I like how you have the self awareness to differentiate “I don’t like it; it’s not what I wanted,” means “disappointing,” and not “THIS IS BAD.” Far too many reviewers I’ve seen with negative reviews often equating that feeling into their reasoning of saying the product is bad, and I find that very frustrating. Great video!
Quest 64 is one I have huge nostalgia googles for. Like, I know it's a really mediocre game objectively, but I can't help liking the music and the look and the feel of it. Same for FF3 (3DS version), I really liked that one. I think you just need to enjoy it for what it is and not what it's not. Cool shirt, btw.
Yeah, I think if I'd ended up BUYING Quest 64, instead of just renting it, I would have found myself enjoying it. But since I only had it for a couple nights, it wasn't enough to get me hooked, and I just felt disappointed.
I feel like this about ‘Guardians Crusade’ on PS1. It’s so mediocre in looks, story, gameplay but I have massive nostalgia for it and it was the first true RPG I ever played.
I would like to add the first "Octopath Traveller". I had high hopes, but felt very underwhelmed and disappointed. Most of all, the stories of all the characters barely overlap at all; it's very jarring when you get into a town with a party of 4, but as soon as you start talking to NPCs to start the story of one character, the others in the party just disappear. They are back during a fight, but just basically invisible during the story of a specific character. And the combat was super-repetitive and boring. And I am a sucker for turn-based combat (currently playing "Trails in the Sky" and loving it a lot). I think "Octopath Traveller" was very overrated because it looked nice.
While I did enjoy Octopath Traveler, your criticisms are correct. It was somewhat polarizing in that regard. The sequel does a better job of answering those complaints; not COMPLETELY, but it does move the series in a positive direction I think.
It's VERY weirdly repetitive too. Like the world map areas alternate between city adjacent and field in one big ring, almost every character chapter except one progresses exactly the same way.
As a kid, i picked up Saga Frontier because i thought the wizard on the cover looked cool. So of course i immediately started a game as Blue. I spent so much time just exploring these unique, surreal locations. Then i started building a party and doing side quests. It eased me into the battle system. The experience was magical. I can understand if others' experiences were not as great as mine.
SaGa Frontier is the best SaGa game. Figuring out all of the various side quests you can do, and which ones you're able to do with each character, was a huge part of the fun. I memorized so much of this game back in the day, and I'd plan out which characters I was going to get, who I was going to give each type of magic to when I did some of the magic gift side quests, and more. I think the only thing that ever tripped me up was monster progression - eventually I learned that you should just absorb as many different monster types as possible before getting the skills for the final build you want. The rest of the list is spot-on. Final Fantasy 3, especially in its original version, made the weird decision that when you obtained new classes, they'd utterly supplant your older classes and you'd retain no benefits whatsoever from progressing in those earlier classes. (It also doesn't help that what story there is just isn't very good. FF2's system might also be weird, but at least it felt like they really put effort into the story. Not so with FF3.)
My favorite Saga game is Alliance Alive 😂I am joking but that game kept some of the weirdness of the saga games and the battle system while throwing in a more traditional narrative
@@JustTheGems Hey, I'm autistic, and upon rereading I think I may have stated my opinion too harshly above. For the record, I totally get why someone wouldn't like SaGa Frontier. It does feel a bit piecemeal when compared to something with a proper world map and a single epic narrative. And tbh, I don't like the SaGa series as a whole. SaGa Frontier 2 bored me pretty fast. Romancing SaGa annoyed me. And Unlimited SaGa and whatever the mobile game is called just made me angry that they would charge people for such a thing. Alliance Alive does really feel like a SaGa game w/ more of a traditional RPG feel to it. I haven't made it very far(a little past where you become able to glide), but I read that you can make it impossible to learn certain skills if you don't do things quite right, so I'd need to research that more before I felt comfortable going forward any more with it. But it looks like it'll be decent once I get back around to it.
Quest 64 definitely definitely has a lot of issues that make it hard to get into, but I think it has some enjoyable qualities too. The channel Lvl Jake has a review of it that covers some of the positive aspects without shying away from its problems. In a similar situation of only having the N64 without too many other RPGs I probably put more time into it than was warranted, but still got a lot of enjoyment out of it.
I'm pretty sure I only rented it as a kid, so I didn't have much time, and because I was disappointed from the get-go I never went back to it until now. I may see how far I can get in it at some point.
I disliked Saga Frontier back in the day but the updates and changes made for the remastered edition have changed my mind. I love Saga Frontier Remastered for all it did to make the game more accessible than before. You may still need a guide for a few things but outside that I now rank it as one of my top 3 favorites in the Saga series of games. :)
That's neat to hear. I"ve been on the fence about getting the remaster since I wasn't hugely impressed by, but I may just grab it during some sale. I'm really hoping SF2 gets a remaster also cause that one I really did love on the ps1.
I never finished Saga Frontier back in the days,just the girl story but the Remastered make me played it again,this time i finished it,it really neat game as well
Same here. I tried many times to play the original, and wound up getting the Remaster knowing that if SE didn't fix the game, modders would. I wound up playing through most of Red's campaign, though I might have rushed the end too fast, might need to replay his campaign again and take it slower. At least it has a robust New Game+ mode where all of the "main characters" stats and equipment are preserved through different campaigns and playthroughs AFAIK. So, if I did choose to start another campaign, my characters stay leveled up which is really nice, lets one focus on the story.
I really liked SaGa Frontier back when it released. The worst part of it though was how you always started from 1 for every character's story. Having to do a bunch of side quests and power leveling for each story and then losing all of that progress and having to do it over again in the next character story was discouraging. I almost managed to finish it, back in the day, but having to grind multiple characters through seven effectively different games, was very time consuming, and when my save data corrupted I really didn't want to have to start all over again since I lost my system data too. The remastered version is much better in that regard, since even though it's optional, you can use New Game Plus and keep your characters progress from previous playthroughs to make your next character's playthrough much less taxing. Of course the downside is that doing so makes your first playthrough the hardest and then the final playthrough lightning fast. That said, there's still challenges that they added to the remastered version even using New Game Plus, like some of optional fights from the new 8th character.
Honestly yeah, that's how I've felt since Final Fantasy XV. It sucks feeling like you're no longer the target audience after literally growing up with the series.
I have to pretty much agree on Xillia 2, for me one of the main draws of the Tales of series is usually character interactions and the fact that this particular game choose to have a silent protagonist was to me not a good thing since it made several cutscenes rather awkward, especially since at the time I had just also played and completed Xillia 1.
Bruh Saga Frontier is one of my favorite games of all time >.< It was difficult to play as a 10 year old but I loved it nonetheless, and it remains to this day one of my most replayed games.
@@JustTheGems Im not mad at ya, it probably isn't as great of a game as I think it is haha. I can accept it is a flawed game. I just loved it so much as a kid that I hold it near and dear
Xillia 2 is my favorite tales game and Ludger is even my favorite protag lol. I wouldn’t recommend people to avoid it, it might be exactly what you’re looking for in a jrpg.
Sure, I'm just thinking if people have followed me for a bit and find their tastes to be similar to mine, it's something they should be aware of. I don't think Xillia 2 is a bad game at all.
For SaGa Frontier, I would definitely consider the remaster, it basically fixes everything and adds quick saving, new game plus, and a pretty decent hint system. The animations look a little better but the sprites themselves are readable now.
Gonna be honest. I actually preferred Xillia 2 over the first game. I really liked the character development of the first game's party members. The move to focus on more grounded trials for them to face was a stroke of genius, as far as I'm concerned. It's a game that dared to ask "What left is there to do for our heroes who saved the world?" And it pulls that aspect of the game off extremely well, in my opinion. The real disappointment here is Zesteria with its messy gameplay, mediocre cast members, bland main character, lack of cohesive theming, and abysmal ending. You could argue that Sorey is an upgrade over Ludger, who's a silent protag, but at least Ludger has some funny dialogue options that give you a hint at his true personality. Sorey's dialogue and personality is just really bland all the way through, all things considered.
I understand where you're coming from with SaGa Frontier, heck, that was pretty much my experience back in the days. Last year though, I decided to give the series another go, and somehow it just clicked. All the negatives like lack of hand-holding and high difficulty became actually endearing to me, and getting lost in these worlds has been my groove lately. They're definitely not for everyone and I'll never begrudge anyone for not enjoying or even hating games in the series. Nowadays, the Remasters are the way to go, they're still far from perfect, but the QoL updates make them more manageable for people who don't want to lose their minds in hard encounters. New Game Plus really makes additional playthroughs easier, allowing you to play with different party members or building ones you're reusing with another weapon in mind. And for anyone wondering, yes Emerald Beyond still has some difficulty spikes. I'm at the final boss of the run and it's been kicking my ass so far, so I went back to Romancing SaGa 2 and somehow managed to get over the boss that kept me away from progress for months on my first try. I think story not being the main focus of SaGa games is actually a positive for it as you can go in and out and rotate games easily without it affecting the experience too much.
It's a series that I have a feeling I'll connect with more now that I'm older. There are some super interesting mechanics in those games, and I've played other games that emulate some of those and enjoyed them (like Alliance Alive for example)
You ever watch 16 bit gems? V1 TH-cam through and through but its a set of period pieces on TH-cam jrp long-form. As a person doing the 2023 version of the same thing you might find some enjoyment in it, if you can handle bad sound, old cameras, and "well atleast you tried" for an attempt at comedy. Broke my heart at the time as the output became longer and longer. Clan of the gray wolf is the channel if you are curious
"I just threw up in my mouth" lol Great list! I remember being soo hyped for Saga Frontier from all the ads, and abandoning it like 2 hours in. Thanks Branden! ❤️
Thanks for not picking on Lufia 1 like everybody else loves to. Everybody disses that game because they can't understand how to properly play it and if they just put a little thought into it and they'd look past some of its roughness (such as the graphics which I never thought were THAT bad but people harp on about), they'd see it really did some things better than even #2 (such as the battle system) and unlike 2 it at least had some challenge to it, lol.
SaGa frontier 2 is the one that dissapointed me As far as 1 goes, its easily my favorite game of all time, as classic SaGa it basically does its thing on letting you adventure in the world and figure things out, often youll find new content and be shrprised by finding somewhere you hadnt know existed before, exploration and reward is amazing in that game, finding that duel pistol after searching the shingrow ruins for the first time was satisfying as hell and i ca t never forget how many combos ive learned during my playtroughts (reverse gravity always chained) Idk, ive never felt the same mystic atmosphere of slowly learning a game as much as i did with frontier, its truly something else .
I wish I'd had the patience to really give it a chance back in the day... A lot of people echo what you're saying, and I definitely feel like I missed out.
While i respect your opinion, I'm one of the few who enjoy Quest 64. So there is a level up system, it's just not as obvious. When you pause the game, there's this orb that fills up as you defeat enemies with a percentage underneath it. Once that reaches 100%, you "level up" and add 1 point to one of the four elements. Also, the game has a FF2 approach for stats. As you use the staff more or take damage, that levels up your HP. As you cast spells, that levels up your MP. As you take damage, that levels up your defense. As you run around in battle or an attack misses Brian ("Miss" appears on the screen), that levels up your agility. The higher level your elements are, the higher your staff damage but it's a little weird. If you level up one spell to 50 but keep the rest low, it won't be as powerful as if you kept them all around the same. As for something to complement the game on, definitely the music. The music is great and worth listening to again. Regardless, like i said before, i respect your opinion and you have earned a subscriber. I look forward to your videos in the future.
Iirc the reason ff2 and 3 didn't make it over to the states is because by the time ff1 came out in the west, the SNES was already releasing, and they didn't think putting resources into translating and releasing two big games for a dying console was worthwhile. Also ff2 was directed by the SaGa guy. Ff2 was the rough draft for the SaGa series.
I wonder, have you tried the SaGa Frontier 1 Remaster that fixes quite some stuff about it, like adding an option to runaway from fights, having additional content that wasnt implemented in the original or giving you a logbook on where to head next alongside further explaination of how the battle system works?
I just started playing Xillia 2 and thought I was crazy cause it's so hard to find anyone who also thinks the silent protag aspect is such a bummer, let alone the fact that most of the original cast feels like they just.. happen to be there. It's so nice to find a little validation in that experience.
I still remember dissapointed i was with Lagoon for the SNES, to this day i can't find a single positive thing to say about it.... Great video as always! Keep up the good work
What I didn't like about Final Fantasy III was having to use negative statuses on your party to get through certain areas, some of which really nerfed your characters making that area more difficult to get through. A good example is the Mini cave where you have to use the Mini status on your party, which reduces your attack power to one HP of damage to your enemies.
I am going to get a lot of hate, but Persona 5. I tried playing it twice, each time getting around 50 hours in then having to give it up. The amount of repetitive dialogue was unbearable. I literally fell asleep. I want to love it, I do, the art, music, combat all up my alley. However if i had to read the same plot point five times until they moved the story along I was going to go crazy.
Honestly, even though I love Persona 5, I can understand that. It's definitely not going to be for everyone, but good on you for really giving it a try. You clearly weren't just being dismissive of it if you put that much time into it. I try to do the same with games that I end up not caring for.
Final Fantasy II was essentially the first SaGa game. Akitoshi Kawazu was the battle director on both first FFs, and wanted to try something different for the second game, and afterwards took those ideas to make the SaGa. As for why II and III didn't originally make it to the west, it had a lot more to do with timing, from what I've heard. They were planning a translation of II, but by then the SNES and IV were right around the corner, so they decided to pivot to those instead, going as far as renaming IV Final Fantasy 2 so western fans wouldn't wonder what happened to the other two.
I wish I knew what I'm missing on Xilia (the first one). I've seen a few say it's one of their favorite Tales games, but I played through it with a roommate on Saturday's a few years back and I can BARELY remember any of it. Everything was just so unremarkable and dull that I just can't recall 90% of the experience. Best I can think is I only played through Jude's story, but in these modern times, I barely have time to play RPGs anymore (In fact I haven't been able to touch one unless with a friend in nearly a decade.) I just don't have time to play through an RPG twice. I hate that mechanic.
