The GHZ Forum

I have $20 I can spend on a game this month (college is awesome).

I was leaning towards getting Grandia on PSN, but I was considering getting one of these instead:

• Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection - mostly for Dynamite Heady, the Phantasy Star series, Fantasy Zone, Decap Attack, and the Shining Force series. I already have all the Sonic games, Flicky, Ristar, the Vectorman games, and Space Harrier arcade.
• Final Fantasy Tactics - I know guys who swear by this game. And just recently I walked in on one of them playing through it for about the nth time. He insisted it's not really that good of a game and I shouldn't bother. But you know, actions speak louder than words. I'm iffy on this because I've never played through a tactical RPG before.
• Final Fantasy VIII - I've been curious about this for a while, but I've heard different opinions on it from just about everyone.
• Beyond Good & Evil - I didn't care for the other games by Michel Ancel I've played (Rayman 2 and King Kong), but everyone seems to love this one. It's just hard to convince myself the pan won't be hot this time.
• Blaster Master Overdrive - I've never played Blaster Master before, but this game looks pretty sweet. WiiWare games don't tend to catch my attention too often.
• Excitebots - I've a bit of a racing game itch for a while and I can't get into these sim-racing games. This looks like it'd be fun and different. I think I'd rather save up for All-Star Racing though if I wanted to go the racing game route.

So, what do you guys think? Is Grandia the best out of these games? I really liked Grandia 2, with its linearity and all. I haven't played a good non-Mario RPG in a long time, so I think a series I'm somewhat familiar with would be a good way to get back into the genre. I'm pretty sure I'm getting Grandia, but I thought it might be interesting to hear what you all think about comparing apples and oranges.

I'm on spring break next week, so I thought I'd post this now between studying for mid-terms, sleep deprived and caffeinated. That way I can look at this on and off throughout the week, make a decision by the end of the week, and have something to do next week.

I bought Grandia when it came out on PSN, but haven't had much of a chance to play it. The beginning is really slow going with lots of fetch quests, but the combat is familiarly awesome. So far, it's only managed to make me for nostalgic for its sequel.

BG&E is neat, but I've always felt that it's clunky on multiple levels: controls, environment, combat, story. It took me a couple of tries to get into it and once I did the payoff didn't seem quite worth it. It's this close to being a great, emotionally engaging game, but, like Indigo Prophecy, ultimately fails.

Final Fantasy is, of course, overrated.

VIII is overrated? Trolololololol

Every single FF game is overrated.

everything i do not like is overrated

Anyway, don't you read the papers? "Everyone" hates VIII, that's the point I was making. I rather like it.

j-man wrote:VIII is overrated? Trolololololol

Aw flip, I've been looking for an excuse to post that vid since next millennium. Boo hiss.

If you've never played through an SRPG before, FFT is easily a cut above the rest you might try. Though honestly don't go into it for the story or difficulty. Alone its probably one of the easiest SPRG's to break, and storywise its the typical Matsuno fare with the whole Idealism vs. Realism in war etc.

When you compare Grandia to Grandia II its...meh. Like Senbei said, it just made me want to play Grandia II. Though honestly I could never finish either one of them so I can't offer too much input here.

While FF8 is pretty ridiculous sometimes, if you don't think too hard about it you might find yourself engrossed in a relatively decent RPG experience. I enjoyed it, though I haven't heard many people who think the same. If you haven't played through the original Phantasy Star series yet I'd recommend it as well. Though I'm pretty disappointed none of the SEGA Ages remakes made it over here so I haven't forced myself to play it in yonder, leaving my memory of the game pretty vague. Three was probably my favorite, but unfortunately you need to play the first two to understand the ending and forthcoming plot overall.

Senbei and Blank poop their diapers, then eat whatever of it they don't throw at passersby. Grandia 2 aspires to be Grandia 1 (and it isn't).

Segaholic2 wrote:Every single FF game is overrated.

Have you actually played every single FF game?

Green Gibbon! wrote:Have you actually played every single FF game?

I have actually attempted to start every single FF game at some point or another, minus 11. I have a very low tolerance for JRPGs in general, and I think the only FF game I've played to completion is 6. I quit about an hour into most other FF games. Because they suck.

I'll save the feces throwing until I at least finish the series thank you very much.

