Retro RPGs

[Anonymous No.9931546]

I've been playing through a catalog of retro classics to get a taste of games my dad grew up with since he's been gone. I kept his saves and made my own so its like we're both playing sort of.

Final Fantasy 5 is the first one I tried out of his box, and I loved every minute of it. I went to FF6 next and while I enjoyed it I didn't get as into it and made it to the Locke infiltrating South Figaro part before deciding to try a different game - Chrono Trigger. I've heard people talk about Chrono-Trigger like its the best game ever, but it wasn't really as great as FF5 either.

I'm up to the part where I'm taking the frog knight's broken sword to the guy at Medina village - does the game change notably from this point? It hasn't won me over yet, and I'm hoping to find another something close to FF5 to play next.

[Anonymous No.9931697]

What was it about FFV that engrossed you? You pretty much know what Chrono Trigger is about. You get a few party members, level them up and unlock new skills, and see what new techs you can use.

[Anonymous No.9931715]

Excellent taste OP.
FFV has probably one of the best battle systems of any retro ff game or snes era jrpg in general.

[Anonymous No.9931750]

>>9931546
Try Glory of Heracles 4.

[Anonymous No.9931851]

>>9931715
They're both boring. Where's the blonde girl?

[Anonymous No.9931931]

>>9931697
Definitely the class system. I enjoyed customizing my party to do all kinds of goofy things, and experimenting with all the options. Ultimately I ended the game with 4 mimes mimicking each other into dual casting holy and some other mimes in the group having blue magic and summon spells. It really made the group feel like my party, and I ultimately felt more invested in the story from that engagement.
>>9931715
For my experiences so far, I'd agree!
>>9931750
I'll add it to the list!

[Anonymous No.9931949]

>>9931931

[Anonymous No.9932009]

>>9931931
Final Fantasy 6 gets a lot more customizable and open once you get a bit further into the game. Though not really to the extent FF5 did.

FF3 is basically FF5 without the entire "learn-abilities-and-give-them-to-other-classes" thing, definitely one to check out.

[Anonymous No.9932220]

>>9931546
Definitely try Dragon Quest V and the remake of the 3rd one.

[Anonymous No.9932238]

These games don't tend to be great at letting you customize your characters, unfortunately. You happened to start with one that has an unusually strong reputation for that. (I haven't gotten around to playing it myself, but that's what everybody says about it.)

Square's most famous games tend to be almost worth playing solely for the music. Maybe you need to focus on aesthetics more, and reduce your expectations of the games' mechanics.

There are some that do allow lots of freedom and creativity though. But maybe not many of them happen to exist in your dad's box of games? I dunno what's in the box of course.

[Anonymous No.9932247]

>>9931546

FF5 is the NPC's preferred FF. The art and story are so bland.

[Anonymous No.9932530]

>>9931546

I think it's a mistake that you ditched FFVI so early, but I don't blame you. It starts off a bit slow. Idk, maybe you just like the job system of FFV and don't really care about story and other important things.

[Anonymous No.9932608]

>>9931546
If we're talking about final fantasy, how is FF Tactics? I've only played FF1 and 2, so I dunno how it compares, unless it's like Fire Emblem since I've played that.

[Anonymous No.9932985]

>>9931546
nigga that's skulls

[Anonymous No.9933140]

>>9931715
Is there good art of these two?

[Anonymous No.9933265]

>>9931546
Have you played FF4? It's my favorite storywise of the series (until Stranger of Paradise, but that's not retro).

That said overall I've gone back to liking FF1 the most as an overall experience. Just can't beat the adventure feeling the NES original gives me. You don't need to play remakes or rereleases and romhacks or fixes; bugs and all, it's still one of my favorite games to replay after 36 years.

[Anonymous No.9933268]

>>9931546
Is this one big overly complex shitpost? I cannot picture any actual living human being saying "Chrono Trigger hasn't won me over".

It's just too forced.

[Anonymous No.9933362]

>>9931546
Try Dragon Quest 3 remake on SNES, can customise party there. I suggest Hero and 3 retarded bunny girls.

[Anonymous No.9933510]

>>9932608
It's a lot closer to Fire Emblem than it is to any other Final Fantasy game.

[Anonymous No.9933519]

>>9932247
>>9932530
Total storyfag genocide when?

