/vr/ - Retro Games

this guy's rendition of Terra is excellent.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVJYocffodY

>>3752539
Couldn't agree more.

Ultima and JRPGs are near and dear to me. I love Dragon Quest. I love the fact that they haven't tinkered with the recipe, which means that by the time they get to VIII it's been refined to a masterpiece. I like that conservative approach to things: people like it, so they keep making what people want. In the long run you get all of these little details, and it's because of that that it really *would* be wrong to say that the modern JRPG really "belongs" to anyone in particular.

Then you look at FF. They keep making kind of the same story again and again, but I think there's an evolving process going on there too: the crystal fetishism of FF4, the magitek stuff in 6, the thoroughly steampunk/whateverpunk world of 7...right up until 15, which is basically about the 1% driving around in a big car. DQ sticks with Toriyama, FF has Amano, Nomura...

Ultima kind of remade Britannia in its own way, with the Age of Enlightenment/Guardian story that unfolds from 4-7 (8, whatever). And they created Ultima Online, too, which is...kind of a thing also.

Anyways, I'm fully in agreement. I've always been struck by the Ultima games growing out of what were genuinely an existential question for RG - around this time, there was a kid who died in some steam tunnels LARPing Tunnels and Trolls - and how that sat with him, and he produced U4 as a result.

The Japanese didn't need to do any of that (although they did have their own narrative going on, with the 'Final' part of Final Fantasy and all, so it's not like there wasn't some angst involved there either). And it's a good thing they didn't. And hell, they *put* Wizardry and Ultima together, and produced Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy. Life is only the richer for having all of this stuff.

And as much as I love all things Ultima, those guys have nothing on Uematsu.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1AUNqugOQ0

It wouldn't be that game, but "Terra" is one of the most perfect things I have ever heard in a video game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1AUNqugOQ0