Suikoden Minigames: Part 2

Let's continue this overdrive on some crappy and not-so-crappy minigames, this time making ourselves into Suikoden II, a game where RNG will likely throw itself at you the same way and it's certainly harder to manipulate.

I'm not even sure how it's done, honest. It is still possible to savescum some of the minigames here, as well as the war battle mechanic. Hell, I'll even mention the war battle mechanic at the end of this rant. So about the other ones. Well, there's a rope-climbing minigame easily accessible in the castle. It's probably the only game in which savescumming can in fact win the game easily, all of this involving a dice roll. Actually, since all the prizes are different in the rope-climbing minigame and you'd probably reset multiple times until you find the appropriate prize, you'll actually realize how hard it is to come in second place, whereas it's much easier to be first or last.

Certainly is odd how a rope-climbing minigame involving a die is much easier to manipulate RNG than the series staple of Chinchirorin, where you can't just sit next to who you are playing against and hope they get a different hand each and every time. It's just not exciting anymore. What's worse is that this is a required minigame for crossing a river, again. And it's required two more times, one to get the guy who sailed you across, and another to recruit another guy, both for 108 stars. The biggest issue may actually not be the RNG itself, but the maximum bet limit. For both recruits you have to rake in 5000, the max possible to bet is 3000 and unfortunately there are no consecutive earnings this time around. Congrats on making a game-breaking classic minigame into one I wouldn't want to touch again, Suikoden II.

So any other notable ones pertaining to characters? Well, Yam Koo offers a fishing minigame, entirely what you would expect if you are a fan of the Breath of Fire fishing minigames. But it's much better in those games than it is here. Tony the gardener has some whack-a-mole minigame which isn't really rewarding. Karen offers for you to dance to get her to be recruited, and it's rhythmic, but nothing else exciting.

And then the meat of the minigames that truly end up unique is culminated in something culinary. I'm talking about the cookoffs, which are unique in nature due to their outlandishness and Iron Chef-esque presentation. It's not just a minigame, but an entire sidequest revolving around Hai Yo, with recipes to win, one chef which is hopeless to win against because he cheats, and a storyline involving characters and a sacred recipe. So where's the RNG? The judges, picked from the character's own recruits, constitute the four judges, and they all have different tastes, so you are definitely not going to get a fair game each and every time. This is especially true for some characters, so imagine you have a vegetarian like Nanami as a judge, combined with a meat lover as well as a judge who's harsh. Good luck, because as soon as you input which recipes to cook, it's all dependent on it. There's no control over the characters (your own or the other team) once the recipes are decided, and there's pretty much no control over which judges you get and what their scores end up being. I give them credit for the overall presentation but will not tolerate the random factor of actually winning.

And so I get to the war battles, which of course consitute its own minigame and is integral in the Suikoden series. Also it changed from the boring rock-paper-scissors variant from the first game, well, somewhat. Parts of it still do apply but it is often not entirely noticeable. Thing is, RNG can really be nasty in this game, especially if you lose a unit with a character that can be permanently killed like Tuta. The battle system here is quite Langrisser-esque, go towards the character you want to attack and let the game take over. Sometimes nothing happens, sometimes a soldier or two on a side goes down, sometimes half of them (which is a sword's worth of damage), and well, you know what happens after that. Sometimes, luck really does have a factor in that a really powerful unit gets run through by a unit that's not as tough. There are ways to inflict some good free damage on units, and there's not too many instances of war battles that are really awful. Perhaps what I really hate is how you don't have full control over most troops in war battles until the midpoint of the game, where many allies are computer controlled and often are defeated easily (not to mention recruiting Gilbert). With such nastiness in RNG that often can't be manipulated, I say Suikoden II's war battle system is the worst. I get this game is a classic, and really shines in its overall gameplay as well as just about everything else apart from horrid translation, but really these minigames are a major source of frustration should I be tasked with doing them.

Top 5 Most Terrifying RPGs.

We can tell just how horrifying games can get sometimes, and RPGs tend to never be an exception. So many games have at least one thing that will likely terrify a young audience, whether it's through character death, world destruction, or just about anything that isn't truly good and doesn't lead to a usually cliche "happily ever after" ordeal. This list counts down five of the RPGs that I truly think are the most horrifying overall, the ones that if you were a character in them, you run the risk of an unfortunate happening at just about any moment.

5. Grandia

Honestly, both of the first two Grandias belong here, especially considering the Eldritch horrors you go through for the endgame dungeons, as well as the corruption of a major figure that is eventually killed. Grandia 1 edges out over its sequel in an interesting way, because it most definitely not a grim RPG on its onset at all. It's only until you reach the second disc and meet Rapp where you realize that things take a grim turn. Rapp's original village has been turned to stone, obviously with no way of resolving the victims. For that matter, the original Laine faired even worse, with petrified bodies floating in a location that sure as hell isn't a friendly abode. The bosses met during this disc also drive the point home, along with the crises that eventually happen all because of Gaia. Not to mention the motif of sacrifice, which attempts to take a toll on certain characters in hte game. Now Grandia II only had the corrupt demonic church as its main horror, but it managed to do so well enough, so it gets an honorable mention. But it's in the shadows when it comes to the horror presented in the second half of Grandia.

4. Live-A-Live

Here's an oddball. You have eight total settings in this game, and yet somehow, all but two of them are rather horrific. So let's leave out both the prehistoric and the Western scenarios, as both tend to be mostly comical in how they are done and the only terror present is shown in the final boss fight. The Ninja scenario is quite nasty with whichever characters you decide to kill, similar to the demon path in Soul Nomad, but this is overshadowed by Ode Iou's true form. The present chapter involving the strong fighters seems fair enough, but then you find out Odie Oldbright killed all the previous competitors. The Kung Fu chapter was something I described a bit in my analysis of doomed hometowns, and my point still stands there when the master's dojo is raided and two students are actually killed. The medieval chapter which serves as the game's culmination shows the emptiness after Oersted takes power as the demon king. And yet the most horrifying chapters are the futuristic ones. Mechanical Heart is entirely a survival horror game in an RPG, with a behemoth that can instantly kill your robot character as well as maul others onboard the ship. And Blood Flow? Surprisingly the most terrifying. It's bad enough the enemies are bikers, it's even worse when the gang is involved in a process to liquefy humans, all to awaken some deity. It somehow manages to be even worse than when Thuris was eating his followers in Soul Nomad. You obviously don't get to see how it's done, and that's for the better, but the mere thought is inane in itself. So somehow, the majority of the game manages to actually be quite the heart-wrencher

3. Legend of Legaia

Yep, this one is on here, and if you played the game, you'll know exactly why. The entire intro shows what went wrong, the idea of cybernetic enhancements to do everything, going wrong thanks to a mist, causing these Seru to go out of control as well as grip and zombify individual humans. There's so many in-game examples of horror in this game. Remember the underground Octam and the earthquakes? And to think again, an actual sacrificial ritual also exists in-game, in which your sole female offers herself up to save a poor NPC from being offered, then the two guys have to save her from the largest Seru. It gets far worse later on. Sim-Seru are considered way worse than the regular ones. You think that fight against Gaza was bad, wait till you reach Conkram, an actual seashell constructed out of a Sim-Seru. Nothing could be done about the inhabitants there, and to make things worse, they are completely doomed. Rim Elm almost suffers this way but is saved at the very end, but those thoughts of all the villagers you know, including your sister, father, love interest, her mother, people you know about, all fused in an abomination so completely fleshed out. It's truly horrifying. No wonder this game got compared to Silent Hill.

2. Breath of Fire 2

I have fond, fond memories of this game. Memories that made me feel like not playing another RPG ever again. This game aces the corrupt church plot far better than Grandia 2 did, and giving in the fact that almost every major boss you eventually fight has not only been a con-artist but a demon at the same time. From the impostor frog prince Quadra/Kuwadora, to the rich businessman Trout. From the tournament chairman Augus to the crazed Highland general Shupkay. And then the terrifying-looking Necroman and his deadly attacks, all of these are demons. Not to mention a zombie status effect that is truly nasty and original for a SNES RPG. Oh yes, this game manages to terrify in its gameplay, which is quite the feat. Let's not forget that you can easily end up killing your own father without realizing he's strapped to the church's main machine, as well as the opening of the demon gate. And the motif of sacrifice rears its head yet again, in order to get Anfini/Infinity, you get to see each of your party members make statements of how they enjoyed their adventures with Ryu, while his clone tells him to sacrifice one of them. The thought of doing so is truly wrong, just like in Grandia. But if that weren't enough, even after the denial of a sacrifice, the actual confrontation against Deathevan is one with circumstances that actually crystallize and shatter all of Ryu's companions right before the final confrontation. Despite the happiness of bringing them back and killing off Deathevan, there's the matter of this game's endings, and most players see the one where Ryu ends up being the new gate guardian, forever dooming himself to a fate such as this. Breath of Fire 2 was not only an extreme tearjerker, but an extreme heart-wrencher.

