flynn rivalry never panned out to anything, and they ended up having some friendly match up instead of where I wanted it to go. Yuri's vigilante story was really freaking cool, but it is dropped entirely halfway through the game and the focus shifts to Estelle. The final dungeon comes out of nowhere and doesn't seem to have any involvement with the plot other than it looks cool. The final boss...agh... Let's just say that you'll meet a character early on in the game who looks like total final boss material. This character isn't doing anything special and is a good guy through the entire game, and guess what? Yep, nailed it, he's the final boss. Other parts of the plot are also completely dropped. At the end of the first arc, Barbos gives Yuri an ominous warning: that him and Don Whitehorse are very much alike and will one day go against each other. I was excited to see where this would as the Don seemed like quite and interesting character, but then the Don dies unceremoniously and somewhat randomly shortly afterwards. What they should've done was combine Duke and Don into one character, and gets rid of the stupid red eyes and silver locks so he doesn't look like an obvious lock for the final villain.

10. Persona 3 Portable
Original Release: 2010
Year Played: 2010
Developer: Atlus
Platform: PSP



I waited to play Persona 3 on the PSP and for good measure. I just know I wouldn't be able to deal with something like repetitive daily life on a home console with load times (although I could now do this with P5, my tastes sure have changed). Fortunately, P3P fixes many of the issues, including simplifying the field exploration by turning it into a point-and-click affair rather than controlling a character. Personally, I found this a welcome change, and it lessened the monotony and repetition of performing the same tasks over and over as each day goes by.

Persona 3 slightly edges out Persona 5. This could be due to my overall gaming tastes and preferences being different in 2017 than in 2010, that or I've simply matured. I mean, seven years is a big gap. I couldn't imagine what this would look like if I played the vanilla version in 2007! One of the big reasons I found Persona 3 to be more touching is that it manages to hit some emotional soft spots in the latter spots of the game. The tone of the game changes drastically in January and I found all the events here leading up to the final battle and the epilogue to nearly make me tear up. It was so touching and melodrama done right. The music helps quite a bit.

Also, I found the characters to edge out P5's cast as well. Persona 5's characters basically felt like they took the cast of P3 and made them less interesting. I liked them all except for Ken and Fuuka. Someone's already mentioned the lack of villains but I thought this made the game feel more ominous. Like, you know there's a bad guy there somewhere (besides Takaya and Jin) and when he finally reveals himself, I was like, "Holy crap I knew it was you!" Keep in mind I played this before any Trails game. But yeah, I prefer:

Junpei > Ryuji
Mitsuru > Makoto
Ann > Yukari
Akihiko > Yusuke
Futaba > Fuuka
Aigis > Haru
Shinjiro > Akechi
The Dog >>> Morgana
Elizabeth > Justine > Caroline

The full moon events are also a highlight, with the bosses being interesting and challenging, more so than any of Persona 5's bosses. Tartarus was a chore sometime, but it was satisfying to get a lot of progress done there from time to time, all the while fusing Personas which I find to be a really cool gameplay system.

There's also a constant feeling of tension going on here. When the main character dies, it's all over, and this could happen anytime. This game is more difficult than Persona 5 so I was constantly at the edge of my seat. The final boss was quite the challenge, except the ability to fully heal himself was a dick move, but one I can only see an SMT/Persona game doing. Be prepared for anything.

I also found the more "rural" setting more interesting than downtown Tokyo in P5. It's not as rural as Inaba, but it still felt that way. The daily music and the locations were well done and became sort of "iconic" as the game went on. I played this game on hot summer days and the setting (along with the visuals, music, etc) kinda made it feel like a summer game. But then the game gets super serious and dark towards the end, and the story never lets up. In fact, I didn't think there were any dull points in the plot in P3, as opposed to something like the Okumura arc in P5. I wish the Answer sections were available in P3P but I'm betting it was space limitations that prevented that from happening. Being able to play as a female was a nice touch, though.

I dunno how much my tastes will change over the coming years, and if I look back and think that Persona 5 is overall a better game. Much improved, yes, but not quite as memorable. Some of the best moments in the series come in that last month Persona 3.

