MagusSmurf

For me, there's an element of "which one do I dislike less?" there. I think they're both sorta bad. (I dislike Dragon Quest I too!) -Dragon Quest II is a lot more polished but still fundamentally has NES-era menus and the typical Dragon Quest lack of one-button-press interaction with the world so that doesn't take it as far as it could...but is still very worth noting when its opponent here is freaking FFII. -Dragon Quest II feels less special at this point. There are lots of old JRPGs with exploration and a boat. FFII feels like it has, if not necessarily uniqueness, then at least much more of a niche to fill with its weird stuff. -Dragon Quest II more than any other game in its franchise I've played likes to throw particularly aggravating random encounters at you. -The Cave to Rhone is grueling but can be figured out through trial and error and notekeeping and once you know exactly what to do you should have a reasonable chance at getting through it each attempt. The hours of grinding in Rhone afterward are a massive bore for me, though. I remember the worst parts of FFII not even being the stat-raising/lowering system everyone complains about. It's all the glitches and how unpolished everything is in ways I remember feeling much more consequential than they were in FFI.

The N64 might not have particularly many RPG and Strategy games but they do exist - including Japanese ones with no translation patch. Is playing the untranslated ones really a realistic ask here?

3 and 8 were the only ones I voted Dragon Quest on. Haven't played DQX, DQXI, or FFXI. Quite sure I'd be voting FFX and DQXI for those if I had played both choices though, I'm not an MMO guy.

Symphony of the Night's particular area design and balancing often means new areas you explore and even some bosses have zero difficulty and struggle to damage you even your first time through. Like, has the Death boss battle killed you? Do you even remember what he does in the fight? I'm no for both and I don't think the former is because I'm particularly good at the game. Fellow same-series Metroidvanias Aria of Sorrow, Dawn of Sorrow, Portrait of Ruin, and Order of Ecclesia heavily mitigate this big issue of SotN's while still having map exploration and RPG mechanics. I don't think Symphony of the Night is even a notably longer game than the latter three. Symphony of the Night is good and I appreciate its ambition for its time period and some of its weird quirks but I don't think it's as well put together of a game as the other four I mentioned. (It is better than Circle of the Moon and Harmony of Dissonance though) If anyone wants to make the case for why Symphony of the Night's actual gameplay and game design (as opposed to being nostalgic, influential, 10/10 voice acting, or whatever) is better than those latter games in its own series, I'm all ears.

Fantastic game but not the best in its series - that would be Trials & Tribulations.

I’ve played “hacks” of these games in the sense that I’ve beaten both 8-bit FE games with unofficial translation patches applied! But not substantial gameplay alterations like you’re talking about. Not a fan! The quality of life and interface issues are just too much for me. I’ll give Gaiden credit for how its quirks and oddities minimize a lot of the issues and I see it as the much better game as a result but in exchange it kinda doesn’t bother with actual map design. My biggest problem with the actual mechanics was probably the critical rate. Later games tended to have mechanics to let you mitigate enemy crit rates but I don’t think the first two have any of that. So going heavy on ranged attacks like you did sounds like a good approach. Good luck!

It’s kind of like Chrono Cross in that the audiovisuals are really great but the story and gameplay both go some overly weird places and have issues - here the story is the (comparably) normal if quirky part but the gameplay goes completely off the deep end into weird experimentation whereas In CC it’s the other way around. FFVIII has an actually good main character though in Squall. If you like Squall, he can probably carry you through the sometimes rocky beats of the plot (I ain’t gonna defend the orphanage thing) and a supporting cast that generally doesn’t fill their roles quite as well. I didn’t care for the battle system much but from all I’ve heard I did it wrong in my single playthrough. Apparently the better way to do is to play a decent amount of Triple Triad and then use your rewards from it to break the game to the extent you see fit? Cool card stuff certainly sounds better than spamming Draw Magic at any rate.

Mario has the deepest lore

4 > REmake > 2 > 3 > 0 ?> CV ?> 1 It's been a long time since I've played 0 and Code Veronica. Both have a lot of problems but I went with 0 over CV due to how much the latter likes to punish the player for no good reason if you're playing blind. 1 basically ended up at the end due to having no particularly cool mechanics or standout setpieces and being ridiculously dated in presentation and atmosphere but that might be a little unfair. It was the last of these I played (did the rest on Gamecube/Wii) and while it didn't come across as special compared to the better games, it still executed the formula competently and was at least largely not annoying - the latter of which I can't really say for 0 and CV. A replay of the latter two would probably not be kind to them.

Was anyone else planning to play the original Super Robot Wars (fixed typo) this year? ...Probably not. But if so, I WILL DENY YOU POINTS.

Beat Super Robot Wars. 4/10 As expected, real humble beginnings here. Nothing really glaringly unacceptable but not much is notably right either and the total package doesn't really make par. At only 13 stages the game's quite short for a Strategy RPG and doesn't outstay its welcome, which is a blessing.

Wario Land 4 is not a no-death game like 2 and 3 btw. Though it would probably be fair to say it's still way more about the exploration, Wario forms, and weird level gimmicks than the action gameplay. Probably my favorite Wario Land. But I haven't really played VBWL or Shake It. (Also, if Wario: Master of Disguise counts, that is the worst one I've gotten to)

It's a fun platformer with the typical Nintendo polish and lots of places to explore and things to find. They do an excellent job at conveying Wario's personality and vibe through the mechanics and gameplay. Also some pretty ridiculous but fitting music. But, while very fitting for Wario, I think Wario's plodding, brutish nature in this game has resulted in action gameplay not quite up to Mario's standard (well, when Mario himself is living up to it anyways) - there's just so much less flow to everything compared to run-and-jump. And while the levels are fine and have some neat secrets, there's not many that comes to mind as particularly great. While I don't think it's quite as good, I can see why they went the direction they did for Wario Land II. Was kinda conflicted but went with a very weak 8. Being Wario and smashing dudes' face and finding treasure is too fun and appealing to get too hung up on the shortcomings here.

The environments look nice but I think I prefer the style of the old character models.