Okami is actually seen as a cult classic and gets brought up a lot in "are games art" discussions and threads. It also has a sequel, Okamiden, for the DS.Signa said:
Games you're convinced nobody else is playing?
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Some games I enjoyed that I don't think get anough love:
Radiata Stories:
An obscure PS2 RPG published by Square-Enix and developed by Tri-Ace (of Valkyria Profile fame). It's pretty short for an RPG, only clocking in at 15 hours for a first run through, but the story branches at around the midway point to two distinct paths, which lends itself to a lot of replay value. The visuals are gorgeous, evokeing a storybook come to life, and the soundtrack is both jazzy, and occasionally very beautiful. The game also escews the usual JRPG protagonist schtick and making the main character a completely hilarious/endearing jerk who interacts with the world by kicking things (and people) and punches doors to knock. Speaking of people, the games' biggest draw is it's Suikoden-esque character recruitment system. Nearly every NPC in the game (178 to be exact) can be recruited to your party. Every one of them has a daily schedule and method of recruiting them, which comprises most of the games' side content. Combat is incredibly simple, with the link system being there to add a bit of variety. It's got it's flaws, the story loses steam in the last five hours or so, and you can only control the main character in combat. Most recruitable characters are reletively useless, and following them around to get their schedule down to recruit them is often a pain. Otherwise, it's a fun, endearing, and occasionally very funny RPG that's worth the buy if you can get it cheap.
Muramasa: The Demon Blade/Odin Sphere:
If you have a Wii and/or PS2, you need to get these games. Both of these games are developed by Vannilaware, and they represent some of the best 2D action on consoles today.
Muramasa is a Wii exclusive, and defines itself by having incredibly fast and fluid combat, and a whopping 108 swords to collect, each with differant abbilities and strengths. It has a Pseudo-Metroidvania way of traveling, taking place all across Japan with Swords acting as the keys to accessing new areas. It does have it's flaws though, namely it's frequent and eventless backtracking. You could go through whole areas without encountering a single enemy It has some very light platforming, nothing challenging, but something to at least do. What makes this backtracking somewhat bearable is the fact that the game is FREAKIN BEAUTIFUL. It is seriously one of the best looking sprite based games I have ever seen. The music as well is endlessly fantastic, with tracks varying from light travel music, to deep and ominous chanting. Character animations are incredibly fluid and incredibly detailed in their movement. The game has two paralel stories, which you can tackle in any way you want. Each one has it's own boss battles and playing style, but otherwise it's the same. The story won't blow your socks off, and it suffers from a very poor translation. You'll probably just breeze through it to get to the next battle.
Odin Sphere is a bit different. It shares the formers stunning visuals and beautiful music, but relys more on it's RPG elements and has no platforming. Combat is fluid, but occasionally repetitive, and crippling slowdown due to the PS2's hardware limitations can mar an otherwise beautiful experiance. Also unlike Muramasa, it is often brutally difficult. The game has five stories running side by side with one another, giving interesting looks at the games epic norse mythology (loosely) inspired story. It's story is moteably better than Muramasa's and has enough twists and turns to keep people interested.
Stronghold/Stronghold Crusader:
I should probably start off by saying this game has not aged well at all. The AI pathfinding is pretty terrible, and the visuals, while charming in their old-schollishness, have noticably aged. Beyond that, the game is incredibly fun in that you have complete freedom to build (or destroy) the castle of your dreams, and has a very robust map editer that allows unlimited options to shape the game any way you want. At one point at least there was a great map making community, creating their own campaigns based on other works or their own imagination. Seeing how crative people can get with castlebuilding is really inspireing. Stronghold Crusader transposes this to a desert setting, and allows for a more fast paced game with up to eight people playing on a map at the same time. I've never figured out how to run multiplayer, but I imagine it would be great considering the pretty braindead AI characters. Both of these games are available on Steam pretty cheap, so pick them up.
King Arthur:
Based on a pretty terrible movie, this game breaks a lot of liscensed game conventions by actually being better than the fil it's based off of. Sure, it's not great by any stretch of the word, but playing this game co-op is a good way to breeze through the afternoon with a few laughs. Gameplay is pretty varied, but enemy's are fairly repetitive. It's really just the Lord of the Rings action games with a few added elements. Really, it's not that great, but if you see it cheap, it's a fun thing to blaze through.