-Shit Tier-
101. Angry Birds
100. Adventures of Mana
99. Bravely Default
98. Suikoden Tierkreis

-Absolute and Utter Meh-
97. I Am Setsuna
96. Tokyo Xanadu eX+
95. Star Ocean 4
94. Super Mario Run
93. Star Ocean 5
92. Tales of Xillia 2
91. Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep
90. Candy Crush
89. Deus Ex: Human Revolution
88. Crash Bandicoot N-Sane Trilogy
87. Final Fantasy Brave Exvius
86. Cosmic Star Heroine
85. Final Fantasy XV

-Revel in Mediocrity-
84. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
83. n+
82. Skyborn
81. Radiant Historia
80. Cuphead
79. Mario and Luigi Dream Team
78. Tales of Zestiria
77. Brutal Legend

-It's Not Half Bad-
76. Rock Band 2
75. Arc Rise Fantasia
74. World of Final Fantasy
73. Indigo Prophecy
72. Horizon: Zero Dawn
71. Ninja Gaiden Black
70. The Wolf Among Us
69. Skyrim
68. Resident Evil 5
67. Ratchet and Clank: Tools of Destruction
66. Mario and Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story
65. Shadow Complex
64. Echoes of Aetheria
63. Final Fantasy XIII
62. Uncharted 2
61. LA Noire
60. Undertale

-Here Comes the Good Stuff-
59. Rock Band
58. Diablo 3
57. Battlefield 1
56. Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World
55. Ratchet and Clank
54. Ys SEVEN
53. Dust: An Elysian Tail
52. Grand Theft Auto 4
51. Tales of Xillia
50.75. South Park: The Stick of Truth
50.5. Borderlands
50.25. Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty
50. Ninja Gaiden II
49. Ara Fell
48. Metal Gear Solid 4

-Here Comes the GREAT Stuff, or How to Fill a Tier With RPGs-
47. Mass Effect 2
46. Xenoblade Chronicles
45. The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky the 3rd
44. Bioshock Infinite
43. Magna Carta 2
42. Golden Sun: Dark Dawn
41. Call of Duty: World at War
40. Final Fantasy Tactics A2
39. Grand Theft Auto 5
38. Crisis Core
37. Tales of Berseria
36. Valkyria Chronicles Remastered
35. Last Scenario
34. Tactics Ogre: Let us Cling Together
33. Donkey Kong Country Returns
32. Fallout 3
31. Final Fantasy Dimensions

-Awesome and Addicting-
30. Final Fantasy XIII-2
29. Super Smash Bros Brawl
28. The Last of Us
27. Ys: The Oath in Felghana
26. Devil May Cry 4
25. Final Fantasy IV DS
24. The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel II
23. Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance
22. Okami
21. Grandia II

-All Killer No Filler-
20. Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of DANA
19. Final Fantasy V
18. Fire Emblem Awakening
17. The World Ends With You
16. Stardew Valley
15. Exit Fate
14. Lost Odyssey
13. Mass Effect 3
12. Persona 5
11. The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel

TOP TEN

2008
Tales of Vesperia

2010
Persona 3 Portable
Red Dead Redemption
Mother 3

2011
The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky FC

2012
The Last Story

2015
The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky SC

2017
The Witcher 3
The Legend of Heroes: Trails to Zero
Yakuza 0

So, anyone wanna take a stab at what my top five could be?

Ending Spoilers Below

Anyway, the ending. Believe me when I say this, and this is my personal opinion, but Trails of Cold Steel has the best RPG ending I've ever seen. I'm not kidding. I don't care that it's painful to watch for those that have to wait for the next release to come out (including myself when I played this back in 2015), the cliffhanger(s) were perfect. Not only is there one plot twist, there are multiple. Shit hits the fan, and all hell breaks loose, in those final 2 or 3 hours of play time, and it's absolutely phenomenal. The game made my jaw drop multiple times. C's identity is revealed, an important character dies, the Noble Alliance takes over, Vita is evil, Sharon is part of Ouroboros, the ILF are all alive and well, freaking giant robots appear out of nowhere and Rean becomes one of the pilots! That's right, a new gameplay system is introduced in the last hour of a 60-hour RPG. I loved all the set up for CSII here, even if the sequel doesn't quite ever deliver the same thing ever again. I should also mention that this game absolutely nails it when the plot kicks in. The biggest plot points and events in this game are masterfully done. Again, I chalk this up to the worldbuilding: being invested in Erebonia and all the characters make the bigger events of the game matter a whole lot more, and Falcom gets it right.