[Anonymous No.9934139]

>>9933268
>I can't believe. Someone doesn't like Undertale?
That's how you sound right now

[Anonymous No.9934932]

How many PSX RPGs are still worth playing?

[Anonymous No.9934949]

>>9931546
FFV is the best FF; glad you liked it. If you want a SNES RPG, I would give Romancing SaGa 2 or 3 a shot. You have complete control over character building, and the games are fairly challenging.

[Anonymous No.9935273]

>>9934139
Not really? That's just an idiotic false equivalence.

OP is clearly a troll.

[Anonymous No.9936052]

>>9934949
>fairly challenging
They're not though? You must be one of those "the 7h are the hardest final bosses evahr xd" or "the rats keep killing me xD" fags. Saga games being hard is just a myth. Somehow casuals have a hard time with them, even to this day.

[Anonymous No.9936102]

>>9931546
OP, most JRPGs are about the storyline, not customizing your character class freely. FFV is the odd one out in that it has a simpler, light hearted story and focuses heavily on gameplay customization instead. Basically you started with the best game and so naturally everything else feels boring after that.
I recommend trying out one of those SRPGs like FF Tactics or Disgaea series instead. Those allow you complete character customization, Disgaea taking it to rather absurd extremes (you can level up your character, weapon, weapon skill, special attacks, there's a master/pupil relation where you can teach special attacks to a class that couldn't learn it, the level cap is 9999, and that's all just the tip of the iceberg).

FFVI gets more customization and a lot of free movement halfway into the game, but it'll never amount to more than just FFV with each class being a separate character.
Chrono Trigger is more story focused and the idea behind the gameplay is that it never gets in the way of what you are doing; hence details like how your map sprites are the same as your fighting sprites, etc. A little into the game you'll have the chance to freely customize your party, and if you stick to a team you get them to learn dual techs which are very powerful and a key to beating some trickier bosses. It's still story driven though, but the world is really quite something.

[Anonymous No.9938013]

Ok so I'm someone that like FF5 for the same reason. We even stopped playing FF6 at the exact same time and for the same reasons.

What you like about the game is the actual tactics and thinking of it. JRPGs do not generally do that. They started out as dungeon crawlers with great world and characters like Phantasy Star and sometime during the SNES the dungeon crawling was either dropped or dumbed down to the point and what replaced is gimmicks. Every JRPG from the ps1 onwards has a gimmick (they use the word "system". It's fail, I know. Now onto the game recs.

FF5's system is actually an upgrade to the system of FF3. In FF3 you could change jobs but you couldnt mix and match skills. The upgrade to FF5 is FF7 where the proccess of mixing and match skills was made much more complicated by intertwining it with gear and giving you more slots. The upgrade to FF7 is actually Path of Exile. Basically FF5 abilities=FF7materia=PoE gems

If you want mechanically strong RPGs you've got 4 choices.

There are action RPGs like Ys and Secret of Mana, Diablo-like games are the ultimate action RPGs in terms of stat/choice complexity, westerns just do mechanics better.

Choice 2 is SRPGs/TRPGs. They are naturally great for mechanical depth because they have a large playing field. Most SRPG lack world exploration and are just battle maps with cuscenes inbetween, Shining Force is a great exception. If you want tactics play one's without grinding if you want to just dick around with stats go to the grind ones.

Choice 3 is dungeon crawlers. JRPGs started out as dumbed down dungeon crawlers. Dungeon crawlers are about using tactics to maximize resources while routing out the dungeon. Grinding can be a fail-safe against what happens if you made a party set that can't succeed or it can be part of the game where you need route and manage grind.

1/2

[Anonymous No.9938016]

>>9938013
2/2
Choice 4 is to stop playing JRPGs. Most mechanically suck and the one's that are not either exceptions like FF5 or basically an entirely different genre with JRPGs dressings such as dungeon crawlers, action games with stat up, or SRPGs. I was in the same situation as you awhile ago and I have looked into it. JRPGs are shit if you want mechanical depth at all, their strength is in their aesthetics and they are played by people who do not want to think. So go to Western RPGs you will find a lot more mechanical depth. Their depth starts really take off when they move past Might and Magic dungeon crawlers and go to your Divinity Origenal Sin/Baulders Gate style games because the addition of space and movement (there's technically space and movement in Might and Magic but it's very minor).

[Anonymous No.9938046]

>>9931949
Lel
I really like it but I use fast forward to grind classes.