Any good console RPGs?
 

To give a little background, I've been playing RPGs ever since the first Dragon Warrior came out.

I never really got into the Wizardry/D&D type RPGs, as I mainly stuck to things like Dragon Warrior, Final Fantasy, Breath of Fire (SNES), etc.. I'm basically an old school RPG fan.

Lately it seems like there's been this extreme lack of good RPGs. I have Final Fantasy X, and while it was an okay game, it wasn't anything to write home about. Definitely not something I'd recommend to someone who wants to experience a solid RPG. The game was way too linear and restrictive. No world map, no leveling, mediocre story ... generally it wasn't anything like a Final Fantasy game at all (FF8 was like this too). I'm honestly not even sure why they made a sequel to it. :p

I think one of the main things that irks me is they ditched the traditional system of leveling up with something that they claim is more efficient. I have yet to see how the sphere grid is more efficient than, say, Final Fantasy 7's system of traditional experience gaining & materia stat bonuses.

I've been eyeing Suikoden III, but I've never played the original series for PSX. Read some reviews that claim that it's probably one of the finest RPGs made in a LONG time, and that quite a claim.

The last two awesome RPGs I played were FF9 and Dragon Warrior 7. DW7 was so insanely huge, I loved it (although I never completely beat it yet). I heard Dragon Warrior 5 was to be re-released on the PS2, so that's something to look forward to.

Does anyone have any recommendations?

While I disagree about FFX (it's my favorite Final Fantasy aside from 7), I have to recommend the Suikoden Series 100%. If you want an RPG series that is possibly better than Final Fantasy, then check out Suikoden 1, 2, and 3. I've played and beat 1 and 2, and plan to get 3 when I see it for cheap. I beat the first one twice. Those games are simply amazing. Instead of saving the world, you're saving your country, and it gives the game a really cool feel. Suikoden 3 got damn good reviews, so I'd recommend it as well. Suikoden 4 is due out in the future also.

For PS2, I recommend: Suikoden 1, 2, 3
XBox: Knights of the Old Republic
Gamecube: Skies of Arcadia DX

-Lasereth

I've definitely gotta agree with Lasereth about the Suikoden games. But good luck finding the first two. They're the only games I've seen go up in price since their release. Amazon lists each of them at over $100. The third one is good, but it feels like a step backward, like they figured they could leave stuff out since they were making the big jump to 3D. I wouldn't start the series with it.
As for Dragon Warrior 5, I never heard about a rerelease, but there is an English translated ROM out there. I'm currently playing through it and loving it.
Another good RPG you might want to consider is Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete for PS1.

If you are looking at Xbox, Morrowind Game of the Year Edition is fantastic.

I can vouche for the Suikoden..

I hear that Disgaia(sp?) and La Pucelle are both really good RPG's for the PS2.

Maybe I should hold onto my copies then. I was thinking of putting them on Ebay.

Ha ha, my local Target has Suikoden 2 for $20 new. I haven't seen the first one for sale at a store in years though...I can see how it could sell for a pretty penny.

-Lasereth

Not sure if this counts but Zelda on any system rocks. The Gamecube packs for Zelda are handy and nice. I don't know if you would count Zelda into the Action or Role Playing style of a game, though.

If you want a good old SNES game check out the Secret of Mana. It's expensive, though.

Game Boy Advance!

Golden Sun 1 & 2 have become one of my favorite console based RPG's. They completely sucked me in.
There's also the remake of Final Fantasy Tactics. Although I have yet to buy it, many people including the guys at Penny Arcade say that they like this version better than the old PS1 version.\

There's Mario & Luigi if you don't mind the Mario franchise. They're fun as they don't employ the random dice mod so much as they allow timing for the user. By the press of a button at a critical time and you could do a critical hit. In the same style of motion, another button could deflect an attack. This style provides for a fun way of fighting. Also Paper Mario 2 is in the works... Don't be deceived by its Paper type looks... the first one was pure excellence.

great call.

just make sure you have an Xbox with a Samsung disc drive... otherwise you may well have plenty of dirty disc errors.

The GBA FF:T is NOT a remake to the PSX FF:T. It is a totally seperate game with a slightly altered but still very similar battle system. The only letdown was that the game was WAY, WAY too easy because of bad AI. If you played FF:T, the game will be somewhat difficult in about two battles in the game. If you played Tactics Ogre, the game will be a handjob for all intensive purposes.

My suggestion would be to get Zsnes (snes emulator) and the following games on this list:

FF4 (Hard Version)
FF5
FF6
Seiken Densetsu 3
Earthbound (must play)
Tales of Phantasia
Star Ocean
Lufia 2
Uncharted Waters 2 ( RPG/Sailing Game, AMAZING GAME by Koei)
Bahamut Lagoon
Chrono Trigger (MUST PLAY)
Harvest Moon ( Farming game)
Front Mission
Super Mario RPG

Absolutely!! yes FF:T on the ps1 is way harder but both are good games. Oh and Star Ocean Second Story for the Playstation.