1. Xenogears

To some, it's no surprise that it's at the very top. For those of you who don't know, this game sure has a lot going for it. Just look at Fei, he's got an omnicidal maniac persona inside of him that doesn't distinguish anything as friendly, so it murders anything: the denizens of Fei's village, the comrades in the Nortune sewers, and the entire city of Solaris, practically destroying the surface landscape as well. Rather horrifying is the fact that Fei is unaware he's responsible for all this thanks to the persona. And the other characters don't help matters. Grahf telling Fei he's the true destroyer of God? Yeah, thanks for that. Oh and speaking of Solaris, can you guess what you go through when you reach there? A high-security compound at first, and an underground laboratory. They really went there when they decided to have a scene with Fei and Elly getting hungry, then eating from canned food without realizing it (making matters worse is that Citan is hesitant to tell them about this). We then see the dead remains of humans, all done because the high city's caste system deems them unworthy of life and to be used as food. Holy cripes. And while Disc 2 was a rushed disc, it provides enough information about those on the surface world being turned into Wels in the cutscenes. Wels, of course, are pretty much zombified humans. Two things make this terrifying. One of course is that the characters realize this fact too late, and have murdered quite a few people who were turned into Wels. The other, well, let's just say that the best efforts of the heroes somehow make the situation worse, causing even more Wels to form. The main characters ought to be extremely lucky about not turning into Wels or used as canned food items, because this game manages to make just about everything grim and horrifying.

RPGs: Destroying a main character's hometown.

Also known as "No, my beloved peasant village!", this is extremely common in quite a lot of RPGs. Just how common you ask? Well off the top of my head I can tell you which ones employ this cliche.

Legend of Legaia, Xenogears, Final Fantasy 7, Final Fantasy 5, Soul Nomad & The World Eaters, Tales of Phantasia, Suikoden III, Breath of Fire 1, Breath of Fire 3, and the Legend of Dragoon.

So the Doomed Hometown rule. According to the grand list, the main character's home will be pretty much destroyed in some way, and often before the opening parts of the game are over. All of the above games do this, and there are other ones that count too. Phantasy Star 2 does involve the destruction of Palma, the home planet in the previous game, but it's an oddball since not only is it never explored by the heroes, the heroes all hail from Mota (Motavia) anyways. And then Phantasy Star 3 makes it even more mysterious, since the entire game is in a spaceship of biodomes, almost assuredly assuming that the planets in Phantasy Star 2 were wiped out as well even though none of the characters hail from there.

So what about the games I mentioned. Well, Tales of Phantasia, Xenogears, Suikoden III, The Legend of Dragoon, and the Breath of Fires have this happen in the opening acts. Ryu wakes up unceremoniously in Breath of Fire 1 to find his town being destroyed during the whole dragon civil war, and Seles in The Legend of Dragoon also gets destroyed in a similar motive as well. All the other examples including Breath of Fire 3 all happen once the main characters return from doing regular errands, long before the game really does end up running its course. Though the motives for many of these are all mixed. You can grasp the meaning of the destruction of Totus in Tales of Phantasia easily because they were after Cless's pendant. The other ones? Not so much. It seems like the hut in Breath of Fire 3 was set on fire by Balio and Sunder as a mere act of revenge. And why did the Karayan village* need to be burned again? What did Lahan do to deserve a whole bunch of gears fighting in it? They made this one even nastier since Fei ends up being the one responsible for most of the destruction and deaths that occurred. There are a few other potential examples of doomed hometowns at openings, like the one in Star Ocean 1 where most of the inhabitants in Ratix's town turn to stone due to a virus, as well as the freezing of Crysta's inhabitants in Terranigma that spark Ark's main adventure.

So the other doomed hometowns tend to happen at times different than the opening sequences. In The Legend of Dragoon, Dart's actual hometown of Neet was destroyed long before the game starts, and the same can be said about Nibelheim in Final Fantasy 7. Soul Nomad & The World Eaters has the Hidden Village get destroyed mid-game (though every villager somehow survives). Numerous character hometowns get sucked into a void in Final Fantasy 5, one of which you may not even get to go to if you don't look for it. And Legend of Legaia? Apparently Conkram was pretty much eldritched well before the game started, and Rim Elm suffers this fate near the game's end. So not even the homes that survive to the very end can be considered fully safe by JRPG law.

Most of these are pretty odd, and what's odder is how many of them don't get rebuilt or anything similar. Again, there are some outliers, but the bottom line is most of these hometowns don't seem to improve. Although Totus does become the town of Miguel in the future, and seems alright in the past, the present town doesn't seem to improve. The Kung Fu master's abode in Live-a-Live never gets rebuilt. Seles and Neet are never rebuilt. Neither Drogen nor Rei's hut are rebuilt in the Breath of Fire games. You can't go back to Lahan, Karaya Village, or Clatos once the plot kicks in for those games. And Conkram is probably the single most nightmarish case of a truly doomed location.

So what are the outliers? Well they aren't what you can consider homes, but Marbule and Viper Manor both get rebuilt in the Home World of Chrono Cross. Kant and Boyzby both get rebuild and actually fully operational after the opening acts of Thousand Arms are over. Ien in Lunar: Walking School gets attacked multiple times but after the chapters are done, the next one shows everything seems to be alright there. So there are at least some characters willing to restore things the way they used to be. Rim Elm is incredibly lucky to be fully restored after Juggernauts defeat, and the same goes for the towns in Final Fantasy 5. Nibelheim is an outlier to the outliers, since it's rebuilt but there really is no indication that the town was really rebuilt at all especially by two of the witnesses in the main party that know of its destruction.

What do I think of this cliche? I like it in spades, but hate it most of the time. It was interesting in Legend of Legaia, really and truly, and Suikoden 3 did a good job with the perspectives on Karaya village (and to a lesser extent Iksay village). Xenogears was perhaps the most interesting of all due to the main character being responsible for Lahan's destruction. His alter ego Id would also destroy Solaris, home to a number of major characters in the story. Though the motives really do need to be much clearer than just "destroy everything" At least some games make it clear.

*I would like to point out in Suikoden 3, only Hugo loses his home, at the end of his chapter. Chris's first chapter deals with the exact same ordeal except from another perspective, and even Geddoe's first chapter has them in the village at the time as well. It seems in Hugo's chapter, things went wrong with the truce delivery, but the retribution for it was mundane.

A look back at: Suikogaiden

Might as well wrap this one up.

Another visual novel thing, unlike Radical Dreamers, this one is fully visual novel and you will get through the story completely. The only things that change are affection points and hidden value points that the two games never even bothers to mention. Did I mention there were two games? Because there are two games. And did you know that completed Suikoden 2 data can be used? Because it can be used for Volume 1, then transfer THAT over to Volume 2. Heck, you can even transfer completed Suikogaiden Volume 2 data to Suikoden 3 as well. Minor, minor details. Unfortunately, almost no one really picked up on this, since this particular visual novel never made it out of Japan.

But looking back on it, I'm glad I got glimpses of story and backstory, as that tends to be quite ingenious. 4 chapters each volume, and yes, there are characters, both old and new, in Nash's sub-story. I of course remember running through it multiple times, as it did have multiple branching paths, but not necessarily multiple endings. Yep, wanted to see everything yet again. The luck meter is the only visible one onscreen, but there are hidden ones for such things as "bonus" or "companion" which may affect character cameos. A full luck meter will allow access to an alternate path in Chapter 3 (of both volumes) both of which are loaded with character cameos and are a lot sillier and more detracting of the original plot.

Like anything within the Suikoden series, Suikogaiden is pretty much plot-driven and character-driven. The ones that Nash meets do more than just make cameo appearances, as most of them are directly involved in the plot. The entire Greenhill segment in Chapter 4 in Volume 1 is my favorite, mostly because we find out a whole lot of the first conflict with Highland then, which of course the main hero of Suikoden 2 will eventually find out about. It's nice how two protagonists have intertwining stories, while not necessarily recognizing one another all that much. Little details are always fun.

A look back at: Radical Dreamers

You thought I was done with look backs? I still got several games under my belt, which I didn't really consider to be RPGs in the first place. Radical Dreamers is one of them. Nestled deep between Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross was an apparent visual novel game with a few RPG mechanics.

For whatever reason though, this seems to explain Kid's entire plot in Chrono Cross better than the game itself, all while including a completely different Serge, a completely different Kid, and Magil, who's basically implied to be Magus. The whole plot involving Viper Manor is here, although with a few different changes. For one, Riddel is someone completely different, Viper himself is nowhere to be found (perhaps presumed dead), and someone implied to be Radius because of the way he looks is inside a prison cell lamenting. Kid of course has her backstory with Lucca and her vengeance against Lynx intact, as well as her connection with Schala.

It's all entirely text-driven, almost akin to reading an e-book line after line. Almost. The kicker of course is that this has some semi-RPG moments. Viper Manor is a complex location, so it's not fully linear. There just so happens to be a random battle mechanic, which is a lot slower and actually not all reliable and somewhat annoying. Plus there are affection points, typical for the visual novel genre, so these actually may change the endings you find in the game. Oh yes, multiple endings. If I recall, you get to try them out after the main ending of the game finishes. The endings honestly may not be worth it. Some are interesting side stories, such as Shea's Light and the Sunflower. While others are just super silly like the mecha battle with mecha Lynx and the space cop rock guitar scenario. It looks like Square was trying to go all out humorous with some of these, even for a short-lived series known for some humor. It's certainly a weird outtake to look at, but going through the text and knowing what you need to do ends up much more boring than the RPGs overall.