The game narrowly misses the top 10 for a few reasons. It's way too easy, and the difficulty settings feel unbalanced. Normal is too simple, hard is kind of like normal, and Nightmare is nightmarish. Problems with balance show themselves early on, which seems to be a common problem in all the Trails game. You can get killed much easier in the early game than in the latter parts, although fighting <C> at the mine is challenging in a good way. There's also some filler quests here and there. Like, I have no idea why I'm required to go fight random big gorilla dude on a highway other than the banter and dialogue and worldbuilding that's done during said quests. Also, the dungeons aren't very well designed. This has never been a strong point in the series, but Cold Steel's dungeons were nothing more than large labyrinths with some breakable objects and switches to press. I'm assuming the lack of detail in the dungeons is due to 3D/all rotating camera, which means the devs have to work much harder than they would in the Sky/Zero games which contain isometric view. Still, I'd have loved some more variety here.

Cold Steel I is the perfect introduction to a new chapter in the Trails series. There's plenty of lighthearted moments, many moments of bonding, some tragic moments, plenty of suspense, and a whole lot of mystery. It takes a lot to create a web of detail that Falcom did here. The mysteries on the overarching plot definitely kept me going... Is this guy to be trusted? Is she the villain in secret? Is he a good guy or bad guy? Is C Claire or Cayenne or Crow or who? Sometimes it felt like a good book or tv series. You just don't get stuff like this very often in games anymore, and the shared video game universe of Zemuria is one of the greatest things I've ever had the pleasure of experiencing.

11. The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel
Original Release: 2015
Year Played: 2015
Developer: Falcom
Platform: PS3
Favorite NPC: Victor Arseid



Falcom originally released TCoS in 2013 in Japan, but did they even knew that this first foray into the oft-mentioned Erebonian Empire would create a quadrilogy? Probably not. In fact, they never meant for TCoS3 to have a sequel, I don't think. And many fans didn't even know that TCoS itself would have a sequel up until the very end. If you come into this game with an open mind -- that is, knowing that the overarching story and character development may, or WILL, span a few games, I promise you'll get highly invested in what is likely one of the coolest game settings in the history of RPG.

See, Cold Steel doesn't spend much time with its storyline. Throughout the game's seven chapters you're constantly fed new information and introduced to new characters, some of which may only be important in a later game. Plot arcs start but sometimes don't end at all. The story remains completely unresolved and the various mysteries remain open. For the game's first four chapters, you're really just learning about the state of Erebonia and Class VII. Yes, there are story rumblings but nothing major. The game is more concerned about worldbuilding and trust me, it pays off in the end and in the later released. Trust me, it's worth it to stick around. It's because of this that the game may be considered one of the slowest RPGs ever, but this isn't a bad thing. I constantly wanted to see what would happen next, or who I would meet next, or which new region I'd be visiting next. It's a beautiful world and it's the setting for several 60+ hour RPGs.

When you're not on field studies, you're a student at Thors and you're doing tasks at the school. Every first half of each chapter is built like this, and one of the big things is visiting a multi-floor dungeon that will have some plot revelance later on in the game. The actual school-related activities and student life are sometimes menial, but if you're interesting in worldbuilding (and you should be) you can talk to all the students and learn more about them. Each and every student often gets some kind of development, whether it's through talking to them a few times or through doing sidequests. It pays off well when they all come back and join you in Cold Steel II. I'd say the school activities sometimes felt like a chore, especially if you're trying to complete everything, because you'll have to wander around and talk to everybody multiple times. Typical Trails stuff.

Oh, and the thing about Mementos that bothered me was how the characters constantly remind me to do Mementos but it's never outright stated that the dungeon is required when in the end, it is. I could see this pissing off gamers who haven't been doing it up till December. I wasn't one of those.

So this brings me to some of my major nitpicks with Persona 5. As I've stated earlier, Persona 5 could take some people more than 100 hours to beat. HowLongToBeat states 95 hours for just the story content. I dunno how to feel about this but its probably right. A lot of this time is spent listening to banter, and there's a fuckton of banter. It gets annoying. I know I said constant and wordy games like Golden Sun Dark Dawn didn't bother me, but Dark Dawn was not a 100-hour game. When I receive a call from Ryuji telling me not to forget about hitting the Palace on a daily basis, I get annoyed. When Morgana won't shut up, I get annoyed. There were many sessions of the game where I felt like I literally got nowhere in the story, because I would spend a few days doing this and that, and the story content only included scenes with the Thieves discussing current events and what should be done next. It should be noted that after you finish a Palace, you have to wait till a certain day before you move on with the story, and then after that, you have several hours of play time just setting up for the next Palace. Often times, meetings with Phantom Thieves include them discussing repeatedly about what should be done next, and these discussions devolved into a bunch of crap I already knew and have heard before. But the worst thing about this is how the game wants to remind you about the current story arc and Palace CONSTANTLY. For example, when you're in the Okumura arc, somehow the school curriculum changes to studying about the history Big Bang Burger and sweatshop workers and multimillion dollar corporations. When you're doing Shido's arc it's all about politics. It's like, I fuckin' know, I gotta do this Palace and make this guy have a change of heart, I get it. STFU.

