As a competitive Splatoon player we are not playing with a joycon mouse lmao
Maybe Mario Maker
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Media Videogame Thread
- Thread starter Bummer
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Maybe Mario Maker
I don't get how that would work exactly, would it just be more accurate motion controls? I imagine it would be quite akward to hold them against a flat surface at all times though
While im excited for Switch 2, i think for this run I'ma wait until they start dropping games that only play on 2/ them doing the "OLED model" after energy to get ppl to bite to pay again
my OG switch is still running beautifully even as i take it to work for years thru winter and summer months (live in new york so we get a far to strong scope of both) - not to mention finally getting my ps5 last year and enjoying that.
Once a new Pokemon is announced (if the financial do their thing) thats when ill get it lol. Kinda like me getting my xbox for Elden Ring (i know its on ps5 too, but we talking fresh drop, covid times, people paid 3 times what i did for my ps5 back then) or PS5 for FF7 Remakes lol.
I still got FF 12 (played younger but didnt get to beat cus gf lol)-modern, probably wont do the online ones again as much as i loved FF11 as a kid.... i dont like waiting for/relying on others if i wanna game.
edit* that cutscene in Metaphor: ReFantazio happens "The dawn of a new king draws nearer" be feeling mad ominious even if the last moment you had with a party member/follower was nice/feel accomplished off a quest or dungeon etc lol
my OG switch is still running beautifully even as i take it to work for years thru winter and summer months (live in new york so we get a far to strong scope of both) - not to mention finally getting my ps5 last year and enjoying that.
Once a new Pokemon is announced (if the financial do their thing) thats when ill get it lol. Kinda like me getting my xbox for Elden Ring (i know its on ps5 too, but we talking fresh drop, covid times, people paid 3 times what i did for my ps5 back then) or PS5 for FF7 Remakes lol.
I still got FF 12 (played younger but didnt get to beat cus gf lol)-modern, probably wont do the online ones again as much as i loved FF11 as a kid.... i dont like waiting for/relying on others if i wanna game.
edit* that cutscene in Metaphor: ReFantazio happens "The dawn of a new king draws nearer" be feeling mad ominious even if the last moment you had with a party member/follower was nice/feel accomplished off a quest or dungeon etc lol
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Switch 2 is like the only option I think they could have gone for as a name. The disaster of the Wii -> Wii U transition turning a runaway success into a total failure is absolutely haunting their minds. The name being so unclear I didn’t even know it was a new console for E3 2011 was a big contributing factor to that big face forward flop. A cute name like “Switch Up” or something would have caused confusion among the stampede of mostly unaware parents. You’ve got to lop this stuff super simple; make it so Timmy can say “It’s on Switch 2!” And there’s no ambiguity for mom whether this older console can run this new Breath of The Wild 3: Breathe Harder for Switch 2.
I still don't think this is true at all. I think the console just sucked.
If the console was good it'd have spread through word of mouth with people actually playing it, meanwhile owners even by launch when it was actually fairly successful (the launch wasn't bad sales wise!) were like "This shit is crashing on me" "Day 1 hour long update for it not to run terribly" "I beat the 1 Mario game and now I have nothing to play"
Meanwhile, Xbox isn't doing so hot but the naming scheme beyond the 360 is so dogshit and they're still selling multiple times more than the Wii U, despite being actual direct competition to a significantly better, way more comparable product.
I agree with this, but tbh I'm fine with it. I just want a good console, regardless of if it's 100% fool-proof.
If they were to use a unique name, I think another name like Switch would be nice. Swap, Snap, Connect, I dunno.
paired consoles called the nintendo dom and the nintendo sub
I did in fact read that with my own two eyes.
I think you should move to Tumblr, Ashley. If I saw this in my Tumblr feed, I wouldn't bat an eye.
Man I made this bingo board as a joke a few years ago, I cannot BELIEVE I actually get to put a mark on it
Seriously tho Sutte Hakkun is awesome, I posted a review for it in this very thread a few years ago if you wanna learn more, go play it and experience a REAL Nintendo deep cut hidden gem
i plan to play Final Fantasy 16 after Metaphor: ReFantazio and i dont hear much people speaking highly on it but I am also someone who has FF8 in my top 3 lol.
All that chatter aside I just been behind and like awhile back bouncing back from life doldrums and playing all the pokemon games i've missed i'm doing that with Final Fantasy as well.
Still got (to finish 12)13-up [no 14 plans, i played 11 - loved it, made some legit life friends but too time consuming and anyone who plays mmos even if you wanna avoid drama/mr or ms zen - theres drama lol, especially end game realm groups]
All that chatter aside I just been behind and like awhile back bouncing back from life doldrums and playing all the pokemon games i've missed i'm doing that with Final Fantasy as well.
Still got (to finish 12)13-up [no 14 plans, i played 11 - loved it, made some legit life friends but too time consuming and anyone who plays mmos even if you wanna avoid drama/mr or ms zen - theres drama lol, especially end game realm groups]
Hey guys, new smogon user here. Lately in life I've been trying to cut back on activities I find to waste my time. So I've deleted Youtube and Insta off my phone to help limit my scrolling, but along with that I've been avoiding playing games that are mind numbing such as CoD and trying to focus on playing through single player experience games. I figured that since I'm on this site semi frequently I can post about the games I've been playing and "rate" them in a sense, to make the experience of playing them more fun.
Chrono Trigger
Rating: S
First game I finished since having this resolution was Chrono Trigger. I am someone that refuses to emulate games. Not for any moral reasons or anything, it's just that I personally love the feeling of sitting down on the couch and playing on a CRT. So because of this, Chrono Trigger has passed by me for a while due to high prices. I was unaware that it was ever ported to the PSX, and happened to stumble upon such a copy at a Half Price Books store. Now there isn't much I can say about this game that most people probably haven't heard before, but I'll try my best haha. I had heard good things regarding this game, but I didn't know anything about it going in. I was admittedly surprised by just how good it was. For starters, I really enjoyed a lot of the writing surrounding the characters, especially in regards to the Frog. I'm a sucker for a good redemption story, and his along with the paying respects to his friend really got me. The moment when you are forced into saving Lucca's mom caught me so off guard and left my heart racing after nearly failing. The story in of itself was interesting, and as a history buff I thoroughly enjoyed seeing a nation through the ages. I felt that combat was fun, and not overbearingly hard. My biggest gripe with the game really just comes from the fact that healing items are so cheap and easy to buy throughout the entirety of the game. With 12 different endings and multiple ways to approach fights with the amount of party members and skills, I'm tempted to immediately replay this game.