Suikoden minigames: Part 1

Yay more minigames. Yay more complaining about stuff in Suikoden. Yes, I still like this series anyways, but things must be said. I'm still not a fan of most minigames, although some aren't too bad in this one. I'll only cover ones that originated in the original Suikoden though.

Chinchirorin (Triple Toss)

So this is the "toss three dice in the bowl" game that is pretty much reliant entirely on the RNG. Wonderful. I'm really not too much of a fan of it, but in Suikoden 1 you can bet a good amount then bet your winnings, scum this game and be rolling in the money. You can't do that in 2 or 4 though, as the maximum bets are lower and you can't get consecutive bonuses for wins. Heck, in Suikoden 2 they made it harder to savescum (but it is still possible to do). The game's rules are basically throw the three dice into the cup, if for some reason a dice falls out, it's an automatic loss. If it's a pattern of three, it's a triple win except if it is all one in which it's a triple loss. 4-5-6 is a double win, 1-2-3 is a double loss. Otherwise, when you have two same numbers and a different, the number on the other dice is your value. Higher wins of course. No score on three rolls automatically gives a score of 0. This game makes the opponent go first. Overall though, there's nothing really important out of this game, and I can't understand of all gambling mini-game opportunities they went with this one. Suikoden 4 has the "Down to One" option, but you bet no one actually played that due to the nostalgia of playing the original "Triple Toss". Having to recruit Tai Ho, Gaspar, and Shilo with this did make it the most memorable minigame. I don't believe you actually have to play against Gunter in Suikoden 4 for him to be recruited though.

Memory cup game

Along with the Chinchirorin above, this one is quite the time-waster. It's exactly what you expect, three cups, one is hidden under a coin, shuffle them around. First time you play this with Marco, it's super easy. When it comes time to recruit him, it's computer-flash speed which is impossible to figure out even with a human eye, but you'd still likely savescum it just the same. Somehow, it fairs better than Chinchirorin because of the fact it is shorter. Still though, who would actually earn boatloads of money doing this? Sometimes I like to keep it real.

Card matching game

This is one that is likely played only once, and then never again because it is terrible. All this just to recruit Georges, a pretty much useless character otherwise. It's a weird card game where you have to match cards under some record time he sent, except that upon a match, adjacent cards get turned over and several other matches disappear. It's pretty interesting in how it is programmed, but it sucks gameplay-wise. I don't know if you actually earn anything important for winning besides recruiting the character.

Spinning wheel game

Yes, this counts. Yes it is probably the worst Suikoden minigame. Yes, it is unfortunately required. Though to be fair, all the minigames I listed are required, but at least those are mostly for recruiting characters. This one though is in the middle of the subquest for the Kirinji to get Lepant's attention. For some reason, there's this huge wheel right outside the Kirinji's room, and stepping on it spins the character in whatever direction it takes you. The problem is, you really only want to get from the south end to the north end, and it will likely take 10 rounds to go through it all. Sure, the ultra-rare Dragon Seal Incense is a possible prize for landing on the lucky treasure spot. But what about those other ones? So you like a random battle for landing on the wrong spot? What about losing experience? Being at the full mercy of the RNG once again. Except there's just no fun in doing that. In fact, the next time I do a blog post involving Suikoden series minigames, I'll once again mention RNG-related things, because it seems that almost every minigame here is going to involve that.

Top 5 Stupidest JRPG Deaths

Character deaths sure make any form of media memorable. You witness Aeris's unfathomable end at Sephiroth. You witness just about any death in the Suikoden series. Hero or villain, these characters end up being known for their impact, either premortem or postmortem. But then I look at some deaths and I wonder, just why were they made? This little Top 5 list showcases the deaths that I found to be the stupidest. And not like Bolt from Thousand Arms, which is the "stupid but actually funny" death, but rather stupid as to raise a red flag on the overall circumstances of it.

5. Ark (Terranigma)

Techinically speaking, Ark doesn't really die overall, that is, until you reach the end of the third chapter. But this never really made much sense to me. We were in control of the Ark, from the Underworld, bringing everything back to life from the continents, plants, animals, and finally humans, and THIS is what he gets paid back for at the very end of the chapter? Some random Lightside version of himself just shows up, deems him a legendary hero, but just kills him right there, ending the chapter. Sure he gets resurrected right away in the final chapter, but man was it DUMB to watch how that fetch quest was made for Ark to just die. Usually the "fetch quest that goes wrong" ordeal happens when the hero gets all the quest items taken from them. Here, they just decide to kill the main hero for the chapter to end.

4. Mareg (Grandia 2)

I'm probably gonna get some flak for this one, but Mareg's sacrifice, as memorable as it is, isn't needed. This is especially true given how the gameplay of Grandia 2 pretty much shows the game is not all that difficult overall, so even without grinding we can tell that all characters, Mareg included, tend to sift through combat pretty well. Him making a heroic stand so the others can escape because of a wound is all taken at cutscene value. Gameplay-wise, said enemies could be considered easy prey overall, and you could imagine that with the right spell or item, Mareg's back wound would be healed as quickly as possible and he can join his group in the escape from the moon. No, he just decides to Gandalf it out and get eaten up by enemies he can easily mince. It really wasn't that well done of a character death.

3. Michael (Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure)

This death is still fresh in my mind, considering I had just finished playing this game yesterday. If you're not in the know-how, Rhapsody is supposed to be cheerful, satirical, and full of energy but with a few sad moments. This one sad moment flat out makes no sense. Michael, a frog man from the Frogburg kingdom, is apparently trespassing, and that's a crime in the castle according to the king only. He's Caroline's love interest, and Cornet ends up helping him find the Earthstone. Easy enough? Sure. But what happens when he proves his worth to the king? Apparently the king laid out an extra rule involving the guardian of the stone, and Michael is executed on the spot in front of everyone, especially his love interest Caroline. Now, that right there shows how terrible the king is as a ruler, how he seems to trust a not-so-sentient guardian of some nearby ruins with a stone, as well as enforcing rules he can very well change himself in his own kingdom. It's just like #5 above, except with worse reasons. The king's absolute rule seems to overrule all objections, from her daughter Caroline or the queen herself. Making things worse, Caroline would later leave the kingdom and commit suicide herself just to be with Michael.

2. The main character (The 7th Saga)

Man, The 7th Saga isn't really a good game at all, isn't it? Hard gameplay, dumb plot, character competition. But one thing that sticks out to me is just how bad the ending was handled. So you beat Gorsia, big bad of the game that manipulated everything just like any final boss does. Just before he dies, he kills you right there with the last of his abilities. Exactly how? It makes no sense. It's even worse because in The 7th Saga, you are very likely to have a partner with you to ease up combat, and that partner remains completely untouched by this spell. So what happens to them? Oh, and being reincarnated as Lemele is somehow WORSE because really Lemele wasn't really anyone special. The real Lemele who of couse died honestly wouldn't recruit these apprentices in the first place for any real reason.

1. Darum and Tiem (Phantasy Star II)

Morals go completely out the window every time I remember this stupidly icon duo of characters and their reunion. Darum is this guy who's resorted to crime just so he can find his kidnapped daughter. He's willing to stab anyone who dares to pass, unless of course he finds his daughter. So you as the player will naturally find Tiem somewhere and bring her to her father. Tiem unfortunately is unbelievably stupid. She doesn't want to be seen, so she veils her appearance and walks straight up to her father. Well the result is that Darum after realizing that no demands are met stabs her, then realizes he's killed his own daughter and kills himself. Does it not occur to, oh I don't know, the heroes of the game to tell her NOT to do this or to explain to Darum that that's his daughter coming up to him? While they do manage to continue on in their journey now that the tunnel, these two character deaths were absolutely needless and honestly were the most preventable deaths I can think of in any JRPG.

A look back at: Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure

So I have just recently reviewed this super easy game, so this will be a weird one to look back on considering how quickly I reviewed it.

It's short, easy, girlish, and somewhat forgettable. Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure is basically what you would expect if you take a Disney film and turn it into a JRPG. This was surprisingly one of Nippon Ichi's first games, and also partnered with Atlus USA. Odd, considering just how hard Atlus makes some of its games. For a game considered to be the second easiest RPG on the Playstation, I at least got to see what else it could offer.

And I wasn't entirely happy of course. The fights last less than a minute, naturally excluding bosses (but sometimes including them). There are two boss fights, back-to-back which you have to lose, along with another one that ends after a few rounds. The navigation seems alright, until you get to the dungeons at least. This is what I forgot to mention in my main review. The dungeons? They are awful. Seriously, there's the cave layout and the castle layout, but you will quickly notice that there wasn't much effort made into making dungeons interesting. There's the usual passageways, the forks that may lead to treasure rooms, even the dead-end rooms are bland. There's another mechanic I didn't mention, involving Monster Masters, since Cornet can apparently recruit monsters in the same manner the Legend of Legaia characters can learn Seru Magic. I never really bothered with it much, instead focusing on balancing my own party even if this means having a horrifically unbalanced Cornet sitting at level 84 at the end of the game.*

Well what they failed in dungeon design, they do okay everywhere else. NPC dialogue is alright, though some make odd references and such. The side stories involving the puppets you find often fall by the wayside, only to crop up when you don't expect them to, which is interesting in itself. The fact the puppets remain in the party after they say goodbye is good too. The quest for the stones has some interesting morals going for it. You can choose to kill the guardian for the Thunderstone, or don't kill it, fight Gao, and get the Holystone instead. The Waterstone is a trip through a sunken ship, the Firestone through a volcano, and the Earthstone through...a giant worm apparently. They tried to make the boss interesting enough too. Parts of the story are pretty much in light heart, except in a few cases, like with the people inside the worm liking the way they live there or Michael's idiotic death scene. And of course, the music tracks basically add more flavor to this game. It's basically nothing but a quick and super easy game that doesn't really take itself too seriously. But don't expect the absolute best of things with this game.