I 100% agree with you on Astria Ascending. I was sooo looking forward to that game, but by the time I got it and started playing it, I was sad by how mediocre it felt. Not to mention plating it in handheld mode on the original Switch was frustrating. Load times were bad during transitions to the point where the game froze on me frequently. I even had to redo the final boss of the game because the game crashed during the ending credits. But also because the text was so small and the font choice was this thin sans font. Thankfully I upgraded to the OLED model while I was playing, so it made it easier to read the text, but the game still crashed and took ages to load.
I got an SNES after the 64 came out, so I had plenty of time to decide between that an a PS1. When they announced Chrono Cross for the PS1, I was all in.
Speaking of, you can count CC as a JRPG that disappointed me. Don't know if I've ever been as hyped for a game as Chrono Cross, and as a sequel to CT, I still think its pretty subpar. Maybe as it's own game it holds up - I haven't played it in ages.
I loved quest! One great thing it did was the elemental magic combos into new spells. Also astria was such a letdown it was like they started you 30 hours into a game
I had a similar situation to what you described about quest 64, completely starved for a nintindo 64 rpg i saw quest 64 in a video rental place and was all, FINALLY and rpg! only, my experience was probably the worst possible way to play that game, see the nintindo 64 required you to have a sold separately memory cartridge to save your game, something that very few of the 64 games actually utilized since progression based games like rpgs were few and far between, as a consequence, i didnt own one. So I had the thrilling experience of having to run through the entirety of quest 64 in 3 days in a single attempt without ever turning the system off. I bought my playstation a month latter. Also something i think that goes overlooked about saga frontier, is that it solved one of the core issues that as a kid i had with RPGs see i loved them, i got invested in the stories and was excited when i got my next equipment upgrade. But.. it was kind of a one shot, because once i no longer had the discovery of the story and the sense of exploration pulling me through it was a lot less fun. Saga though, while admittedly brief on story, had REPLAYABILITY. You had more characters to choose form than you could fit in your party, and you had lots of different weapons with unique skills to learn, so you could focus on different ones on different playthoughs. And even if you chose the same weapon the order in which you learned the skills would be completely different. Leading to different strategies and tactics having to be applied. This is not even mentioning choosing between schools of magic, the different progression systems for robots/monsters/mystics. Sure none of it was amazing, but what it was lasted you for quite awihle. It was sort of the field rations of rpgs at the time :)
The drought of JRPGs on N64 was a tough time... And you're right about the pluses of SaGa Frontier for sure. I plan on giving the Remaster a shot someday soon.
As for a game that disappointed me. Disgaea. Back when it came out I was on a message board that went crazy for it. Everyone on the board was praising it, all talking about how awesome it was. So wanting to be included I tried to get a copy and one of my friends on the board actually bought me a copy! Sadly it was all for naught. I just do NOT like Strategy RPGS, and in the first couple of hours I realized I was going to hate this. I played like three battles and the game introduced to me like five different mechanics you'd need to keep track of during battles. After seeing the direction it was going with that I put it down and walked away. I just don't get them. It makes no sense to me why I'd want random battles in an RPG to last on average up to 30 or more minutes per battle. That's INSANE to me. I know it's fun for a lot of people, but for me it's just tedious busywork and I'm all for cutting it all to just put me next to the enemy and give me four simple commands: Attack, Defend, Magic, Item.
@@JustTheGems Sadly for me like pretty much all of them don't click, at least from what I tried. I didn't even care for Final Fantasy Tactics. I've played exactly one strategy RPG I actually liked. Zone of Enders: Fist of Mars.
As a very big SaGa Frontier apologist (because it is one of my favorite games of all time), I respectfully disagree with your points for it - but I do feel it is valid as the game really attracts polarizing fans/non-fans (it seems like they either really love it or really hated it). I liked how "weird" it was and it felt like that each gameplay feels like a new game (though I would recommend to at least have a break playing a new character after the other). And none of the games in the past can actually make me happy other than when (1) I get a light bulb indicating a character has a new skill and (2) beating the odds of defeating an insanely strong monster because I used the Death Arcane card (Dr. Tsunagu I'm looking at you). Each of the stories really resonated to me - I remember in high school being so inspired with Blue's avenging arc (plus the twist at the end). I saw a lot of comments that they actually liked the remastered version .... while it was good, I actually thought it made the game easier haha I guess am Maso for SaGa Frontier. But if the remastered version (I did bought it!) does make people reconsider the game, then it has done its job. It was actually surprising for me that it HAD a remastered as I know it is unpopular/underrated, but I believe one of the higher executives of Square now is a SaGa producer (or was involved) so there's clearly some traction for the series. Tales of Xillia was my favorite Tales in PS3 too - but I weirdly skipped Xillia 2. I can see now that maybe I dodged the bullet with the points you mentioned.
Haha, I had no idea SquareSoft had ads trashing Nintendo like that 😆 This was a great video! Thanks for the heads up on some of these games. Also, your Astria Ascending review was gold 😂
Before watching: Is it gonna be Tales of Zestiria? After watching: I wasn't expecting Tales of Xillia 2 there. I'll still say Zestiria is the most disappointing for me in recent years, mainly because I haven't played the Xillia titles and because of how poorly they handled Alisha (it's like the game went out of its way to take a dump on her every time she was on screen after the river crossing).
@@JustTheGems I had hear bad things about it years before I bought it, but I had forgotten the details by the time I made the purchase. I did remember it had been criticized, though, so I went through the game with lowered expectations. Of course, I had to mod the game to make it work with my monitor's resolution and stop stuttering every 5 seconds, but after I made it playable, I forgot it had technical issues in the first place. Then the plot happened and now I understand why everybody criticized this game. Even with my lowered expectations, I was still disappointed.
Final Fantasy 2 in the Pixel Remaster series is downright awesome. They refined the stat growth system so much that the game is fun now, you don't need to beat up on your own party members, your stats grow naturally (as long as you aren't running away from everything) and the ability to hit a button to speed up combat and repeat your last inputs really makes the battle system awesome. I haven't gotten to FF3PR yet, but I've heard that it's probably the best version of the series, though I can't really say much as I only played like half an hour or so of it.
well, the pr version of ff3 is... not the game i wanted. The job skill level breaks the game. As well as the ds version, it determines the number of hits, so if you changed the job of a character, you will hit nothing. And you will want to change jobs, for exanple, a fighter to Knight, monk to dark knight, everyone to dragoon, both mages 2 times, one for their upgrade and another for the sage. And it is the same game from the nes. No new dungeons or bonus dungeons like ds.
@@000adrianelpiola000 Most of the DS/GBA ports' new dungeons are entirely game-breaking and in some cases, lore-breaking and just don't even make sense why they're there, other than "NeW cOnTenT!". Like, that optional dungeon in the GBA version of FF1 was literally just random maps thrown together with no real sense that completely break the game by giving you insanely good levelup spots early in the game. Or FF4's that has you taking a group through some odd dungeon with absolutely bonkers OP weapons. So, "the game as it was with nothing new" is actually a decent selling point of a game. That means it's faithful and they didn't ruin it with a bunch of OP stuff. As for the job system and broken mechanics, well... that's just how the game was back then. It was the first game to feature a job system and it's no surprise to me that it was showing it's signs of infancy. When you buy the PR games, you know you're getting a snapshot of the time, simply updated to run of modern hardware for better or for worse. And unless you have a DS laying around or you wanna emulate, it's the simplest, easiest and overall best way to play those games. If you don't like some of the quirks of those games, since they ARE PC games, they are surely moddable and people will eventually make mods to change it.
I wasn’t happy losing the MC from Xillia 1. The white haired character of X2 felt like such a downgrade. As soon as I was able to use Jude, I couldn’t stand going back to playing with Ludger. The story just felt so broken due to that. To me, story is a key element for an RPG. If it is compromised then so will my experience.
ahhh... yeah, SaGa Frontier was certainly jarring for me when I first got my PS1. And the first game I got, when I asked for a JRPG for christmas... I got SaGa. I was disappointed at first, but what I know now... I love the game and remains my favorite of the series. Sadly much of it's shine is buried. I loved how you could make each character your own. Monsters learning skills and eventually evolving into almost any monster in the game! Even dragons! they became rather OP, until you get the Dream Super Combo for any fist fighters.
There's a pretty good reason why FF II feels like a SaGa game: The series' director also directed FFII! SaGa is an acquired taste, and for a lot of its fans, the open-endedness and lack of directions is party of the appeal. Open games are a dime a dozen now, but on SNES and PSone, it was almost unheard of. I actually have a lot of love for Quest 64. I'm not going to say it's an amazing must-play game or anything, but to me it feels comfy and cozy, it's like a 3D realization of old NES RPGs. And lastly, as much as it hurts to say, I agree with you a lot on Tales of Xillia 2. It does a lot of things I really like, but even more I really dislike (I can't stand dialogue choices most of the time) but it's biggest crime is Xillia 1's wonderful cast basically being background characters with almost no major effect on the story
Yeah, and I do wonder if I'd appreciate SaGa Frontier (and the broader series in general) more now as an adult than I did back then. I'm hoping to give it a fair shot sometime soon. And even though I thought Xillia 2 was fun, I just came away disappointed overall, like you said.
Funny thing is, I actually had a love/hate relationship with SaGa Frontier 1 and 2 both. I played all 3 of the "Final Fantasy Legend" games on Gameboy as a kid (before the internet) and of course had no idea they were actually the first SaGa titles. Never even knew "SaGa" was a thing. They felt... different from the other "Final Fantasy" titles, and for good reason, I now know in hindsight...but I still enjoyed them, alien as they felt to a kid just starting out with RPGs. Skipped over all of the Romancing SaGa games during the SNES era, since I again had no idea they existed, and they never came stateside. Next SaGa game for me was Frontier, which I rented on a whim because I saw it advertised in Final Fantasy 7's instruction manual, so that meant it had to be good, right? Well, I hated it. Probably largely because I picked Lute's scenario first...and he doesn't have much substance or direction in his story, even though it does kind of tie various plot points together, once you play some other scenarios. Anyway, without having a manual and not knowing about the existence of GameFAQs yet, I had little hope of understanding the game's mechanics since it wasn't exactly user-friendly. Tried to understand it and tried to enjoy it but really couldn't. I felt like I wasted my money on the rental. But for some reason, about 3 months later I decided to give it a second chance snd rented it again. This time I started with Red (a good "new player" character) and ended up falling in love with the game, and eventually bought it, and it's been a favorite of mine since. So when SaGa Frontier 2 came out, I thought surely this watercolor beauty had to be the next sleeper hit. But lo and behold, I had the same experience that I did with SF1. I never really liked the weapon durability thing, and the game felt a bit stunted since it lacked the relative freedom of other games in the series. I ended up confused and losing interest quickly on my first rental. But, same thing happened as before, and I ended up giving it a second shot. This time, I ended up having s blast with it, and while SF2 is not my favorite entry, I guess I made my peace with it somehow. By this time I had played the Romancing SaGa games and deepened my appreciation for the series as a whole, so I was able to get over whatever mental hump SF2 had previously laid before me, and ended up really liking it. Nowadays, the only entry in the series I am not wild about is Unlimited SaGa. I've beaten it with two chatacters and picked it up and played with all of them at least once, but...for some reason, it doesn't jive with me. I've tried, I mean REALLY tried, but it's the one game in the series I can't reconcile with. It has some great ideas, but I felt the execution was lacking. Scarlet Graces was an interesting entry, and I feel like if that and Unlimited SaGa had a baby, maybe it would combine the bsst elements of both and create something on par with the older titles... Hoping that Emerald Beyond is going to be another win for the series when it comes out next month.
I need to get myself in the mindset for some SaGa and really go into it hardcore, to see if I connect with them now that I'm an adult. I actually might.
Oh man I'm glad I watched this with 16 hours left on that Saga Frontier sale on the Nintendo e shop before FOMO overrode my judgement 😬 I've heard a lot mixed, so I'll save my $13 for now
Yeah, I feel like if I DO grab the remaster, it'll have to be on sale, but I'll have to make sure I'm in the mood and okay with being disappointed in case it really just turns out it's not for me.
I'm not even gonna attempt to defend Quest 64, that game deserves all the hate it gets and then some, but the others? Xillia 2 and Astria Ascending I thought were decent games, while the others are actually two of my all-time favourites. SaGa Frontier is definitely an acquired taste, given that it's a SaGa game, but it has so much charisma and such a cool structure that I absolutely adore it and all its weirdness, while Final Fantasy 3 hits a sweet spot of system complexity and retro simplicity in presentation and structure for me. Two absolute bangers, far as I'm concerned.
@@JustTheGems With SaGa especially getting the games to click can take some time for sure. I also think SaGa Frontier has an inflated reputation to an extent - it's actually one of the less approachable games in the series in my mind. If you're ever interested in giving the series another shot, I'd recommend Scarlet Grace or maybe Emerald Beyond (more streamlined, fantastic combat system and lots of tutorials and explanations) - though I haven't played that second one yet personally. None of the games (except maybe for Frontier 2) are overly story-focused though. As for FF3 - I can imagine that if you're not that into the job system there's not a whole lot there for you. The classic FF games always felt to me like they were divided into 1,3 and 5 with their gameplay-focused design and 2, 4 and 6 with their story-focused design. It's a matter of taste to an extent. In any case though, not every classic is for everyone and that's fine, given how humongously overpopulated the genre is nowadays anyway.
Saga Frontier is one of my favorite games. Blue and Lute are not that interesting, but Emilia, Asellus and Red are awesome. T260G and Riki have good stories too.