I'm not a professional writer by any means so I apologize if anything is hard to follow or if I could have gone more in depth. With my ratings I have decided to go by a letter scale as it allows me to be more flexible and not stress over arbitrary things that determine a number rating. Anyways, until next time. Peace
Chrono Trigger
Rating: S
First game I finished since having this resolution was Chrono Trigger. I am someone that refuses to emulate games. Not for any moral reasons or anything, it's just that I personally love the feeling of sitting down on the couch and playing on a CRT. So because of this, Chrono Trigger has passed by me for a while due to high prices. I was unaware that it was ever ported to the PSX, and happened to stumble upon such a copy at a Half Price Books store. Now there isn't much I can say about this game that most people probably haven't heard before, but I'll try my best haha. I had heard good things regarding this game, but I didn't know anything about it going in. I was admittedly surprised by just how good it was. For starters, I really enjoyed a lot of the writing surrounding the characters, especially in regards to the Frog. I'm a sucker for a good redemption story, and his along with the paying respects to his friend really got me. The moment when you are forced into saving Lucca's mom caught me so off guard and left my heart racing after nearly failing. The story in of itself was interesting, and as a history buff I thoroughly enjoyed seeing a nation through the ages. I felt that combat was fun, and not overbearingly hard. My biggest gripe with the game really just comes from the fact that healing items are so cheap and easy to buy throughout the entirety of the game. With 12 different endings and multiple ways to approach fights with the amount of party members and skills, I'm tempted to immediately replay this game.
I'm not a professional writer by any means so I apologize if anything is hard to follow or if I could have gone more in depth. With my ratings I have decided to go by a letter scale as it allows me to be more flexible and not stress over arbitrary things that determine a number rating. Anyways, until next time. Peace
I decided to take a day and play return of the obra dinn. This game has been talked up by a lot of people I am acquainted with so I had really high expectations and I had been looking forward to playing for a while. Overall the game felt like a tremendous disappointment. I would like to think of myself as an experienced puzzle gamer but maybe I'm not an expert enough. I went through the game in several states:
1) what the hell is going on. How do I get to the gameplay. Why can't I get the box from this rower guy
2) wow, this time investigation mechanic is REALLY cool. Solving these cases is really fun (lasted about 20 minutes)
3) ok so I'm semi-stuck. I know the game told me to make assumptions about people. I guess I can try that for 10 minutes. Hmm...how do I find the next corpse to investigate? Ok, fine, I will check a spoiler free guide. In fact I'm pretty sure I'm doing everything wrong, so let me look up a "how to play" guide
4) ok, I was doing things right, I just didn't look out the window to find the next corpse. Wow, investigating corpses is fun. I will do this for two hours.
5) wait, I'm at the end of the game? Ok, I really want to solve some more cases. Let me investigate. I will scavenge for as much information as I can. Boy, is it REALLY ANNOYING to find my old memories to go watch again. If only the game let me stay in each memory as long as I wanted until moving on to the next one, I would have gotten some of this information
6) I'm completely stumped. All the spoiler free guides expected me to solve the puzzles in a different order. I'm certain I have these crew members right but the game isn't clearing my progression. Ok, I will resort to a full guide but only for this one sailor.
7) the game considers "crushed by beast tail" and "stabbed by beast" different fates????? F this, I'm manually entering everything from the guide.
There was a game here where I was having fun. The problem was it was lampshaded by extremely frustrating puzzles that I would simply have NEVER fixed without external help. In my age, I've grown incredibly inpatient with games. My issue with situations like this, is that in my head, I did everything right. I don't want to second guess everything I did in the game to try and 'fix'what the game considers a mistake. But when I look at a guide, I don't feel vindicated or relieved. I feel STUPID. I feel stupid that I had to look up something that other people probably figured out on their own.
This is like the 'metroid moments' that you might experience in fusion or zero mission. Arbitrary gates where you have no other option than to brute force everything you can. In fact the game tells you that this may have to happen at some points. But IF you are going to design your game like this...there's a real issue in how some of the memories you can access are placed 3 layers deep inside OTHER memories. Why can I not replay any memory I want once I've seen it? I would love to do this 'the right way' and study everything. But I'm too impatient to slowly walk to the SINGLE memory that gates the others then go through each of them, just on the off CHANCE I missed something.
Why does the game, inside a memory, decide when I looked at everything deemed important? If I'm supposed to note EVERYTHING, then let me stay in a memory until I'm done looking at EVERYTHING! I want to hunt for clues! And on the flip side, if there is only one thing to see in a memory with only one person in it, why are you arbitrarily making me wait 30 seconds for the music to end before exiting? Now I have constant anxiety every time I enter a memory, did I look at everything? Did I properly trigger the next phase?
This all feels like the developer didn't want this to feel like a "video game" and deliberately excluded a tutorial or button prompts for the sake of immersion. There is an idea here that is fun (solving each death). But the mechanics surrounding this idea...are NOT fun! And they easily could have been. I would have been much more likely to stick with this with these tweaks. And they couldn't even be put in an update, 5 years later?
This is a game that I got recommended to me by people who stream games. And I think this game actually gets better with an audience. Enough to bounce ideas off of without getting too far down the rabbit hole. Guides are COMPLETELY worthless. They come in three flavors: 1) follow everything the author does to a T and you are rewarded with the steps to solve everything spoiler free, but then are you really playing? 2) 100% spoilers of everything; a useful tool but not for a gaming purist 3) a series of "hints" on where to find information. Hmm, you don't say, I need to look around this scene to find the information I'm looking for? I've been looking for five minutes, I need a targeted hint just for me that doesn't give it away but can tell me "hotter" or "colder"
All that this has done is manage to piss me off. I see people say they wish they could forget this game so theycould play it for the first time again. I'm the opposite, I'm almost eager to play it AGAIN so I can bypass the stupid stuff and concentrate on enjoying things, because I've already forgotten 80% of the character's names and fates because they managed to make such little impact on me. Serves me right for 100%ing the game first try...it never works out.