*I kid of course. You can steamroll practically everything in this game since the level curve is very generous, even if you pick the Hard difficulty. Cornet doesn't even have any main skills apart from playing her horn or utilizing rewards, I just level up my puppets in Pokemon style for this game, pretty much.

Suikoden Character Fighting Stances

Yeah, this one will be quite short. But hey, it's one thing that bothered me for quite a bit. You're probably aware of "fighting stances" in RPGs, where their idle animations show what they're gonna look like when not actually battling. I'm gonna talk mostly about Suikoden's battle stances, since other games seem to have okay ones or pretty lame ones overall. Even Chrono Cross, a game with half the amount of characters a Suikoden has somehow manages to make character fighting stances alright.

So Suikoden characters tend to have a lot of different fighting stances. The first game lacks them entirely, as the characters in battle are actually static, no movement until battle actually commences. But take a look at some of the characters and notice some similarities. Take the five blacksmiths for example, who all look very identical. Keep this in mind.

Suikoden 2 did a fantastic job with its fighting stances by making just about every character seem unique. The exception being the five squirrels, but who uses them? Look at Riou, Nanami, and Viktor and they are poised for combat, while Flik and Jowy are a bit more relaxed. It shows how energetic or how patient some characters are when in battle, and usually the younger characters show just how energetic they are in their fighting stances, how they are itching to fight. Likewise, older and wiser characters like Flik, Sierra, and Humphrey are pretty much veterans, remaining calm and rarely moving.

Suikoden III is a little harder to parse, since characters actually only get ready on the first turn. Not much to say, there are a few similarities, but most of the characters at least try to be unique. Though the Tinto characters and the Zexen knights clearly needed more work, given the majority of them are one-handed swordsmen.

Which leads to the meat of this post, Suikoden 4's battle stances. They really didn't do good on them at all in this game as there are only a few unique ones. Lazlo, Kika, Snowe, Akaghi, and Mizuki are some of the ones with unique stances, but more than four-fifths of the cast just so happens to have all the same combat stances. Male and female great sword-wielders have the same stances. Male knife throwers have the same stance. The spear users all have similar stances (except Rachel I think). Male and female mages tend to have the same stance (except Jeane). And my oh my, there are way too many one-handed sword users. And unless it's Snowe, then there are only one of two fighting stances, the straight upright one or the leaning back and ready one. It's really lame and one of the reasons why Suikoden IV is honestly so boring.

After having played Suikoden V and its loads of battle-ready characters, they all have unique stances. All of them. Except for throwaway characters like the elves and maybe the beavers too, but I'm not counting those. So Suikoden IV really blew the pooch.

Bottom line is, fighting stances for characters ought to be unique. It really does depend on how many characters there are, which is why I focus on Suikoden games due to their high amounts of characters. The more there are, the more unique the fighting stances ought to be.

Breath of Fire IV's Minigames

Oh joy more freaking minigames! Like I ever wanted these. And they are from a Breath of Fire game! Only IV did a better job in not making the majority of them annoying, so that's good. What's bad is that almost all of them are still mandatory.

So the mainstays of fishing and faerie village are still around. The latter seems to be done well, but don't quote me on that since I didn't know much about the faerie village in the previous game. Here, it's somewhat easier to understand, having them do jobs to keep themselves alive and all. Hunting, by the way, can be a minigame in place of regular random battles sometimes, where you help the faeries by using Ryu's sword or Ursula's gun to hunt animals, and it's harder than it sounds since you leave one animal wounded, it's actual meat value drops, and heh, just watching them run away is a pain enough.

As for fishing, meh, I liked it a lot better in Breath of Fire 3. There's a difference between different kinds of fishing locations (there's river fishing in this game) and being able to see which kinds of fish you will be able to catch. Breath of Fire IV has the former. The overall mechanics for catching fish are still the same and still not too tough to do though.

So what about those other minigames? Well, there's one where you gotta feed an old man, forcing the player to be distinctive of what food and drinks are bought. It's pretty easy, all you need is money. Afterwards is a lame betting minigame, again having a ton of money really mitigates this one. There's an extremely dumb shovel game where the shovel actually breaks upon too much use. As someone who's used heavy duty shovels before, that's really not how shovels break.

The first real awful game is that sluice gate thing. It's one where you have to be rather slow at first when rotating a wheel but have to speed up later on until you hit the O button upon the high pitched noise. It's a bit reminiscent of the valve minigame from Breath of Fire 3, except at least you are not sacrificing a plot item, but rather trying not to get Ryu tired from the spinning.

Hide and Seek? Eh, I'll pass. This minigame is even stupider than the one in Breath of Fire 3 game mostly due to the new ability to change camera angles only making it so that finding the kids is hard because of the camera angles. Meaning it's not really hard at all. Also not hard, stopping a thief by blockading something. The cleaning of the storeroom minigame is actually pretty neat. Although timed, it's pretty good, because you remove barrels and properly get items placed and crates stacked. There's a chicken herding game really late without a time limit, and it's not too important either.

Not a whole lot of minigames happen afterwards. The one with the river rafting is way too fast, but at the skin of my teeth I did it on the first go. The sandflier one is okay. The one where Nina has to knock the sailor off the mast is the other really bad minigame, one that almost entirely can be cheesed if you know how, but is extremely difficult otherwise. And another really dumb sailing minigame comes afterwards! If it isn't obvious, anything involving water tends to be the worst minigames of the whole bunch. Hey, Breath of Fire 3 had two awful ones involving Garr, pulling something from water, and getting something from a water well.

So yeah, Breath of Fire 4 did only slightly better in minigames, where there really are only bad ones involving the water or anything associative of it. It had more than Breath of Fire 3, but they were at least decent enough. And the mainstays are still mainstays, nothing too terrible about them.

RPG characters and sleeping

Yes, I told you I'd be doing something like this. Well, here it is. Some of you may have seen enough of these things in every JRPG you have played, I certainly know I have! Some of you may be aware of The Grand List of Console Role Playing Game Cliches. I'm not gonna link it, it's a pretty easy find, and you can even check tvtropes.org for more in-depth looks at these cliches. So let's look at number 1, which is the Sleepyhead Rule.

What does this entitle? Well, look at Chrono Trigger. Crono is woken up by his mother by having the windows open; she wants to tell him about the fair happening. Good for her. The description of this rule is this: "The teenaged male lead will begin the first day of the game by oversleeping, being woken up by his mother, and being reminded that he's slept in so late he missed meeting his girlfriend."

Well Crono is one such character, and Serge from Chrono Cross follows in Crono's footsteps as someone woken up by his mom. Cless from Tales of Phantasia also falls to this. Ark from Terranigma is actually woken up by his girlfriend, but she still counts. Even Link, in a Link to the Past and Link's Awakening, has this cliche going for him, whether its his uncle or Marin doing the waking up. The key to this is being woken up by someone who's clearly a figure to the main character in some way, and not abruptly. The figure is basically telling them they might just be late to something important. Not a total emergency, but something important to the main character.

This is why Stahn from Tales of Destiny doesn't really count. He's an extreme example of a sleeper, one who was found as a stowaway aboard a ship. Even moreso when he knows no one aboard anyways. And Ryu from the first Breath of Fire, despite being woken up by his grandmother, also doesn't count, because it is abrupt because their village is burning down. So no real emergencies can make this one qualify.

All in all, despite being memorable for the two Chrono games enough that it's often considered cliche, especially in other series like Zelda, what you see isn't really all that common. It's only a cliche that happens once, and never really seen again for the rest of the game. And this trope isn't entirely that bad, the waking character is always a good character telling them they might want to, you know, wake up and see the sunshine or go out and have an adventure. That's pretty much a par for the course for any protagonist, wake up, have a nice adventure, and revel in it. They may or may not see the figure that wakes them up frequently, but that's fine.

All-time Top 10 JRPG deaths.

Yes, character deaths. These all happen with the plotline of a JRPG, whether it's a playable character, non-playable ally, or villain that you feel glad for defeating, someone is liable to die. This Top 10 list will count down the greatest JRPG deaths of all time, the ones I think are the greatest. These deaths were graded on the overall impact that they have when they occurred, and are not necessary tragic sometimes. But these deaths and their circumstances are surely memorable. Also one death per game. Major spoilers ahead for these games of course.

10. Bolt - Thousand Arms

You know that some deaths are tragic. You know some deaths were quite deserving for the characters that obviously got it coming. Bolt in Thousand Arms grabs the #10 spot due to how hilarious it is.

