Old jActionRPGs

[kingcomrade]

I've been playing with my SNES emulator, playing some famous games that I never got around to playing, and the one I'm playing first, Terranigma, I really enjoy. It isn't incredibly complex. Others in this genre of game (for the SNES, I know there are a few more for GBA) are Secret of Mana, Secret of Evermore, and Illusion of Gaia. If there are any more, let me know.

Anyways, in Terranigma, you start out with a dead world. You've got to revive all of the continents (Eurasia, Africa, S America, N America, and Australia) and there's two hidden continents (Polynesia and Mu), and then you go on to Chapter 2, you go to these continents and start reviving things. You start with plant life, then animal life, then human life. Then it goes on to Chapter 3, where you expand human civilzation. The first real town you visit after your beginnings in...Tibet, I think, is the psuedo-French "Loire," then through Spain to the New World, (the "American" colony is named "Freedom" and there are far too many black people there for my taste). There's a chapter 4, but I'm not there yet.

Anyways, you do things to help the commerce and such. Like, Loire starts out as a tiny hamlet, but as you do things for people to help them make money, the town expands until it's a big town, where you can get new stuff (at least, I think you can, I'm not sure if it changes anything). There's a guy named "Keinz" (a play on Keynes) who tells you the economic status of the towns. It's not all that complex, but it's interesting. It's as far as I've gotten. I'm actually not sure that expanding the towns does anything for you besides make you feel warm and fuzzy. And, of course, there are dungeons and castles and wildernesses that you have to hack your way through.

My only complaint is there are a bunch of "cinematics" that just go on forever. I spend a lot of time wishing for the Fast Forward command that my GBA emulator as. The characters, dialogue (which is actually translated pretty well in this one), and plot are typical jRPG trash, so they aren't worth waiting for.

Anyways, if you've got an SNES emulator, you might want to give it a try. I think I read somewhere that Terranigma is the sequel to Illusion of Gaia, but I haven't played that yet, so I don't know.

 

[Jasede]

Old jActionRPGs

I just pronounced the word 'jaction' in my head and it sounds really gross. German Nintendo 'zines called them action-adventures, which always felt more correct to me. After all, they are even less of an RPG than the venerable Quest for Glory series.

Well, I grew up with consoles and an old Amiga 500, so I'd claim that I know quite a lot about the good old SNES games. Terranigma is a particular pearl. While not terribly deep it has a very good plot - for a console game, that is. And, without wanting to spoil your experience too much, yes, building up the towns is rather important if you want to have a warm and fuzzy feeling while watching the ending.
Terranigma being the sequel to Illusion of Gaia/Time would be news to me, though. It is worth playing if you happen to like such games. Avoid Secret of Evermore, it's full of the so called american humour. Do play Secret of Mana, or better yet, its great sequel Seiken Densetsu 3, also known as Secret of Mana 2. That was very good, at least, when I was a bit younger. One could select his own party, a novelty in these action-adventurers. The choice affected the story a lot; one could even say that the game had three stories, depending on your main character.
Well, I am rambling.
Still, I am pretty sure that most codexers will not enjoy such games. At least that's what I'd believe if had been allowed to hazard a guess.

 

[Jason]

My favorite action RPGs for the SNES would be Star Ocean (not the PS1 game) and Tales of Phantasia. I especially like Star Ocean for all the different skills that can be learned (combat & non-combat). You need to find the translation patches and graphics packs for both, though.

 

[Diogo Ribeiro]

If there are any more, let me know.

Try out Seiken Densetsu 3, which is basically Secret of Mana 2. Look for Neil Corlett's translation patch.

I suggest you also try out a Genesis emulator (best one is Gens) and play Beyond Oasis/Story of Thor, Light Crusader/Relayer, and Soleil/Crusader of Centy.

I think I read somewhere that Terranigma is the sequel to Illusion of Gaia, but I haven't played that yet, so I don't know.

Soul Blazer, Illusion of Gaia/Time and Terranigma are all part of a loosely tied in trilogy. Soul Blazer is like Act Raiser except it sucks thrice as much. You're a sort of deity (like in Act Raiser) who restores the world to normal... By killing enemies and solving the occasional puzzle. It's basically a dungeon crawl where killing off enemies of the same grouping frees the soul of some being (therefore gradually restoring the world). Killing a boss creature restores an entire town to normal. Yay. Rinse and repeat.

Illusion of Gaia/Time was basically a Zelda variant with some twists. One of the more noticeable ones was that you could switch between a kid and a bulky fighter at preset points in order to solve puzzles and fight enemies. Never finished it but it seemed nice, although it was also plagued with the same off beat japanese stuff.

