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Post by Sarge on Feb 12, 2020 18:36:52 GMT -5
Yeah, it's really hard to figure out what counts, but since I included Zelda, I looked through the "action adventure" category on GameFAQs as well. I agree that For the Frog the Bell Tolls stretches it more than Zelda, though.
Parasite Eve, though, you could still run around at will, but I can't remember how granular the attacks could be. It's another one on the edge. Same with Gargoyle's Quest, but they're adjacent to Castlevania and the like. The Lone Ranger is a multi-genre mashup, but does have towns, shops, and an RPG-looking overworld, so it might appeal to folks that like Zelda.
I also agree the Igavanias are pushing it, but they definitely fit into the "action adventure" rubric. Technically, Super Metroid does as well, but that's a little too far afield in my opinion, given no NPC interactions, no levels, no shops, and so on.
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Post by Xeogred on Feb 12, 2020 19:18:45 GMT -5
All I can say is that I envy you Ex for not having played much of Seiken Densetsu 3 / Trials of Mana. I mean, opinions seem mixed here. But for me it pretty much decimates everything listed here that I've played and the rest I'm not breaking my back to really get into, so not super interested in. And as I always tell people, even if you don't love Secret of Mana, SD3 is still different in a lot of ways, so who knows.
On that list, Brandish and Xanadu are the few I'd like to check out. Pretty sure I've given up on Y's, I can't get into any of them. I've tried the bump system remakes, the PS2 era one, Origins, the Genesis/SNES one, Y's V SNES, etc.
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Post by toei on Feb 12, 2020 20:10:53 GMT -5
I just want to reiterate that Seiken Densetsu 3 is bar none the worst action RPG I've ever finished. I am absolutely not being hyperbolic. The gameplay and general pace of the game is atrocious, and there is no story or character development to make up for it. It's bad all the way. The whole game is divided into small screens, like Nes Zelda, rather than unified environments with scrolling. Outside of town, almost all of these screens have monsters on them, and you can't just walk past as you normally might, because being near a monster automatically puts you into your fighting stance, at which point you move extremely slowly. It's technically possible to drag your character towards one of the edges of the screen to escape the battle, but it's long and annoying and of course you just walk into another battle. It's like running from a turn-based RPG battle, only to get into another immediately after. The battle system is the same sort of stop-and-go, semi-action stuff as in Secret of Mana; you have to wait between every hit if you want to do decent damage. Battles actually take longer than turn-based battles in a lot of RPGs, and there's even a victory screen afterwards with little poses and stuff. In other words, they somehow managed to take an action RPG and make it more tedious to play than a turn-based RPG with a super high encounter rate. It just forces you into dull, slow-paced battles all the time. As I remember, the story played out like a SaGa game, meaning there's a little at the beginning and a little at the end, but almost nothing in between. This means that game is, in effect, a long compilation of tedious battles. People complain about Secret of Mana having a weak, barebones plot; SD3 is worse.
Mid-90s Squaresoft was great at making turn-based RPGs, amazing even, but they weren't that good at handling other subgenres of RPGs. Bahamut Lagoon was too easy for the gameplay to be very fun or involving (notice they had to headhunt Matsuno to make a proper SRPG a few years later), but at least it was partially saved by character interactions and story. And a cool setting, too. Meanwhile, the only decent action RPG they made in that time period was Final Fantasy Adventure.
Now, the sprites are definitely nice, as is the music. For some reason, though, some of the animations look completely ridiculous. Look at them run. This is not a big issue - the big issues are outlined above - but it's funny nonetheless.
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Post by Xeogred on Feb 12, 2020 20:30:49 GMT -5
I'm sorry that the characters pulling out weapons wasted one or two seconds of your time (on what you just argued were small screens anyways) in a 20 hour JRPG. I see literally nothing wrong with the running sprites there, so I don't get the complaint at all other than you just taking more shots at some aesthetics here for no reason. Now also in this video, anyone who can spare seconds can skim around to see that your claims about normal encounters in this game do in fact, NOT, take longer on average than most other JRPG's and are pretty breezy. It's not as free form as the Quintet games with more RPG elements behind the scenes, but acting like SD3 is some agonizing drawn out experience is freaking ridiculous. And you liked Vagrant Story? Just a bunch of false rambling right there, unless you sucked chunks at SD3 and played Angela with her slow magic spell animations.
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Post by toei on Feb 12, 2020 20:49:32 GMT -5
Xeogred Calm down, bro. Literally all my points stand. The victory poses are not the end of the world in themselves, and I didn't "argue" anything about small screens. My point was that the game is broken down into separate screens, and entering each almost always triggers a battle. Unless you meant the "pulling out their swords" bit in reference to them getting into their fighting stance? My issue with that is how it slows down walking to a crawl, as I wrote. The game really is made up of almost nothing but battles, I find them quite tedious compared to virtually any decent ARPG, and the fact that they're so annoying to get around is horrible. It was absolutely a drawn-out, tedious experience for me, and yeah, beating a single enemy is often longer than in quite a few turn-based RPGs, provided you're not the type to leave the message speed at the lowest setting and hesitate for 4 seconds before picking Attack or whatever. I played through the game with the werewolf as my main character, btw. Not that it's relevant. And Vagrant Story has none of the issues this game has.
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Post by Sarge on Feb 12, 2020 21:33:39 GMT -5
Xeogred: It's all good, I still like SD3. toei: I've definitely played slower turn-based RPGs, but that's because most don't cut the blistering pace of something like Dragon Quest. Which, I might add, is why I really love that game. But I find myself ripping through enemies fairly quickly in SD3, but you're right that it isn't as speedy as some ARPGs.
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Post by Ex on Feb 12, 2020 21:51:46 GMT -5
Man you guys really went to town with all the recommendations. It's gonna take me a minute to process all that stuff, and also to formulate my own list. Damn fine thread so far. toei XeogredMy opinion is totally neutral on SD3 at this point. I've not played enough of it to have an opinion. I can only say for now that the game has very nice graphics. I think perhaps because the tilesets are so complex, that might be why the background doesn't scroll. It could be a memory or pixel processing limitation when it comes to scrolling backgrounds that detailed. I'm just guessing there.
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Post by toei on Feb 12, 2020 21:52:17 GMT -5
Sarge If we're talking Genesis & SNES, I'd say the average turn-based battle is actually quite short, and generally close to DQ's speed. I often notice in youtube videos that people leave the message speed low and take forever to pick moves, though, and I'm always baffled by that. The only SNES turn-based RPG with really long battles that comes to mind right now is that DBZ game with the cards. Things took a turn during the PSX gen where some games started having these really slow, long turn-based battles. Even FF had these interminable, unskippable (IIRC) summon animations, and some pointlessly long enemy attack animations occasionally (I remember one enemy that was super annoying to fight in that place where you get Vincent in FFVII because it would take likes 12 seconds just to shift around and do nothing over and over), and this culminated in games like Legend of Legaia where each battle takes several minutes instead of several seconds, which is especially bad when they trigger every few steps.
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Post by Sarge on Feb 12, 2020 22:27:12 GMT -5
I'm just thinking of games with hit-point sponges, or perhaps it's that a lot of older RPGs have insanely high encounter rates.
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Post by Chainsaw Bilqis on Feb 12, 2020 23:47:16 GMT -5
Seiken Densetsu 3 was great fun for me with two players (my brother and I).
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