@@JustTheGems Almost every SaGa game I've played I had to give it a second chance before I fell in love with it. It's usually because I'm expecting one thing and I end up disappointed only to find something else that I like about it on a second playthrough: *SaGa Frontier* Like you, I was expected something akin to Final Fantasy VII, but it wasn't that. If I had rented the game instead of buying it, I would have never played it again. Instead, I played more of it using different protagonists (while there's no 100% no-brainer choice of protag for beginners to start with, general consensus seems to lean toward *Red* or *Emilia*--even Asellus pops up as a good one story-wise (reminds a lot of people of FFVI Terra in some ways), but the middle part turns some people off). Whatever you do, don't start with Lute (no story, final objective easy to reach in the beginning) or Riki (monster mechanics take some getting used to, ESPECIALLY on a main character). In the end, I overcame the difficulty curve, fell in love with learning new techs, the gameplay, and the differences in events between the seven main protags and eventually became a diehard SaGa fan. *Recommendation for when to play*: First, as it's the most popular in the community and the characters seem to have more "charm." Again, this isn't usually seen until giving the game (and maybe the series) a second chance after being turned off the first time. Play the remaster if you want to try SaGa Frontier--there are quite a few improvements over the original. *SaGa Frontier 2* I was expecting more SaGa Frontier with multiple protagonists and races. That wasn't what this was. Instead *this one is more linear and story-focused* with two main characters/story paths that intertwine in some ways, which is a change of pace from ANY SaGa game after the first three on the Game Boy. It also has weapons that can break/have durability limits, which some people are ok with and some people REALLY hate. I was disappointed and, again, it took a second playthrough to appreciate it for what it was. This one should be approached more like Final Fantasy IV: characters constantly in and out of your party, characters have more focus in the story instead of just being "there." *Recommendation for when to play*: After playing at least two SaGa games and understanding that SaGa sequels give you Final Fantasy levels of change and not Mega Man levels of change. *Unlimited Saga* I was REALLY disappointed with this one, so it too at least a year to come back to it. It was only after playing other SaGa games that I started looking for some core SaGa mechanics (kind of like with Final Fantasy games--chocobos, Cid, spell names, Summons) instead of more specific things that I liked about past SaGas. It does have multiple protagonists with unique stories like Frontier 1 and Live A Live, but the fact that *you move your character around like a piece on a Monopoly board*...that was a HUGE turnoff my first time playing! Eventually I did beat all seven character's stories, but my brain's wired a bit different. :D *Recommendation for when to play*: LAST or not at all, unless you're curious about finding the diamonds under the REALLY rough exterior. *Romancing SaGa 3* This is probably the only SaGa game I liked the first time I played it, as it reminded me enough of SaGa Frontier (character designs, multiple protagonists). No, there are no multiple races like Frontier (or the three Game Boy games), but having techniques for more than just swords, guns, and martial arts makes up for it, along with a few non-human characters with some pseudo-unique quirks (Leonid the vampire with 0 LP being one of them). *Recommendation for when to play*: Second after SaGa Frontier if you liked it. It doesn't throw too many things at you that you wouldn't have found in Frontier ("Hmmm...that enemy just dumpster'd my ass...yep, that happened to me a lot in Frontier until I got used to it.") *Romancing SaGa: Minstrel Song* This one reminded me a lot of Romancing SaGa 3 (multiple protagonists, but same story instead of multiple stories like Frontier and Unlimited or Live A Live), multiple techniques for lots of different weapons, etc. However, the mix of chibi characters with 3d models can be a visual turnoff for some. It does have a Proficiency system that's D&D-ish, but uses it WAY better than Unlimited Saga! Weapon durability returns from SaGa Frontier 2 and Unlimited Saga, but there are easy ways to restore durability and to reduce or even eliminate its effect altogether. There is one thing that can make this a tough sell even for people that love Romancing SaGa 3: the Event Rank system. Unlike all of the games above, *this game's events progress solely on how much you fight*--90% of the game's events are optional sidequests, and if you fight too much, you can actually MISS some of these quests! The entire game is like playing as Lute in SaGa Frontier (or Leonard in SaGa Scarlet Grace: Ambitions--I'll get to that below), but instead of being able to get to the last objective right away, you have to make yourself strong enough to unlock it. *Recommendation for when to play*: Probably third or fourth if you liked Frontier and RS3 (and maybe RS2). Play the Remaster for MANY quality-of-life improvements, ESPECIALLY since the menu now has an indicator on it for what Event Rank you are on as well as options for slowing down Event Rank progression, far more lenient penalties for running away from battle (1 LP for the character ordering the retreat instead of like 4 or 5 LP) *Romancing SaGa 2* This one was the least accessible to audiences outside of Japan for the longest time (Romancing SaGa 3 had a virtually complete fan-translation of its SFC version). This one can be brutal when it comes to difficulty (I call the Seven Heroes the "Seven Sodomists" for a reason). While its gameplay resembles Romancing SaGa 3 the most (no weapon durability! No Event Rank system!), the overall setting is different. *You play as an emperor and during the game you're both developing and expanding your empire*. If enough time passes, your party gets wiped out, or your emperor loses all of their LP, you get to choose a descendant to inherit the throne and their abilities. This keeps going until a certain point where you get to the end of your lineage (the character you choose at the beginning of the game). *Recommendation for when to play*: Third or fourth, depending on if you liked Frontier and RS3 and how you might feel about Minstrel Song. Again, Remaster has a lot of improvements as well as ways to mitigate some of the brutal difficulty. *SaGa Scarlet Grace: Ambitions* The newest SaGa game, this one had the potential to be the most accessible SaGa game yet with comprehensive tutorials that players expect in most modern games. However, this is SaGa after all, so there are going to be some experimental things in it. *This game is a minimalist's dream*: no dungeons, no walking through towns, select a spot on the map and you're either in a town, in some dialog resembling a visual novel, or in a battle. It's a step up from Unlimited Saga in that regard (except you're moving your character on the world map, not moving a board game piece representation of your character one spot at a time on a game board representation of a world map). It's that minimalism that turns people off from this game. *Get past that, and you have one of the best combat systems in a JRPG*: status conditions means something, techniques can manipulate your turn order, covering party members with defensive techniques become very important, using more than just your party can become important as LP is at a premium in this game. Some people feel that this is the most punishing SaGa game since you can seldom get to a "press X to win" point like with...just about every other SaGa game if you're overleveled or have busted ass techniques or spells. This one has *four protagonists* instead of the seven or eight that other titles have. Because of the game's questionnaire in the beginning, you're likely going to end up with *Urpina* or *Leonard* as your protagonists, and Leonard does have one of those "everything is optional, get to the end whenever you want, but if you get there early, you're getting bodied" progressions like Lute from SaGa Frontier, but Leonard actually has some story events that make him a lot more fleshed out (and you're actually TOLD where to go if you follow those events, unlike Lute!!). *Recommendation for when to play*: Third, fourth, or fifth, depending on how you feel about SaGa Frontier and/or Romancing SaGa 3 and if Minstrel Song and/or Romancing SaGa 2 hasn't scared you away. (I'd love to place this higher, since I spend like 1200+ hours of my life playing Scarlet Grace in order to write guides on GameFAQs, but I gotta be objective here)
Tales of Xillia 2 wasn’t bad to me…just constantly owing money and the contestant reminders made me crazy. Video games should be an escape from my crippling debt!!
Great video! I never played Quest 64 but I have very fond memories of Brain's Quest on gameboy. Not sure if it is actually a good game but it holds some nostalgia for me. FFIII is an interesting one - I enjoyed my time with the game and actually liked it better than FFII, but that is mainly because I enjoyed experiencing the history of the job system (although it was implemented poorly). Loving your channel! Thank you for great videos.
Thank you for watching! By the way, isn't there a Gameboy Color Quest game that's, like, a puzzle game, too? I'm pretty sure I didn't dream that up...😅
Saga Frontier was definitely a strange beast. It really was a "concept game" based on a somewhat interesting system in Romancing Saga 2. I liked the idea of it...and like you, ended up hating actually playing it. Octopath and really FF6 showed how it can be done right. And TBF, the various CRPG's do the "go and do what you want" thing better in general anyway. It's funny what you said about sprites, because that's what gamers at the time were saying about Xenogears. Believe it or not (lol) there were many arguments about which was the better game, and I use to heavily lean on Xenogear's expressive and gorgeous sprite work vs. The angular, blank and blocky 3D that FF7 hid with cinematics....ahh old pre-social media arguments ...
LMAO Octopath and Final Fantasy VI is fake linearity. You can play at once and have the entire thing down. I find something new every time I play a SaGa game. Final Fantasy VII is my favorite game of all time and it came out the same year i play them both once a year ....I stopped finding new things 20 years ago.
Yeah, the things everyone uses to argue about have changed, but in some ways, we're all still arguing in the same way... 😅 But yeah, I'm still open to changing my mind about SF, but I have to find time to go back to it.
@@Jrdotan FF6 has an ensemble cast, each character has his/her own story. In addition there are a variety of hidden eggs for each character. Like Octopath, but with less choices, you do get a choice on which storyline to pursue as you play FF6. It's not a whole lot in the beginning, basically a choice between Cyan and Edgar or Terra...but it's there. In world of ruin it's completely open, and you have to re-recruit your party again as they made their way in seperate parts of the map. It's just an opinion, but I didn't see a compelling reason you wouldnt want to see all the cahracter stories in a playthrough, so it's more satisfying to me how FF6 takes you through each persons story...because it's semi-linear, characters you have already recruited have a reason to say or be a part of the story as you move forward, while Saga and Octopath have to stay silent (or create thousands of lines of potential dialogue for every player decision)
@@chuckhaynes9166 its not an anthology therefore not every character gets screentime and its also not anout tgeir story but instead about how they interact with the overall plot, thats the nature of FF as a franchise, which means it cant compare to SF since SF is a full on anthology that is gameplay heavy for all things. I cant find what i seek in frontier in ff6 since the free form scenario isnt a thing and the limited scope of the battle system makes it far from a battle based sandbox. It will only fullfill the needs of a fellow storylover SF is not for those
Also, kind of random question, Have you ever watched Jerma985 before? He's a really funny streamer/content creator that is in his very late 30s almost 40s that plays a lot of games too!
Dude your videos are so good. So well thought out. So respectful with your opinion very well described. You're fast becoming one of my favorite JRPG channels. Thank you for the great content.
@@JustTheGems ah it's the Spider-Man pointing at himself meme. I thank you for entertaining me with your amazing content. You thank me for saying you make amazing content. 🤣🤣🤣
I found out weeks after I got an N64 that FFVII was going to be on the Playstation due to gaming magazines. Like you, I assumed Square would continue making games for Nintendo. I also heard later that FFVII was going to get a PC release, and knowing my parents weren't going to get us another console so soon, I pretty much made it my mission to convince them to get a modernized computer since we were still on a 1990 IBM.
It's funny, without a PlayStation I was also working to get FF7 on PC... and I ended up spending as much for a 3D accelerator card to play it with as I would have on a PS1...🤣
God, Xillia 2 was severely disappointing. I feel so bad for the amazing cast that got absolutely shafted and left in the dark, Ludger being a huge reason for that.
@@JustTheGems funny enough the originally planned final boss for Xillia 1, Origin, got backseated to a more background sorta character in Xillia 2 and having a mute main character being present in skits and somesuch really does not flow well. Plus I dislike almost all redesigns of the Xillia 1 characters.
The more I watch this video and with all the references to SquareSOFT (not Enix) and FF7 the more I’m convinced the Sakaguchi effect is a thing. Lost Odyssey and Fantasian were like playing Final Fantasy. at one time George Lucas was a great director. That changed I think because circumstances surrounding the development of the art changed. I think you see that in FF3. He was “Yes sir great idea Sakaguchi sir” status ESPECIALLY the final dungeon imo
I think it’s totally okay to not like a certain game. Especially one in your favorite genre because of course you will me more critical of them. Not every game can be good.
I loved Final Fantasy 3 when it came to the DS. Sure, it's not very epic and it lacks safe points, but it felt so good playing a 3D turn based RPG on the DS. It was one of the first. Really, really liked that.
Anyone else think the Job System is overrated? It is too grindy when implemented...I even resorted to fighting my own characters in FFT just to get more Exp and Job points. I like it in theory, but I'd rather play FF6, FF7, CT for their systems instead.
Last Rebellion PS3 JRPG is thee worst I've ever played of the genre on that platform. The villain, being a necromancer wanted to rez his dead mage girlfriend, so he killed thousands of mages from failed rituals. Eventually made life but it was a monstrosity which killed him. Yet he is rewarded being reunited with his girl in the afterlife together forever. Bruh could just ended himself to see her sooner, all those mage deaths wasted from this fool smh 💀
Interesting - I've heard very little about Last Rebellion. I'm honestly not even sure how it plays, but I've kinda been keeping my eye out for it to give it a try. Not sure if I ever will, but who knows!
The SaGa franchise weeds out the weak. Also calling Kenji Ito's music bad....yikes. Something not being for you doesn't mean it's bad...after all Makai Toishi SaGa was the first Squaresoft game to sell a million copies and all of the PS1 Squaresoft games you were comparing it to, minus Final Fantasy EVERY SINGLE ONE are all dead franchises or zombie franchises kept alive via remasters...so the SaGa series can't be doing something wrong.
My man, it’s just my opinion, don’t take it personally! I’m sure you have games you consider bad that other people love. It’s just commentary, it’s not the gospel truth.
I remember beating Quest64 by thumping the last boss with my stick. Don't remember much else. Was equally puzzled by Saga! Have wondered as an adult if I'd enjoy it now.