Terranigma was pretty spiffy but I also never got around to finishing. I reached a boss called Bloody Mary and at that time I couldn't rub her out so I gave up in frustration.

 

[deus]

Saying Seiken Densetsu 3 has three storylines is a bit of a stretch, but it does have six different beginnings and 3 endings depending solely on who the main character is. The middle 90% or so is identical regardless of party composition.

Secret of Evermore is pretty good, if a little too subdued at times. It's suprisingly muted and somber considering it was designed for children. It's ironic that SD3 is so boisterously bright and happy and supposedly for an older audience. SoE had a great magic system that relied on using alchemical ingredients rather than spell points. It's very underrated and rarely given the attention it deserves probably due to it being the only game Square developed in the US. Like SoM and SD3, SoE has way too much grinding.

Landstalker on the Genesis is fun but generally unremarkable except for its ridiculously hard moving platform jumping. Christ, the platforms move in three dimentions but don't cast shadows. Its worth getting just to watch the intro. You actually have to do all that perspective jarring jumping later in the game.

 

[Turdis]

The Ys games arent bad, theyre pretty much basic though charming dungeon crawls, and the difficulty is fairly decent. If youre looking for something a bit out of the ordinary, you might want to look into EVO, you basically guide a prehistoric fish along its evolutionary course until you finish the game as a human (or not, and trigger different endings depending). Oh yeah, in zsnes, look under misc->game keys for your fast forward button.

 

[Diogo Ribeiro]

Landstalker is a great game. Unfortunately I never got to finish it. I was *nearly* there, having uncovered all the secrets and wasting many hours of playtime... Only to find out I didn't had a perfect dump of the game. Apparently, there are many dumps in the game which make it so players won't be able to get trough a portion in the game, where you have to find a log or somesuch to give to a character in a dungeon.

There were some save states available on the net which basically had the character saved after that situation, but the character was of much lesser power. By then I had no intention of going back and seeing what it was missing when compared to my own.

 

[kingcomrade]

Bloody Mary was easy for me, I just used magic over and over till she died

I knew of Seiken Densetsu 3, but I didn't know there was a translation patch. Secret of Evermore is the one set in the 70s America or something like that, right?

Turdis- Znes, for some reason, won't work on my comp very well (no sound, I think the problem was), so I use snes9x.

RP- I've got Gens, I'll check those out.

Star Ocean I've been wanting to play. I'll check that one out next.

Illusion of Gaia is awful, by the way. Corny dialogue beyond belief.

Swords of Mana, this is a game for Game Boy Advance (I've got the ROM already). Is this Seiken Densetsu 3 translated? Or is it entirely new?

 

[Turdis]

Sword of Mana is a remake of an old Gameboy Game, its pretty much Secret of Mana 0. Fast forward in snes9x is in the options->settings section, listed as turbo.

 

[kingcomrade]

How do you use it? I only see the setting for how many frames to skip.

 

[Turdis]

Well, make sure the box saying "enable turbo" or something is checked, after that just hold down the tab key. If you really need to map it to a gamepad key or whatever you'll have to hunt down some kinda software that lets you substitute keyboard keys for buttons.

 

[Diogo Ribeiro]

By the way, I think I should tell you: the Genesis suggestions I gave aren't exactly RPGs. They're all action adventure games similar to Zelda, however they have very fast combat and are usually very fun. They're basically like the SNES action RPGs you described, only with even less RPG in them.

Story of Thor/Beyond Oasis is more or less an exception as you will ocasionally receive level increases (little hearts the enemies drop and you pick up, similar to Zelda heart containers) under certain conditions. For instance, you may kill a group of enemies and receive one; or you may kill a large amount over time and receive one. One of the items that is used to call elementals can also net you one of these increases, but this I'll let you figure out

 

[Turdis]

As long as we're including genesis action rpgs, you might wanna take a look at Sword of Vermillion, its a pretty good though often overlooked one. Its got pretty good difficulty too, but I gotta admit some of the event scripting is annoying.

 

[kingcomrade]

I think I've played Vermillion.

Tab is the key for fast-forward, thanks, that helps.

 

[kingcomrade]

Hmm, both Secret of Mana and Seiken Densetsu 3 come out all garbled in snes9x. It works with Znes. Any way I can get it to work in snes9x? I really prefer it to znes.

 

[Higher Game]

I believe Terranigma is the sequel to Illusion of Gaia, which was the sequel to Soul Blazer. They're very loose sequels, though.

Radia Senki is a fun, relatively unknown jaRPG you should check out.