I've been building up holic syndrome lately though, as I've been leaning towards multiplayer games exclusively and haven't been motivated to finish any single-player games at all. The last RPG I wanted to finish was XenoGears, and I pretty much haven't touched that since completing that tedious Babel Tower segment.

I really wish that would be released on PSN by the way. I hear Japan already has it or something?

At a glance, I would go with Beyond Good & Evil. I'm actually still hoping that it'll show up as a downloadable / backwards compatible(?) Xbox game some time.

gr4yJ4Y wrote:

• Final Fantasy Tactics - I know guys who swear by this game. And just recently I walked in on one of them playing through it for about the nth time. He insisted it's not really that good of a game and I shouldn't bother. But you know, actions speak louder than words. I'm iffy on this because I've never played through a tactical RPG before.

Final fantasy tactics does have some significant flaws. The first hour is abnormally difficult and it's easy to make foolish character development mistakes halfway through the first chapter. The game has more trial and error they needs since you can't see what enemies are up against before starting a battle. And a defeated enemy will always take up the space they died on for three turns.

However it script, especially the PSP rerelease, is a step above its contemporaries on the PSX and it has the best class system from any final fantasy. an ability a character learns from one job and stay with that character into a new job. For example: Knights can learn how to destroy an enemy's armor or weapon that same character can become an archer and keep this ability or learn equip crossbows and take that skill back to the night job. (Or take both skills to another job like a black mage).

Green Gibbon! wrote:Senbei and Blank poop their diapers, then eat whatever of it they don't throw at passersby.

I literally saw a toddler do this once. And he went back for seconds.

j-man wrote:Anyway, don't you read the papers? "Everyone" hates VIII, that's the point I was making. I rather like it.

Yes! I agree with this. I'm a big fan of VIII, it gets a lot of unwarranted hate. My favorites are Tactics, XII, and VIII in roughly that order.

I'd say VI and VII are the really overrated games in the series.


Grandia is also a lot of fun. The Sega Genesis Collection is great if you haven't played any of the Phantasy Stars yet, and I will forever contend that Phantasy Star IV is the equal or better of any SNES RPG you care to name (yes, even Chrono Trigger).

Basically, you've got a lot of great options. Just pick something and go with it. That Genesis Collection will probably net you the most bang for your buck, though.

I recently bought the original Tactics, black label and everything. I'm eager to try it out, but rather annoyed that my PS2 seems to get hung up on reading it - I swear it sounds like it's friggin' record-scratching the thing, and some of the "Now Loading" screens never actually end. I don't know if it's the disc's fault of the PS2's... the console itself read Crash 2 just fine, but was similarly hung up on the first Spyro title. Inconsistent!

Is it a Slim or Fat PS2? I have a black label copy of the game and a Slim, I'll try to load it up later when I have the chance. Wish I knew offhand if there were any well-known issues, but I've only played the game on PSX and PSP.

Fat. It was a used PS2, if it means shit.

I'm about 10 hours into Grandia now. I'm surprised how much more emphasis is on the story and walking around towns than the combat.

There have been a few parts where I got the unique sensation of feeling like I was experiencing what the characters are experiencing, and not just fear, depression, aggression, or adrenaline. That's something I haven't gotten out of a game in a long time (or too many books or movies for that matter). I can feel the part of my brain, that had long given up on video games being a viable form of unique story telling, being active again. I mean the game doesn't rely on you playing a section and then showing a couple minute movie, like most of the stuff I've been playing in the last few years. There's towns and junk. I probably should have gone back to RPGs a long time ago.

# Excitebots - I've a bit of a racing game itch for a while and I can't get into these sim-racing games. This looks like it'd be fun and different. I think I'd rather save up for All-Star Racing though if I wanted to go the racing game route.

Get Excite Bots. Trust me, any other racing game pales in comparison. Having played both, ASR might have more recognizable characters, but doesn't have the creativity and brilliance Excitebots has.

I want Resonance of Fate but Gamefly isn't sending it to me. T__T

Take everything else off your list, they'll have no choice in the matter.

I know how to game Gamefly, but sometimes even that doesn't help if their stock is low. Anyway it doesn't matter because it got shipped out today. ^__^

You need to stop using emoticons, it's freaking me out.

Delphine wrote:You need to stop using emoticons, it's freaking me out.

He's been murdered and his identity assumed by a con man for appearances. No wonder "he's" been so active of late.

It's an AI. We're still working the kinks out of the "unconditional hate" algorithm.