Interestingly, Final Fantasy 2's system was eventually spun off into the Saga series so Saga really had its roots in that game. Final Fantasy 3 conversely was made because Final Fantasy 2 was too dramatically different from FF1 in terms of its battle system and so 3 was crafted with a focus on improving the job system of FF1...its just that unfortunately story fell on the wayside a bit. You can then see how FF4 combinted FF2's style of a linear story with many rotating beloved characters and then applying each with a specific job like from FF1/FF3. So its fun to see which elements they choose to focus on or carry on from previous instalments. FF3s Pixel remaster is faithful to FF3 in the sense that they made no changes to the story line but they did make some quality of life adjustments to the gameplay which may make it much more palatable.
I'm curious to try the PR for FF3 primarily because it doesn't change things too drastically, so it's good to hear that the changes they DID make serve to make the experience better.
I disagree with you on the Tales game but then I'm a huge Tales fan - I have enjoyed every single one and played all that were released in English. In your PS2 days - hope you didn't miss the Shadow Hearts games - I loved all of them.
Dude.. Dude.. Dude.. You don't need to feel guilty for not liking the N64 controller. I've NEVER owned an N64. But even to this day I keep an N64 controller on a shelf nearby so that if I need to cheer myself up a little I can go over to it and point and laugh at it. What can I say? It's my way of maintaining my sanity in a crazy world. I'll go further, just in case any Nintendo devs are reading this. The one reason I didn't buy an N64 was because of that montrosity of a controller. I hope you were pleased with your work.
Xillia 2 was fun but Ludger being a silent protagonist was kinda annoying. The silent protagonist only works for created characters for a game (eg The Lone Wanderer , Courier 6, The Dragonborn, etc)
Just found your channel and we have such similar taste! However, I kinda reeeaallly like Xillia 2. I got so much more sucked into the story than the first. But! I hated the loan system in the beginning. Mostly cuz it reminded me of my school loans and gave me anxiety. But thankfully it loosened up and ended up not mattering too much. Anywho great vids! You gained a new viewer!
Oh I will also say I didn't like the silent protag, but the rest of the cast made me enjoy it. And I was a bit sad we didn't get a real "sequel" to the original cast. But for some reason I just enjoyed it. Made for a good duology in my mind.
I know this is completely on me, nitpicking an issue only I'm seeing, but I've been noticing this trend in a number of "JRPG" content creators recently that it's honestly starting to bother me. What is with this trend of demanding viewers to avoid or not get a game? In some cases, I'd understand if concerns an outright scam like "Fragrant Story" but not in most cases. It's always like an extra step too far into being arrogant instead of simply discussional. I suppose it must be to appease the TH-cam algorithm or something. Oh well, my brain goblins at work as always. Though at least you did differentiate between something being bad and something being personally disappointing. I do appreciate that distinction being made at least. Regardless, me aside, keep doing what you're doing.
It's 100% for the algorithm. I'm not crazy about it, but I hope people who watch my stuff realize I'm much more even-keeled than the titles might lead you to believe.
Yeah it's funny, I actually downloaded a cleared game file online so that I could start on New Game+ and he would be voiced. Still a bummer that his interactions are so minimal though.
@@JustTheGems It is annoying that a basic game feature is locked behind NG+ which on a proper playthroigh if you do everything easily can take 100+ h. And even then, he is just bland although his character design woth dual weilding was certainly more interesting than Jude ein Xillia 1 for me. It was also awesome to be able to play as Gaius. Nevertheless Xillia 1 > Xillia 2 for me.
I really love your content, brother, so I hope you keep growing. I think I was one of your first subscribers and have enjoyed all your content. As for this video it’s crazy to see how similar we are with the games we like and we’re disappointed by. Now I’m afraid to play FF3 because I agree with you with the other four games lol. Have you been able to beat Trails into Reverie yet? I have the collectors edition but I haven’t even opened it yet because I’m still working on FF16. I’m hoping to finish it this week if work isn’t too busy since my son went to Disney with his mother and uncle so I should more time to finish it and hopefully start Reverie
Thank you so much! Actually, I'm in the same boat as you, working on finishing FF16 before I start on Reverie. But unfortunately, this is when the busy season at work starts, so I don't know how much time I'll even have to get through it!
@@JustTheGems Work is an asshole. Always gets in the way on what’s really important like FF16 and the Trails series lol. Well I hope we both get to play Reverie sooner than later.
Lol, you talking about the console wars I had a similar mindset in the 90s. I got both SNES and Sega Genesis. I wasn't even aware of the Saturn though for some reason. I only got the N64 too out of that gen, but granted I wasn't sure about JRPGs yet either. I can't believed I miss the bus on Chrono Trigger though. I read an article on it in my Nintendo Power magazine, heck the idea of time traveling inspired me to create my own story. I think my mindset was I wasn't sure about trying a new style of gaming yet because I was such a hardcore platformer. Heck I didn't even like Zelda's A Link to the Past. Ocarina of TIme changed my mindset though and I became interested in RPGs, especially JRPGs, but I still didn't want a PS1. Instead what happened was my brother got the Sega Dreamcast (still my fav console to date, despite the lack of games we got), because he wanted to play Shenmue and he also got two games I wanted to try- Skies of Arcadia and Grandia 2 (I saw ads for them). These 2 games are easily in my Top 5 fav games. Nintendo, when are we going to get a Remaster of Skies?! Sony remastered the first 2 Grandia games. I never got in the PS2 bandwagon until Kingdom Hearts arrived. 2 games I was majorly disappointed in were Grandia 3 and a remastered version of my fav game of all time- Eternal Sonata. I mentioned Grandia 2 is one of my fav games (it's my 2nd fav). It wasn't perfect though, one of the major weaknesses was there were 2 times when there were major difficulty spikes for 2 of the bosses. Unfortunately Grandia 3 took this flaw and expanded it to the Nth degree, especially in regards to its final boss. I do expect to be the final boss to be the hardest in the main game, but when I first face this particular boss, I was killed within 2 or 3 rounds! I had to pray to Lady Luck herself to beat this boss. I hate it when that happens in a game. So the next time I played this game, I decided to grind things out. Normally this wouldn't be a problem, but the level up system was changed and it takes a very long time to level up at some point. So I can't really recommend this game because of the fluctuation in difficulty spikes and grinding. For Eternal Sonata, I loved the XBox360 game. Then a couple years later a PS3 version came out with extra content, which included 2 new characters, new dungeons, and extra content. It was one of the reasons why I got a PS3 (plus I wanted to play Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch, amazing game btw). Unfortunately they made changes to the gameplay, like they also increased the number of difficulty spikes (which resulted in more grinding) and they made changes to the battle screen so it was made harder (which I didn't like). Plus one of the new chars, I really didn't like how he played. He's so slow movement wise and movement is very important in battle. Now him being slow wouldn't be a problem if he had a long reaching weapon like one other tank in the game, but no, he's a mele fighter. So if Eternal Sonata was to get a reboot, I would hope they make this char faster. I would also say keep the gameplay of the Xbox 360 version and everything else (other than tweeking that one char) from PS3 version can stay the same.
It's interesting you mention the difficulty spikes in Eternal Sonata on PS3... I was really getting into that game, and then I hit a super hard difficulty spike, got frustrated, and quit, and unfortunately I haven't been back to it yet. I hope I do go back, because like I said, I was really enjoying it! Also, I only vaguely remember Grandia 3. That came out when I was not playing games as much as when I was younger. I know that I owned it at one point, but I don't know how far I got in it. I've gotta give that one another try I think, after I replay Grandia 1 and 2. Anyway, thanks for watching!
Saga Frontier was amazing, what are you on about? Some of the stories lacked a bit, like Lutes got nothing going for him, but some of them have a lot of meat on them.
It's not even that I think the game is *awful* or anything, it just was disappointing for me because it wasn't what I was expecting. I think I might be able to get into now, though. We'll see!
Perhaps my biggest disappointment relative to the rest of it's series is Suikoden 4. Suikoden as a franchise is incredible, but has a notable low point with 4 (and arguably 3).
Oh not at all, I know that Astria Ascending has a pretty good-sized fan base, and the combat really is quite good. The rest of it just didn't hook me unfortunately.
Perhaps im just dense but it took ff7 for me to even understand why rpg(favorites now). I couldnt understand why you were restricted and couldnt just attack freely like in Zelda. So as a young person i found them annoying because i just wanted it to be free like zelda and not restricted to a seemingly pre determined destiny. Really i just wanted everything to be zelda as a kid until my favorite of em all ff7
Jrpg fans really wanted to have an rpg on the N64, sadly you we got Quest 64. The only other ones are Ogre Battle 64 & Gauntlet 64 if you want to call them rpgs.
I believe it's critically acclaimed for a reason for sure, I just expected something it wasn't and ended up disappointed. But I'm glad you enjoy it, I hope I do someday.
I didn't like saga frontier at all...at first. The fact that it took up so many slots on my memory card was just a bummer in itself. Revisiting the game totally changed my mind when I got the remaster on switch. It's much improved. Once you get how the game progression works it becomes a lot of fun.
As far as disappointments go, I recently got a fantastic deal on "Tales of Arise" ($13.99), which is my first Tales game. I'm finding myself alienated, though, by how limited the NPC interactions are, though. I wander around the first town after meeting the female co-protagonist and people seem generic and have only super short snippets of text to say that don't give them personality. I'm also not sure how much I'm liking the combat system. Don't see a way to take health items in combat and my teammates are too distracted to save me from dying. Does this improve?
I found that it got better as the game went on, but then again, I'm coming from the background of playing all the other Tales games, so my expectations are probably set very differently than yours. I usually give a game like 5 hours or so and if it's not gripping me, I let it go. Not sure how long you've been playing, but I recommend that as a general strategy regardless.
I like how you have the self awareness to differentiate “I don’t like it; it’s not what I wanted,” means “disappointing,” and not “THIS IS BAD.” Far too many reviewers I’ve seen with negative reviews often equating that feeling into their reasoning of saying the product is bad, and I find that very frustrating. Great video!
Thanks, I do try to be courteous because I'm definitely not the objective authority on what's good and bad. I appreciate it!
Saga games are the dark souls of jrpgs, they dont hold your hand at all. They are all amazing
I may have to give SF another chance
SMT is the soul like games of jrpg's
That and saga and etrian odyssey are the 3 things my HP go to zero and my MP is null after death XD@@svgatk
SF blows, bought it in 1997 and was so disappointed. We had the FF series, Secret of Mana and Chrono Trigger. SF was the turd in the punch bowl
@@jmatki1217 never played the original SF only the recent remaster, so maybe the original was a turd lol
Quest 64 is one I have huge nostalgia googles for. Like, I know it's a really mediocre game objectively, but I can't help liking the music and the look and the feel of it. Same for FF3 (3DS version), I really liked that one. I think you just need to enjoy it for what it is and not what it's not. Cool shirt, btw.
Bruh we were staaarved!!! Hahaah. We did what we HAD to!! 🤣🤣
It was one of the handful of rpgs on the 64. Thank goodness I also had a ps1. But at the time I played Quest, my brother took control of the ps1.
Yeah, I think if I'd ended up BUYING Quest 64, instead of just renting it, I would have found myself enjoying it. But since I only had it for a couple nights, it wasn't enough to get me hooked, and I just felt disappointed.
I feel like this about ‘Guardians Crusade’ on PS1. It’s so mediocre in looks, story, gameplay but I have massive nostalgia for it and it was the first true RPG I ever played.
I would like to add the first "Octopath Traveller". I had high hopes, but felt very underwhelmed and disappointed. Most of all, the stories of all the characters barely overlap at all; it's very jarring when you get into a town with a party of 4, but as soon as you start talking to NPCs to start the story of one character, the others in the party just disappear. They are back during a fight, but just basically invisible during the story of a specific character.
And the combat was super-repetitive and boring. And I am a sucker for turn-based combat (currently playing "Trails in the Sky" and loving it a lot). I think "Octopath Traveller" was very overrated because it looked nice.
While I did enjoy Octopath Traveler, your criticisms are correct. It was somewhat polarizing in that regard. The sequel does a better job of answering those complaints; not COMPLETELY, but it does move the series in a positive direction I think.
It's VERY weirdly repetitive too. Like the world map areas alternate between city adjacent and field in one big ring, almost every character chapter except one progresses exactly the same way.
As a kid, i picked up Saga Frontier because i thought the wizard on the cover looked cool. So of course i immediately started a game as Blue. I spent so much time just exploring these unique, surreal locations. Then i started building a party and doing side quests. It eased me into the battle system. The experience was magical. I can understand if others' experiences were not as great as mine.
Yeah, my time with it was colored by a combination of skewed expectations and inexperience. I'd love to have a chance to play it completely fresh.
SaGa Frontier is the best SaGa game. Figuring out all of the various side quests you can do, and which ones you're able to do with each character, was a huge part of the fun. I memorized so much of this game back in the day, and I'd plan out which characters I was going to get, who I was going to give each type of magic to when I did some of the magic gift side quests, and more. I think the only thing that ever tripped me up was monster progression - eventually I learned that you should just absorb as many different monster types as possible before getting the skills for the final build you want.
The rest of the list is spot-on. Final Fantasy 3, especially in its original version, made the weird decision that when you obtained new classes, they'd utterly supplant your older classes and you'd retain no benefits whatsoever from progressing in those earlier classes. (It also doesn't help that what story there is just isn't very good. FF2's system might also be weird, but at least it felt like they really put effort into the story. Not so with FF3.)
Do you think the SF remaster is worth looking into?
@@JustTheGems If you enjoyed the original, then yes. But if you didn't, I don't know if anything in the remaster would make it better.
My favorite Saga game is Alliance Alive 😂I am joking but that game kept some of the weirdness of the saga games and the battle system while throwing in a more traditional narrative
@@justtatianaf1998 I got the same vibes from it, 100%
@@JustTheGems Hey, I'm autistic, and upon rereading I think I may have stated my opinion too harshly above. For the record, I totally get why someone wouldn't like SaGa Frontier. It does feel a bit piecemeal when compared to something with a proper world map and a single epic narrative. And tbh, I don't like the SaGa series as a whole. SaGa Frontier 2 bored me pretty fast. Romancing SaGa annoyed me. And Unlimited SaGa and whatever the mobile game is called just made me angry that they would charge people for such a thing.