Myst/Riven:
I have a lot of nostalgia for these games, in fact, they were the first real games I ever played. They havn't aged very well, and the replay value is next to nil, but as far as adventure games go, you can't get much more imersive and challanging than these two classics. The series has numerous sequels, but these two, which end on a rather satisfying conclusion, represent the best the series has to offer. Both of them are on steam, so give 'em a shot.
Radiata Stories:
An obscure PS2 RPG published by Square-Enix and developed by Tri-Ace (of Valkyria Profile fame). It's pretty short for an RPG, only clocking in at 15 hours for a first run through, but the story branches at around the midway point to two distinct paths, which lends itself to a lot of replay value. The visuals are gorgeous, evokeing a storybook come to life, and the soundtrack is both jazzy, and occasionally very beautiful. The game also escews the usual JRPG protagonist schtick and making the main character a completely hilarious/endearing jerk who interacts with the world by kicking things (and people) and punches doors to knock. Speaking of people, the games' biggest draw is it's Suikoden-esque character recruitment system. Nearly every NPC in the game (178 to be exact) can be recruited to your party. Every one of them has a daily schedule and method of recruiting them, which comprises most of the games' side content. Combat is incredibly simple, with the link system being there to add a bit of variety. It's got it's flaws, the story loses steam in the last five hours or so, and you can only control the main character in combat. Most recruitable characters are reletively useless, and following them around to get their schedule down to recruit them is often a pain. Otherwise, it's a fun, endearing, and occasionally very funny RPG that's worth the buy if you can get it cheap.
Muramasa: The Demon Blade/Odin Sphere:
If you have a Wii and/or PS2, you need to get these games. Both of these games are developed by Vannilaware, and they represent some of the best 2D action on consoles today.
Muramasa is a Wii exclusive, and defines itself by having incredibly fast and fluid combat, and a whopping 108 swords to collect, each with differant abbilities and strengths. It has a Pseudo-Metroidvania way of traveling, taking place all across Japan with Swords acting as the keys to accessing new areas. It does have it's flaws though, namely it's frequent and eventless backtracking. You could go through whole areas without encountering a single enemy It has some very light platforming, nothing challenging, but something to at least do. What makes this backtracking somewhat bearable is the fact that the game is FREAKIN BEAUTIFUL. It is seriously one of the best looking sprite based games I have ever seen. The music as well is endlessly fantastic, with tracks varying from light travel music, to deep and ominous chanting. Character animations are incredibly fluid and incredibly detailed in their movement. The game has two paralel stories, which you can tackle in any way you want. Each one has it's own boss battles and playing style, but otherwise it's the same. The story won't blow your socks off, and it suffers from a very poor translation. You'll probably just breeze through it to get to the next battle.
Odin Sphere is a bit different. It shares the formers stunning visuals and beautiful music, but relys more on it's RPG elements and has no platforming. Combat is fluid, but occasionally repetitive, and crippling slowdown due to the PS2's hardware limitations can mar an otherwise beautiful experiance. Also unlike Muramasa, it is often brutally difficult. The game has five stories running side by side with one another, giving interesting looks at the games epic norse mythology (loosely) inspired story. It's story is moteably better than Muramasa's and has enough twists and turns to keep people interested.
Stronghold/Stronghold Crusader:
I should probably start off by saying this game has not aged well at all. The AI pathfinding is pretty terrible, and the visuals, while charming in their old-schollishness, have noticably aged. Beyond that, the game is incredibly fun in that you have complete freedom to build (or destroy) the castle of your dreams, and has a very robust map editer that allows unlimited options to shape the game any way you want. At one point at least there was a great map making community, creating their own campaigns based on other works or their own imagination. Seeing how crative people can get with castlebuilding is really inspireing. Stronghold Crusader transposes this to a desert setting, and allows for a more fast paced game with up to eight people playing on a map at the same time. I've never figured out how to run multiplayer, but I imagine it would be great considering the pretty braindead AI characters. Both of these games are available on Steam pretty cheap, so pick them up.
King Arthur:
Based on a pretty terrible movie, this game breaks a lot of liscensed game conventions by actually being better than the fil it's based off of. Sure, it's not great by any stretch of the word, but playing this game co-op is a good way to breeze through the afternoon with a few laughs. Gameplay is pretty varied, but enemy's are fairly repetitive. It's really just the Lord of the Rings action games with a few added elements. Really, it's not that great, but if you see it cheap, it's a fun thing to blaze through.
