RPG Progress Report

[noiseredux]

I beat the boss in the pyramid - the one who shoots lightening all over the screen? I must say the boss battles in this game are impressive. Anyway, my cold has really knocked me out so I haven't had as much time/energy this week as I'd have liked.

[alienjesus]

Phantasy Star 2 SPOILERS time!

This is going to be a small update covering a big portion of the game, because I've powered through the last day or so.

I cleared the green dam and was promptly arrested. I ran through the prison ship only for it to crash into the planet Palm (from the first game) destroying it enitrely.

After that I was rescued by a space pirate and took a ship to the planet Dezolis, where I went through a dungeon 3 times taking different exits to the 3 towns on the planet. Lots of grinding for money happened and I stocked up on the best purchaseable equipment in the game.

After that I found one of the party members from the first game (with a different name for some reason?) who gave me a magical mcguffin to see secret dungeons containing super powerful nei items. These 4 dungeons were a pain in the ass, but fully equipped with some powerful stuff, I took to the final dungeon. Or tried, at least - after I warped the game glitched out on me - the music stopped entirely, and using the Neisword to leave the dungeon (as is the correct method) would make the game freeze. Luckily, thanks to the rewind feature in the game, I rewinded to pre-freeze and used a spell to warp away and save in town (in a new save slot, just in case). Reloading the save worked. It took 20 minutes to walk back to where I'd glitched, but it was better than the alternative of losing several hours of work.

Anyhow, the last dungeon wasn't too bad, tough enemies but no worse than I'd fought before. I might have been a little underlevelled (about level 24-26) but I powered through and fought the first of two final bosses - Dark Falz. He kicked my ass, mainly because he kept making my party members evil when I was trying to heal.

The second time went better - I moved some items around so Anna could heal people and just relied on staying alive for as long as possible, and down he went. Then I took on the final final boss, who was way easier. The main trick seems to just be to get the spell Deban up ASAP as it basically halves all damage, and then it's easy enough to survive.

Anyway, ENDING SPOILERS AHEAD:
It turns out that Earthlings were the bad guys all along, and the game ends on a fight between my party and several hundred humans. I guess the implication is that either my party die or they wipe out the last remaining traces of humanity? Weird.

[noiseredux]

jeez, congrats bud. Ironically, I beat Crystalis last night as well.

[MrPopo]

(with a different name for some reason?)

Poor localization choices from back in the day.

[BoneSnapDeez]

Ya know, despite being on this forum for like 7.5 years I still have a hard time nailing down noise's "taste" in games. So when he enjoys something I also enjoy it makes me giddy. Yay Crystalis!

Nice job on PSII aj. Keep on rolling. (Part III is better).

I'm halfway through Esper Dream 2 I think? This game is really cool! A fast-paced ARPG with single-screen "arena" type battles, and immortal AI partners that vary by environment. I'm in a mechanical world right now with a partner named "Screwy."

[noiseredux]

Ya know, despite being on this forum for like 7.5 years I still have a hard time nailing down noise's "taste" in games. So when he enjoys something I also enjoy it makes me giddy. Yay Crystalis!

haha, am I that hard to read? I wouldn't have thought so. Yeah Crystalis was great, though.

[Ack]

Basically if it doesn't have trains, noise is a happy camper.

[pierrot]

I finished Super Mario RPG, and to my surprise, it was actually pretty good. It's kind of an interesting game, in that it sort of feels like Square just fanfic-ing the Mario universe, but I've never been particularly drawn to the Mario-verse (outside of Yoshi), so that doesn't really bother me. I could see fans of Mario being a little put off by that, but it doesn't seem like there's actually anyone who minds. I also had this weird thought, about the "Extra Special Thanks To" Nomura, that maybe he was sitting on these crossover ideas for a while, and something he suggested ended up turning into this project, and maybe Kingdom Hearts later on, as well. I'm sure glad he wasn't involved with SMRPGs development, even though it's not like the story is important to the experience at all, so what could he have really done to mess it up, other than put zippers all over Geno, or Peach, or something. It's also kind of impressive how much the Intelligent Designs group just straight jacked from Super Mario RPG for Paper Mario, while forgetting to actually make a playable game.

It's tough for me to put a finger on why I enjoyed Super Mario RPG, though. I didn't necessarily care for a lot of the little mini games thrown in all over the place; I feel the graphical style is a little ugly, personally; There really isn't any character in the game who isn't a complete imbecile, aside from Geno, maybe; Mario's pantomiming was one of my least favorite things about the game; I also don't prefer the isometric view. In a lot of ways, the dialogue, and interactions have the feeling of a gag manga, which probably limited my investment in the story enough that I didn't really care about it being pretty meaningless, and irreverently stupid.

Ultimately it doesn't do anything terribly wrong, though, and is very playable throughout the game. Things move and progress at a nearly perfect pace (if slightly too quickly at times), partly because the combat is actually pretty good here. Paper Mario is mired by god awful pacing in the battles, and story progression, so I was somewhat anticipating that to be the case in Super Mario RPG, too. I also probably ended up liking the "Square" elements of the game the most, with characters like Booky, and his tower, as well as Crystaler, and his envy of the third dimension.

It was a game worth playing, and considerably better than the RPGs that consistently get ranked at the top of the consoles library, but it's certainly not the best RPG on the console, or anything like that. If you haven't played Super Mario RPG, go for it; Then, I don't know, play Dragon Quest V, probably.

After finishing the game, I started watching a bit of the AGDQ 2019 run of it, and was kind of confused about this line from one of the kinopio, about not having his bazooka. In the Japanese script, he basically says he didn't apprehend Croco because he's a 'watch-person.' So, I don't really understand why they went so far out into left field in the translation, but that seems to be a bit of a common thing in the localization. Puns are practically the currency of the Super Mario RPG world, though, so I certainly wouldn't have wanted to be in charge of the localization.

Also, before I forget, the music was pretty good. I generally don't enjoy the music in most Mario games, but Shimomura Youko did a really nice job. I especially liked the Rose Town theme. I also saw a couple things that I never before realized that I needed in my life: King Koopa swinging around a BowWow like a flail, and Fatty/Obese Patas.


So, now I'm playing Front Mission Gun Hazard in earnest, and yeah, it's pretty legit. I am kind of annoyed by the map screen, and how it seems to be almost impossible to select the place I want to go next, sometimes, as well as all the minor damage taken from enemies exploding, and from dashing into walls, but it's going well so far, anyway. I am a little concerned that the gameplay seems very wash-rinse-repeat, and I'm not sure if that will start to feel stale before too long. I'm on the second area after becoming a mercenary, and judging from the other save files on my cartridge, there seems to be four or five more areas after that.

[MrPopo]

Mario's pantomiming was one of my least favorite things about the game

How do you hate one of the best parts of the game?

[pierrot]

I'm sure that's a rhetorical question, but I'm still going to answer it honestly, anyway: Because it's stupid, and nonsensical. I would find it less obnoxious if his speech in the game were to comprise entirely of various combinations of "It's-a me, Mario," "Mario time," "Let's-a go," and "Yahoo." Not that I would really like that, either. I'm just sayin'.