Alliance Alive does really feel like a SaGa game w/ more of a traditional RPG feel to it. I haven't made it very far(a little past where you become able to glide), but I read that you can make it impossible to learn certain skills if you don't do things quite right, so I'd need to research that more before I felt comfortable going forward any more with it. But it looks like it'll be decent once I get back around to it.
Quest 64 definitely definitely has a lot of issues that make it hard to get into, but I think it has some enjoyable qualities too. The channel Lvl Jake has a review of it that covers some of the positive aspects without shying away from its problems.
In a similar situation of only having the N64 without too many other RPGs I probably put more time into it than was warranted, but still got a lot of enjoyment out of it.
I'm pretty sure I only rented it as a kid, so I didn't have much time, and because I was disappointed from the get-go I never went back to it until now. I may see how far I can get in it at some point.
I disliked Saga Frontier back in the day but the updates and changes made for the remastered edition have changed my mind. I love Saga Frontier Remastered for all it did to make the game more accessible than before.
You may still need a guide for a few things but outside that I now rank it as one of my top 3 favorites in the Saga series of games. :)
That's neat to hear. I"ve been on the fence about getting the remaster since I wasn't hugely impressed by, but I may just grab it during some sale. I'm really hoping SF2 gets a remaster also cause that one I really did love on the ps1.
I never finished Saga Frontier back in the days,just the girl story but the Remastered make me played it again,this time i finished it,it really neat game as well
It does sound like the remaster is the way to go for people like us that didn't vibe with the original
Same here. I tried many times to play the original, and wound up getting the Remaster knowing that if SE didn't fix the game, modders would. I wound up playing through most of Red's campaign, though I might have rushed the end too fast, might need to replay his campaign again and take it slower. At least it has a robust New Game+ mode where all of the "main characters" stats and equipment are preserved through different campaigns and playthroughs AFAIK. So, if I did choose to start another campaign, my characters stay leveled up which is really nice, lets one focus on the story.
"Moving around the battlefield doesnt really mean much", isntantly reminded of DQ11
😆
Lol same that was such a useless edition i wish they did more with it or are they hinting at DQ 12 battle system who knows
I really liked SaGa Frontier back when it released.
The worst part of it though was how you always started from 1 for every character's story. Having to do a bunch of side quests and power leveling for each story and then losing all of that progress and having to do it over again in the next character story was discouraging.
I almost managed to finish it, back in the day, but having to grind multiple characters through seven effectively different games, was very time consuming, and when my save data corrupted I really didn't want to have to start all over again since I lost my system data too.
The remastered version is much better in that regard, since even though it's optional, you can use New Game Plus and keep your characters progress from previous playthroughs to make your next character's playthrough much less taxing. Of course the downside is that doing so makes your first playthrough the hardest and then the final playthrough lightning fast. That said, there's still challenges that they added to the remastered version even using New Game Plus, like some of optional fights from the new 8th character.
If I can find the time, I'm going to give the remastered version a spin.
Honestly yeah, that's how I've felt since Final Fantasy XV. It sucks feeling like you're no longer the target audience after literally growing up with the series.
I have to pretty much agree on Xillia 2, for me one of the main draws of the Tales of series is usually character interactions and the fact that this particular game choose to have a silent protagonist was to me not a good thing since it made several cutscenes rather awkward, especially since at the time I had just also played and completed Xillia 1.
Yeah, I 100% agree, the whole feel was just off
Bruh Saga Frontier is one of my favorite games of all time >.< It was difficult to play as a 10 year old but I loved it nonetheless, and it remains to this day one of my most replayed games.
My dumb kid brain definitely couldn't figure it out...😅 But I'd be willing to give it another chance today
@@JustTheGems Im not mad at ya, it probably isn't as great of a game as I think it is haha. I can accept it is a flawed game. I just loved it so much as a kid that I hold it near and dear
Xillia 2 is my favorite tales game and Ludger is even my favorite protag lol. I wouldn’t recommend people to avoid it, it might be exactly what you’re looking for in a jrpg.
Sure, I'm just thinking if people have followed me for a bit and find their tastes to be similar to mine, it's something they should be aware of. I don't think Xillia 2 is a bad game at all.
And Xillia 2 requires the player to have played Xillia 1, that game is already huge with two protags
Xillia 2s best feature is that all the Xillia 1 costume DLC works in it.
@@RaifSeverence The story and improved battle system did nothing for you?
For SaGa Frontier, I would definitely consider the remaster, it basically fixes everything and adds quick saving, new game plus, and a pretty decent hint system. The animations look a little better but the sprites themselves are readable now.
Yeah, I need to grab that. I think it's still on Play-Asia...
Gonna be honest. I actually preferred Xillia 2 over the first game. I really liked the character development of the first game's party members. The move to focus on more grounded trials for them to face was a stroke of genius, as far as I'm concerned. It's a game that dared to ask "What left is there to do for our heroes who saved the world?" And it pulls that aspect of the game off extremely well, in my opinion. The real disappointment here is Zesteria with its messy gameplay, mediocre cast members, bland main character, lack of cohesive theming, and abysmal ending. You could argue that Sorey is an upgrade over Ludger, who's a silent protag, but at least Ludger has some funny dialogue options that give you a hint at his true personality. Sorey's dialogue and personality is just really bland all the way through, all things considered.
Loved OG saga Frontier.
To this day its only the 2nd Square game (to my knowledge) that gives you a 'Developers room' bonus akin to Chrono Trigger.
I understand where you're coming from with SaGa Frontier, heck, that was pretty much my experience back in the days.
Last year though, I decided to give the series another go, and somehow it just clicked. All the negatives like lack of hand-holding and high difficulty became actually endearing to me, and getting lost in these worlds has been my groove lately.
They're definitely not for everyone and I'll never begrudge anyone for not enjoying or even hating games in the series. Nowadays, the Remasters are the way to go, they're still far from perfect, but the QoL updates make them more manageable for people who don't want to lose their minds in hard encounters. New Game Plus really makes additional playthroughs easier, allowing you to play with different party members or building ones you're reusing with another weapon in mind.
And for anyone wondering, yes Emerald Beyond still has some difficulty spikes. I'm at the final boss of the run and it's been kicking my ass so far, so I went back to Romancing SaGa 2 and somehow managed to get over the boss that kept me away from progress for months on my first try. I think story not being the main focus of SaGa games is actually a positive for it as you can go in and out and rotate games easily without it affecting the experience too much.
It's a series that I have a feeling I'll connect with more now that I'm older. There are some super interesting mechanics in those games, and I've played other games that emulate some of those and enjoyed them (like Alliance Alive for example)
@@JustTheGems I'll be honest, I know nothing about Alliance Alive, but I guess I'll have to look into it haha
You ever watch 16 bit gems? V1 TH-cam through and through but its a set of period pieces on TH-cam jrp long-form. As a person doing the 2023 version of the same thing you might find some enjoyment in it, if you can handle bad sound, old cameras, and "well atleast you tried" for an attempt at comedy. Broke my heart at the time as the output became longer and longer.
Clan of the gray wolf is the channel if you are curious
That does sound interesting, I'll make a note to check it out
"I just threw up in my mouth" lol Great list! I remember being soo hyped for Saga Frontier from all the ads, and abandoning it like 2 hours in. Thanks Branden! ❤️
Thanks for not picking on Lufia 1 like everybody else loves to. Everybody disses that game because they can't understand how to properly play it and if they just put a little thought into it and they'd look past some of its roughness (such as the graphics which I never thought were THAT bad but people harp on about), they'd see it really did some things better than even #2 (such as the battle system) and unlike 2 it at least had some challenge to it, lol.
I've always liked Lufia and the Fortress of Doom.
SaGa frontier 2 is the one that dissapointed me
As far as 1 goes, its easily my favorite game of all time, as classic SaGa it basically does its thing on letting you adventure in the world and figure things out, often youll find new content and be shrprised by finding somewhere you hadnt know existed before, exploration and reward is amazing in that game, finding that duel pistol after searching the shingrow ruins for the first time was satisfying as hell and i ca t never forget how many combos ive learned during my playtroughts (reverse gravity always chained)
Idk, ive never felt the same mystic atmosphere of slowly learning a game as much as i did with frontier, its truly something else .
I wish I'd had the patience to really give it a chance back in the day... A lot of people echo what you're saying, and I definitely feel like I missed out.
While i respect your opinion, I'm one of the few who enjoy Quest 64.
So there is a level up system, it's just not as obvious. When you pause the game, there's this orb that fills up as you defeat enemies with a percentage underneath it. Once that reaches 100%, you "level up" and add 1 point to one of the four elements.
Also, the game has a FF2 approach for stats. As you use the staff more or take damage, that levels up your HP. As you cast spells, that levels up your MP. As you take damage, that levels up your defense. As you run around in battle or an attack misses Brian ("Miss" appears on the screen), that levels up your agility.
The higher level your elements are, the higher your staff damage but it's a little weird. If you level up one spell to 50 but keep the rest low, it won't be as powerful as if you kept them all around the same.
As for something to complement the game on, definitely the music. The music is great and worth listening to again.
Regardless, like i said before, i respect your opinion and you have earned a subscriber. I look forward to your videos in the future.
This is really interesting to hear, thanks for letting me know! I'm sure the manual covered that, but unfortunately I'm cart-only on this one.
@@JustTheGems Same here, never had the manual. I didn't know until looking online years later lol.
Iirc the reason ff2 and 3 didn't make it over to the states is because by the time ff1 came out in the west, the SNES was already releasing, and they didn't think putting resources into translating and releasing two big games for a dying console was worthwhile.
Also ff2 was directed by the SaGa guy. Ff2 was the rough draft for the SaGa series.
Yeah, it's really interesting to see the DNA of SaGa being formed in FF2
I wonder, have you tried the SaGa Frontier 1 Remaster that fixes quite some stuff about it, like adding an option to runaway from fights, having additional content that wasnt implemented in the original or giving you a logbook on where to head next alongside further explaination of how the battle system works?
I'm definitely going to try it
I just started playing Xillia 2 and thought I was crazy cause it's so hard to find anyone who also thinks the silent protag aspect is such a bummer, let alone the fact that most of the original cast feels like they just.. happen to be there. It's so nice to find a little validation in that experience.
Silent protagonist can work in some cases, like Zelda. But it's a detriment to narrative driven games like JRPGs.
I sometimes feel alone in that, too!
I on the other Hand absolutely loved Ludger and to this Day hope for a Remake of both Xillia Games.
I still remember dissapointed i was with Lagoon for the SNES, to this day i can't find a single positive thing to say about it....
Great video as always! Keep up the good work
Haha yeah, my only experience with Lagoon was watching someone speedrun it at Games Done Quick, and it looked AWFUL
The only good thing I can think of about Lagoon is the sound track.
What I didn't like about Final Fantasy III was having to use negative statuses on your party to get through certain areas, some of which really nerfed your characters making that area more difficult to get through. A good example is the Mini cave where you have to use the Mini status on your party, which reduces your attack power to one HP of damage to your enemies.
I am going to get a lot of hate, but Persona 5. I tried playing it twice, each time getting around 50 hours in then having to give it up. The amount of repetitive dialogue was unbearable. I literally fell asleep. I want to love it, I do, the art, music, combat all up my alley. However if i had to read the same plot point five times until they moved the story along I was going to go crazy.
Honestly, even though I love Persona 5, I can understand that. It's definitely not going to be for everyone, but good on you for really giving it a try. You clearly weren't just being dismissive of it if you put that much time into it. I try to do the same with games that I end up not caring for.
Final Fantasy II was essentially the first SaGa game. Akitoshi Kawazu was the battle director on both first FFs, and wanted to try something different for the second game, and afterwards took those ideas to make the SaGa. As for why II and III didn't originally make it to the west, it had a lot more to do with timing, from what I've heard. They were planning a translation of II, but by then the SNES and IV were right around the corner, so they decided to pivot to those instead, going as far as renaming IV Final Fantasy 2 so western fans wouldn't wonder what happened to the other two.
I wish I knew what I'm missing on Xilia (the first one). I've seen a few say it's one of their favorite Tales games, but I played through it with a roommate on Saturday's a few years back and I can BARELY remember any of it. Everything was just so unremarkable and dull that I just can't recall 90% of the experience. Best I can think is I only played through Jude's story, but in these modern times, I barely have time to play RPGs anymore (In fact I haven't been able to touch one unless with a friend in nearly a decade.) I just don't have time to play through an RPG twice. I hate that mechanic.
I 100% agree with you on Astria Ascending. I was sooo looking forward to that game, but by the time I got it and started playing it, I was sad by how mediocre it felt. Not to mention plating it in handheld mode on the original Switch was frustrating. Load times were bad during transitions to the point where the game froze on me frequently. I even had to redo the final boss of the game because the game crashed during the ending credits. But also because the text was so small and the font choice was this thin sans font. Thankfully I upgraded to the OLED model while I was playing, so it made it easier to read the text, but the game still crashed and took ages to load.
It had such a strong pedigree behind it, I wonder if their vision just wasn't achievable with their resources...
I got an SNES after the 64 came out, so I had plenty of time to decide between that an a PS1. When they announced Chrono Cross for the PS1, I was all in.
Speaking of, you can count CC as a JRPG that disappointed me. Don't know if I've ever been as hyped for a game as Chrono Cross, and as a sequel to CT, I still think its pretty subpar. Maybe as it's own game it holds up - I haven't played it in ages.
Yeah, it definitely does NOT hit the same highs as CT. There are some great aspects to it, but overall it's a letdown.