Myst/Riven:
I have a lot of nostalgia for these games, in fact, they were the first real games I ever played. They havn't aged very well, and the replay value is next to nil, but as far as adventure games go, you can't get much more imersive and challanging than these two classics. The series has numerous sequels, but these two, which end on a rather satisfying conclusion, represent the best the series has to offer. Both of them are on steam, so give 'em a shot.
Earthbound? UNDERRATED?SycoMantis91 said:
The damn game was highly rated and extremely popular, just because it's old and a classic doesn't mean it wasn't highly rated and extremely popular for its day.
Mine would be Hearts of Iron 3 For the Motherland, extremely awesome grand strategy.
Easy, the entire Atelier Iris series. Such great gameplay and mechanics, it never got much attention in the US though.
GCN is the abbreviation for the Nintendo Gamecube.Palademon said:
And if you like NMH I'd recommend giving Killer7 another shot, it's such a mind blowing game, and while it does play like shit (which could be fixed in a heartbeat if someone would just port it to motion controls, why do only shit games get ported? While I'm on it, why in the FUCK doesn't RE4 on PSN have Move support?! Yeah, fuck you too Capcom, you've changed ever since you started doing the hard drugs.), it's one of my favorite games for it's absurd sense of style and standing-in-the-snow-naked-with-a-Nixon-mask-on-holding-a-chainsaw-insane plot.
Suffer through it if you like Suda 51 at all, because, beyond any sort of doubt, it is his best game conceptually.
LOLBattleaxx90 said:
While I would probably say that xenoblade chronicles looks great and all, the phrase 'every dang JRPG fan worth his oversized sword and pointy hair will be playing it' to a Wii game gets me giggling every time.
Nintendo abandoned RPG fans back in the N64 era. If you wanted to continue playing quality RPGs, you bought the playstation, playstation 2 and then the Xbox 360 (though there is a few great rpgs for the playstation 3 as well). If you were still buying nintendo systems you probably REALLY liked tales of symphonia (skies of arcadia too, but that's a dreamcast remake) and probably have some sort of handheld fetish... If it looks good enough, I might pick up a Wii... stranger things have happened. I bought the original Xbox for Morrowind and KotOR, and I don't regret that purchase. However... I'm still pretty pissed off about my N64 RPG library... arrrrggggg!!!!!
Oh yeah, I'm playing Shadow Madness for the PS1. It's my hidden treasure of cocky heroes taking on and evil army and laughing at them the whole time. Graphics are pretty crap, but the story is just great and it's just a fun rpg.
OH MY GOD!!!!!! THAT IS HONESTLY THE BEST GAME EVER!!!!!SageRuffin said:
at least it might be, i haven't played it in a while and it's all smeared with nostalgia. i really wish i could play it again but i only ever rented it and no one here sells it. maybe that's a good thing cause playing it againmight ruin it's legendary status in my mind.
Magic Battlegrounds.
It's Magic: The Gathering but as a fighting game where you combat the other player by summoning creatures and using spells. It's really imbalanced but incredibly fun with some friends.
It's Magic: The Gathering but as a fighting game where you combat the other player by summoning creatures and using spells. It's really imbalanced but incredibly fun with some friends.
See I would totally have to disagree with you guys, although the mechanics where a touch clunky and ya the black and white parts made it hard to see, but I really enjoyed the action/stealth blend with just enough GTA and Assassins Creed Respectively. That being said it was far from perfect but I think it was a good shot at a last hoorah for Pandemic Studios. Furthermore I do need to applaud them as they took a shoot on a brand new IP and they also took a look at WWII that most people don't know or see (as the sabatour was actually based on real a person)Vault101 said:
Nowadays it is. It gets rather overshadowed by other RPGs of the time like Final Fantasy. Chrono Trigger, Zelda, Secret of Mana, Super Mario RPG, Breath of Fire and even Illusion of Gaia. Like every other game here, everyone that knows of it knows it's great, but it either never got the recognition it deserved, or got lost in the shuffle over time. Earthbound is the latter.Tax_Document said:
Quake Wars on the 360. I got it as a present a while ago, and didn't want to sell it or whatever because of that. The weirdest thing is that whenever I think "maybe someone will be playing this time" there's always at least one guy on. Nobody else, though. Doesn't even match us into a game.
