Top 3 and Bottom 3 RPGS

[Zangetsu]

Just thought this might be a fun topic, and see what everyone else thinks. What are the top 3 rpg's you've played and what are the worse 3 you've played.

Top 3

1. Lunar Silver Star Story Complete

2. Suikoden II

3. Thousand Arms

Bottom 3

1. Magna Carta

2. Star Ocean

3. Wild Arms 3 for PS2 I think

what about you all?

[UCPesmerga]

Top 3
Suikoden II - Even with sprite graphics, and some localization issues, the storyline, gameplay, and overall feel of the game was great.
Final Fantasy X - Wasn't much that I didn't like about this game.
Wild ARMs - I know this game is full of cliches, but something about Rudy really endeared me to this game, despite the fact he doesn't talk.

Bottom 3
Magna Carta - You can only wrap up the WORST battle system in history in pretty colors for so long before you realize it's crap.
Beyond the Beyond - This was the first RPG I played, and yet I still played other RPG titles after it. Go figure.
Xenogears - Parts of it were fun and innovative, but Disc 2 was by far the worst experience I've ever had with a videogame. Ever.

[Ikano]

Top 3
Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars (SNES) - The RPG that started my love for RPGs. I'm sad though that I don't have a tv that I can plug the SNES into anymore n_n

Suikoden 2 (PSOne)- It's too epic to not mention. "No you can't borrow my precious copy of Suikoden 2! You'll have to PRY IT FROM MY DEAD HANDS!"

.hack (PS2)- I want to say the .hack series as a whole but then I'd be a little unfair to the Suikoden series( and my only mentioned S2 above)...so I give .hack//Quarantine the honorable mention. Surprisingly it's the .hack games that got me interested on real MMORPGs even just a tad. And yeah I know it's a little sad to say that cuz real MMORPGs are nothing at all like .hack's simulated MMORPG system but ^^; well it still opened my eyes to a new genre alright?!

Bottom 3
Saiyuki: Journey West (PSOne) - I think it's classified more as a Tactical/Tactical-RPG? I'm not sure...I haven't touched the thing forever and I don't think I ever will touch it again...
"Waste of time". And "Annoying glitch" is all I remember about it.....

Evergrace (PS2) - An Action-RPG I believe. I'm sorry but what is up with the weapon system? I mean...if I recall correctly the stuff ages when you're even just standing still doing nothing. I dunno...I just...didn't like it...so I haven't picked this up for a long time either.

Azure Dreams (PSOne) - Oh yes...you...I definitely hated you. I could go on a long ramble about the specifics of what exactly ticked me off and stuff...but I'll save everyone and myself the trouble and not dig up my bad thoughts about this game.
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[Sialeeds]

Top

Suikoden 1
Shadow Madness
Dragon Quest Monsters

Bottom

Digital Devil Saga
Magna Carta
Azure Dreams (GBC)

[Zangetsu]

haha everyone seems to hate magna carta, lol.

[Angelus]

[Crono]

Top

Chrono Trigger
Final Fantasy VII
Suikoden II

Bottom
Suikoden IV
Earthbound
Paper Mario
_________________
"Into battle we ride
With gods by our side
We are strong, and not afraid to die
We have an urge to kill
And our lust for blood has to be fulfilled
We'll fight 'till the end, and send our enemies straight to hell!"

[RedCydranth]

I've never played Magna Carta so I don't know what all the hate is over. it actually looked fun to me. I'll try it out one day, I'm sure.

Zangetsu, please elaborate on your hate for Star Ocean, as it was clearly one of the best games ever not released in the USA for SNES. The fan translated version totally rocked my world and only made me love Star Ocean 2 more.

Top 3 RPGs

Shining Force - Anyone who knows me knows this is my elite all time favorite game. Its simple, and perfect. Its not too flashy, it doesn't have a crazy learning curve. You don't have to be more than 10 to understand everything about the game. Yet it captures the minds of 40 year olds to this day. That has to say something about the greatness of the concept alone. The strategy RPG thing was pretty much never heard of in the States when this game came out. In Japan, yes they have Fire Emblem for some time, but over here this was pretty much our first glimpse of what would be one of the greatest game types (opinion!) in video game history. The simple move and attack like chess thing was so simple, yet so ingenious. The storyline was simple. An evil nation is threatening to take over the world by raising a demon. Stop them. The plot didn't need much more than that. The game play and the lovability of the characters who barely had dialogue was more than enough. Its a very fun game.