I loved quest! One great thing it did was the elemental magic combos into new spells. Also astria was such a letdown it was like they started you 30 hours into a game
If I can get my big dumb hands to be able to hold an N64 controller comfortably, I might try pushing ahead a little further in Quest, we'll see...!
@@JustTheGems coughRomscoughcough
@@mikeg5039 😂✊
I had a similar situation to what you described about quest 64, completely starved for a nintindo 64 rpg i saw quest 64 in a video rental place and was all, FINALLY and rpg! only, my experience was probably the worst possible way to play that game, see the nintindo 64 required you to have a sold separately memory cartridge to save your game, something that very few of the 64 games actually utilized since progression based games like rpgs were few and far between, as a consequence, i didnt own one. So I had the thrilling experience of having to run through the entirety of quest 64 in 3 days in a single attempt without ever turning the system off. I bought my playstation a month latter.
Also something i think that goes overlooked about saga frontier, is that it solved one of the core issues that as a kid i had with RPGs see i loved them, i got invested in the stories and was excited when i got my next equipment upgrade. But.. it was kind of a one shot, because once i no longer had the discovery of the story and the sense of exploration pulling me through it was a lot less fun. Saga though, while admittedly brief on story, had REPLAYABILITY. You had more characters to choose form than you could fit in your party, and you had lots of different weapons with unique skills to learn, so you could focus on different ones on different playthoughs. And even if you chose the same weapon the order in which you learned the skills would be completely different. Leading to different strategies and tactics having to be applied. This is not even mentioning choosing between schools of magic, the different progression systems for robots/monsters/mystics. Sure none of it was amazing, but what it was lasted you for quite awihle. It was sort of the field rations of rpgs at the time :)
The drought of JRPGs on N64 was a tough time...
And you're right about the pluses of SaGa Frontier for sure. I plan on giving the Remaster a shot someday soon.
As for a game that disappointed me. Disgaea. Back when it came out I was on a message board that went crazy for it. Everyone on the board was praising it, all talking about how awesome it was. So wanting to be included I tried to get a copy and one of my friends on the board actually bought me a copy! Sadly it was all for naught. I just do NOT like Strategy RPGS, and in the first couple of hours I realized I was going to hate this. I played like three battles and the game introduced to me like five different mechanics you'd need to keep track of during battles.
After seeing the direction it was going with that I put it down and walked away. I just don't get them. It makes no sense to me why I'd want random battles in an RPG to last on average up to 30 or more minutes per battle. That's INSANE to me. I know it's fun for a lot of people, but for me it's just tedious busywork and I'm all for cutting it all to just put me next to the enemy and give me four simple commands: Attack, Defend, Magic, Item.
Yeah, strategy games are hit-or-miss for me. Some I find very engaging and fun (Fire Emblem, Shining Force) and others just don't click.
@@JustTheGems Sadly for me like pretty much all of them don't click, at least from what I tried. I didn't even care for Final Fantasy Tactics. I've played exactly one strategy RPG I actually liked. Zone of Enders: Fist of Mars.
As a very big SaGa Frontier apologist (because it is one of my favorite games of all time), I respectfully disagree with your points for it - but I do feel it is valid as the game really attracts polarizing fans/non-fans (it seems like they either really love it or really hated it).
I liked how "weird" it was and it felt like that each gameplay feels like a new game (though I would recommend to at least have a break playing a new character after the other). And none of the games in the past can actually make me happy other than when (1) I get a light bulb indicating a character has a new skill and (2) beating the odds of defeating an insanely strong monster because I used the Death Arcane card (Dr. Tsunagu I'm looking at you). Each of the stories really resonated to me - I remember in high school being so inspired with Blue's avenging arc (plus the twist at the end).
I saw a lot of comments that they actually liked the remastered version .... while it was good, I actually thought it made the game easier haha I guess am Maso for SaGa Frontier. But if the remastered version (I did bought it!) does make people reconsider the game, then it has done its job. It was actually surprising for me that it HAD a remastered as I know it is unpopular/underrated, but I believe one of the higher executives of Square now is a SaGa producer (or was involved) so there's clearly some traction for the series.
Tales of Xillia was my favorite Tales in PS3 too - but I weirdly skipped Xillia 2. I can see now that maybe I dodged the bullet with the points you mentioned.
I think I'll give the Remastered a try, because I'm pretty bad at certain games....😅
Haha, I had no idea SquareSoft had ads trashing Nintendo like that 😆 This was a great video! Thanks for the heads up on some of these games. Also, your Astria Ascending review was gold 😂
Thanks Mandy! Yeah, I remember that ad specifically and being like..... dang. The betrayal.😆
The only one I disagree with is Xillia 2.
Before watching: Is it gonna be Tales of Zestiria?
After watching: I wasn't expecting Tales of Xillia 2 there.
I'll still say Zestiria is the most disappointing for me in recent years, mainly because I haven't played the Xillia titles and because of how poorly they handled Alisha (it's like the game went out of its way to take a dump on her every time she was on screen after the river crossing).
I think my expectations had been lowered quite a bit before I played Zestiria, so I ended up being pleasantly surprised by it
@@JustTheGems I had hear bad things about it years before I bought it, but I had forgotten the details by the time I made the purchase. I did remember it had been criticized, though, so I went through the game with lowered expectations.
Of course, I had to mod the game to make it work with my monitor's resolution and stop stuttering every 5 seconds, but after I made it playable, I forgot it had technical issues in the first place.
Then the plot happened and now I understand why everybody criticized this game. Even with my lowered expectations, I was still disappointed.
Final Fantasy 2 in the Pixel Remaster series is downright awesome. They refined the stat growth system so much that the game is fun now, you don't need to beat up on your own party members, your stats grow naturally (as long as you aren't running away from everything) and the ability to hit a button to speed up combat and repeat your last inputs really makes the battle system awesome. I haven't gotten to FF3PR yet, but I've heard that it's probably the best version of the series, though I can't really say much as I only played like half an hour or so of it.
well, the pr version of ff3 is... not the game i wanted. The job skill level breaks the game. As well as the ds version, it determines the number of hits, so if you changed the job of a character, you will hit nothing. And you will want to change jobs, for exanple, a fighter to Knight, monk to dark knight, everyone to dragoon, both mages 2 times, one for their upgrade and another for the sage. And it is the same game from the nes. No new dungeons or bonus dungeons like ds.
@@000adrianelpiola000 Most of the DS/GBA ports' new dungeons are entirely game-breaking and in some cases, lore-breaking and just don't even make sense why they're there, other than "NeW cOnTenT!". Like, that optional dungeon in the GBA version of FF1 was literally just random maps thrown together with no real sense that completely break the game by giving you insanely good levelup spots early in the game. Or FF4's that has you taking a group through some odd dungeon with absolutely bonkers OP weapons.
So, "the game as it was with nothing new" is actually a decent selling point of a game. That means it's faithful and they didn't ruin it with a bunch of OP stuff. As for the job system and broken mechanics, well... that's just how the game was back then. It was the first game to feature a job system and it's no surprise to me that it was showing it's signs of infancy. When you buy the PR games, you know you're getting a snapshot of the time, simply updated to run of modern hardware for better or for worse. And unless you have a DS laying around or you wanna emulate, it's the simplest, easiest and overall best way to play those games.
If you don't like some of the quirks of those games, since they ARE PC games, they are surely moddable and people will eventually make mods to change it.
I wasn’t happy losing the MC from Xillia 1. The white haired character of X2 felt like such a downgrade. As soon as I was able to use Jude, I couldn’t stand going back to playing with Ludger. The story just felt so broken due to that. To me, story is a key element for an RPG. If it is compromised then so will my experience.
ahhh... yeah, SaGa Frontier was certainly jarring for me when I first got my PS1. And the first game I got, when I asked for a JRPG for christmas... I got SaGa. I was disappointed at first, but what I know now... I love the game and remains my favorite of the series. Sadly much of it's shine is buried. I loved how you could make each character your own. Monsters learning skills and eventually evolving into almost any monster in the game! Even dragons! they became rather OP, until you get the Dream Super Combo for any fist fighters.
There's a pretty good reason why FF II feels like a SaGa game: The series' director also directed FFII! SaGa is an acquired taste, and for a lot of its fans, the open-endedness and lack of directions is party of the appeal. Open games are a dime a dozen now, but on SNES and PSone, it was almost unheard of.
I actually have a lot of love for Quest 64. I'm not going to say it's an amazing must-play game or anything, but to me it feels comfy and cozy, it's like a 3D realization of old NES RPGs.
And lastly, as much as it hurts to say, I agree with you a lot on Tales of Xillia 2. It does a lot of things I really like, but even more I really dislike (I can't stand dialogue choices most of the time) but it's biggest crime is Xillia 1's wonderful cast basically being background characters with almost no major effect on the story
Yeah, and I do wonder if I'd appreciate SaGa Frontier (and the broader series in general) more now as an adult than I did back then. I'm hoping to give it a fair shot sometime soon.
And even though I thought Xillia 2 was fun, I just came away disappointed overall, like you said.
Funny thing is, I actually had a love/hate relationship with SaGa Frontier 1 and 2 both. I played all 3 of the "Final Fantasy Legend" games on Gameboy as a kid (before the internet) and of course had no idea they were actually the first SaGa titles. Never even knew "SaGa" was a thing. They felt... different from the other "Final Fantasy" titles, and for good reason, I now know in hindsight...but I still enjoyed them, alien as they felt to a kid just starting out with RPGs.
Skipped over all of the Romancing SaGa games during the SNES era, since I again had no idea they existed, and they never came stateside. Next SaGa game for me was Frontier, which I rented on a whim because I saw it advertised in Final Fantasy 7's instruction manual, so that meant it had to be good, right? Well, I hated it. Probably largely because I picked Lute's scenario first...and he doesn't have much substance or direction in his story, even though it does kind of tie various plot points together, once you play some other scenarios. Anyway, without having a manual and not knowing about the existence of GameFAQs yet, I had little hope of understanding the game's mechanics since it wasn't exactly user-friendly. Tried to understand it and tried to enjoy it but really couldn't. I felt like I wasted my money on the rental. But for some reason, about 3 months later I decided to give it a second chance snd rented it again. This time I started with Red (a good "new player" character) and ended up falling in love with the game, and eventually bought it, and it's been a favorite of mine since.
So when SaGa Frontier 2 came out, I thought surely this watercolor beauty had to be the next sleeper hit. But lo and behold, I had the same experience that I did with SF1. I never really liked the weapon durability thing, and the game felt a bit stunted since it lacked the relative freedom of other games in the series. I ended up confused and losing interest quickly on my first rental. But, same thing happened as before, and I ended up giving it a second shot. This time, I ended up having s blast with it, and while SF2 is not my favorite entry, I guess I made my peace with it somehow. By this time I had played the Romancing SaGa games and deepened my appreciation for the series as a whole, so I was able to get over whatever mental hump SF2 had previously laid before me, and ended up really liking it.
Nowadays, the only entry in the series I am not wild about is Unlimited SaGa. I've beaten it with two chatacters and picked it up and played with all of them at least once, but...for some reason, it doesn't jive with me. I've tried, I mean REALLY tried, but it's the one game in the series I can't reconcile with. It has some great ideas, but I felt the execution was lacking. Scarlet Graces was an interesting entry, and I feel like if that and Unlimited SaGa had a baby, maybe it would combine the bsst elements of both and create something on par with the older titles... Hoping that Emerald Beyond is going to be another win for the series when it comes out next month.
I need to get myself in the mindset for some SaGa and really go into it hardcore, to see if I connect with them now that I'm an adult. I actually might.
Oh man I'm glad I watched this with 16 hours left on that Saga Frontier sale on the Nintendo e shop before FOMO overrode my judgement 😬 I've heard a lot mixed, so I'll save my $13 for now
Yeah, I feel like if I DO grab the remaster, it'll have to be on sale, but I'll have to make sure I'm in the mood and okay with being disappointed in case it really just turns out it's not for me.
I'm not even gonna attempt to defend Quest 64, that game deserves all the hate it gets and then some, but the others? Xillia 2 and Astria Ascending I thought were decent games, while the others are actually two of my all-time favourites.
SaGa Frontier is definitely an acquired taste, given that it's a SaGa game, but it has so much charisma and such a cool structure that I absolutely adore it and all its weirdness, while Final Fantasy 3 hits a sweet spot of system complexity and retro simplicity in presentation and structure for me. Two absolute bangers, far as I'm concerned.
I definitely think there's a lot to love about all the games I picked. I'm still hopeful that at least some of them will click with me in the future.
@@JustTheGems With SaGa especially getting the games to click can take some time for sure. I also think SaGa Frontier has an inflated reputation to an extent - it's actually one of the less approachable games in the series in my mind.
If you're ever interested in giving the series another shot, I'd recommend Scarlet Grace or maybe Emerald Beyond (more streamlined, fantastic combat system and lots of tutorials and explanations) - though I haven't played that second one yet personally. None of the games (except maybe for Frontier 2) are overly story-focused though.
As for FF3 - I can imagine that if you're not that into the job system there's not a whole lot there for you. The classic FF games always felt to me like they were divided into 1,3 and 5 with their gameplay-focused design and 2, 4 and 6 with their story-focused design. It's a matter of taste to an extent.
In any case though, not every classic is for everyone and that's fine, given how humongously overpopulated the genre is nowadays anyway.
Saga Frontier 2 is a pretty decent jRPG, developed in a more classic fashion. You might like this one.
I did pick that one up, I'll give it a try!
Sf2 doesnt live up to 1 at all
Saga Frontier is one of my favorite games. Blue and Lute are not that interesting, but Emilia, Asellus and Red are awesome. T260G and Riki have good stories too.
SaGa Frontier is the game on this list with the most defenders, so that is motivating me to give it another chance.
