/vr/ - Retro Games

4th>3rd>2nd>5th

Best RPGs for sure, and arcade ports were getting close to the real thing. 2D platformers were weak compared to previous generations though.

>>5862196
>Best RPGs for sure
Why? I think 5th gen RPGs aren't substantially better than the ones from 4th gen (and some of even 3rd gen). FMVs were a nice novelty back then, but nowadays playing 5th gen RPGs just means longer unskippable attack animations and loading times.

>>5862203
There were just higher quality games out than before. Parasite Eve, Final Fantasy Tactics, Vagrant Story and Suikoden II blow the likes of Chrono Trigger and Lufia 2 out of the water.

>>5862127
I agree, but only because of the Saturn

>>5862224
>Parasite Eve
Wasn't a big fan, but I'll give you it's an interesting mix of resident evil and RPG
>Final Fantasy Tactics
Many tactical RPGs before 5th gen, FFT just gets mentioned often because of FF's household brand, it's not better than many older games in the same genre.
>Vagrant Story
Interesting concept, very cool art style, but I don't think it can be said to "blow" Chrono Trigger, you're just being biased. Also in terms of experimental 5th gen RPGs, I preferred Hybrid Heaven's combat to Vagrant's.
>Suikoden II
Pretty good game, but not really of higher quality than many of the best 4th gen RPGs. Suikoden II is good because it feels like a late 4th gen RPG.
>Lufia 2
Why would you mention this game along with Chrono Trigger instead of, I dunno, Phantasy Star IV or FF VI?

>>5862138
ok boomer

>>5862249
>PSIV
Overrated sci-fi Dragon Quest clone, plot is mostly callbacks to the rest of the mediocre franchise. Good macro system though, that should be in other games for sure
>FFVI
Great game, absolutely, but no better than FFVII.

>>5862258
>but no better than FFVII.
It's better, starting from the fact you don't have to sit through long attack animations and load times, and cheesy cgi FMVs.
>>5862253
as always, zoomer.

>>5862260
>long attack animations
This is a valid complaint for IX, but in VII almost physical attacks are quick and crisp. Not as quick as 16-bit, but those games leave too much to the imagination. It's a matter of taste.
>load times
Inevitable with CD-based media, but worth it
>cheesy cgi FMVs
Name one cheesy FMV in FFVII. That shit is fire

>>5862249
>Many tactical RPGs before 5th gen, FFT just gets mentioned often because of FF's household brand, it's not better than many older games in the same genre.
How many older tactical RPGs that aren't Tactics Ogre have the same kind of interesting 3D maps as FFT?

Or were they all flat 2D maps like Shining Force and Fire Emblem? And note the 8 and 16-bit Fire Emblem games were not released in North America.

>>5862365
>>5862249
btw I agree with you in general about 4th gen vs 5th gen RPGs but Final Fantasy Tactics is still a valid example of a great 5th gen game.

>>5862365
>interesting 3D
That's subjective, nothing wrong with flat 2D maps.
FFT is fine, but people tend to overrate it because 1) it's Final Fantasy 2) it's the first game in this genre they ever played and have really fond memories of it.
I mean I don't blame them, it's a good game and was also my first tactical rpg, but I'm not going to pretend it's the best one.

I hate 5th gen because Nintendo and Sega were both huge fuck-ups and pretty much handed Sony a monopoly over the home console market.

>>5862372
>>5862372
>That's subjective, nothing wrong with flat 2D maps.
3D maps are harder to design and balance. (and yes FFT is unbalanced as fuck especially by the end of it but until then the payoff is having stats like "jump" that actually matter and can be exploited tactically)
>people tend to overrate it becaus
they shit on it for the exact same reasons.

>>5862378
Nintendo games peaked in 3rd gen
But n64 kicks

>>5862385
>3D maps are harder to design and balance
Maybe, but that doesn't make them better.
2D maps also can be pretty complex with different heights and terraints, you don't really need 3D graphics in order to add complexity.

>>5862365
>>5862385
you think those tiny ass maps are good? lmao

Just did the rgb mod for mine, and replace the shell from my original to a rgb compatible 64. I think it looks nice.

>>5862412
I think it looks nice to anon.

>>5862406
>Maybe, but that doesn't make them better.
It most likely does, and certainly makes the game more worthy of praise and note.
>2D maps also can be pretty complex with different heights and terrains
>can be
How about some specific examples?
Realize I'm not talking about whether "3D Graphics" are actually used from a game engine perspective. I'm talking about games where you have a meaningful and well-integrated height attribute. Notice the bridge in pic-related. You can stand on it, or directly underneath it, but due to terrain rules you won't be able to do anything from there unless you can swim, float, or walk on water. To get down there you'll need to either walk all to the bottom or have some kind of vertical movement ability (good jump rating, ignore height, flying).
In the previous pic (sand-rat-cellar) you can jump up on the broken walls of the building to avoid the melee, so long as you have characters with sufficient jump rating.
This kind of shit is easily my favorite part of Final Fantasy Tactics.
>>5862408
>bigger is better
the turbo pleb reveals himself.

