Despite believing that PSX was generally a better platform for RPGs than the SNES, the games for the older system have aged better than those of the PSX, at least technically. The games of the PSX generation just have substantially more depth to both their gameplay and storylines, but long load times, slow text speeds, and blurry sprites have made a large cross-section of the PSX catalogue nearly unplayable. I fucking loved Xenogears back in the day, but the game is even harder to get into all these years later.
The cream of the crop, however, hasn't aged nearly as bad.
*Final Fantasy IX- Slight lag in the battle system can be annoying, but the load times are relatively small.
*Final Fantasy Tactics- Hasn't aged bad at all. Still a visual and aural treat.
*Persona 2- The battle system feels a little bit less polished than if it were to be published today, but still has far more depth than the vast majority of RPGs.
Most of the Squaresoft RPGs from the SNES area are as good as ever, technically speaking, but the gameplay is a bit simplistic by modern standards.
*Final Fantasy IV- Great music and storyline, but the lack of party selection or skill development makes the gameplay the most simplistic of any FF.
*Final Fantasy VI- Still a great game, in general.
*Chrono Trigger- suffers from the same simplicity problems that FF4 has.
Friday, August 10, 2007
Kingdom Hearts 2
Kingdom Hearts 2 is an unusual mix of great and fucking atrocious elements. As far as the main gameplay mechanics are concerned, KH2 is one of the best Action-RPGs in years. Both the boss fights and regular battles are a lot of fun, albeit easy, even on the hard difficulty. And as for the story, I like the main parts quite a bit. The problem, you see, is sojourns into Disneylands.
Every single time the game sends you away from Organization XIII, Twilight Town, or Hollow Bastion into the various Disney Worlds, you end up being treated to long cutscenes that are basically CG renditions of your favorite Disney movies, except with bad animation, terrible voice acting, and completely random gaps in the dialogue that combine to make the cutscenes excruciatingly painful and also entirely expendable. I have never skipped through so many cutscenes in my life, and through it all, I don't think I missed a single important point of storyline.
The story and worlds aren't ALL bad. The World That Never Was, Timeless River, and Space Paranoids are all GREAT worlds with interesting characters and boss fights. If Kingdom Hearts 3 abandons the traditional Disney worlds and storylines, and instead focuses on creating new and interesting locations, OR involves visiting worlds from the Square-Enix canon, they could end up making a very interesting game. Midgar? Garden? Lindblum? Zanarkad? Zenethia? The Mana Tree? They could all make AWESOME levels.
And, while visiting Square-Enix worlds, the composer could insert more audio cues and remixes from the games. I don't think either of the KH games made any audio references to the FF games, but damnit, they should have.
Every single time the game sends you away from Organization XIII, Twilight Town, or Hollow Bastion into the various Disney Worlds, you end up being treated to long cutscenes that are basically CG renditions of your favorite Disney movies, except with bad animation, terrible voice acting, and completely random gaps in the dialogue that combine to make the cutscenes excruciatingly painful and also entirely expendable. I have never skipped through so many cutscenes in my life, and through it all, I don't think I missed a single important point of storyline.
The story and worlds aren't ALL bad. The World That Never Was, Timeless River, and Space Paranoids are all GREAT worlds with interesting characters and boss fights. If Kingdom Hearts 3 abandons the traditional Disney worlds and storylines, and instead focuses on creating new and interesting locations, OR involves visiting worlds from the Square-Enix canon, they could end up making a very interesting game. Midgar? Garden? Lindblum? Zanarkad? Zenethia? The Mana Tree? They could all make AWESOME levels.
And, while visiting Square-Enix worlds, the composer could insert more audio cues and remixes from the games. I don't think either of the KH games made any audio references to the FF games, but damnit, they should have.
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