RPG Ranks: 140-131

Continued from the previous post.

140. Deep Dungeon 4 (#124) 

So far the Deep Dungeon series has been atypical, but slowly becoming more typical through and through. Mind you, that's a nice thing. This game is still as tough as the others in the short-lived series, but still follows a medieval setting and generally isn't fun in the modern day.

139. Ys. (#96)

To be frank, it's basically a better Hydlide, but not by much. A better plot, with boatloads of ports for the first game itself, but a lot of moments where you're gonna need a guide to figure out where you're going. And it is subject to the "run into enemies to damage them" mantra. Not a fan of that at all, even if it is easier to do in this game than it was in Hydlide. I wonder if the later games did a better job though.

138. Secret of the Stars (#107)

Long have I contemplated whether or not this is better or worse than Dual Orb II as far as worst SNES RPGs go. In the end, this is worse. No combination attacks or good music were able to save Secret of the Stars from being such a nauseating experience. Slow speed, frequent and boring battles, awful translation, dumb moments of backtracking and getting lost. Tecmo should have just stuck with what they do best, which definitely isn't the RPG genre.

137. Dragon Quest (#76)

To think that it would take me so long to review just one Dragon Quest game, well, I decided to do it. The most classic RPG in existence, has a good series and all that, but why the original so low? Simply because it is quite possibly the most grinding game ever. Grind for experience, enemies barely give it, level gaps are huge. Grind for money, except good lord those prices are steep. One-on-one battles only, rather cliche plot. So many issues with this game that you'd really be having your numbers done from playing it just once.

136. Dual Orb II (#86)

I outlined everything wrong with Dual Orb II in my lookback post, if you want to see it. It's amazing how I grinded like crazy here too, but I still felt pretty empty. For an SNES RPG that's pretty darn embarrassing, don't you think? It tries to be interesting while still having some cliches, but fails. Things don't make sense and enemies get stupid. And really, could you use more battle music please? One track isn't enough.

135. Ys. III (#123)

A step in the right direction? Or not? Who knows. Ys. III is still as simplistic as the previous games in the series, even with this new change to side-scrolling action-RPG and having to actually hit things Zelda II style. There's more effort in the plot and in the combat, things can still be cheesed, but things can still kill you very quickly. These games do go by pretty fast overall.

134. Ys II (#102)

Sequels should always be better! Which is what Ys II is, although not by much. Adding MP and spells is cool, but the gameplay mechanics apart from that remain intact. There's a little less headaches in backtracking, thank god. Still though, running into enemies to damage them is still silly.

133. Wizardry IV: The Return of Werdna (#144)

You get to play as a bad guy! How cool is that? Well, this game has some issues. One is your character is a squishy wizard, a problem when he has to battle physical fighters. Then you gotta summon monsters from pentagrams as your main line of defense. Problem? They're computer controlled, which means you only control Werdna the revived wizard. Revenge motif is nice, but this is the weakest game in the Wizardry series gameplay-wise and took a lot of tries.

132. Majin Eiyuuden Wataru Gaiden (#19)

The accessibility of a game can actually determine where it ends up on the full ranking. Majin Eiyuuden Wataru Gaiden is actually a pretty good game with Zelda II like mechanics, but it is based off of an obscure anime and despite being properly translated it doesn't offer a lot of excitements. It plays reasonably well though, but you're not likely to see me referencing an obscure game like this anytime soon.

131. Dragon Quest II (#79)

What DQ2 does better than its predecessor is make that barebones turn-based RPG mechanic a little more like the barebones turn-based games I'm used to. Multiple party member, multiple enemies, a bit of randomization here and there. But it's also not a good game because it's somehow even more nastier to play through and twice as unforgiving. Good freaking luck if you decide to go for it, while you'd be enjoying some, you'd probably be hurting way more.

Continued in the next post.