>>5862378
I'm with you games then and forever would be better if sony never entered the hardware race

>>5862127
What game is in the n64?

>>5862784
>How about some specific examples?
Super Robot Wars, for example. There's mountains, water, bridges, buildings, space stations, asteroids, moon craters, and more. All in top-down view 2D.

>>5862784
>How about some specific examples?
Super Robot Wars, for example. There's mountains, water, bridges, buildings, space stations, asteroids, moon craters, and more. All in top-down view 2D.
Wether you can fly over mountains, go underwater, etc depends on the unit.

>>5863735
I'm looking at Super Robot Wars EX right now and it looks to me like those are all just terrain attributes. I don't see anything remotely like the maps that I've posted for FF Tactics. Even moving into 5th gen Robot Wars games, the paradigm still seems to be to have a large map where units traverse kilometers of terrain during a battle then do their attacks in cutscenes. A mountain range is either impassible or it's not. It feels very much like a large-scale wargame type of combat. Maybe something like Panzer General. Terrain amounts to basically just different obstacle types (which FFT has as well). This is different from having a relevant height value for every single location on the map. So far as I can tell, Robot Wars does not even implement actual elevation.

There's nothing wrong with this, but it's not equivalent to Final Fantasy Tactics implementation of a meaningful height dimension. Final Fantasy Tactics actually feels like RPG-style combat with individuals engaged in melee and ranged combat, rather than military units operating over kilometers of terrain.

Consider the ambush in pic-related. Your units start split up, three in the lower corner and two under the archway. The enemy team starts with 3 units on top of the wall including two spellcasters that can buff themselves and hit your units below. You have to figure out how to solve this problem, and there are numerous solutions due to the 3-dimensional nature of the map and your range of abilities.

That is what sets FFT apart, for me. I have never seen another game do this as well, except maybe Disgaea. Even the other Tactics games (Tactics Ogre, FFTA, etc.) don't quite reach FFT's success at this.

>>5862408
>>5862784
>>bigger is better
Anyway to elaborate on this, the problem with large maps is that it tends to benefit horizontal movement over vertical movement. Even in FFT as it is, horizontal range probably more useful on average than vertical range. It also tends to wind up abstracting all the terrain details. Instead of a scenario like >>5864475 where the player is probably going to get bottled up on the ramps on the right-hand side of the screen as they try to attain the high ground, and will pay attention to the elevation differences of each tile on every turn, on a large 2D map, the terrain types you need to traverse just modify the sum total range you have on that turn in a particular direction.

So, the maps in FFT tend towards being cube-shaped rather than long and flat (although there are a few of those, like Zeklaus Desert).

>>5864475
There is definitely melee combat on SRW (for example, if you want to use the Eva's progressive knife attack, you have to be next to your enemy, there's no ranged attack for that). Eva's are also interesting because they can't fly, and they're limited by their umbilical cable. They can climb on buildings though.
It's true that it's not quite exactly like FFT, but that wasn't my point, my point is that a flat 2D map can be as complex (or even more) than FFT's isometric 3D maps.

>>5864523
>my point is that a flat 2D map can be as complex
My first point is that such complexity tends to be more arbitrary and specific, assuming it's well-balanced in the first place. To some extent it's not just about the complexity. In that Zeltennia map I posted, you can have a character with "Ignore Height" just leap up onto the bell tower on the first turn and attack the Inquisitor, bypassing all his guards and ending the battle right away. Or teleport, or flight, etc. There's just a raw, un-quantifiable element of fun in being able to do something like that.
My second point, not emphasized as much, is that 2D tactical games are a dime a dozen while games with 3D maps like FF Tactics are rare, especially before 5th gen. Therefore, maybe it's this particular, unusual trait of FF Tactics that helps make it such a popular game rather than just "oh it's got the final fantasy brand on it so that's why everybody likes it"

Also, what version of SRW are you talking about? I thought we were talking about how 4th gen is better than 5th gen.

>>5862127
4th & 6th > 3rd & 5th > 8th > 7th > 2nd > watching paint dry > 1st

>>5864570
As I said, I never claimed the SRW maps were exactly like FFT, I just said complexity is there (in some regards more complex to FFT, I think), but anyway complexity doesn't equal better, either, it's all subjective matter. As I said, I like FFT too, but it seems you're a much bigger fan of it than I am.
And yeah we were talking about 4th gen having just as good (if not better) RPGs than 5th gen. I did mention Evas (which aren't on 4th gen SRW) but that's because I used them as examples of very limited units that mostly do melee attacks, but you can melee with pretty much every unit in SRW, except for the ships.