1) what the hell is going on. How do I get to the gameplay. Why can't I get the box from this rower guy
2) wow, this time investigation mechanic is REALLY cool. Solving these cases is really fun (lasted about 20 minutes)
3) ok so I'm semi-stuck. I know the game told me to make assumptions about people. I guess I can try that for 10 minutes. Hmm...how do I find the next corpse to investigate? Ok, fine, I will check a spoiler free guide. In fact I'm pretty sure I'm doing everything wrong, so let me look up a "how to play" guide
4) ok, I was doing things right, I just didn't look out the window to find the next corpse. Wow, investigating corpses is fun. I will do this for two hours.
5) wait, I'm at the end of the game? Ok, I really want to solve some more cases. Let me investigate. I will scavenge for as much information as I can. Boy, is it REALLY ANNOYING to find my old memories to go watch again. If only the game let me stay in each memory as long as I wanted until moving on to the next one, I would have gotten some of this information
6) I'm completely stumped. All the spoiler free guides expected me to solve the puzzles in a different order. I'm certain I have these crew members right but the game isn't clearing my progression. Ok, I will resort to a full guide but only for this one sailor.
7) the game considers "crushed by beast tail" and "stabbed by beast" different fates????? F this, I'm manually entering everything from the guide.
There was a game here where I was having fun. The problem was it was lampshaded by extremely frustrating puzzles that I would simply have NEVER fixed without external help. In my age, I've grown incredibly inpatient with games. My issue with situations like this, is that in my head, I did everything right. I don't want to second guess everything I did in the game to try and 'fix'what the game considers a mistake. But when I look at a guide, I don't feel vindicated or relieved. I feel STUPID. I feel stupid that I had to look up something that other people probably figured out on their own.
This is like the 'metroid moments' that you might experience in fusion or zero mission. Arbitrary gates where you have no other option than to brute force everything you can. In fact the game tells you that this may have to happen at some points. But IF you are going to design your game like this...there's a real issue in how some of the memories you can access are placed 3 layers deep inside OTHER memories. Why can I not replay any memory I want once I've seen it? I would love to do this 'the right way' and study everything. But I'm too impatient to slowly walk to the SINGLE memory that gates the others then go through each of them, just on the off CHANCE I missed something.
Why does the game, inside a memory, decide when I looked at everything deemed important? If I'm supposed to note EVERYTHING, then let me stay in a memory until I'm done looking at EVERYTHING! I want to hunt for clues! And on the flip side, if there is only one thing to see in a memory with only one person in it, why are you arbitrarily making me wait 30 seconds for the music to end before exiting? Now I have constant anxiety every time I enter a memory, did I look at everything? Did I properly trigger the next phase?
This all feels like the developer didn't want this to feel like a "video game" and deliberately excluded a tutorial or button prompts for the sake of immersion. There is an idea here that is fun (solving each death). But the mechanics surrounding this idea...are NOT fun! And they easily could have been. I would have been much more likely to stick with this with these tweaks. And they couldn't even be put in an update, 5 years later?
This is a game that I got recommended to me by people who stream games. And I think this game actually gets better with an audience. Enough to bounce ideas off of without getting too far down the rabbit hole. Guides are COMPLETELY worthless. They come in three flavors: 1) follow everything the author does to a T and you are rewarded with the steps to solve everything spoiler free, but then are you really playing? 2) 100% spoilers of everything; a useful tool but not for a gaming purist 3) a series of "hints" on where to find information. Hmm, you don't say, I need to look around this scene to find the information I'm looking for? I've been looking for five minutes, I need a targeted hint just for me that doesn't give it away but can tell me "hotter" or "colder"
All that this has done is manage to piss me off. I see people say they wish they could forget this game so theycould play it for the first time again. I'm the opposite, I'm almost eager to play it AGAIN so I can bypass the stupid stuff and concentrate on enjoying things, because I've already forgotten 80% of the character's names and fates because they managed to make such little impact on me. Serves me right for 100%ing the game first try...it never works out.
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Final Fantasy XVI is not bad, I wish it was a bit more challenging. It really does have an interesting and captivating story that will keep you interested. I do long for a turn based, or even a more turn based style of Final Fantasy once again. The action RPG combat system is not bad by any means, however. It is a game that will lure you in from the very beginning.
Honestly think Mario Kart is one of the best go-to for co-op. I hadn't played a Mario Kart game until Mario Kart 7, so I don't have as much nostalgia attached, but I do love it!
My favorites right now would probably be either Stardew Valley or Borderlands (2). Have played those games for YEARS and I'm still never tired of em, solo or co-op
Lots of Jackbox, the GP Team is very well aware of this
When we get together irl we pretty much always play a round of Mario Party (usually 6 or 7, think we tried 5 once too). Interestingly, since everyone except me in that group is a big Jojo fan and I'm conversely the group's Retro Nerd, the Jojo's Bizarre Adventure fighting game on Dreamcast with all its total bullshit balancing has also been somewhat popular with my group.
Kirby Air Ride's City Trial was probably the ultimate couch multiplayer game for my childhood, and it's still one of my absolute favorites. Mario Kart Wii and 7 were what I played religiously as a pre-teen/young teen lol (Mario Kart Wii is one of my Top 10 favorite games ever and is possibly the console game I've played the most). Also played a fair amount of Gen 4/5 Pokemon, Melee, Civilization V, and Mario Strikers Charged (I was not good at any of these lol). Pokemon Showdown was also a huge part of both my adolescence and my college years, don't play as much these days though. I also play Yu-Gi-Oh (specifically Master Duel) on and off, the meta is awful rn though so I haven't played in a while.
