Lately I've regained some interest in playing RPGs, especially older ones. This is why I started on Final Fantasy Legend. Thing is, a lot of RPGs really went under the radar, especially back in those days when they weren't even really popular.

So, what are some of the more obscure RPGs you've played, and are they worth a play through?

I gave Legend of the Ghost Lion a quick run through. It has a pretty interesting system that's mostly focused on summoning new party members (at least at first). The stats are really weird though so I don't know how it'll be later on. The music is pretty kickass though, especially the battle theme. Like many RPGs of its day, it doesn't know if it wants to be set in the past or the present.

Final Fantasy Legend IS actually fun, despite what you've heard. I don't care what that stand up comedian said, it is NOT the worst game ever. It's kinda weird and hard to get the hang of at first, but once you get used to the weird advancement system it's pretty easy. There's also not as much grinding involved as you'd think. Its biggest problems are that it's not very user friendly and making any progress at all in the beginning is hard.

Final Fantasy Legend 2 is even better so far. It's easier, more user friendly, less grindalicious, has a better story, and even lets you have 5 characters at a time (!). If you want to try one of the FFLs but don't want to sink too much time into it, this is a great one.

Paladin's Quest is... Well... Different. It's not really one of my favorites. The graphics are a bit too pastel for my liking, and the difficulty goes up too quickly, forcing you to grind too much. But, it's trying some new things so you have to give it credit for that.

Tecmo Cup Soccer is and RPG disguised as a soccer game. In Japan, it was based on Captain Tsubasa, and part of a series I hear. It's very offbeat, and it's actually fun to play. It's sort of like FFX's Blitzball game, only faster, less annoying, and much harder. The difficulty is really the game's biggest flaw. And since there's no random encounters, there's no way to grind and make the game easier. Still, definitely worth checking out.

For all the praise that Shining Force gets, the first game in the Shining series, Shining in the Darkness, is relatively unknown. Unfortunately, there's sort of a good reason for that. It's one of those first person dungeon crawlers. Like all such games of the day, every wall in the dungeon looks exactly like every other wall, and since each step you take merely renders a new image, it's way too easy to get lost, even with the map. But if you like those kinds of games, it's probably one of the better ones of its kind, being on Genesis hardware, and it's kinda neat to see where the Shining series came from.

Hoshi wo Miru Hito (roughly meaning Stargazer) is apparently a "densetsu no kusoge" (shitty game of legend), which is what the Japanese call a game that's so horrible it attracts a cult following. According to what I've read, all the towns, dungeon entrances and treasures (including quest items) are just invisible tiles on the map, and exitting a town might put you in a completely different location on the world map. Example: Town A is on continent A, but when you leave town A you wind up on continent B outside of dungeon C. Also, it uses a password system which rounds your level down to the nearest even number. I SO need to play this game.

What comedian is this?

The one I mentioned said it was the BEST game ever. :)


Anyway, :thumbup: for FFL.



I really haven't played that many obscure RPGs, but let's see what I can remember:

AD&D Pool of Radiance:
This was available on at least half a dozen different platforms, but I played the NES version.

It's really hard sometimes, and really rough around the edges. You can do a few things that will completely screw you over, and it's really easy to get lost sometimes. You have the option of that crappy first-person view or using a really simple map. Of course if you run away from battle, you're forced to use the first-person mode until you make it to the next screen. (It's like you're lost.)

Battles take place on a grid where your position matters for range and movement, so it's like an SRPG lite. Sometimes if you run out of moves and aren't in range to do anything, there's no command to not do anything that turn. So the only thing you can do is let the AI control that character until the battle is over.

I liked it, even though it was hard as hell and frustrating at tmes, but I don't know if I ever even came close to beating it. I would recommend it to others, but you won't beat it either. :)


The 7th Saga:
From what I can remember, this played a lot like a Dragon Quest game. The unique thing about it is that you started the game by choosing one of various characters, and throughout the game you can team up with some of them and will have to fight others. That part can be really hard because they're always at the same level as you. (And I think I heard there was a bug that made it worse.)

Another thing I remember about it is that you could buy gems so you wouldn't lose money when you die.

I'd like to give it another try sometime.


Secret of Evermore:
A lot like Secret of Mana, but with a modern setting. I love this game. Highly underrated.

Yeah, that's an unfortunate necessity of the game. The worst part is that you'll only really ever die after you've been dungeon crawling for hours and amassed a ton of GP that you haven't yet converted to gems. Probably on a boss. I think the game somehow got a sequel.