Picture this. It's the 2010s. Things have been happening in reality where people often get offended by words and just explode in a fury of anger and triggered bile. Now rewind back to when Thousand Arms was released. You confront Bolt, the first of the five gear theme-named henchmen of the evil emperor of the game and fight him out. But even before that, you see a fantastic weakness in him. He hates big words. In other words, words that are big and not in most everyone's English vocabulary. Now go to the actual fight with the guy. After its done, he starts spewing out these words unknowningly. Then he gets so offended from his own words he actually explodes. It's absolutely hilarious, and a nice allegory of how people "explode" when they get triggered in the modern days.

9. Ghaleon - Lunar 2

It's worth noting that Ghaleon is pretty much a card-carrying villain. He's the guy from Lunar 1 who's an amazingly overpowered mage, only to betray Alex, enslave the power of the White Dragon, and kidnap Luna, driving him to save his girl. There's nothing else you can think of Ghaleon apart from being said girl-napper and dragon-killer. Well, you do see his backstory which is told by Laike later on.

In Lunar 2, the distant sequel of the first game, we see Ghaleon has apparently been resurrected by a greater evil, Zophar, for his own plans. Ghaleon appears next to (a fake) Althena as her champion, and the current Dragonmaster in the game. He's just as overpowering in this game, easily defeating Hiro and his friends when he gets involved in a fight. Yet here's the thing. Ghaleon's actually helping these guys, secretly of course. He's an anti-hero in this game through and through. Despite Zophar could easily remove his life, he shows that he's toughening up Hiro and his group to defeat Zophar. Upon the party actually managing to beat Ghaleon, he now knows that he has given them the strength to win, and even lends Hiro his sword. When he's finally alone, he talks to the skies towards Dyne, whom you know no doubt he used to be friends with, before finally fading away. It's certainly good to know that even the bad ones help out the good people without them knowing.

8. Ray - Breath of Fire 2

Breath of Fire 2 is already a very sad game on its own. The entire Evrai arc of the game is the single saddest part of it. We see the crazed church fanatics cheering on the lynching of Claris, who is killed along with Tiga who's futile attempt to rescue her only did marginal. We see that Daisy, despite being a bitch of a mother to her own son up until that point, decide to actually give her life to save her son in one of the sadder moments. And if the player isn't careful, Ryu may not realize that he ends up murdering his own father, who of course got tied to a machine.

But Ray? Ray's just some friendly guy you meet who helps you deal with a few enemies in a sewer to save some villagers being possessed by parasites. Is this guy enticing? Not really. But then you see that Ray is connected to the Evrai church in a way. He's one of those characters, fighting for the side he believes in, whether or not it's right or wrong. In Ray's case, during the battle with him, you will then come to the conclusion that he realizes that the Evrai church is in fact wrong. Well, you established that fact already seeing as to what happened with Tiga and Claris. The way Ray pays you back is with one powerful attack, which actually grants Ryu his final dragon form, which immediately will end the battle when used.

It's quite sad, as Ray decided at the last minute to help the friends he used to work with so long ago. And he couldn't do it any other time due to his own circumstances of being tied with a much more vile party. It's a tear-jerking send-off to a fierce friend that the player makes.

7. Crono - Chrono Trigger

Ah, this one is one people certainly know. Despite the fact he's the silent protagonist, and also the one who's default namesake resembles the title of the game, which actually is a key item involving him, Crono does die in this game, giving it all against the one-and-only Lavos.

It's a death that probably could've been prevented, and one that could potentially seem like a stupid sacrifice, but it's memorable enough to belong here due to Crono being the main hero, the one who never would leave the party. What happens afterwards is a very remarkable change of pace, and that's what puts this on here. You can choose to revive Crono, which most players actually do, but after his death is where the game just opens up completely. You've got a ton of quests that can be done, with the largest one of course involving the steps to his revival. But before that the game was pretty linear despite all the timeskips you do in them. Here, said death was not only one of the most memorable deaths because the player loses the hero, but a whole lot of stuff can be done after it and it's quite worthwhile to check everything out.

6. Teo - Suikoden

The Soul Eater in Suikoden 1 consumes the souls of the people closest to the bearer. Though in Suikoden 1, that really doesn't entail a whole lot. Unlike, say, Suikoden 4's Rune of Punishment, we don't actually see the rune having any major adverse effects on Tir McDohl apart from him using it in a few circumstances in the storyline. And it certainly doesn't actually consume the living souls of those directly around him. But it does take in four dead souls to power up the rune's main abilities. One of those souls is Teo.

It's definitely hard for me to pick which of the four dead souls that power up the Soul Eater is the most tragic death. I decided that Teo is the most memorable for several reasons. For one, Teo is Tir's father, as has been established at the very beginning of the game. Second, he's a Scarlet Moon general, one of the Five Great Generals in fact, so he has a major status. Third, his own son, due to the circumstances involving the Soul Eater, finds himself as the leader of the Liberation Army, the freedom fighters fighting the Scarlet Moon Empire. This of course brings us to the eventual conflict between father and son. The final aftermath does involve the son winning a duel against the father, but because of this, he's on the verge of death. Teo's actually happy about his son, how he has managed to surpass his father, the way most sons should follow in their father's footsteps. Teo's simply on the other side of the war fighting for it, and lends his lieutenants to serve under his son as a final farewell.

5. Maxim & Selan - Lufia II

It sucks that Lufia 1 shows us the end of Lufia 2. As cool as it is for most of us to play overpowered heroes against the main villains, watching cutscene powers take over which results in the death of one of these heroes (Selan) would be quite enough to shed a tear. Of course, because of this death, we watch as Maxim stays behind as the Fortress of Doom falls, meaning he perishes as well while Artea and Guy escape.

These two deaths don't really become sad until you play Lufia 2. All the way through. Given that the main character is none other than Maxim, you watch as he gets to know the environment he inhabits and meets his friends along the way. Selan is one of those, an experienced general who is said to be really skilled. Like any woman though, she's got a soft side, crying in joy after Maxim gets back from defeating Gades the first time. Said joy eventually ends up in an actual marriage between the two, both having a happy year and actually bearing a child named Jeros. Then when disaster happens it's pretty obvious that the fighting couple is back into the actual plot of the rise of the Sinistrals, continuing all the way until their final moment. It's really sad in this game due to actually experiencing the adventure these two embarked on all the way to the very end.

4. Mami - Breath of Fire 4

This was a real hard one to get. I was torn between this one and Elina's death, which involved Cray mercy killing her due to her apparent abominable status. But I settled with Mami's death due to how some people may have missed the memo for it and for how it impacts the other main protagonist.

Mami's not really anything too special. She's a random country girl in a town who happens to stumble upon a wounded Fou-lu, which is that said protagonist I mentioned. He's taken into her company and sort of just given a home. Basically speaking, she's a good samaritan, completely unaware that Fou-lu was of some status that his own empire wants, and ends up giving herself up. This has some extreme consequences when Lord Una actually decides to use her against Fou-lu, by having her as ammunition pointed straight at the guy. When Fou is hit, he sees the bells, the same ones Mami wore, and this causes him to outright snap and hate all of humanity because of this. She was basically the last floodgate keeping the dragon god sane and not outright villainous to everyone, and due to the circumstances, he's now a full-fledged villain. It's more blatant in the manga for Breath of Fire 4, which unfortunately no one really looked at.

3. Alicia - Live-A-Live

The antagonists of Breath of Fire 4 and Live-A-Live are a lot alike. They were both characters the player would have experience working with. They both had to go through a hell of a lot of hardships. There was one character that was really that last hope for them. In the case of Oersted, that was Alicia.

The reason this death ranks over Mami was because this was Oersted's one goal in his one quest. This was what he was fighting for, and after being exiled for being a demon, it was his only hope left. He was quite the knight in his heyday, winning the tournament and the right to marry Alicia, who of course gets kidnapped. As I said in my look back at Live-A-Live, the cliche plot gets completely deconstructed, when Oersted actually kills the king in an illusion, making everyone hate him. He finds and fights Straybow, his former friend, and then it happens. Alicia decides that she loved Straybow more because of the pains of not being the winner all the time, or something like that, and commits suicide right in front of Oersted. You watch this, and then you see Oersted declaring himself as the demon king in the way that it makes perfect sense why he would become a demon. All because of her. In fact, it's so bad, that when you fight his last incarnation, one of his attacks, Saint Alicia, shows a woman who's visage goes horrifying, implied to be how Oersted sees Alicia now.

2. Galuf - Final Fantasy 5

I value character development a lot. Unfortunately none of those characters in Final Fantasy V proved to be really interesting at all. Bartz is really just an adventurer. Faris is a cross-dressing pirate and a secret princess. Both Lenna and Cara/Krile are princesses in their own right. Galuf? Well he's an amnesiac hero. You've probably seen such heroes. Also he's the oldest of the group as well.

