For those of you who don't know, the image is of Keima, A.K.A. - "The God of Conquest".
Anywho, onto the subject. I've decided that I really need to make a list of RPG's (majority of them being "old school") that I want to play through and finish. I also came here because I know very well that many of you will be able to provide me with various titles for me to check out and play. So if you have a favorite old school RPG, please suggest it to me and I will check it out. Also if you are wondering what falls under the guidelines of "old school", I am referring to the "retro" type of consoles - NES, SNES, N64. I also include Gameboy Advance or Gameboy Advance SP games as well.
I would prefer mostly these types of RPG's, but if you really feel that you should suggest something newer (Xbox 360, Playstation 3, Nintendo DS) then that's fine as well, but I will most likely only look into the older games.
Now,here are the consoles that I currently own/ have easy access to:
Super Nintendo
Xbox
Xbox 360
Gameboy Advance SP
Gameboy Micro
Wii
WiiU
PS3
PS2
Nintendo DS
Nintendo 64
And now, here are the games I have invested time into. (I will list "newer" games as well.)
So, who on first? None other than:
(Also known as Final Fantasy IV)
I've had this game since I was a young lad, and it seemed to have no end each and every time I tried to play through it. Once I was finally old enough to comprehend how these types of games functioned I tackled it as forcefully as I could, yet it wasn't until recently that I got near the ending of the game. I still haven't beaten it but I plan to finish it sometime very soon, once I get some more grinding in.
The story itself is lengthy, beautiful, yet depressing as hell. There are some twists and unexpected turns in the story but it keeps me engaged the whole way through. If you want to read some about why I consider it so depressing, read the spoiler below. If you have considerations of playing this game for yourself, please don't ruin it by reading the spoiler; continue to the next paragraph.
If you really don't care about spoilers, here you go:
The main character's name is Cecil, and he's the captain of his nations airship fleet: Red Wings. In summation the first mission, assigned to you by your king, is to deliver a package to the nearby village known as "Mist". Your dragoon friend Kain accompanies you and on your merry way through the Mist Cave you encounter the Mist Dragon, who you must defeat to proceed. When you get to the village the package automatically opens and a ton of bomb creatures erupt from inside of it, setting the village ablaze. You then find a young girl, Rydia, among the chaos. She is sitting beside her mother, who lay lifeless on the ground. Turns out that you were the one that murdered this young girls mother because the Mist Dragon was her summoned creature that was linked to her. So when you killed the dragon, you killed her mother. How pleasant.
The other occurrence that I find really sad takes place much later in the game. A character named Edward (I believe that's him) is forced to kill his own parents. That's right, you heard me. His parents were king and queen of a nation, but they were abducted by an antagonist and transformed into horrible beasts; later slain by their own son. As Edward goes entirely against his will and emotion, he fights to destroy the monstrosities that his parents have been transformed into. The little bit of human soul that is left within them they use to encourage Edward to destroy them and put them out of their misery, and in the end they use their dying breath to communicate to Edward that they love him dearly. Man, that's tough to think about, isn't it?
Anyways, I'm at the final boss which by the way, takes place on the MOON. How amazing is that? Just need to get some grinding in because the final boss is TOUGH.
In my opinion, this is the Final Fantasy that has the most beautiful prelude.
Here it is:
Second game:
I have to say, this game is quite the treat. I got it for 18 bucks used but DAMN was it worth it. There are 3 games in this package. Final Fantasy I, Final Fantasy II, AND a bonus game that isn't listed until after you beat the second game - It's called, "Soul of Rebirth". I just finished it today actually, which gave me the motivation to finally create this topic. Beautiful, magnificent story line in both of the games. (Which is to be expected from Final Fantasy games.)
FFI has a traditional level-up system, but FF2 has a very unique leveling system. Instead of just leveling up over all, it instead relies on the skills that you utilize in battle. So if I used the spell "Fire" in battle all the time, then that spell alone would level significantly. I think it's rather interesting. To be honest, neither of the games provide much background on the characters. Everything else makes up for that, however.
In the first game there are four elementally based dungeons that all contain 10 floors which are randomly generated when you enter them. These dungeons contain various bosses from past games at the end of the dungeons, which is a pretty cool idea. Upon completion of the second game you will unlock the third game: Soul of Rebirth. It's kind of a secret of what it is, so I'll put it in the spoiler if you don't want to find out what it is just yet.
Soul of Rebirth is its own game that features four characters that you play with the whole time. These four characters are people who sacrificed themselves in the second game so that the main characters (from FFII) could survive. It's a very cool idea for a bonus game.
Also, this game has kick-ass music. Here's my favorite theme:
Third:
Honestly I don't have much to say about this game because I've hardly played through it. I got to this town with a wrecked ship in it that I'm supposed to fix or something, but I got bored with it because I never really figured out what to do. If anybody has any reason why I should finish this game, let me know because I need some motivation to.
Fourth:
This is an RPG on the SNES and it is bad-ass. I loved the fuck out of this game's battle system, storyline, and especially music. There's even a 100 floor dungeon that has no save function so that you have to play through it all in one sitting. (It's a bonus dungeon though, not part of the story!)
So what did I love most about it? *MASSIVE SPOILER ALERT*
The developers actually had the guts to write a sad ending. It's not ALL sad, but the majority of the ending is pretty damn heart-wrenching. The two main characters, Maxim and Selan, die in the collapsing fortress of the final boss, leaving their only child alone. There's also a love triangle! One of my friends who played it raged and almost quit because of it.
My favorite battle theme is from this game:
Fifth:
Breath of Fire II. I just recently started this game back up and I'm now in the process of preparing for the final boss. I have to say that I am really impressed with this game.(Except for some, uh, translation "fails".) The characters are all incredibly unique and come with pretty detailed backgrounds as well as many of them having a large segment in the story that revolves around them. What kept me interested was the incredibly unexpected twist in the storyline, which even creeps me out. Details in the spoiler.
SPOILER ALERT!
There's this world-wide church organization known as the "Church of St.Eva" which is portrayed as a benevolent church with kind people throughout most of the game. That is until you find out that their god is actually a fuckin' demon! A malicious devil that has been corrupting people into horrible beasts and leeching strength from the prayers of his mindless churchgoers. Freakin' crazy.
Incredible boss battle theme music:
Sixth:
Has anyone even ever played this game and actually enjoyed it? I played it for 15 minutes at most and I had to quit because quite frankly, I think this game is a wad of dick. I cannot stand it in the slightest. I've tried multiple times to give it another chance but the horrific music and gameplay makes me want to violate myself with the controller.
Here's a gameplay video of this game:
And as for the "newer" RPG's that I've played, they are as follows:
Morrowind
Oblivion
Skyrim
Final Fantasy XIII
Fable
Fallout 3
I barely started FF XIII-2, so I really don't have anything to say about it.
Now I played Blue Dragon and I LOVED IT. However, I can't beat the final boss because I'm currently a bit under-leveled, so I need to do some grinding. I'm just too lazy to start it back up. I'll get to it sometime soon though, since I have it on this list. The boss theme for this game always makes me chuckle to myself, here it is:
Here are some games that I am planning to play:
EarthBound
Harvest Moon
Final Fantasy III (Or really any Final Fantasy game that I get my hands on.)
Secret of Mana
Harvest Moon
This is all that I can think of at the moment. Now, if you have an RPG that you would like to recommend to me, please do! Post some screenshots or maybe some music from the game and I want you to tell me why you think that I should play it.
Thanks, guys!