I will also note that Power Stone 2 is easily one of my favorite multiplayer experiences, but it also pure chaos so it's hard to get my friends into it lol
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And hey, while I'm here on this thread, I went retro game shopping about a week ago, my first trip since Black Friday! Here are the spoils
Kingdom Hearts of Chain of Memories was like 20 bucks so I was like "eh, might as well." I've never played a Kingdom Hearts game before, and I still need to dump the save files on this cartridge before I start a new game, but hey, love me "interesting" games on portable handhelds. This game seems to be a bit divisive, but it seems to be regarded as better than its remakes/ports. Most importantly, much of the games staff went on to develop The World Ends With You on DS, which is quite possibly my favorite game ever made??? So yeah, would definitely want to play the game that laid the groundwork for TWEWY lol.
Hyper Zone is a very early and somewhat obscure SNES game made by HAL. It's basically a rail shooter in the vein of Space Harrier, but since it's on SNES is looks closer to something like F-Zero. It's simple and not particularly amazing, but I've been wanting to grab another game that was really cheap, fun enough, and very easy to pick up and play (when you boot this game up your options are to either start the game or toggle the controls between normal and inverted). This game was sitting on the cheaper SNES games shelf for the last few trips I've made to this store and I kept passing on it, figure now it's a good time to bring it home.
Also, if the name sounds oddly familiar despite you never having heard of the game itself, it's because this (and by extension this) is a reference to it.
(yes i am still planning on doing a post for all my 2024 games but i've been busy and jesus christ i have so much i wanna say about them)
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As much as I love Metaphor: Refantazio as i play through it i can't tell you how many times I enjoy the chill days (in game) building bonds/sidequests/etc.... but somehow it ALWAYS FALLS I hit the deep dive dungeons on my work stint. 
dont get me wrong i enjoy the dungeons but as a kid telling ya mom "Let my find a save spot first!" is one thing. --- someone paying day to day bills "lemme find a save spot" in an older realm is a task.
i really need to find a way to time these better lmao.
dont get me wrong i enjoy the dungeons but as a kid telling ya mom "Let my find a save spot first!" is one thing. --- someone paying day to day bills "lemme find a save spot" in an older realm is a task.
i really need to find a way to time these better lmao.
Recently started an Ironman run of Fire Emblem Engage. For those of you who don't know, an Ironman run is when you can't reset if one of your party dies, if Alear (or another vital character) is killed that's Game Over, you have to delete your file and start again. I think (not 100% sure) but Iron Man runs also forbid grinding, so I'm following that rule and avoiding skirmishes. So far I've lost Clanne, Alfred, Boucheron and Etie. Anna was killed before I had a chance to talk to her (wasn't going to use her anyway so no biggie). Just finished Chapter 8, have reclassed Jean as an Axe Fighter (he's going to be a Wyvern Knight) and promoted Alear to a Griffon Knight (after chapter 22 he's going back to his main class). This is my first ever attempt to Ironman a Fire Emblem game, enjoying it so far, although dreading the Leif paralogue and Chapter 22.
I do plan to play through all the Fire Emblem games at some point, starting with Shadow Dragon. I can't read Japanese though, so will need to go for fan translations. Anyone know any good ones?
I do plan to play through all the Fire Emblem games at some point, starting with Shadow Dragon. I can't read Japanese though, so will need to go for fan translations. Anyone know any good ones?
I wouldn't worry about skirmishes being grinding if you're playing on Maddening. You get like two spawns ever, and they're a real risk if you're low enough level to be getting good exp. On lower difficulties, yeah they probably count.
I'm currently working through (non-ironman) runs where I can only use one unit type (and units mandatory on a given map, Alear needs to reclass to fit ASAP). Cavalry's almost done, Flyer's at Chapter 19, just started Armoured.
Nice! Wonder if General Alear is any good??
A preamble on the Sega Genesis (to give some context on the upcoming Sega Genesis reviews I've got cooking up)
The Sega Genesis is a really underrated system, which sucks since it ends up getting easily buried in greater gaming discourse, but it results in the Genesis being IMO the best retro system to collect for when it comes to price vs game quality. All of the "really desirable games that didn't sell millions of copies" are in that somewhat reasonable $45-70 range, any Sega published game outside that group (of which there are a LOT) is like $10-30, and there's maybe 10 games that go for $100+ (all of which you can live without) while the SNES has like 60 of them (which includes Lufia 2, Chrono Trigger, Earthbound, and every Mega Man besides X1).
The Genesis was very much a console in the right place at the right time. With arcades still booming, the Genesis tried to focus more on bringing the Arcade experience home, a philosophy that also reflected in the kinds of games on the system. While the SNES focused more on making more expansive and content-rich games, which obviously aged better consider how gaming tastes have developed since then, the Genesis was the cheaper console that focused on shorter games that were much flashier, intense, and often harder; many of the killer apps on the Genesis don't even have unlimited continues, let alone a save system.
Sure, the SNES was the stronger system in most aspects: Colors, music that used samples, and complex graphical effects possible through Mode 7, but the Genesis had a much faster processor, hence the slogan "Blast Processing". This actually worked well to the Genesis ideologies: They want fast, hard, and flashy games, and a fast processor that minimizes slowdown is extremely helpful to have. A prime example of the Genesis's advantage can be seen in Shmups. The limited scope of these games already makes them a poor fit for the types of games that fit the SNES ideologies, but then you combine it with a much slower processor that resulted in far slower and laggier gameplay. Meanwhile, Shmups absolutely flourished on the Genesis. Similar stuff happened with Run n Guns and arguably even sports games. Hell, even the Genesis sound chip fit into this ideology. It was far less intuitive than the SNES's, but when used properly, it could actually do rock and electronic music a lot better than the SNES; genres that, surprise surprise, go really well with intense action games.
Conversely, while the SNES is considered one of the greatest systems ever made for RPGs, the genre just did not fit the style of game and audience the Genesis was looking for. This meant that the Genesis actually floundered in Japan while the SNES got new games as late as 2000, years after anyone in the West cared. Combine these factors together, and pretty much every RPG on the Genesis and Sega CD got localized for the US; while the SNES has a laundry list of JP-only RPGs (most of which came out in 1995 or later), the only really noteworthy ones we missed on Genesis were Langrisser 2, Rent a Hero, and Monster World IV (which actually got an official localization by Sega in 2012 lol). Hell, many of the RPGs on the Genesis were published or developed by Sega themselves, and even the SRPGs like the Shining Force games and Warsong (Langrisser 1) got localized, a genre that was pretty much absent from any console in the West until Final Fantasy Tactics.
