/vr/ - Retro Games

>>4707471
>artistically, i dont think SE ever topped it.
I don't know about that, as good as it was certain areas were pretty mundane, like the swamp or even Viper's mansion, there were some really good looking parts like Chronopolis and as I mentioned before, Spriggan's dimension, the underwater section was pretty fine too.
I think in terms of atmosphere things like the two SaGa Frontier games, Legend of Mana or FFVIII were the most impressive at the time, there were some other notable games like PE2, but I don't think anything top those in terms of consistent quality and art direction, SaGa Frontier 2 alone is seriously some of the best work in the entire industry when it comes to art and detailed environments, which in hindsight makes me even more mad that those games didn't get the budget and development time they deserved.

>>3069668
>Reminds me a bit of Legend of Mana
A lot of the people on SF2 team were also part of LoM team, hence why they have slightly similar artstyles.

>>2892139
Well, it's hard to convince someone to play Frontier 2 if they don't like linear RPGs, but I'll try.

It has some of my favorite characters in the series and a nice story that keeps the dramatic moments without being melodramatic.

I found the double protagonist sytem to be an interesting narrative choice as Gustave and Wil are polar opposites in terms of character and develolopment.
Gustave is an ungifted noble who has to crawl back from the abyss and prove his worth to the world and himself while Wil is an exceptionally gifted nobody who ends up involved in a huge mess that will end up having him fight a lonely struggle to save the world.
Both stories are intertwined and the change in generations while a bit confusing keeps the story fresh and interesting.

There are quite a bit of scenarios to see and places to explore, looking for treasure is also very important.

The battle system is basically a huge rebalance of Frontier's, no more broken combos out of your ass, no more stuff like Overdrive or nukes like Tower to cheese bosses, you have to fight harder this time, bosses and monsters are also generally stronger.

To rebalance the changes from Frontier you have another way of sparking and a unique secondary battle system in the form of single battles where you input special basic commands that can help you create spells or arts or even a fusion of both, curiously, the manual had notes regarding how to create them too.

Characters stats are fixed in this game, unlike Frontier, so you can't powerlevel by stacking equipment bonuses or Glirandly to cheese the game.

The final boss is pretty hard, if you fight it without killing the optional bosses he's more or less on the same level of bullshit as 10 Fatestone Saruin, for some reason he was also a bit buffed up in the western release of the game.

The OST is wonderful and is the first work of Masashi Hamauzu in the series.

The graphics are timeless and some of the best 2D graphics you'll ever see.

Time to bring the thread back on rails.