It doesn't help that the core cast of characters, while a great motley crew, are nowhere near as compelling as P3's. I couldn't name off my favorite characters if I tried. I mean sure, I liked Makoto the best probably, but doing her social link made her seem a bit prissy. In fact, none of their social links were all that interesting. The strength here comes in doing social links for the supporting cast of tarot card characters. Not only are these characters way more interesting to follow, they grant you new abilities and power ups that are absolutely essential and highly satisfying to have once you receive them. Chihaya's fortunes and Kawakami's maid service were important and an absolute blast to use. I loved Tora's politics (though I wish he was actually connected to the Shido arc) and Takemi's backalley doctor stuff. The payoff at the end of their storyline is highly worth it. These moments are highly emotional and I absolutely loved them. Best part of the game. I wish the main characters were just as good.

I don't think I'll talk about the battles and Persona system much because it's typical Persona/SMT stuff, which is a good thing. I will say that the whole stealth mechanic doesn't really work. Once an enemy discovers you, it's nearly impossible to outrun them without alerting others. You're better off killing everything in the Palace because battles are quick and net you experience, anyway. I kinda wish there were actual platforming segments in dungeons. For how they were designed, you'll be jumping across chandeliers and unlocking safes but that's really the extent of it. Everything else -- puzzles and stuff, that is -- is entirely text-based. A jump anywhere button would've been great. More complicated puzzles would've been great. Oh, and unlike previous entries, minibosses were a joke up until the Ark.

So all in all, Persona 5 is an amazing game that revitalized much interest in JRPGs in 2017 (along with other releases that year), but it never hits the highs of Persona 3. In fact, sometimes I felt that the game was playing it a bit too safe. But it's still an essential RPG designed very well. Yes, it felt like a chore sometimes, but this behemoth of a game made my top 15 because it is an amazing experience I won't forget.

12. Persona 5
Original Release: 20117
Year Played: 2017
Developer: Atlus
Platform: PS4
Waifu: Kawakami
Favorite Palace: The Eighth



SPOILERS

I have reasons for not putting Persona 5 in the top 10, and we'll dive into those below. Putting that aside, Persona 5 delivers on all expectations. It's a meaty game easy to get into and pick up and play. It also fixes some problems I had with P3 and P4, making it one of the most accessible JRPGs released. The thing is, I feel that Atlus knew they had an insta-hit the moment they begun development on this game. The same cannot be stated for Personas 3 and 4, games that became successful in the west just like that. It's because of this thought process that I felt they had that made the P5 feel...manufactured. It never quite reaches the emotional impact that Persona 3 had on me in the latter parts of that game, and it never truly gave me the "feels" period that I experienced with the third game.

Now, keep in mind that I have not been able to play Persona 4 fully. The thing is, I hated the randomized dungeon format of P3 and P4, making those games feel like repetitive, tedious slogs. But with P3, I was able to play the updated release on the PSP, and playing through these sections on a handheld was much more tolerable than trying to play them on a PS2. Of course, they also fix other issues like the load times and being able to play all characters in battle. Unfortunately, I've never been able to do the same with P4, since I don't own a Vita. I tried twice to stick with P4 on the home console but just couldn't do it. But Persona 5 is different. Gone are the randomized dungeons, which is an absolute blessing. There's only one random dungeon now, and we'll get to Mementos later. Much care and personality have been placed on the Palaces in this game and I cannot state how much of an improvement that is over the old games. It changes mostly everything.The dungeons are impeccably designed and you'll need to spend more than one day to get through each one. I was always constantly wondering what kind of Palace I'd be going to in the next arc (although I could do without Okumura's) and each one had me pleasantly surprised. The eighth palace was my absolute favorite. I loved the feeling of dread and sorrow accompanying that one (I'm talking about Mementos Depths).