Still though, it's admirable how they decided to give Galuf his memory back, giving him far more development than all of the other playable characters combined. He goes from being an amnesiac to a general, one of the original four heroes along with two of his other friends (apparently Bartz's father died before the story began). He's with the main party when he can, and when he confronts Exdeath, that's when the death becomes memorable. He's managing to fight the battle completely solo, and with zero health too. It's the power of love and friendship, and as cliche as it is, he manages to beat Exdeath and save his party and granddaughter. Of course he dies this way. But it's what makes this death very special, and beats every other Final Fantasy death out of the water. As he dies, we see the party actually making an attempt to revive him with the Phoenix Down or Life spells. And it doesn't work. You look at other famous deaths in the franchise and potentially wonder if it is possible to revive characters in the plotline a similar way. Final Fantasy V actually makes that attempt and shows that it isn't actually possible. Of course this is due to the way Galuf fought Exdeath, but they managed to excel in making a character die and prevent his revival.

1. Luca Blight - Suikoden 2

Deaths in RPGs tend to be tragic when they happen to the hero, while an accomplishment for villains. Although some villains are really just tragic characters in themselves as well. Luca's an interesting case here.

His tragic backstory is honestly only really seen in Suikoden lore and in one cutscene in-game. Watching his mother get raped while his father cowardly doesn't help is what drove him to utter madness and a lust for killing "pigs". You don't see this lore anywhere else, you just see Luca as a villain who's pretty much knows his villainous deeds. The whole plot of the game up to his death is mostly running away from the guy, since he's too powerful to contend with, as well as formulating strategies against him and his Highland woes. And even then, there needs to be some outside help from the traitor Jowy, who unbeknownst to the Dunan Army, is secretly helping them plot against Luca and his misdeeds.

And then there's the matter of Luca Blight actually falling dead in the famous night raid. Surely enough, this guy is clearly made of iron. Those arrows kill his soldiers and his horse, causing him to fight one group of freedom fighters. He then runs and then confronts another group, and then the hero's group. While he does manage to run from each fight he's involved in, he doesn't get so far before the jar of fireflies gives him away to even more arrows. And yet again, he's still got the stomach to engage the main hero in one final duel, despite him being at half strength. Only then, does he die. It took all of what I just said in this one paragraph to kill the almighty Luca Blight, the scourge of Suikoden 2.

And the best part? Luca is fully human. Granted, he's certainly a strong archetype of a human, but he doesn't have any lame true-form transformations like other JRPG villains. He's just that resilient. The game really isn't over after Luca's fall, but in a way, it feels like the worst is over for every Suikoden II player once they finally defeated this madman.

Wacky JRPG attacks and special moves

What you see in JRPGs usually is the same sort of thing in each and every battle system. You've got standard attacks with whatever weapons. You've likely got special combos or something along the line of special moves. You've got magic abilities that can range among many other elements. But you may also see some attacks that make you wonder, what were the game designers thinking? I find myself thinking the same thing sometimes when I play games.

You look at some special attacks, like the Purify Weird Souls from Valkyrie Profile. These all seem to be some sort of hidden power or something like that. Just check out Arngrim or Lucian and see what kinds of finishing combos these guys do. And then all of Legend of Legaia's characters use fancy-named martial arts combos, but these all don't seem to have any special effects. What about the types of attacks Will/Freedan/Shadow does in Illusion of Gaia, or the special attacks that Ark can do in Terranigma? They're pretty neat. Same with the special techniques characters in the Tales series can do. And even at their weirdest, the majority of special finishing techniques used in Soul Nomad & the World Eaters are very much charming each time they are used.

Not everything is set for awesome special attacks, as a majority of them tend to mix in weird ones with good awesome ones. Mario & Luigi games love to have zaniness in their special bros moves, which it gets a pass because Mario & Luigi games are already meant to be fun in a lot of ways anyways. I can't really say the same for the first Wild Arms though. How does Rudy get different kinds of armaments anyways? His default gun actually is supposed to be his regular shotgun*. To tell the truth though, I want to focus on how zany Square is with its non-Final Fantasy RPGs and the weird attacks they have.

Enter an on-foot battle in Xenogears and input your button combos to do your deathblows. So far, nothing's too important, especially very early on in this game. You've just got standard martial arts combos, sword combos, whip combos, wait, is Elly actually screaming at an enemy for damage? The hell? And then you unlock the elemental deathblows, and wonder how the hell these characters can get such superpowers. Bart growing angel wings and flapping them? Crikey. They at least deduced that Emeralda was a completely unique character that can shapeshift with her nanomachine body, so all her crazy deathblows actually make sense. But I really can't say the same about everything else. Maybe it's the whole deal with the Limiters?

So onto Chrono Cross. Watching the techniques in this game basically inspired me to create this post, and given this game's crazy as hell cast, it was sure telling. Just look: Luccia using her chemicals to totally mutilate her enemies? What about Macha's technique of turning her enemy into a shirt and folding it? Mel does even more, turning her opponent into a drawing and drawing on it, or the stupid temper tantrum attack that somehow causes an earthquake. Turnip's secret technique has him flattening an enemy with a Matryoshka version of himself. I guess it does make sense that nonsensical characters have nonsensical special abilites, but Square sure loves to take it far when they did this in Chrono Cross. Heck, in Chrono Trigger, Frog's best technique is Frog Squash. Which if you recall, summons a HUGE frog to stomp on the enemies. Yeah.

Am I against these weird attacks? Should this really be taken seriously? I really wouldn't know. All I can say is, if you're gonna have weird and wacky special abilities for characters in a JRPG, then they shouldn't be characters that are taken too seriously. For the games I mentioned, they are mostly fine give or take. I honestly still prefer the anime-esque attacks of any other game no matter what.

*Well when you think about it, that only really applies in the remake, where he actually has this as his default weapon. In Alter Code F, he also gets special JRPG style moves with his gun, but this is better RPG-wise than having multiple different armaments. Oh, and his default weapon in the original Wild Arms is none other than a small sword. At least Jack makes some sense with his special moves, I guess.

Final Fantasy VII's Minigames

Ah yes, I wanted to talk more about minigames considering how annoyed I am at a lot of them, particularly in Breath of Fire 3 where some of the worst ones were required. So, what did Final Fantasy VII have in store. Well, a few required ones, some of which thankfully aren't necessarily scored, plus an entire minigame zone which is of course optional. It's not without it's more annoying ones though, but the vast majority of the minigames are actually pretty decent.

I think the best overall minigame is the Fort Condor scenarios, which all have different timeframes for when they become available. It's a real-time tactical battle with several units of advantages and disadvantages, and putting a new unit in battle costs money. Thing is, this is Final Fantasy. I'm liable to be grinding and that gets me in a lot of moolah, so these battles are honestly piss easy. The last one of course is what gets the Phoenix materia in this game, and for some reason it's possible to get two copies of it.

A whole slew of events before the Gold Saucer and Fort Condor have a few minigames to put up. There's only one minigame during the Wall Market subquest, which is squatting and that's actually pretty easy. The biking minigame to escape from Midgard is pretty decent, although it's hard to actually hit enemies here. You're not really scored on it, and characters here have plenty of HP to survive even on a first try, although there is a boss at the end. The ones in Junon are the worst, but for some dumb reason, they made friggin' CPR into a minigame before that.

So the Junon minigames with the ratings are the worst ones out of the whole bunch, both for being mandatory and obnoxious at the same time. Great, put Cloud in the soldier outfit, and have him ready to run into the soldier march, doing the commands just right. Apparently, setting text scrolling to default seems to be the way to correctly do it, but even then, ratings are likely to be stiff. And then there's the sendoff one, which in all honestly takes forever. It amazes me that Rufus is gonna stare at your group while the guy just brings commands, except he does it very quickly and it gets insanely difficult to keep up. Also wrong turns ruin it completely.

Thankfully the Gold Saucer minigames aren't really required, with the exception of the submarine and snowboarding ones, but those are unlocked after story events and you aren't really scored on neither then. Alongside them is the bike game which is also available, this time scored. The other games aren't anything to write home about. Arm wrestling is just button mashing. The ball minigame has a nice timing aspect that's easy to figure out. The Mog minigame is a complete waste of time as is the fortune telling. The 3-D fighter? Would be interesting except you can never beat the fifth opponent ever, which is not a good thing for any minigame. Unwinnable situations are a no-no. The other squares have other things to them, like Battle Square is honestly pretty self-explanatory and is how to get Cloud's last limit break. The other's aren't minigame-esque at all except for Speed Square, which has a very fun shooter, and Chocobo Square.

Now Chocobo breeding honestly is a pain in the ass, but pretty much required for these ordeals known as Chocobo racing. Yep, gotta catch one with a lure, put it to a farm, feed it greens so it can "grow" per se. Or go ahead and catch a different color one because those will be a lot better to use. Pretty much what I do in these races is hold a button down. It seems that I always pick the auto option, and due to my chocobo stats, I win each time. Don't even race against that Joe guy to be honest. All I really do is find the guide for getting the Gold Chocobo and follow it. All I end up doing is getting the Knights of Round summon. I don't even want to bother with the rest.

So Final Fantasy VII's minigames are an obvious mixed bag, but the vast majority of them are not really required. They had to make some of their more annoying ones like the Junon ones required though. The other required ones end up in the Gold Saucer (land of optional minigames, naturally) but aren't scored when you have to do them. And at least some of them were decent enough in my book.