Final Fantasy Tactics - Its everything Shining Force was, and so much more. Its the best Strat RPG ever made. Shining Force is only better in my mind for nostalgic reasons and nothing more. Final Fantasy Tactics integrated the move and attack style of every Strat RPG to date and their old formula from Final Fantasy V (or earlier than that II). For the inept, that means Job Classes. Add in one of the best story lines any video game has ever offered, multitudes of side quests and a musical score that is to this day, unrivaled. The symphonic beauty of the music plays brilliantly along with the gray areas of good vs. evil and truth vs. law. The game was brilliant in every sense and has a very high replayability factor, as most Strat RPGs tend to have. Also, unlike Shining Force, most of the characters that join you (aside from generics) have large blocks of dialogue and contribute to the storyline. Some of the greatest heroes and villains have come from this game. Who doesn't respect the might of Orlandu or the cunning attitude of Delita? A brilliant game all around.

Chrono Trigger & Cross - I lump them both together because they're both simply amazing. I know it seems almost blasphemous for me to be a part of an online Suikoden community and not list Suikoden in the top 3, but I don't see it as good as these three games. Fouth on the list is definitely Suikoden III (I loved the Trinity Sight System) but I liked the Chrono series more. Chrono Trigger had the best characters and story. Every single character in the SNES epic was beyond lovable for one reason or another. I loved the hate Magus and then loved his magic as he joined the team. It was by far the most advanced storyline the gaming world had seen at that time (rivaling FFVI). My love for Chrono Cross comes again for nostalgia and I felt it had one of the coolest systems of magic and leveling ever. The gradual stat gains and the gaining of magic slots when you beat a boss was perfect. It allowed for extreme customization of your characters. The selection of characters opened up the game so much more. The vibrancy of the colors was brilliant and the music for the game was downright beautiful. I don't listen to many soundtracks of video games, but this is one of the few I do.

Bottom 3 RPGs

Final Fantasy VIII - Dear God. I tried to lie it. I've tried to like it numerous times but wound up hating it more each time I tried to give it another shot. The system they designed for it was horrid. Drawing your magic from the enemies was fine, but the fact you could whore it so easily and then turn it into more powerful magic so early with your first few GFs took any possibility of difficulty and threw it out the window. So, with the actual GAME portion out the window, all that was left was the story. At least that was good, right? Nope. You're given a group of over cliché characters and underdeveloped ones at that. Then the big curve ball is thrown and its probably the most unbelievable twist in a game ever. They all grew up together as kids, but conveniently forgot until halfway through the game Riiiggghhtt.... Of all Final Bosses, this was the one I had no care for defeating. Usually a game gets you to hate a final boss before you kick its ass. I mean VII and VI did SO well with Sephiroth and Kefka respectively. Ultimecia was so... blah. I just didn't care. With a system so easily abused, a storyline so underdone, this game comes off as crap to me. Thank the stars IX made me love the Final Fantasy series again.

Romance of the Three Kingdoms (series) - I was told by someone that if I liked strategy type games, I'd fall in love with this series. So, I went out and bought Romance VIII. Later I was told this was one of the weakest in the series, but still, I know people who fell in love with Suikoden based off IV and that is clearly the black sheep of the franchise, so Romance VIII has no excuse for not hooking me. First off, I know its somewhat ignorant of me and it is my fault, but all these chinese guys look the same and their names are all the ame to me too. Thats one reason I couldn't get into it. I can't differentiate who was who. The system of game play itself was confusing that there was seemingly no tutorial on how you could do what, they just hurled you into some battle and expected you to know what to do (after all, who gets into a series on its 8th installment? Oh wait, plenty of people. Right Final Fantasy? Dragon Quest? ). The game is supposedly based on history, so its not like I don't know what happens. all I gotta do is look on Wikipedia and look up what Dynasty the lead role was and POW I got the game's storyline. Albeit, I never got past maybe the first 2 or 3 fights (if that) the game was so bad I couldn't play it any further. I was able to at least beat FFVIII and Beyond the Beyond.

