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.

I don't really care for the formula at this point and this doesn't have much going for it to change that. Really feels like "just another Pokemon game." As is well known, the level curve falls off a cliff when you hit Kanto. The removal of Missingno. (as it was, anyways) might have been basically inevitable but it's still quite a shame. The rival isn't as fun as Blue and the game doesn't really have much else to make this particular region stand out as worth caring about. They really went out of the way to make getting a lot of Pokemon annoying. Chasing the legendary dogs, how late the RBY evolution stones become available, trying to get a Heracross out of a damn tree, expanding on the (already bad) idea of trade evolution with held item trade evolution (many of which are also only available really late), happiness evolution, those super-rare pokemon that you needed to add particular trainers to your phone to viably run into...so much bad stuff. RBY's only comparably painful pokemon issues were trade evolutions (there were only 4 of them and Haunter and especially Kadabra REALLY don't need a boost) and the Safari Zone (and you can remedy the latter with a glitch to make those ones normally catchable). Also baby Pokemon really didn't need to even exist. And nobody sane is ever going to use, like, Delibird or Unown for anything. RBY had Ditto I guess? Effectively doubling down on Ditto tier Pokemon was not a good idea though! I have complaints about the availability vs. usefulness of some of the not-totally-worthless stuff here too, though I'm not sure RBY would hold up much better. Pokemon like Murkrow probably didn't need to get held off all the way until Kanto. Despite the issues, this game is, like, fine? I enjoyed it back in the day. It's just we're not back in the day at this point. It's more a good time sink than a genuinely great game and the options for what games to play on the go have vastly expanded since 2000.

Alex Kidd in Shinobi World 6 The game’s fun but it’s so short that it feels totally insubstantial. It’s not particularly hard or unique either. They almost had a cool thing going here but didn’t quite get there. That last sentence is probably about how I’d sum up the Master System in general, really.

don bluth more dun goofed

Even if it's a little janky I like how this game predating Final Fight let it have more of its own distinct feel. It's also really short and easy, and yeah that does limit it a bit. But I do appreciate this game for being simple enough to complete than it's one of the few beat-em-ups I can 1CC. It's still not better than the Streets of Rage games or Hyperstone Heist, though.

how could they fail to recognize the power glove scene as an all-time iconic film moment

this game is worse than Mario is Missing. ban this sick filth #justiceformarioteachestyping

I thought it was was kinda okay for one playthrough but there are serious problems and were it not for the famous series it's in, few would remember or care at this point. The combat is generally at least decent but there are a number of pain points detracting from that. Can't skip the story your first time through, said unskippable story is fairly bad and does bad things with a gaming icon, those "pixel hunt" investigation sequences, the slow forced walking sections, the forced linearity. I'll give it this: I had more fun with it than I did Metroid Prime Hunter's singleplayer. So there's that.

Maybe Silent Bomber on PS1? But the price for the disc by itself is almost up to $100 so I guess collectors, at least, have probably figured that one's quality out. You're not generally gonna run into a lot of people who've played Ys IV: Dawn of Ys but that's just because they mostly speak Japanese and are on Japanese sites. It's not truly obscure. It's in a pretty niche genre in the west but most of the people asking for something like The House of Fata Morgana are probably going to get recommended it pretty quickly at this point so it's not really hidden. Also...*Checks.* Yeah, has a 96 on Metacritic landing it on the top 50 there. Quality games with official console releases may not be very popular but I think they seldom really stay hidden. People care too much about tracking down the best stuff for their most cherished consoles. It's probably more indie or small time PC games that get forgotten. Uh. Have people here played or at least heard of Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden? It's maybe the best < 10 hour RPG you'll ever play (that's not Undertale). If not, I guess it's that.

Came with my PS3, became the only game I've ever sold out of complete disinterest.

I swear eternal vengeance upon your entire family.