Lufia is basically a shite Dragon Quest clone. It's got one of those "ZOMG CHECK OUT MY BISHOUNENS!!!!!! ^_^" approaches to character designs, a story I couldn't force myself to pay attention to, and a battle system so derivative I felt like I was participating in theft just for playing it.

Ys for the Master System is awesome and everyone should play it. Don't argue.

Xanadu is a weird little game. It's sorta like Legacy of the Wizard, sorta like Hydlide, but way better than both of them. You run around a gigantic dungeon exploring it. Every so often you collide with an enemy and the view switches to overhead and you have to clear the room of enemies in bump n grind fashion. Then when they all die you get a treasure. When you leave, you can spend your money at "gyms" to increase your stats. It's all in Japanese though so I can't make any progress with it. I've only ever found a ROM for the MSX2, which has the choppiest scrolling ever. Despite that, it's tons of fun and I wish I could make sense of it.

Cadash is possibly the weirdest hybrid of RPGs and anything I've ever seen, since it's a combination RPG platformer. You might think this equals "Metroidvania" but it doesn't because it's way too linear. There's one fetch quest, but other than that it's a straight run. It was originally released in arcades. That should tell you something. It recieved two ports that I know of. One to the Genesis and one to the TG-16. They both got butchered in the conversion, but in excitingly different ways.

Soul Blazer is also awesome. I don't care what anyone says.

Pinball Quest is a pinball RPG. What? That makes no sense! Well that's true, it doesn't. It is fun though. You basically hit the ball into monsters to gain gold you can use to upgrade your flippers and stuff. I owned this game back in the day, but in a moment of sheer retardation, I pawned it off.

Magic Sword is a great little platform RPG along the same lines of Cadash. Chances are you've played it, but if you haven't, SHAME on you.

Dungeon Magic: Sword of the Elements is yet another first person dungeon crawler. The big problem is that it's on the NES, so each frame is just as indistinct as the next. It's ridiculously easy to get lost, and the walls don't all render for some reason. Games like this hurt my eyes and my brain so I didn't play much of it. Any other opinions on it?

I saw an ad for Sweet Home on gameads and thought it looked interesting and spooky. Then I found out there was a translation for it. So I played it expecting scary. It's not scary at all. It's mostly just a Dragon Quest clone set inside a mansion with no way to revive dead characters. The music is freaking sweet, the party system is bizarre and confusing, and there's a lot of death traps strewn about and it's not obvious how to get out of them. However, it's not scary.

I've heard good things about Ys.

I've played a lot of rpg's, but I can't say many of them are too obscure or worth mentioning.

I'm finally getting out of the habit of playing Phantasy Star 4 over and over, now that I've used several Genie codes to keep one of the characters (Alys) alive through the whole game, as well as leveling up like mad, so it's starting to get old since I've done absolutely everything I could possibley do with it.

I started a game on FF12 a month or two ago, but haven't gotten back to it yet.

Aside from that, I'd like to check out a few RPGs for the SNES that I haven't played yet.

On that, I own Secret of Evermore, but I just have never gotten into it. :( I'm one of those biased fans of Seiken Densetsu 3 that has been eternally pissed off that Square decided to release Evermore to America and completely drop the other. From what I have played, it's a great game on it's own, but terrible as a replacement to a series it doesn't belong in. Someday I hope to get over that subjective bitchiness and learn to enjoy Evermore.

Well you can put your bitterness away right now.

"Evermore did not occur instead of, and had no effect whatsoever on, any translations of Japanese titles. The decision of SCL (Square Co. Ltd of Japan, the parent company) to add a new development team to its existing Squaresoft distribution office in Redmond had no effect on any translations and did not tie up the people involved in doing them. Translations were nixed at and by the parent company for unrelated reasons of their own which I cannot discuss.

Evermore also did not occur instead of any new titles in any existing series, as its team was hired specifically to create it and would not have existed otherwise."

"I do remember we had a different weapon system for quite a while, then Someone In Management decided we were going to copy SoM instead. (You can say that about a lot of things in Evermore, actually. :)"

http://www.inf.uni-konstanz.de/~kneer/andr...-soe/052_1.html

>>>I do remember we had a different weapon system for quite a while, then Someone In Management decided we were going to copy SoM instead

Interesting...I never knew that...