RPG Maker for the Playstation

The fact that this exists is amazing in itself. In fact, the fact that RPG Maker in a sense is actually a series is interesting in itself. Now, I've totally not picked this up yet, but I plan to at some point. Tinkering and creating your own thing is pretty neat no matter what you're looking at. A guy I know is currently making one on a PC version of RPG maker, one that's obviously gonna be more advanced. Since I'm more of a retro player, I'm taking it into account to check this baby out instead of the more advanced PC versions.

So apparently those without a lot of game making experience can tinker with this. In my life I had the potential to do this during my time in college, but eventually settled for more Internet-based activities instead. Always gotta start small though, and given this is something that doesn't necessarily require an internet connection, as well as my general interest in the RPG genre as a whole, yeah, I can see myself sitting down to do this kind of stuff right about now.

New posts now that I am caught up

Now that I'm caught up with looking back at the RPGs I have reviewed, I will plan ahead and do some more quality text content for you viewers to enjoy. But first of all, let me now announce that even though I've already set this blog as public, I will truly make it public by sending the URL of this to some of my followers on other sites.

Content I plan to do:

Analyzing RPG cliches
Top 10 lists pertaining to RPG mechanics
Character analyses

A look back at: Romancing SaGa 3

At this writing, I am officially now all caught up with putting all my old RPG reviews from TheTopTens onto "look backs" in this blog. This includes Romancing SaGa 3, which I actually just finished just a day or so ago and written my full review on it. So yeah, more SaGa stuff. I've played more games here than I have any other franchise apart from Suikoden and Final Fantasy.

I won't walk away from it impressed though. There were things I was expecting. Having eight potential protagonists with some intertwining intros, fair enough. Having to get lucky with the RNG to get the techniques and stat boosts, not a fan of that anyways. Quests are interesting, but somehow Romancing SaGa 2 did a better job with them. There were things I hated. Monica, which was my main character, is barred from several quests. Harid can't use anything but a curve sword in his first weapon slot*. Katrina is pretty much unavailable unless she's your main. Mikhael's war battles are honestly more trouble than they're worth, and I don't know if the ruling game is any better than being the emperor in Romancing SaGa 2. There are of course, hidden counters. I was barred from recruiting some of the last few characters like the snowman due to an unknown "character recruit limit", which honestly shouldn't have existed. There's also a greed counter, apparently bad if you are playing as Harid, I think. Oh yeah, and mastering techs is at the mercy of the RNG. Especially evasion ones.

For what its worth though, at least Romancing SaGa 3 provides a neat premise, like the other two before it. And at least we will get involved with them in the middle of all the quests to take. And despite not a whole lot of background for most recruitable characters, Romancing SaGa 3 seems to better than its predecessors. The ones involving Sharl and Muse are good, as is Herman/Black. Zo (the elephant) wants to cure his sister, while the eastern characters like Bai Meiling and Yan Fan work together with the hero on things. The best part is that none of the characters in the game actually suck at everything**, each one is skilled in at least something. So barring some minor nuances, Romancing SaGa 3 is a nice swan song for the mini-franchise, one that even got translated well enough. SaGa Frontier takes over from here.

*Though the Seven Star Sword trick does work with Harid, good freaking luck with that RNG.
**Except Herman, who's meant to suck due to having lost his youth. Sure, he can use the axes rather well, but then again, his entire stat pool is a tumble. Fight Forneus with Herman in the party and win and he becomes the much better Black. Also Muse may count, since she has zero levels in everything, but she gains them very quickly and can be really good overall.

A look back at: Shining in the Darkness

Yeah, should've started here.

Well, it's a Genesis dungeon crawler mixed in with RPG stuff. Pretty standard. You'd wonder why I would still be playing these kinds of games if they're so typical. Gotta give credit as usual though, they take Phantasy Star's first-person dungeon mechanic and apply it to the whole game. Whether it's the dungeon, the town, or the castle, everything seems to be first-person. And the dungeon, excuse me, labyrinth, is quite the labyrinthian trek. I decided to do some grinding here like I would other games.

And let me say one thing, Shining in the Darkness shares a lot in common with Dragon Warrior 2. Three characters, your main cannot use magic, the other two can, and one is a female. You can ambush or be ambushed, fight off several kinds of enemy groups. But Shining in the Darkness is substantially easier. The level curve isn't incredulous, you get both your party members really quickly, and the overall experience doesn't feel like a complete crapshoot. They try multiple things for this game, including special monster encounters, chest monsters, and the damn MP draining moss, plus having to exit the labyrinth just to see if the town or castle has anything new in store when that actually means having to go back to the first floor of the labyrinth in the game. And yet I soldiered on quite well when I played it, so not all is bad.

No real sidequests to speak of, just a medieval setting, a medieval plot, save that princess, take four trials to prove you can keep going, you're the son of a hero. Well, they try some old tricks though. Having Melvyl actually be Dark Sol was a good attempt, and they don't make it too obvious he's a traitor. A brainwashed father that you have to kill ends up being a tad more predictable, but not so much. And of course, Dark Sol having that final form. You know, I give a lot of flak for RPG cliches, maybe I should start making blog posts about that.

A look back at: Suikoden Tactics

I guess I'll say it, but Suikoden is my favorite RPG franchise. What to do with so many characters, many of which are recurring!

Well, I still haven't played Final Fantasy Tactics yet, but from what I can tell, this game somehow has some tactics (hurr) similar to that, just with the Suikoden fundamentals, character-specific weapons, runes, skills (which finally make a return, hey where were those in Suikoden 4?). Also permadeath, unfortunately, for quite a good chunk of the not-so plot relevant cast. I'll give Tactics credit for giving us a little more background on a number of Suikoden 4 characters, as well as the Rune of Punishment itself, although it's not the central plot piece this time around. Also gotta say, 100% completion of Suikoden 4 really does payoff, since Lazlo can be recruited and he's easily the most overpowered character in this game.

Overall though, the game's main focus is terrain, so use items/rune magic to lay down terrain corresponding to the innate element (Kyril is fire, for instance), and make sure it's not whatever you're weak against. The AI really tries to take advantage of this, plus back attacks and the Wind of Sleep spell which has an annoying range. Also there's obviously not random encounters, instead you hunt for monsters on the field or in sidequests, or just play the normal plot and fight some soldiers or something.

Well I'll give it credit, Suikoden Tactics manages to completely wrap around Suikoden 4's plot, but both sides manage to do it quite well. Walter's whole deal with finding out about Rune Cannons seems serious, especially considering how those were never touched on in 4. In the end, Steele ended up being one hell of a character for this game, which ends up in lots of tragedy for characters there. The time skip shows that Kyril's still going along his father's wishes, ending up in Kooluk and finding the truth about Iskas. The idea of a patriarchal faction seems alright as well, and the turning of people into fishmen is quite nasty in this game. Ultimately like other protagonists before him, Kyril proved to be a unifier of many to stop an ultimate threat, and that's what Suikoden protagonists do. So yeah, great continuation and a potentially good save of a good franchise from its main slumping point.

A look back at: Legend of Legaia

Finally a Playstation game worth playing at least once.

What can I say. I was actually recommended this game. Though looking at the cover art tells me nothing (my first instinct is why is Ryu from Breath of Fire in another game, lawls of course followed) this game manages to impress me somewhat. Alright, so we have a unique fighting system, well not really. The system allows for button inputs if you were playing a fighting game, which will then translate into actual fighting moves since the characters actually use martial arts in battle. Yes, even when you give them actual blade weapons or something. Silly. And this learning magic thing, I'm honestly NOT impressed with. Having to fight off Seru monsters and beat them accordingly and praying to god the RNG doesn't screw over is a real annoyance when it comes to getting magic. Learning magic is almost as bad too, since leveling up may or may not be all that welcoming in the end. Let's also get into the fact that the bosses in this game have a boatload of health, as they just have to have a boatload of health to really get a load of experience out of them.

Well, if anything, Legend of Legaia goes with a premise and actually makes a plot out of it. The whole deal with Seru being like the new gadgets of everything, then going berserk and turning people into zombies is pretty horrifying on the onset. But that's the tip of the iceberg. The Genesis trees being the way to get rid of the mist, and having three protagonists join forces to ensure that whatever bad guys don't do anything bad first. Given the whole deal with how the mist makes the Seru go mad and attack humans actually turns things really nasty.

So aside from the whole mind screw that the Seru do, what else do we get to see that's horrifying? Well, the town Octam with Hari in it obviously is mist-laden, but the people manage to live underground, yet the problem there arises when the earthquakes well below cause people to lose their homes. Having to live like that is bad enough. There's Ratayu, which actually offers a bride to be eaten by the juggernaut. The Sol Tower seems like it's a happy place being a minigame zone and all, but you see that almost everyone is so accustomed to living here they don't bother with the surface below. Then we get to the real deal, Conkram. The town has been completely seashelled, literally, by Juggernaut, where you see people crying for help. And then this exact same phenomena happens to Vahn's hometown of Rim Elm just after taking out Cort, where inhabitants are glued to floors, there's disgusting digestive tracts and other inhumane body parts everywhere. Seriously, Legend of Legaia got compared to Silent Hill of all games. This was a nice game to play for what it offered overall, but then you get into this insanely grotesque stuff and wonder how the hell it managed to get an E rating.

A look back at: Dragon Quest II

Oh god why did I do this.