@@JustTheGems Almost every SaGa game I've played I had to give it a second chance before I fell in love with it. It's usually because I'm expecting one thing and I end up disappointed only to find something else that I like about it on a second playthrough:
*SaGa Frontier*
Like you, I was expected something akin to Final Fantasy VII, but it wasn't that. If I had rented the game instead of buying it, I would have never played it again. Instead, I played more of it using different protagonists (while there's no 100% no-brainer choice of protag for beginners to start with, general consensus seems to lean toward *Red* or *Emilia*--even Asellus pops up as a good one story-wise (reminds a lot of people of FFVI Terra in some ways), but the middle part turns some people off). Whatever you do, don't start with Lute (no story, final objective easy to reach in the beginning) or Riki (monster mechanics take some getting used to, ESPECIALLY on a main character).
In the end, I overcame the difficulty curve, fell in love with learning new techs, the gameplay, and the differences in events between the seven main protags and eventually became a diehard SaGa fan.
*Recommendation for when to play*: First, as it's the most popular in the community and the characters seem to have more "charm." Again, this isn't usually seen until giving the game (and maybe the series) a second chance after being turned off the first time. Play the remaster if you want to try SaGa Frontier--there are quite a few improvements over the original.
*SaGa Frontier 2*
I was expecting more SaGa Frontier with multiple protagonists and races. That wasn't what this was. Instead *this one is more linear and story-focused* with two main characters/story paths that intertwine in some ways, which is a change of pace from ANY SaGa game after the first three on the Game Boy. It also has weapons that can break/have durability limits, which some people are ok with and some people REALLY hate. I was disappointed and, again, it took a second playthrough to appreciate it for what it was. This one should be approached more like Final Fantasy IV: characters constantly in and out of your party, characters have more focus in the story instead of just being "there."
*Recommendation for when to play*: After playing at least two SaGa games and understanding that SaGa sequels give you Final Fantasy levels of change and not Mega Man levels of change.
*Unlimited Saga*
I was REALLY disappointed with this one, so it too at least a year to come back to it. It was only after playing other SaGa games that I started looking for some core SaGa mechanics (kind of like with Final Fantasy games--chocobos, Cid, spell names, Summons) instead of more specific things that I liked about past SaGas. It does have multiple protagonists with unique stories like Frontier 1 and Live A Live, but the fact that *you move your character around like a piece on a Monopoly board*...that was a HUGE turnoff my first time playing! Eventually I did beat all seven character's stories, but my brain's wired a bit different. :D
*Recommendation for when to play*: LAST or not at all, unless you're curious about finding the diamonds under the REALLY rough exterior.
*Romancing SaGa 3*
This is probably the only SaGa game I liked the first time I played it, as it reminded me enough of SaGa Frontier (character designs, multiple protagonists). No, there are no multiple races like Frontier (or the three Game Boy games), but having techniques for more than just swords, guns, and martial arts makes up for it, along with a few non-human characters with some pseudo-unique quirks (Leonid the vampire with 0 LP being one of them).
*Recommendation for when to play*: Second after SaGa Frontier if you liked it. It doesn't throw too many things at you that you wouldn't have found in Frontier ("Hmmm...that enemy just dumpster'd my ass...yep, that happened to me a lot in Frontier until I got used to it.")
*Romancing SaGa: Minstrel Song*
This one reminded me a lot of Romancing SaGa 3 (multiple protagonists, but same story instead of multiple stories like Frontier and Unlimited or Live A Live), multiple techniques for lots of different weapons, etc. However, the mix of chibi characters with 3d models can be a visual turnoff for some. It does have a Proficiency system that's D&D-ish, but uses it WAY better than Unlimited Saga! Weapon durability returns from SaGa Frontier 2 and Unlimited Saga, but there are easy ways to restore durability and to reduce or even eliminate its effect altogether. There is one thing that can make this a tough sell even for people that love Romancing SaGa 3: the Event Rank system. Unlike all of the games above, *this game's events progress solely on how much you fight*--90% of the game's events are optional sidequests, and if you fight too much, you can actually MISS some of these quests! The entire game is like playing as Lute in SaGa Frontier (or Leonard in SaGa Scarlet Grace: Ambitions--I'll get to that below), but instead of being able to get to the last objective right away, you have to make yourself strong enough to unlock it.
*Recommendation for when to play*: Probably third or fourth if you liked Frontier and RS3 (and maybe RS2). Play the Remaster for MANY quality-of-life improvements, ESPECIALLY since the menu now has an indicator on it for what Event Rank you are on as well as options for slowing down Event Rank progression, far more lenient penalties for running away from battle (1 LP for the character ordering the retreat instead of like 4 or 5 LP)
*Romancing SaGa 2*
This one was the least accessible to audiences outside of Japan for the longest time (Romancing SaGa 3 had a virtually complete fan-translation of its SFC version). This one can be brutal when it comes to difficulty (I call the Seven Heroes the "Seven Sodomists" for a reason). While its gameplay resembles Romancing SaGa 3 the most (no weapon durability! No Event Rank system!), the overall setting is different. *You play as an emperor and during the game you're both developing and expanding your empire*. If enough time passes, your party gets wiped out, or your emperor loses all of their LP, you get to choose a descendant to inherit the throne and their abilities. This keeps going until a certain point where you get to the end of your lineage (the character you choose at the beginning of the game).
*Recommendation for when to play*: Third or fourth, depending on if you liked Frontier and RS3 and how you might feel about Minstrel Song. Again, Remaster has a lot of improvements as well as ways to mitigate some of the brutal difficulty.
*SaGa Scarlet Grace: Ambitions*
The newest SaGa game, this one had the potential to be the most accessible SaGa game yet with comprehensive tutorials that players expect in most modern games. However, this is SaGa after all, so there are going to be some experimental things in it. *This game is a minimalist's dream*: no dungeons, no walking through towns, select a spot on the map and you're either in a town, in some dialog resembling a visual novel, or in a battle. It's a step up from Unlimited Saga in that regard (except you're moving your character on the world map, not moving a board game piece representation of your character one spot at a time on a game board representation of a world map). It's that minimalism that turns people off from this game. *Get past that, and you have one of the best combat systems in a JRPG*: status conditions means something, techniques can manipulate your turn order, covering party members with defensive techniques become very important, using more than just your party can become important as LP is at a premium in this game. Some people feel that this is the most punishing SaGa game since you can seldom get to a "press X to win" point like with...just about every other SaGa game if you're overleveled or have busted ass techniques or spells.
This one has *four protagonists* instead of the seven or eight that other titles have. Because of the game's questionnaire in the beginning, you're likely going to end up with *Urpina* or *Leonard* as your protagonists, and Leonard does have one of those "everything is optional, get to the end whenever you want, but if you get there early, you're getting bodied" progressions like Lute from SaGa Frontier, but Leonard actually has some story events that make him a lot more fleshed out (and you're actually TOLD where to go if you follow those events, unlike Lute!!).
*Recommendation for when to play*: Third, fourth, or fifth, depending on how you feel about SaGa Frontier and/or Romancing SaGa 3 and if Minstrel Song and/or Romancing SaGa 2 hasn't scared you away. (I'd love to place this higher, since I spend like 1200+ hours of my life playing Scarlet Grace in order to write guides on GameFAQs, but I gotta be objective here)
Tales of Xillia 2 wasn’t bad to me…just constantly owing money and the contestant reminders made me crazy. Video games should be an escape from my crippling debt!!
Great video! I never played Quest 64 but I have very fond memories of Brain's Quest on gameboy. Not sure if it is actually a good game but it holds some nostalgia for me. FFIII is an interesting one - I enjoyed my time with the game and actually liked it better than FFII, but that is mainly because I enjoyed experiencing the history of the job system (although it was implemented poorly).
Loving your channel! Thank you for great videos.
Thank you for watching! By the way, isn't there a Gameboy Color Quest game that's, like, a puzzle game, too? I'm pretty sure I didn't dream that up...😅
Saga Frontier was definitely a strange beast. It really was a "concept game" based on a somewhat interesting system in Romancing Saga 2. I liked the idea of it...and like you, ended up hating actually playing it. Octopath and really FF6 showed how it can be done right. And TBF, the various CRPG's do the "go and do what you want" thing better in general anyway.
It's funny what you said about sprites, because that's what gamers at the time were saying about Xenogears. Believe it or not (lol) there were many arguments about which was the better game, and I use to heavily lean on Xenogear's expressive and gorgeous sprite work vs. The angular, blank and blocky 3D that FF7 hid with cinematics....ahh old pre-social media arguments ...
LMAO Octopath and Final Fantasy VI is fake linearity. You can play at once and have the entire thing down. I find something new every time I play a SaGa game. Final Fantasy VII is my favorite game of all time and it came out the same year i play them both once a year ....I stopped finding new things 20 years ago.
Yeah, the things everyone uses to argue about have changed, but in some ways, we're all still arguing in the same way... 😅 But yeah, I'm still open to changing my mind about SF, but I have to find time to go back to it.
What FF6 has to do with frontier?
I can understand you pointint octopath even if it hought it was very dissapointing compared to SF, but ff6?
@@Jrdotan FF6 has an ensemble cast, each character has his/her own story. In addition there are a variety of hidden eggs for each character. Like Octopath, but with less choices, you do get a choice on which storyline to pursue as you play FF6. It's not a whole lot in the beginning, basically a choice between Cyan and Edgar or Terra...but it's there. In world of ruin it's completely open, and you have to re-recruit your party again as they made their way in seperate parts of the map.
It's just an opinion, but I didn't see a compelling reason you wouldnt want to see all the cahracter stories in a playthrough, so it's more satisfying to me how FF6 takes you through each persons story...because it's semi-linear, characters you have already recruited have a reason to say or be a part of the story as you move forward, while Saga and Octopath have to stay silent (or create thousands of lines of potential dialogue for every player decision)
@@chuckhaynes9166 its not an anthology therefore not every character gets screentime and its also not anout tgeir story but instead about how they interact with the overall plot, thats the nature of FF as a franchise, which means it cant compare to SF since SF is a full on anthology that is gameplay heavy for all things.
I cant find what i seek in frontier in ff6 since the free form scenario isnt a thing and the limited scope of the battle system makes it far from a battle based sandbox.
It will only fullfill the needs of a fellow storylover
SF is not for those
Also, kind of random question, Have you ever watched Jerma985 before? He's a really funny streamer/content creator that is in his very late 30s almost 40s that plays a lot of games too!
I haven't, I'll look him up.
Dude your videos are so good. So well thought out. So respectful with your opinion very well described. You're fast becoming one of my favorite JRPG channels. Thank you for the great content.
Thank you so much, that means a lot!
@@JustTheGems ah it's the Spider-Man pointing at himself meme. I thank you for entertaining me with your amazing content. You thank me for saying you make amazing content. 🤣🤣🤣
I found out weeks after I got an N64 that FFVII was going to be on the Playstation due to gaming magazines. Like you, I assumed Square would continue making games for Nintendo. I also heard later that FFVII was going to get a PC release, and knowing my parents weren't going to get us another console so soon, I pretty much made it my mission to convince them to get a modernized computer since we were still on a 1990 IBM.
It's funny, without a PlayStation I was also working to get FF7 on PC... and I ended up spending as much for a 3D accelerator card to play it with as I would have on a PS1...🤣
God, Xillia 2 was severely disappointing. I feel so bad for the amazing cast that got absolutely shafted and left in the dark, Ludger being a huge reason for that.
True, I wanted it to go in a different direction too.
Symphonia 2 was infinitely more dissapointing to me the Xillia 2. But yeah, Xillia 2 was meh when it could have been amazing.
@@JustTheGems funny enough the originally planned final boss for Xillia 1, Origin, got backseated to a more background sorta character in Xillia 2 and having a mute main character being present in skits and somesuch really does not flow well. Plus I dislike almost all redesigns of the Xillia 1 characters.
The more I watch this video and with all the references to SquareSOFT (not Enix) and FF7 the more I’m convinced the Sakaguchi effect is a thing. Lost Odyssey and Fantasian were like playing Final Fantasy.
at one time George Lucas was a great director. That changed I think because circumstances surrounding the development of the art changed. I think you see that in FF3. He was “Yes sir great idea Sakaguchi sir” status ESPECIALLY the final dungeon imo
It's true, though the Sakaguchi effect never quite reached the level of the Kojima effect...😅
@@JustTheGems holy good god isn’t that the truth. Poor Postapocalyptic Pregnant Presidential Delivery Boy Simulator
I like all of these except Quest 64 lol. For SaGa Frontier i played the new version idk how different is from original.
I've heard the remaster of SaGa Frontier is supposed to make some pretty good improvements.
Haha I’ve only seen footage of Quest, but I think the slowness would be grating even for me 😅
It's soooooo painful
I love the Art Style of Astria Ascending, reminds me of Dragon's Crown! Thanks for the video mate.
It's a really striking style for sure!
I think it’s totally okay to not like a certain game. Especially one in your favorite genre because of course you will me more critical of them. Not every game can be good.
Yeah, I do try and find things to like in every game I play, but if the bad outweighs the good, it's healthy to just let it go, I think.
I loved Final Fantasy 3 when it came to the DS. Sure, it's not very epic and it lacks safe points, but it felt so good playing a 3D turn based RPG on the DS. It was one of the first. Really, really liked that.
I'm planning to play through 3 on the DS at some point, I do think that's probably the definitive version
Anyone else think the Job System is overrated? It is too grindy when implemented...I even resorted to fighting my own characters in FFT just to get more Exp and Job points. I like it in theory, but I'd rather play FF6, FF7, CT for their systems instead.
I honestly have to agree. It has just never really clicked with me the way it has with some people
Last Rebellion PS3 JRPG is thee worst I've ever played of the genre on that platform.