But the question is...were these games any good? The Genesis doesn't have the wide colors or graphical effects that allow for the stunning look of most SNES RPGs. Their sound chip doesn't really work well for the orchestral sounds found in most SNES RPGs. And Sega's gameplay philosophy don't really align with games that are long, expansive, and story-heavy. How can Sega even make an RPG that competes with the SNES, especially one without action elements?
It's simple, you don't. Sega made an RPG that played to their strengths.
Phantasy Star IV (1993 / 1995)
Developer / Publisher: Sega
System: Genesis. Lotsa ports but most of modern system ports got delisted (it's on NSO Expansion tho). I'm playing on an original Genesis cart
Completion Notes: P sure I did every sidequest. Didn't play the other Phantasy Star games (you don't need to but there are some references to past games throughout)
Immediately upon booting up Phantasy Star IV, before even the Sega logo finishes fadeing in, it becomes clear that this game is gonna be...different from your typical 16-bit RPG.
Almost every 16-bit RPG begins with an orchestral piece, either a calm and beautiful orchestral piece to set the mood right, something more sweeping and epic to impress upon you the epic scale of the journey you are about to embark upon, or even sometimes both. Sure, plenty of Genesis games try to compete and do very admirable jobs but...come on, stay in your lane, you're not outdoing the Chrono Trigger or Final Fantasy VI openings lol.
So instead, when you boot up Phantasy Star IV, the game hits you with THIS.
Phantasy Star IV has a bit of an odd reputation. It seems to be hailed as one of the greatest games ever made, and a game that could apparently "compete alongside the best the SNES had to offer." And yet, it's not a game that really gets discussed much in RPG discourse, even Shining Force 2 gets a lot more attention. I think, more importantly, I've never really gotten a good explanation as to why Phantasy Star IV is good. The general impression I've gotten is that it was a cleanly executed JRPG with a strong scope that happened to be on Genesis (a system not known for RPGs), therefore, it is one of the all-time greats ("It's Final Fantasy for the Genesis!!!!"). God knows, the SNES has plenty of those kinds of games, but you don't see Lufia II or even Super Mario RPG on Wikipedia's greatest games ever list.
Having played it myself, while I wouldn't call Phantasy Star IV a masterpiece...I do think it is very, very good, and definitely a game that is worth checking out as a nice, A-tier 16-bit RPG (if S-tier is considered to include the likes of Final Fantasy VI).
If I can pinpoint the main thing that makes Phantasy Star IV standout, it's the INCREDIBLE pacing. Sega Genesis games were excellent at this stuff and holy SHIT does Phantasy Star IV do a great job of maintaining momentum. The game starts right away, you're right in the first town, introduced to the main leads Alys and Chaz, who both have some fun personality, you're told about a mysterious monster outbreak, you recruit a new party member, and then within the first 5-10 min you're off into the first dungeon. Within my first 45-60 minute playsession, I had recruited another party member, gone through two more dungeons (including a couple boss fights), visited four more towns, and a few story-only locations. Compare this to Final Fantasy VI; as incredible as the start of the game is, that equivalent amount of time is spent entirely in Narshe. It's not really a matter one game being better than the other, it's moreso that Phantasy Star IV is a refreshing change of pace.
This pacing keeps going throughout the whole game. Dungeons are mazes and endurance tests (more on that later), but they're still pretty short. There's a good number of optional dungeons that are sprinkled throughout the entire playthrough on top of sidequests that get unlocked as you explore the world. So if you do need a quick distraction from the story, they're there for you, which is honestly a nice change of pace from Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy VI that have great sidequests (especially FFVI), but they're mostly relegated to endgame material that impact the ending. In PSIV, you just waltz into a bird cave you found for shits and giggles, find a cool piece of equipment that you'll use for the next hour or two, and then be on your way.
Battles also move incredibly fast thanks to quick but effective animations, and the Macro system which lets you automatically run through your character's actions from a preset you made outside of battle, drastically cutting down time needed for decision making. Menu movement and text is instantaneous too, maybe even a little too fast since I often skip over things lol, and there's very little pausing during battles from text boxes, animations, waiting for the run action to resolve, etc etc. I've timed some of my battles, I think the average random encounter in this game takes like 20 seconds from loading on the overworld to returning to the overworld.
Oh yeah, you can actually run from battles fairly easily, which is a big accomplishment considering the run button never fucking worked in Earthbound and takes 9 million years to finish in Final Fantasy VI. Phantasy Star IV gets rather tough as it goes on, not to the point where you need to grind (as long as you're like me and don't consider "backing out of a dungeon when you nab a bunch of items or if you need to heal before returning to fight the boss" grinding), but those dungeons and boss fights can get very stressful, being filled with late-game bosses or enemies capable of 2 or 3 shotting your entire party.
Now, in most JRPGs, bosses with strong attacks aren't really a big deal on their own. But in a move that seems annoying on paper but is actually really smart in practice, PSIV has pretty much no way to recover magic (outside of inns) and your inventory space is pretty tight, only holding about 48 items including Key Items. In fact, revive items and full healing items in general are hard to come by. You get them dotted through the dungeons, but you can only buy them in the final third of the game, and even then, a single one costs about as much as a piece of mid/late-game equipment (I didn't even know there was a store lol, I was just working off of the items I found on the field). As a result, you can't mindlessly mash your way through dungeons or bosses, you have to be mindful of the resources you're working with if you want to survive. This actually makes the run button a strategic decision: Do I trust my ability to cleanly finish this fight? Or should I run away because even if I survive, I will exhaust too many resources? You need to fight some amount of battles after all, you need that EXP for bosses!