Everything else flows together smoothly. Shifting the focus to juvenile delinquent-type characters was a great change in tone. I love the theme of thievery and giving bad people a literal change of heart. Setting the game in the heart of Tokyo meant the stakes were larger and the overall plot is definitely satisfying. The game starts off in medias res with Akira escaping a Palace only to be caught, then rewinding several months to when the Phantom Thieves first got together. This got me highly invested in the story and characters and I kept wanting to find out how they reached the predicament they were in at the start of the game. Then, once you finally reach that part, the plot throws a great twist which doesn't quite pay off in the end. Akechi was obvious (especially if you play Falcom RPGs), pancake hint or no. His demise was also haphazardly thrown together. It's like the devs forgot that they needed some way of getting him out of the picture so they threw a boss battle with him randomly in a dungeon to end things. I would've liked more scenes with him after the fact, because he received a shit ton of development throughout the entire game. With his defeat he disappears from the game completely, making all the scenes with him feel like nothing more than setting up for him to be nothing more than the token traitor rather than a compelling character. Luckily, there's another major plot twist that comes near the end of the game (Igor) which was well worth it.

Its coming

bump

Not sure how to approach #12, it's a hell of a game to write up.

Nelson_Mandela posted...

Haunter12O posted...

Okay, I'll address elephant in the room first: the ending. It sucks. It really sucks. There's no denying that and no matter how much some people may try to defend it (why?) it is downright terrible.

The patched ending is just fine

Not for the hundreds of thousands of fans who bought and finished the game before the patch was released.

13. Mass Effect 3
Original Release: 2012
Year Played: 2012
Developer: BioWare
Platform: XB360
Favorite New Character: Javik
Least Favorite New Character: Diana Allers



Okay, I'll address elephant in the room first: the ending. It sucks. It really sucks. There's no denying that and no matter how much some people may try to defend it (why?) it is downright terrible. Rumors point to some internal troubles or politics at BioWare which caused the story writer and director to go behind the team's back and change the ending at the last minute, and other rumors point to more shady dealings like wanting the real ending be DLC. Whatever the case may be, the ending backfired on BioWare and they've lost a lot of fans, and haven't made a great game since. I'll keep talking shit: who the fuck is Jessica Chobot, and why is she in this game? Was this some flavor of the month journalist who somehow got herself weaseled into the game? I really don't know, but she looks uncanny and ugly (uglier than Ryder) and shouldn't be in this. She plays no role in the story anyway, and nobody knows who the fuck she is anymore.

With that out of the way, I can say this safely: the ending does not ruin the game, or the experience of playing through an epic space-faring RPG trilogy. Some will say it does, but are you seriously going to sit there and tell me that 60+ hour of RPG'ing is completely destroyed by the last 10 minutes of the last game? I don't think so. I mean, yeah, I really wanted a proper final boss instead of a Marauder with shields. I wanted a lot which we didn't get, unfortunately, but that's okay. Look past that and look at the rest of the game, because it's really, really good.

In Mass Effect 3, the galaxy is at stake and you constantly feel that pressure coming from the imminent Reaper attack. There's really not much filler. Every mission involves saving a race from extinction, or wrapping up any loose ends left over from previous games. That's also what I loved. All these characters you met back in ME1, like the reporter, show up in their respective grand finales here. Even the side missions this time around are exciting. I wish there were more direct references to Mass Effect 2, but alas that was not the case. Most of the new playable characters from that game disappear or do not join your party, and the Collectors never show up again. I'm not going to blame ME3 for that, though. It has plenty of more important content. Even the build up to the actual Reaper fights on the Krogan and Tali's homeworld are amazing. Cerberus has been turned into some sort of white supremacist analog and I'm okay with that too because the game did still need human foes, although I hated how Udina turned out to be an enemy because I always preferred him as a selfish, stuck-up jackass rather than an actual villain. Everything else is ultra-refined to near perfection. The planet mining is done better, the combat is much better, planet exploration is more fun, and wrapping up each individual character's story was rewarding. The set pieces also look much better than anything we've seen (Cerberus HQ, Rannoch, and Palaven are my favorite). I especially loved the final romance scenes in the game, and everything building up to the (disappointing) ending on Earth was amazing.

If it weren't for the ending I probably would've ranked it higher, and I do believe that it could've been the perfect sequel if they actually spent some time on it. It's a bit unfortunate, especially because this was BioWare's last hurrah before they turned to shit. No, I haven't Andromeda, but from everything I've heard and seen, it looks like crap and I won't be touching it. They're in an even worse position now than ever before. But if they keep doing shit like putting people like Chobot in their games they're going to dig their hole even further.