The villain, being a necromancer wanted to rez his dead mage girlfriend, so he killed thousands of mages from failed rituals. Eventually made life but it was a monstrosity which killed him. Yet he is rewarded being reunited with his girl in the afterlife together forever. Bruh could just ended himself to see her sooner, all those mage deaths wasted from this fool smh 💀
Interesting - I've heard very little about Last Rebellion. I'm honestly not even sure how it plays, but I've kinda been keeping my eye out for it to give it a try. Not sure if I ever will, but who knows!
The SaGa franchise weeds out the weak. Also calling Kenji Ito's music bad....yikes.
Something not being for you doesn't mean it's bad...after all Makai Toishi SaGa was the first Squaresoft game to sell a million copies and all of the PS1 Squaresoft games you were comparing it to, minus Final Fantasy EVERY SINGLE ONE are all dead franchises or zombie franchises kept alive via remasters...so the SaGa series can't be doing something wrong.
My man, it’s just my opinion, don’t take it personally! I’m sure you have games you consider bad that other people love. It’s just commentary, it’s not the gospel truth.
I remember beating Quest64 by thumping the last boss with my stick. Don't remember much else. Was equally puzzled by Saga! Have wondered as an adult if I'd enjoy it now.
Same. I'm open to giving SaGa Frontier another shot now, especially with the Remaster
I remember being so disappointed by Quest 64. It was so bad, and I was hoping for a real RPG.
SaGa Frontier was such a mess. So disappointing after all three of the gameboy games being such solid RPGs.
Interestingly, Final Fantasy 2's system was eventually spun off into the Saga series so Saga really had its roots in that game. Final Fantasy 3 conversely was made because Final Fantasy 2 was too dramatically different from FF1 in terms of its battle system and so 3 was crafted with a focus on improving the job system of FF1...its just that unfortunately story fell on the wayside a bit. You can then see how FF4 combinted FF2's style of a linear story with many rotating beloved characters and then applying each with a specific job like from FF1/FF3. So its fun to see which elements they choose to focus on or carry on from previous instalments. FF3s Pixel remaster is faithful to FF3 in the sense that they made no changes to the story line but they did make some quality of life adjustments to the gameplay which may make it much more palatable.
I'm curious to try the PR for FF3 primarily because it doesn't change things too drastically, so it's good to hear that the changes they DID make serve to make the experience better.
I disagree with you on the Tales game but then I'm a huge Tales fan - I have enjoyed every single one and played all that were released in English. In your PS2 days - hope you didn't miss the Shadow Hearts games - I loved all of them.
LOVE Shadow Hearts!
You got to Xillia 2 and I went "noooooo" 😂 I love both of those games so much lol.
Honestly, I'd never say I *disliked* Xillia 2, it just didn't do what I wanted it to. But it was still a pretty great Tales game overall.
Dude.. Dude.. Dude.. You don't need to feel guilty for not liking the N64 controller. I've NEVER owned an N64. But even to this day I keep an N64 controller on a shelf nearby so that if I need to cheer myself up a little I can go over to it and point and laugh at it. What can I say? It's my way of maintaining my sanity in a crazy world.
I'll go further, just in case any Nintendo devs are reading this. The one reason I didn't buy an N64 was because of that montrosity of a controller. I hope you were pleased with your work.
I remember thinking it was cool when I was a kid ... But yeah, it is truly a monster.
With each passing year, the decline of JRPGs becomes more evident - not a single one can match RDR2!
I haven't played RDR2 actually! I've had a hard time getting into westerns to be honest, but I'm open to giving it a try
Xillia 2 was fun but Ludger being a silent protagonist was kinda annoying. The silent protagonist only works for created characters for a game (eg The Lone Wanderer , Courier 6, The Dragonborn, etc)
Yeah, I kinda expect it in more Western-style RPGs, but in a Tales game it felt super out of place.
Xillia 2 is one of my favorite action rpgs next to kingdom hearts 2 and astral chain
Just found your channel and we have such similar taste! However, I kinda reeeaallly like Xillia 2. I got so much more sucked into the story than the first. But! I hated the loan system in the beginning. Mostly cuz it reminded me of my school loans and gave me anxiety. But thankfully it loosened up and ended up not mattering too much. Anywho great vids! You gained a new viewer!
Oh I will also say I didn't like the silent protag, but the rest of the cast made me enjoy it. And I was a bit sad we didn't get a real "sequel" to the original cast. But for some reason I just enjoyed it. Made for a good duology in my mind.
Thanks! I've heard several people say they loved Xillia 2, And they ALSO disliked the loan aspect - so you're not alone there!
I know this is completely on me, nitpicking an issue only I'm seeing, but I've been noticing this trend in a number of "JRPG" content creators recently that it's honestly starting to bother me. What is with this trend of demanding viewers to avoid or not get a game? In some cases, I'd understand if concerns an outright scam like "Fragrant Story" but not in most cases. It's always like an extra step too far into being arrogant instead of simply discussional. I suppose it must be to appease the TH-cam algorithm or something.
Oh well, my brain goblins at work as always. Though at least you did differentiate between something being bad and something being personally disappointing. I do appreciate that distinction being made at least. Regardless, me aside, keep doing what you're doing.
It's 100% for the algorithm. I'm not crazy about it, but I hope people who watch my stuff realize I'm much more even-keeled than the titles might lead you to believe.
In Xillia 2 you can actually unlock voice acting for the main character on New Game + lol
Yeah it's funny, I actually downloaded a cleared game file online so that I could start on New Game+ and he would be voiced. Still a bummer that his interactions are so minimal though.
@@JustTheGems It is annoying that a basic game feature is locked behind NG+ which on a proper playthroigh if you do everything easily can take 100+ h. And even then, he is just bland although his character design woth dual weilding was certainly more interesting than Jude ein Xillia 1 for me. It was also awesome to be able to play as Gaius. Nevertheless Xillia 1 > Xillia 2 for me.
Tales of Xillia 2 is one of my favorite games of all time
I really love your content, brother, so I hope you keep growing. I think I was one of your first subscribers and have enjoyed all your content. As for this video it’s crazy to see how similar we are with the games we like and we’re disappointed by. Now I’m afraid to play FF3 because I agree with you with the other four games lol. Have you been able to beat Trails into Reverie yet? I have the collectors edition but I haven’t even opened it yet because I’m still working on FF16. I’m hoping to finish it this week if work isn’t too busy since my son went to Disney with his mother and uncle so I should more time to finish it and hopefully start Reverie
Thank you so much! Actually, I'm in the same boat as you, working on finishing FF16 before I start on Reverie. But unfortunately, this is when the busy season at work starts, so I don't know how much time I'll even have to get through it!
@@JustTheGems
Work is an asshole. Always gets in the way on what’s really important like FF16 and the Trails series lol. Well I hope we both get to play Reverie sooner than later.
You are NOT allowed to rip on Quest 64, my favorite N64 game!!
Sorry!
Lol, you talking about the console wars I had a similar mindset in the 90s. I got both SNES and Sega Genesis. I wasn't even aware of the Saturn though for some reason. I only got the N64 too out of that gen, but granted I wasn't sure about JRPGs yet either. I can't believed I miss the bus on Chrono Trigger though. I read an article on it in my Nintendo Power magazine, heck the idea of time traveling inspired me to create my own story. I think my mindset was I wasn't sure about trying a new style of gaming yet because I was such a hardcore platformer. Heck I didn't even like Zelda's A Link to the Past. Ocarina of TIme changed my mindset though and I became interested in RPGs, especially JRPGs, but I still didn't want a PS1. Instead what happened was my brother got the Sega Dreamcast (still my fav console to date, despite the lack of games we got), because he wanted to play Shenmue and he also got two games I wanted to try- Skies of Arcadia and Grandia 2 (I saw ads for them). These 2 games are easily in my Top 5 fav games. Nintendo, when are we going to get a Remaster of Skies?! Sony remastered the first 2 Grandia games. I never got in the PS2 bandwagon until Kingdom Hearts arrived.
2 games I was majorly disappointed in were Grandia 3 and a remastered version of my fav game of all time- Eternal Sonata. I mentioned Grandia 2 is one of my fav games (it's my 2nd fav). It wasn't perfect though, one of the major weaknesses was there were 2 times when there were major difficulty spikes for 2 of the bosses. Unfortunately Grandia 3 took this flaw and expanded it to the Nth degree, especially in regards to its final boss. I do expect to be the final boss to be the hardest in the main game, but when I first face this particular boss, I was killed within 2 or 3 rounds! I had to pray to Lady Luck herself to beat this boss. I hate it when that happens in a game. So the next time I played this game, I decided to grind things out. Normally this wouldn't be a problem, but the level up system was changed and it takes a very long time to level up at some point. So I can't really recommend this game because of the fluctuation in difficulty spikes and grinding.
For Eternal Sonata, I loved the XBox360 game. Then a couple years later a PS3 version came out with extra content, which included 2 new characters, new dungeons, and extra content. It was one of the reasons why I got a PS3 (plus I wanted to play Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch, amazing game btw). Unfortunately they made changes to the gameplay, like they also increased the number of difficulty spikes (which resulted in more grinding) and they made changes to the battle screen so it was made harder (which I didn't like). Plus one of the new chars, I really didn't like how he played. He's so slow movement wise and movement is very important in battle. Now him being slow wouldn't be a problem if he had a long reaching weapon like one other tank in the game, but no, he's a mele fighter. So if Eternal Sonata was to get a reboot, I would hope they make this char faster. I would also say keep the gameplay of the Xbox 360 version and everything else (other than tweeking that one char) from PS3 version can stay the same.
It's interesting you mention the difficulty spikes in Eternal Sonata on PS3... I was really getting into that game, and then I hit a super hard difficulty spike, got frustrated, and quit, and unfortunately I haven't been back to it yet. I hope I do go back, because like I said, I was really enjoying it! Also, I only vaguely remember Grandia 3. That came out when I was not playing games as much as when I was younger. I know that I owned it at one point, but I don't know how far I got in it. I've gotta give that one another try I think, after I replay Grandia 1 and 2. Anyway, thanks for watching!
I had a video idea, you could have a randomizer pick what game from your backlog and say your thoughts on the game
Saga Frontier was amazing, what are you on about? Some of the stories lacked a bit, like Lutes got nothing going for him, but some of them have a lot of meat on them.
I've heard the Remastered version fixes a lot of my issues, so I'll probably give that one a try as an adult and see how I feel
You hit the nail on the head with saga frontier. I had the exact same feeling when I rented it.
It's not even that I think the game is *awful* or anything, it just was disappointing for me because it wasn't what I was expecting. I think I might be able to get into now, though. We'll see!
Quest 64 was the first JRPG I played
Perhaps my biggest disappointment relative to the rest of it's series is Suikoden 4.
Suikoden as a franchise is incredible, but has a notable low point with 4 (and arguably 3).
I've heard that from other people as well. I only ever played through 1-3, but at some point I'm going to tackle the rest of the series.
I'm surprised no one isn't talking about Astria ascending.
A few people really gave it to me on my review video of that one...😅
@@JustTheGems dang
Le gasp, Astria Ascending?! Haha! Nah that's fair dude! I'm easily pleased with games haha!
Oh not at all, I know that Astria Ascending has a pretty good-sized fan base, and the combat really is quite good. The rest of it just didn't hook me unfortunately.
I wanted to love Saga Frontier so bad, but it really does just plain fucking sucks.
I want to believe I'm just missing something. It does have a dedicated fanbase for sure, but I just can't get over the hurdle.
What’s your favorite and least favorite Tales?
Favorite: that's hard. Maybe... Berseria? Xillia? It changes. Least favorite was probably Destiny if I'm being honest.
Xillia 2 was okay, but I prefer that over Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World. lol
Haha, I think most Tales fans would probably agree 😂
Perhaps im just dense but it took ff7 for me to even understand why rpg(favorites now). I couldnt understand why you were restricted and couldnt just attack freely like in Zelda. So as a young person i found them annoying because i just wanted it to be free like zelda and not restricted to a seemingly pre determined destiny. Really i just wanted everything to be zelda as a kid until my favorite of em all ff7
7 really converted a lot of people to RPGs!
Jrpg fans really wanted to have an rpg on the N64, sadly you we got Quest 64. The only other ones are Ogre Battle 64 & Gauntlet 64 if you want to call them rpgs.
Yeah, I would really like to get Ogre Battle 64 one of these days.
Man, I can't say I'm surprised to see Quest 64 on here.
I figured I wasn't alone on that one
People tha6 are positive alp the time is just annoying, you need balance between positive and negative
Saga Frontier is phenomenal, I vehemently disagree.
I believe it's critically acclaimed for a reason for sure, I just expected something it wasn't and ended up disappointed. But I'm glad you enjoy it, I hope I do someday.
I didn't like saga frontier at all...at first. The fact that it took up so many slots on my memory card was just a bummer in itself. Revisiting the game totally changed my mind when I got the remaster on switch. It's much improved. Once you get how the game progression works it becomes a lot of fun.
That being said, unlimited saga does suck imo. I tried...
Now that I'm older and more interested in gameplay systems, I have a feeling I'd like it a LOT more.
As far as disappointments go, I recently got a fantastic deal on "Tales of Arise" ($13.99), which is my first Tales game. I'm finding myself alienated, though, by how limited the NPC interactions are, though. I wander around the first town after meeting the female co-protagonist and people seem generic and have only super short snippets of text to say that don't give them personality. I'm also not sure how much I'm liking the combat system. Don't see a way to take health items in combat and my teammates are too distracted to save me from dying. Does this improve?
I found that it got better as the game went on, but then again, I'm coming from the background of playing all the other Tales games, so my expectations are probably set very differently than yours. I usually give a game like 5 hours or so and if it's not gripping me, I let it go. Not sure how long you've been playing, but I recommend that as a general strategy regardless.
FF XV is still my most disappointing Jrpg. It's not horrendously unplayable, but thinking what it could have been makes me disappointed.
I also feel disappointed, because if all the pieces had been there at launch, I think people would feel differently about it.