I will note that at the end of the day, PSIV is actually a very simple JRPG. There's pretty much no unique mechanics, it's just your usual attacks and spell slinging. There are special attacks, but they basically operate as limited use "magic-like" attacks (similar to the PP system in Pokemon). There's also an equivalent to Chrono Trigger's Dual and Triple Techs, but they're very finicky to trigger and honestly not all that necessary to beating the game. But this also means that, again, there's really not much you can do to trivialize the game. Yeah, being overpowered is fun and all, but I sometimes wonder if Chrono Trigger would be better if the solution to the entire second half of the game wasn't to spam Gold Stud Luminaire and whatever AoE magic I had on my characters. The final boss has 23,000 HP, and you best believe you are not hitting close to the 999 damage cap; there's no X-Fight or Ultima shenanigans like in FFVI, you are dealing 1,000 damage per turn (assuming you don't need to heal, which you will do a lot!), you are stomaching the occasional attack that will 2HKO your whole party, and you WILL have to battle your way through (it's actually not that bad considering I won first try, but damn I used up all of my items and barely survived)
Phantasy Star IV's story is actually pretty simple, "kill the evil darkness threatening the entire world" stuff, although it takes place in a setting that mixes fantasy and space sci-fi. The characters don't have a ton of depth and most of them don't develop a lot. But what makes the story work is how it's presented to the player. Since the Genesis can't do fancy Mode 7 stuff with a million bajillion colors like the SNES, Phantasy Star IV's overworld is pretty bland and archaic looking by late 1993 and especially early 1995 standards. However, Sega decided to tell the game's story primarily through cutscenes structured like manga, and they work really nicely! Not just at visualizing the story, but also injecting a lot more personality into the cast.
On that note, Phantasy Star IV, has really damn good writing and localization, which makes sense considering Sega likely had a strong localization department given their foothold in NA. Dare I say, it's one of the very best localizations of the 16-bit era (Super Mario RPG, Earthbound, and Snatcher are really the only games that come to mind that best it). Characters talk in a way that feels incredibly natural, there's no odd stiltedness that sometimes exists in FFVI (as much as I adore that game's story and characters). There's a sense of fun to it all, seeing Alys instantly try to get Hahn to pay her for escorting him through the first dungeon, Rune constantly trolling the shit out of Chaz (though gradually become more of a cheeky big brother as the game goes on), Kyra being go-getter cool girl. Since this is Sega, they're a bit more relaxed on censorship. For example, while there's no explicit mention of alcohol, there are bars and they certainly suggest that some characters are drunk. There's even a few mildly risqué moments (mild enough and delivered in such a way that it's admittedly pretty fun/funny rather than weird) such as learning certain things about the main heroine Alys. It was actually kinda surprising to find out that some of the lines in this game were mistranslated, because the writing is so tight that it just works regardless (i.e. see below)
I'll note that while you're not getting a story filled with iconic moments that deeply explores some rather introspective themes (ala FFVI and grief-based depression), there are some noteworthy highlights through the game.
There's a particular boss fight about a third of the way through the game that is easily one of the best "forced-loss" fights I've ever seen, the way he doesn't attack you at all for two turns straight while all of your attacks miss, the way his first attack just summons a dark figure ala Kefka's Goner attack in FFVI, and when he finally decides to attack a character, the attack animation flashes the screen like CRAZY. It's almost like he's so strong, that the game itself is breaking when he uses it.
The ending, as well as an endgame sidequest, I think hammer in what the game's main theme was: the balance between connections / friendships with others, and the acceptance that we all move on with our lives as time passes so we must have an independent strength too
Phantasy Star IV has about 10 or so playable characters, and the vast majority will leave the party after joining for at least some amount of time. It feels great to be able to see them again during the endgame, but I will concede that the ending did sting a bit when everyone had to go their own separate ways. This theme is reflected in Chaz's arc as he sees these characters he came to know come and go, many being characters he will likely never see again. Over the course of the game, he goes from being a weak apprentice to the strongest member of your party in a natural ludonarrative. So when everyone has to leave, he now, like everyone else has the strength to keep living on his own terms. Again, it's nothing deep and his character is still pretty basic, but like everything else in this game, the execution is simple but very clean
One last thing I can touch on is the game's soundtrack. The Genesis is pretty infamous for its soundchip producing a lot of bad music, but truthfully there is plenty of great Genesis music, and Phantasy Star IV is one such case. The Genesis soundchip is particularly good at harder rock and metal music as well as electronic, and much like the game's intro, the best in Phantasy Star IV reflect this.
You've got the electronic vibes of Behind the Circuit, one of the primary dungeon themes. There's the sinisterness of Laughter, which is basically the equivalent of the Magus battle theme (beware spoilers!!). The more general RPG stuff is great too, here's another more traditional dungeon theme that is catchy and energetic as hell. And of course, there is the INCREDIBLE Ooze, a straight-up metal song for the final battle that is equal parts sinister/intense and motivating/exciting (yes, it's absolutely better than Porky Means Business), it's probably my favorite song in the game. And yes, GaMetal has a great cover of it (and Laughter too).
If you're looking for a 16-bit JRPG not named Chrono Trigger or Super Mario RPG that's simple, fast-paced / not very long (maybe 20 hours tops if you do every sidequest?), has a straightforward plot that would have fit right at home on late 90s/early 00s Toonami, and is, above all, a lot of fun (unlike FF Mystic Quest), I'd highly recommend Phantasy Star IV. Just maybe don't go in expecting complex gameplay or a particularly deep story-driven masterpiece.
8/10 (Great game!!!)
The Sega Genesis is a really underrated system, which sucks since it ends up getting easily buried in greater gaming discourse, but it results in the Genesis being IMO the best retro system to collect for when it comes to price vs game quality. All of the "really desirable games that didn't sell millions of copies" are in that somewhat reasonable $45-70 range, any Sega published game outside that group (of which there are a LOT) is like $10-30, and there's maybe 10 games that go for $100+ (all of which you can live without) while the SNES has like 60 of them (which includes Lufia 2, Chrono Trigger, Earthbound, and every Mega Man besides X1).
The Genesis was very much a console in the right place at the right time. With arcades still booming, the Genesis tried to focus more on bringing the Arcade experience home, a philosophy that also reflected in the kinds of games on the system. While the SNES focused more on making more expansive and content-rich games, which obviously aged better consider how gaming tastes have developed since then, the Genesis was the cheaper console that focused on shorter games that were much flashier, intense, and often harder; many of the killer apps on the Genesis don't even have unlimited continues, let alone a save system.