For the fourth time in a row, I played a really hard RPG. Can you actually believe that despite adding more enemies and three party members they somehow made the game harder? Well they did. Still, it's not entirely what I would say is balanced. I guess it makes sense to have one character without magic ability in the hero, then the prince and princess are better suited for those roles while still being competent fighters (well, the prince is anyways). Awkward that they are all cousins, even moreso when the Princess was turned into an actual dog.

So yeah, this game is considerably harder somehow. What is it with second games in a series and being hard all the time. Speed seems to be completely randomized as are some monster stats, which really pisses me off. I also really hate how it's possible that enemies can take no damage from magic attacks. They don't even make an excuse for it evading a magic attack like The 7th Saga did. And then let's not get into the group-attack things like the Sleep spell, or the dreaded Sacrifice that those Gold Batboons or whatever they're called can actually open up the battle with.* And then, oh of course, the grinding still returns. I tried to enjoy what I can out of this game's improvements over its predecessor, but then I remembered where I was and actually enjoyed the game much less.

Well it does improve somewhat on the plot. I already mentioned the two companions already, and although it's been miniaturized, I can accept the fanservice-like return of Alefgard. Also I can admire the fact that the Dragonlord's grandson is a decent fellow and not some moron who wants to avenge his granddad. Hargon and his ultimate form Malroth are really nothing. Well, let's hope that me playing the GBC version of Dragon Quest III isn't gonna make me turn my head all over the place.

*This spell has a 100% of instakilling targets at the cost of the caster's life. The fact that an enemy can cast this causing a total party kill is NOT fun. Yeah, so these are endgame enemies, and you do respawn close to that area, but grinding is a real pain because of them.

A look back at: Romancing SaGa 2

Fun fact, I almost played ActRaiser, and then I realized it's not really RPG material. So I ended up playing this.

Back to the grind with Romancing Saga 2, not entirely the hardest of the SNES RPG compendium, but certainly a hard-to-come-by game, until recently in 2017 with a re-release. But it's still pretty hard regardless. Gone are the eight selectable protagonists with separate intros, now we have the concept of an emperor who rules their nation and can belong to one of many classes. The concepts from Final Fantasy Legend actually make a return in this game, which is remarkable since it shows what the series is about. Having to recruit characters is quite nice, as well as manage your own empire and go on quests from time to time. Having a new emperor when the previous one dies or after a certain time period was an interesting mechanic, even moreso when they can be any particular class. Enemies scaling as I gain stats though, and especially when they become really strong enemies that can shave hundreds of HP easily is a real pain though.

Well, at least they came up with some impressive storyline overall. Having one emperor and his son fight off one of the Seven Heroes, who will use his signature move to kill the emperor then, just so the son can learn the technique and beat him the next time in a rematch was a cute move. Having to name an emperor in the beginning isn't so much one though, since said emperor only appears at the very end. The Seven Heroes are an interesting bunch of villains, each apparently with their own backstories and motives. They're all supportive of one another in a number of ways, like Noel and Rocbouquet, or generally good at commanding things, like Bokhohn and Subier. Or they are pretty much just feeding off of things like Dantarg.

I guess if there's one other thing to mention besides growing the Avalon empire, it's the way the inheritance works out, so emperors basically inherit everything (plus whatever class they have) from their ancestor when they take over. The game certainly is rough around a lot of edges, things are definitely gonna be hard no matter what, and even if you decide not to grind so much to avoid the enemies, there's still ways to screw things up. But you know what, ignoring all the hardships encountered in this game, and realizing just how much you can do for an emperor, his/her empire and subordinates, and the overall plot, and believe it or not, this is a fantastic game.

A look back at: The 7th Saga

More grinding! More grinding!

It certainly says a whole lot when the game you're playing ends up being considered the 4th hardest RPG for the SNES. Yes, The 7th Saga doesn't pull punches at all, from the get-go all the way to the end. It's certainly one of the hardest ones here, but I wouldn't necessarily go out of my way to call it the hardest. The battles are indeed tough, especially for the squishier characters. Getting a partner may or may not be helpful depending on the circumstances, and technically they are rivals as well. One thing The 7th Saga gets right? Actual encounters. This radar mechanic makes grinding better than walking in place multiple times, so standing put near a town and waiting basically mitigates a lot of stress. Plus there's some good in a few auto-activate items saving my hide multiple times. It's the times where you fight enemies which utilize strong attacks or spells that can really hurt.

How ironic, the good part of The 7th Saga is its hard gameplay. And I will admire the way they made seven unique playable characters, each with strengths and weaknesses. But as you may soon see, everything plot-wise is in the premise. The premise is the entire plot, get seven apprentices to find the seven runes, offering some stiff competition like this was some sort of reality show. Once they get moving? Well, you are just following your main character, possibly even including an ally and fighting other apprentices. That's it. Hell, what are the other apprentices even doing anyways? Sure one goes mad and enslaves a town and you have to kill him, but seriously, anyone else actually doing plot things besides whomever the player chooses?

As if the plot couldn't get worse, it actually somehow does. Cool, so Lemele isn't even a good guy, who would've thought? Well technically that's not Lemele anyways, but still, Gorsia is a big bad without a whole lot of anything, really. Ooh, time travel, like that's something we see everywhere. Also losing all the runes and having to eventually get them back because Gorsia's final fight is a puzzle boss fight. To really make this a terrible plot? Oh I don't know, kill the main character anyways. Okay, so the main character ends up being reincarnated as Lemele, but this plot is just so inexcusably bad. For an extremely difficult SNES RPG, it honestly shouldn't have ended like this.

A look back at: Dragon Quest

This was a long time coming for me to play this thing. What do I get?

Well, color me shocked. You know how I said that Phantasy Star was big into some grinding for money so you can get the equipment you need? You also know how I mentioned early Final Fantasy games as grindy for the experience needed? Well, this game has both of those beat by making it almost necessary to grind for both money and experience. And to make matters, worse, the prices are extremely high right from the get-go and the leveling up in this game is a huge pain in the ass! No really, you are only controlling one character the entire time and you are fighting only one enemy the entire time. If I'm not getting annoyed by strong enemies and their abilities I'm getting incredibly bored.

Seriously though, the Goldman enemy is tough on his own. But even getting 200 gold tops isn't hardly gonna be enough for a lot of the equipment I'm trying to get. And then the elusive Metal Slime is the best as far as experience goes, but 115 isn't gonna cut it for some of these levels. Just so you know, the level cap is 30, and the amount of experience needed tends to shoot up from the hundreds into the ten thousands. Meaning I'm gonna have to get really lucky with metal slime killing and to do it more than one hundred times to get the extremely high levels that believe it or not, I actually need to fight the final boss. When you spend days grinding, that's not a good sign. And I'm not gonna forgive the fact that this is an NES game either, for the record, Final Fantasy III was a grindy NES game and I didn't nearly feel as bored with it then.

There's really no plot to this game whatsoever either. You're the son of a legendary knight, gotta get his armor, gotta slay a dragon to rescue a princess, gotta defeat an evil wizard. Alright, there is a plot, and this is one of the first games to have this incredibly cliche plot. But all that grinding is gonna make me forget there ever was a plot in the first place. And much of the grinding will be done in specific areas too. You can't just sit outside the home castle all the time since the weakest of the weak is there. And then you don't want to go too overboard or you're hitting the ones that can totally wreck you. So yeah, don't pick this game up unless you are one of those guys who doesn't mind spending days on extreme grinding.

A look back at: Final Fantasy Mystic Quest

Eventually I had to come by this "trainwreck" of a Final Fantasy game to see what it really was all about, being bad, easy, and short.

Yeah, not really THAT bad. Bad is reserved for truly terrible games with awful controls and more grinding than it really is worth. This game isn't any of that. Of course, it's no Final Fantasy title either. No active-time random battle system. No real customization so to speak of. Heck, it has the jumping mechanic from Final Fantasy Legend III, a SaGa game for crying out loud (granted, a terrible one upon looking back at that). Also up to two members can be in the party at a time, and Benjamin only gets them on special occasions. This of course makes status effects a lot more harmful due to limited party members. And then you have all the random tools for dungeon spelunking, which are alright at best to give a Zelda-like feel. The arenas aren't really too important, but I do like how enemies in the game have different "forms" whenever they are damaged in battle. It's a neat touch.

I was saying how this game really doesn't have customization of sorts. It really doesn't. Once Benjamin finds armor, it replaces whatever old one he has. Magic isn't even bought, it's found. And the party members have pretty much static stats; while they gain more as the game decides to give them a second try at being in the party, it's not gonna say a whole lot overall. Benjamin as a hero isn't really the kind of person I'd see as a hero. He's really the kind of guy who would appear as the "shrug your shoulders" guy in TV commercials. Hell, the other party members are somewhat more interesting than him when it comes to how the interact with things. And the Dark King, well let's just say that having a huge weakness to the hero's Cure spell is beyond pathetic.

The whole plot follows the rule of four with four settings, four big bad guardians, and this one old man who's just everywhere. It's extremely standard and not noteworthy. This game may just interest someone on the first pickup. Then that basically involves finishing the whole thing through very quickly and not really feeling like playing it again because face it, there are far more interesting RPGs to find.