Another thing that bothered me is the memory feature which involves examining objects or talking to people and invoking a memory of Kaim's over the last millenium. What these are are short little stories that occur over a black screen with text, and more text. They're meant to pull on your heartstrings, as the majority of them are sad. This is what Sakaguchi was going for. The whole time I read these, I just shrugged and remained emotionless. None of them meant anything for me and they also felt completely disconnected from the main plot. They felt like a last minute afterthought. What would've made them better is actual visual flashback. SHOW, not TELL! But that's asking for too much, as this wasn't exactly a triple A game.

This is also one of Uematsu's best soundtracks to date. Lots of Final Fantasy feels, with some tracks surpassing his work in that franchise.

I nitpick but I digress. Lost Odyssey was an extremely memorable game and I hold it in high regard. It hits all the right notes at the right time. It's a shame Mistwalker doesn't really do much these days. Lost Odyssey deserves a second chance but it's sorta faded into obscurity now and it's been ten years. A sequel would be perfect, starring Kaim again sometimes in his millenium-long existence. There's definitely potential there. It's disheartening that this was released in a period of a JRPG drought and decline in popularity on the 360 of all things. Hell, I wouldn't mind an HD remake (there are also issues with framerate dropping that pop up frequently in this game). I can also go ahead and pretend this is the real Final Fantasy 13. Sakaguchi and Uematsu and their team went on to make The Last Story, luckily, which turned out to be an ever better RPG. You'll see it later on the list.

14. Lost Odyssey
Original Release: 2008
Year Played: 2008
Developer: Mistwalker
Platform: XB360
Favorite Character: Jansen



I played some amazing JRPGs in 2008. Tales of Vesperia and Lost Odyssey both came out on the 360 of all consoles and I got to experience both games. I'd give the edge to Vesperia, but I still hold Lost Odyssey in high regard because it's (almost) everything I wanted from Sakaguchi's team. It's an excellent Final Fantasy without being a Final Fantasy, because let's face it, if he was still part of Square Enix/Squaresoft this would totally be the next FF. There are many nods: an ancient king resting in one of the main cities not named Odin, a water serpent not named Leviathan, and so on and so forth.

Lost Odyssey has an interesting premise, with have your party being immortal beings who cannot die, but have suffered enough tragedy throughout their lives. Kaim Argonar is one such character, and as a result for living for 1,000 years he's become a depressed, nearly silent hero. I don't blame him. He meets various characters along the way, including mortals, and they band together to find and defeat the one who's caused them to be this way. The villain is well written, too, and he has a lasting presence throughout the game. He reminds me of characters like Exdeath and Kefka, in the sense that they're constantly there and they succeed in some of the things they do (you even get to play as him briefly). By the end of the game, you'll want him dead. You have some interesting characters who join you, too. Jansen is an woman-chasing, alcoholic mage who constantly has one-liners and quips he likes to throw out randomly during story scenes. I think this is a result of the VA improvising his lines sometimes and I love it. He gets some ample development in the end as well, and became one of my favorite characters. Not everyone, unfortunately, gets the same amount of development. I didn't mind Cooke and Mack, because I felt that Sakaguchi gave them enough story and moments for them to grow on me. Sarah, on the other hand, gets very little development, as do the last two characters who join the party way too late in the game.

Perhaps the best thing about Lost Odyssey is how well steeped in lore it is. The locations are huge and the towns are beautiful. It's clear much time was spent on making these places. Numara's calming town theme never gets old as you wander its canal-lined streets, while Uhra feels like an industrial revolution metropolis. One of the towns turns into a Moonside-like nightmare realm due to a curse, and it's up to you to save it. The world has plenty of personality and it's definitely really pretty, but I wish it were a little bigger.

Pacing is an issue here, as Lost Odyssey is slooooow. You'll often spend hours in one location, not because they're long but because battles can sometimes get monotonous and there's plenty of scenes and content to digest in every one of these places. Battles feel kind of archaic. it's a turn based system where you choose your attacks from all your characters and watch each ally and enemy perform their move based on speed. There's no turn order grid, something that was popularized by FFX in 2002, and this game came out in 2008. This isn't exactly a big problem, but sometimes battles can get tedious after a while. Boss battles are fun, on the other hand, and many employ some sort of gimmick. I should mention that the first two bosses are quite challenging, but then nothing after that comes close. It's really unfortunate, because I truly wanted the game to remain as difficult as it was in the early parts of the game. There are also long load times. The world turns out to be quite small, with tons of unused land. It also seems like there's missing or cut content. Lastly, as I said before, the last two characters join in Disc 4, which is way too late in the game when there's only a small handful of areas left and things to do.