Sure, the SNES was the stronger system in most aspects: Colors, music that used samples, and complex graphical effects possible through Mode 7, but the Genesis had a much faster processor, hence the slogan "Blast Processing". This actually worked well to the Genesis ideologies: They want fast, hard, and flashy games, and a fast processor that minimizes slowdown is extremely helpful to have. A prime example of the Genesis's advantage can be seen in Shmups. The limited scope of these games already makes them a poor fit for the types of games that fit the SNES ideologies, but then you combine it with a much slower processor that resulted in far slower and laggier gameplay. Meanwhile, Shmups absolutely flourished on the Genesis. Similar stuff happened with Run n Guns and arguably even sports games. Hell, even the Genesis sound chip fit into this ideology. It was far less intuitive than the SNES's, but when used properly, it could actually do rock and electronic music a lot better than the SNES; genres that, surprise surprise, go really well with intense action games.
Conversely, while the SNES is considered one of the greatest systems ever made for RPGs, the genre just did not fit the style of game and audience the Genesis was looking for. This meant that the Genesis actually floundered in Japan while the SNES got new games as late as 2000, years after anyone in the West cared. Combine these factors together, and pretty much every RPG on the Genesis and Sega CD got localized for the US; while the SNES has a laundry list of JP-only RPGs (most of which came out in 1995 or later), the only really noteworthy ones we missed on Genesis were Langrisser 2, Rent a Hero, and Monster World IV (which actually got an official localization by Sega in 2012 lol). Hell, many of the RPGs on the Genesis were published or developed by Sega themselves, and even the SRPGs like the Shining Force games and Warsong (Langrisser 1) got localized, a genre that was pretty much absent from any console in the West until Final Fantasy Tactics.
But the question is...were these games any good? The Genesis doesn't have the wide colors or graphical effects that allow for the stunning look of most SNES RPGs. Their sound chip doesn't really work well for the orchestral sounds found in most SNES RPGs. And Sega's gameplay philosophy don't really align with games that are long, expansive, and story-heavy. How can Sega even make an RPG that competes with the SNES, especially one without action elements?
It's simple, you don't. Sega made an RPG that played to their strengths.
"And the world continued for thousands of years..."
Phantasy Star IV (1993 / 1995)
Developer / Publisher: Sega
System: Genesis. Lotsa ports but most of modern system ports got delisted (it's on NSO Expansion tho). I'm playing on an original Genesis cart
Completion Notes: P sure I did every sidequest. Didn't play the other Phantasy Star games (you don't need to but there are some references to past games throughout)
Immediately upon booting up Phantasy Star IV, before even the Sega logo finishes fadeing in, it becomes clear that this game is gonna be...different from your typical 16-bit RPG.
Almost every 16-bit RPG begins with an orchestral piece, either a calm and beautiful orchestral piece to set the mood right, something more sweeping and epic to impress upon you the epic scale of the journey you are about to embark upon, or even sometimes both. Sure, plenty of Genesis games try to compete and do very admirable jobs but...come on, stay in your lane, you're not outdoing the Chrono Trigger or Final Fantasy VI openings lol.
So instead, when you boot up Phantasy Star IV, the game hits you with THIS.
Phantasy Star IV has a bit of an odd reputation. It seems to be hailed as one of the greatest games ever made, and a game that could apparently "compete alongside the best the SNES had to offer." And yet, it's not a game that really gets discussed much in RPG discourse, even Shining Force 2 gets a lot more attention. I think, more importantly, I've never really gotten a good explanation as to why Phantasy Star IV is good. The general impression I've gotten is that it was a cleanly executed JRPG with a strong scope that happened to be on Genesis (a system not known for RPGs), therefore, it is one of the all-time greats ("It's Final Fantasy for the Genesis!!!!"). God knows, the SNES has plenty of those kinds of games, but you don't see Lufia II or even Super Mario RPG on Wikipedia's greatest games ever list.
Having played it myself, while I wouldn't call Phantasy Star IV a masterpiece...I do think it is very, very good, and definitely a game that is worth checking out as a nice, A-tier 16-bit RPG (if S-tier is considered to include the likes of Final Fantasy VI).
If I can pinpoint the main thing that makes Phantasy Star IV standout, it's the INCREDIBLE pacing. Sega Genesis games were excellent at this stuff and holy SHIT does Phantasy Star IV do a great job of maintaining momentum. The game starts right away, you're right in the first town, introduced to the main leads Alys and Chaz, who both have some fun personality, you're told about a mysterious monster outbreak, you recruit a new party member, and then within the first 5-10 min you're off into the first dungeon. Within my first 45-60 minute playsession, I had recruited another party member, gone through two more dungeons (including a couple boss fights), visited four more towns, and a few story-only locations. Compare this to Final Fantasy VI; as incredible as the start of the game is, that equivalent amount of time is spent entirely in Narshe. It's not really a matter one game being better than the other, it's moreso that Phantasy Star IV is a refreshing change of pace.
This pacing keeps going throughout the whole game. Dungeons are mazes and endurance tests (more on that later), but they're still pretty short. There's a good number of optional dungeons that are sprinkled throughout the entire playthrough on top of sidequests that get unlocked as you explore the world. So if you do need a quick distraction from the story, they're there for you, which is honestly a nice change of pace from Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy VI that have great sidequests (especially FFVI), but they're mostly relegated to endgame material that impact the ending. In PSIV, you just waltz into a bird cave you found for shits and giggles, find a cool piece of equipment that you'll use for the next hour or two, and then be on your way.
Battles also move incredibly fast thanks to quick but effective animations, and the Macro system which lets you automatically run through your character's actions from a preset you made outside of battle, drastically cutting down time needed for decision making. Menu movement and text is instantaneous too, maybe even a little too fast since I often skip over things lol, and there's very little pausing during battles from text boxes, animations, waiting for the run action to resolve, etc etc. I've timed some of my battles, I think the average random encounter in this game takes like 20 seconds from loading on the overworld to returning to the overworld.
Oh yeah, you can actually run from battles fairly easily, which is a big accomplishment considering the run button never fucking worked in Earthbound and takes 9 million years to finish in Final Fantasy VI. Phantasy Star IV gets rather tough as it goes on, not to the point where you need to grind (as long as you're like me and don't consider "backing out of a dungeon when you nab a bunch of items or if you need to heal before returning to fight the boss" grinding), but those dungeons and boss fights can get very stressful, being filled with late-game bosses or enemies capable of 2 or 3 shotting your entire party.