Guardian's Crusade - Activision's first attempt at a Playstaion RPG. It was blockier than Mega Man Legends. The graphics were really bad. The storyline was quaint, if not overly cliché. You, the main character (for some reason named only Knight. As if the mother knew upon birth that her son would don a metal helmet and wield a sword and go on an adventure.) find this pink bunny looking blob. Throwing common sense and reason to the wind, he decides to try and find this creature's mother. Its not like there was a heartwarming scene where the bunny blob affectionately befriends Knight. Nope, just, Oh look a young bunny blob. I'll find its mom. Adventure time! The load times for the battles were obnoxiously long. The music was drab and craptastic. The pink bunny blob, named Baby (because its a baby looking for its mom. Get it?) has the ability to shape shift after battle to get stronger. However it never actually gets any better. The ONLY positive aspect of this game was the side quest of collecting these small toys that you could use in battle for immediate effects, as soldiers or on the world map as aides. Collecting them was the only thing that was remotely fun. But you couldn't level these toys up so when the enemies got too tough for them, they became obsolete. Of course the adventure takes you to the most dangerous part of the world to find its mother. To be honest I never beat the game. It just sucked too much for me to continue. The extreme load times, the lack of anything besides trudge on in the adventure (aka NO actual side quests) and the inability to do anything innovative kept me from enjoying this game. I'm sure it was made for a younger audience. But I can't see any kid loving this game. It was flat out BAD.
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I'm sorry and I apologize are the same thing.
Except at a funeral.

Fantasy Football (NFL) Sign Ups in Sports Forum!

[Loran Cehack]

I'm only going to comment on the first of each.

Top
Persona 2: Innocent Sin - Nyarlathotep, Eikichi's engrish singing, and kicking Hitler's ass. What more could you want?
Suikoden 2
Wild Arms 2

Bottom
Unlimited Saga - An extreme let down after Saga Frontier 1 and 2. I can't even fathom thinking about playing it again.
Eternal Eyes
Saiyuki: Journey West
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[Flamo Bringer]

Top 3
Suikoden 2 (PS1)
Suikoden Tactics (PS2)
Star Ocean 3 (PS2)

I don't play much RPGs so... :oops:

Bottom 3
Suikoden 5
Magna Carta
Saiyuki Journey West

[Sage]

Top 3
Final Fantasy VI
Chrono Trigger
Shadow Hearts Covenant

Lots of runners up though.


Bottom 3
Aidyn Chronicles: The First Mage
Unlimited Saga
Grandia Xtreme
_________________

[Scarlet Assassin]

Top 3

Final Fantasy VII: I could go on for days about this game and never repeat myself once. There was not a single thing about this game that I disliked, and I think I'm going to play it again right now.

Suikoden 2: Unfreakingbelievable. I thought I loved Suikoden 1, but when 2 came around, it blew my mind. Characters, plot, battle mechanics, everything about this game was pure fried gold.

Tales of Destiny: I'll never understand what it is that makes me love this game so much. It might be the characters, it might be the story, hell it might even be the niche gameplay, but whatever it is I can only hope that they don't destroy it in the port.


Bottom 3

Final Fantasy X: I played and beat this game, and then felt the need to bash my face in. Let me get this straight, a final fantasy with no world map, no sidequests until the very end, no good characters, and a magic system that made VIII look good? FFS, you know it's a bad game when the highlight is the blue wookie or the freaking sphere grid. There was nothing I disliked about VII, there is nothing I like about X.

Odin Sphere: GTFO! I don't want needless grinding, that's not what makes a game good.

Full Metal Alchemist and the Broken angel: Quite simply the worst game ever made.

Dishonorable mentions to Granstream saga and Orphen.
_________________

Chief of Beat-em-up Honeys Division, Devoted Protector of Lady Tifa Lockhart

[Hawk Thanatos]

Top Three RPGs

1. Chrono Trigger
   
2. Suikoden II
   
3. Final Fantasy VII

Bottom Three RPGs

1. Unlimited Saga
   
2. Suikoden IV
   
3. Final Fantasy XII

[Ujitsuna]

I'll leave out Suikoden from my lists.

Top:

1. Final Fantasy VII
2. Final Fantasy Tactics
3. Final Fantasy IX

(This may be boring but there are hundreds of runner ups)

Bottom:

1. Alundra 2
2. Wild Arms 3
3. Breath of Fire III

(These aren't really hated by me, as I can't really think of any RPGs I've played where I hated the game or even disliked it, these are just the ones close to the bottom)

[Leb]

I could have sworn we had one of these topics before. Ah well.

Top

Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter
See here

Valkyrie Profile
Aesthetically pleasing in almost every way. Its tragic atmosphere and great battle system just brought everything together for a very memorable experience. Also, Lezard Valeth is the baddest dude ever.

Tales of Rebirth
Corny story, but its battle system is probably the most fun I've had with any RPG. Dominating bosses like so is fun as all getout.

Bottom

Shadow Madness
Monster Hunter
Growlanser II

I'm not going to waste time explaining how or why sucky games suck.