Tactics advance easier than ps1 tactics? I disagree completely there.


Once you reach the point where you have three laws against you in FFT:A,it becomes rediculous.


Final Fantasy Tactics was brilliant,and much easier than the GBA counter-part imo :/

Anti-Law cards deal those problems or simply wait till the laws are in your favor.

A few battles in FF:T are insanely difficult for example: Ramza versus Wiegrav, the Velius battle, the Execution site, Lionel Castle outside and the Elmdor battles. These battles stay very difficult no matter how "good" you get at the game. A few FF:A battles were hard until I learned to manipulate cards to keep enemies from attacking and that the AI loves walking up to my "assassin bunnies of doom".

And that thing about how in a good 85% of the battles death is not permerant in FF:A. Coming from Tactic Ogre where death is final unless very powerful magic is used, FF:A is a cake walk.

oh that Execution Site. Those were good times.

I think this is the best game of all time. A multi player action rpg that allowed hot swapping. This game was way ahead of its time. I wish more games would allow you to alternate between single and multiplayer in rpg situations, so you could play a game by yourself, but your buddies could play along if they were around without having to start from the beginning. That was my biggest gripe with the Baldur's Gate games on xbox, once you commit to one or the other, you were done.

I started Suikoden. Looks and feels like the RPGs I like!

I've pretty much played every other RPG mentioned in this thread except Star Wars: KOTOR, Harvest Moon, and Golden Sun (and the few mentioned that could be played only w/ the emulator).

I loved Earthbound. I played that game to death. Mario RPG was pretty sweet too! Secret of Mana was good. I have that and Secret of Evermore. I never beat 'em though. I have this habit where I get very far into a game and just STOP playing. No idea why.. it's almost always at the last area/boss. :P

A note about Morrowind, it's extremely open ended. You can literally walk your char around the world for 20 mins without finding another person. That's how big the world is. Also it's kinda slow paced and the combat is nothing special. However, if your the type of person that can get past those types of things. It is a standout RPG like the previous posters mentioned.

I'm about 6 hours into Suikoden and .. about the same into Chrono Cross.

Both are damn good games, but I love the premise of Chrono Cross and how the game has parallel dimensions. That's sweet as hell!

Any game that has New Game+ is kick ass.. always a handy feature especially when there are certain things you can only do ONCE per game.

Star Wars: KOTOR uses an AD&D rule setup. 20 level choose you'r skills wisely kinda deal cause you can't get all of them. Fun game but doesn't really sound like what you are looking for

Disgea and La Pucelle are more tactics oriented than old school rpgs. Both games are still good though.

Suikoden 3 was the worst one in the seires. Look for the first two if you can get them.

I love Harvest Moon, the one for the PS2 is easilly the worst one. Get Friends of Mineral Town for the GBA, in my opinion the best one.

Breath of Fire 1-4 are great. 1 and 2 can be bought for the GBA and 3-4 are on the PS1. Stay away from 5 for the PS2 though, major let down.

Also, Xenogears, Arc the Lad Collection, Lunar 1 and 2 for the PS1. Xenosaga, Wild Arms 3, and Shadow Hearts for the PS2. And Skies of Arcadia for the GC are all great rpgs.

Stompy, we've got frighteningly similar tastes in games (and music too, considering your signature). my fave games have all been mentioned, but i'll definintely second getting zsnes if you don't already have it and exploring the huge backcatalogue of SNES games (including japanese translations). seems like that era was a sweet spot of RPGs.

gotta look into these later dragon warrior games... i've only played 1-3.

Stompy-

There is a game called 'FABLE' coming out for Xbox in the 3rd quarter of this year. It has been in development for around 4 years now and is supposed to be the most unbelievable RPG ever created for any system EVER. Seriously, this game is supposed to absolutely own any game that has ever been created. I can't wait to get my hands on it. I'm hoping for a release date around September.

Wow... Dragon Warrior.

My all time favorite RPG, for the NES, no less. Man, I loved that game, but hated it when your typical NES problems started kicking in, like random resets, blowing in the game 90303993 times to get the damn thing to work, ect...

Good times, though, I need to check into the others now :D

Dostoevsky - While Fable does look awesome it's probably going to be delayed once we draw closer to a release date. I wouldn't expect it till around December, maybe even till 2005.

I bought Suikoden 3 in the winter and I played the hell out of it for a while. The only bad thing is that it gets stale fairly quickly. You visit the same locations over and over agian and the fighting gets rather tiresome.

I would recommend Disgaea (if you can find it). It's similar to the original Final Fantasy Tactics but has a lot more replay value to it.