Now, in most JRPGs, bosses with strong attacks aren't really a big deal on their own. But in a move that seems annoying on paper but is actually really smart in practice, PSIV has pretty much no way to recover magic (outside of inns) and your inventory space is pretty tight, only holding about 48 items including Key Items. In fact, revive items and full healing items in general are hard to come by. You get them dotted through the dungeons, but you can only buy them in the final third of the game, and even then, a single one costs about as much as a piece of mid/late-game equipment (I didn't even know there was a store lol, I was just working off of the items I found on the field). As a result, you can't mindlessly mash your way through dungeons or bosses, you have to be mindful of the resources you're working with if you want to survive. This actually makes the run button a strategic decision: Do I trust my ability to cleanly finish this fight? Or should I run away because even if I survive, I will exhaust too many resources? You need to fight some amount of battles after all, you need that EXP for bosses!
I will note that at the end of the day, PSIV is actually a very simple JRPG. There's pretty much no unique mechanics, it's just your usual attacks and spell slinging. There are special attacks, but they basically operate as limited use "magic-like" attacks (similar to the PP system in Pokemon). There's also an equivalent to Chrono Trigger's Dual and Triple Techs, but they're very finicky to trigger and honestly not all that necessary to beating the game. But this also means that, again, there's really not much you can do to trivialize the game. Yeah, being overpowered is fun and all, but I sometimes wonder if Chrono Trigger would be better if the solution to the entire second half of the game wasn't to spam Gold Stud Luminaire and whatever AoE magic I had on my characters. The final boss has 23,000 HP, and you best believe you are not hitting close to the 999 damage cap; there's no X-Fight or Ultima shenanigans like in FFVI, you are dealing 1,000 damage per turn (assuming you don't need to heal, which you will do a lot!), you are stomaching the occasional attack that will 2HKO your whole party, and you WILL have to battle your way through (it's actually not that bad considering I won first try, but damn I used up all of my items and barely survived)
Phantasy Star IV's story is actually pretty simple, "kill the evil darkness threatening the entire world" stuff, although it takes place in a setting that mixes fantasy and space sci-fi. The characters don't have a ton of depth and most of them don't develop a lot. But what makes the story work is how it's presented to the player. Since the Genesis can't do fancy Mode 7 stuff with a million bajillion colors like the SNES, Phantasy Star IV's overworld is pretty bland and archaic looking by late 1993 and especially early 1995 standards. However, Sega decided to tell the game's story primarily through cutscenes structured like manga, and they work really nicely! Not just at visualizing the story, but also injecting a lot more personality into the cast.
On that note, Phantasy Star IV, has really damn good writing and localization, which makes sense considering Sega likely had a strong localization department given their foothold in NA. Dare I say, it's one of the very best localizations of the 16-bit era (Super Mario RPG, Earthbound, and Snatcher are really the only games that come to mind that best it). Characters talk in a way that feels incredibly natural, there's no odd stiltedness that sometimes exists in FFVI (as much as I adore that game's story and characters). There's a sense of fun to it all, seeing Alys instantly try to get Hahn to pay her for escorting him through the first dungeon, Rune constantly trolling the shit out of Chaz (though gradually become more of a cheeky big brother as the game goes on), Kyra being go-getter cool girl. Since this is Sega, they're a bit more relaxed on censorship. For example, while there's no explicit mention of alcohol, there are bars and they certainly suggest that some characters are drunk. There's even a few mildly risqué moments (mild enough and delivered in such a way that it's admittedly pretty fun/funny rather than weird) such as learning certain things about the main heroine Alys. It was actually kinda surprising to find out that some of the lines in this game were mistranslated, because the writing is so tight that it just works regardless (i.e. see below)
I'll note that while you're not getting a story filled with iconic moments that deeply explores some rather introspective themes (ala FFVI and grief-based depression), there are some noteworthy highlights through the game.
There's a particular boss fight about a third of the way through the game that is easily one of the best "forced-loss" fights I've ever seen, the way he doesn't attack you at all for two turns straight while all of your attacks miss, the way his first attack just summons a dark figure ala Kefka's Goner attack in FFVI, and when he finally decides to attack a character, the attack animation flashes the screen like CRAZY. It's almost like he's so strong, that the game itself is breaking when he uses it.
The ending, as well as an endgame sidequest, I think hammer in what the game's main theme was: the balance between connections / friendships with others, and the acceptance that we all move on with our lives as time passes so we must have an independent strength too
One last thing I can touch on is the game's soundtrack. The Genesis is pretty infamous for its soundchip producing a lot of bad music, but truthfully there is plenty of great Genesis music, and Phantasy Star IV is one such case. The Genesis soundchip is particularly good at harder rock and metal music as well as electronic, and much like the game's intro, the best in Phantasy Star IV reflect this.
You've got the electronic vibes of Behind the Circuit, one of the primary dungeon themes. There's the sinisterness of Laughter, which is basically the equivalent of the Magus battle theme (beware spoilers!!). The more general RPG stuff is great too, here's another more traditional dungeon theme that is catchy and energetic as hell. And of course, there is the INCREDIBLE Ooze, a straight-up metal song for the final battle that is equal parts sinister/intense and motivating/exciting (yes, it's absolutely better than Porky Means Business), it's probably my favorite song in the game. And yes, GaMetal has a great cover of it (and Laughter too).
If you're looking for a 16-bit JRPG not named Chrono Trigger or Super Mario RPG that's simple, fast-paced / not very long (maybe 20 hours tops if you do every sidequest?), has a straightforward plot that would have fit right at home on late 90s/early 00s Toonami, and is, above all, a lot of fun (unlike FF Mystic Quest), I'd highly recommend Phantasy Star IV. Just maybe don't go in expecting complex gameplay or a particularly deep story-driven masterpiece.
8/10 (Great game!!!)
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Fire Emblem is fire dude, what games have you played?
Sacred Stones, Radiant Dawn, Awakening, Fates (all 3), Echoes Shadows of Valentia (didn’t finish it though) 3 Houses and Engage