HEY NEKO TERA-SAN, LET'S TALK ABOUT SECRET OF MANA

[Fifthfiend]

Originally Posted by Regulus Tera

It's a slow game with a horribly slow weapon and magic growth system (the grind to even master one of them was overwhelming since they gave you ten different levels of mastery for each one of the dozens of arms you received*) with an uninteresting battle system. Having to wait for the meter to recharge or whatever to do damage is, I guess, a neat idea, but Action RPGs since then found better ways to deal with attack spamming (cooldown animations) that I've been spoiled to not like SoM's battle system at all.

The party members are comprised of some of the blandest individuals ever, too: I don't have a problem against silent heroes, but usually these silent heroes are accompanied by individuals whose stories and relationships to the main character or whatever flesh the latter out. The princess and the sprite do nothing of the sort for Muteman.

I will admit to never having beaten the game -I stopped around the Santa Claus quest, I believe. I do remember I hardly had any motivation to go on. The script was way too fragmented, with no real link between any of the episodes besides going around to get the summons or whatever. The pacing bored the fuck out of me.

*I'll admit this could be a plus for some people, however.

I guess I can respect a lot of that. I agree with a lot of what you're calling flaws although I don't really think they're so great as to overwhelm the things the game did well / make it like The Worst Game Ever.

I enjoyed the multiple weapons / levels of mastery since I get pretty annoyed with the "YOU = SWORD GUY, YOU = SPEARS, YOU = GUNS" model of RPG design. And for whatever reason I think I liked the blandness of the main character / side characters as I tend to get tired of melodrama getting in the way of Killing The Big Evil Badguy.

I guess a lot of my enjoyment of the game probably owes to having played it ages ago although at the same time I don't think it's fair to judge a game on modern standards such as when you're saying that subsequent action RPGs are coloring your view. I mean it'd be fair to call it dated, but it's pretty harsh to judge it The Worst Game Ever on that account.

EDIT: I'd be lying if I said I didn't mostly like it cause it lets you use that drum thing from Karate Kid II to summon the dragon from Neverending Story.

Originally Posted by Loyal

Are we going to be regularly calling people by their old usernames when trying to get their attention?

HEY THERE 2NES

[Regulus Tera]

Originally Posted by Fifthfiend

I guess I can respect a lot of that. I agree with a lot of what you're calling flaws although I don't really think they're so great as to overwhelm the things the game did well / make it like The Worst Game Ever.

I enjoyed the multiple weapons / levels of mastery since I get pretty annoyed with the "YOU = SWORD GUY, YOU = SPEARS, YOU = GUNS" model of RPG design. And for whatever reason I think I liked the blandness of the main character / side characters as I tend to get tired of melodrama getting in the way of Killing The Big Evil Badguy.

I guess a lot of my enjoyment of the game probably owes to having played it ages ago although at the same time I don't think it's fair to judge a game on modern standards such as when you're saying that subsequent action RPGs are coloring your view. I mean it'd be fair to call it dated, but it's pretty harsh to judge it The Worst Game Ever on that account.

Yeah, you're right. It's certainly no Super Mario RPG.

[Fifthfiend]

Oh yeah that's the other one that I don't know what's your problem with it. So what don't you like about that one?

[Kim]

I can't speak for RT, but the game has plenty of flaws. The characters are largely forgettable, even for a Mario game, and wouldn't be remembered if it weren't for them being in a Mario game. The weird-ass 3D angle thing they pulled completely ruins the appearance and, worst of all, the platforming, which is the main selling point of the game. (That it's an RPG Platformer) The turn based combat would be considered mediocre at best were it not for the timing element, something that has been done far better by several games since, and wasn't really used as well as it could have been in that game. You can probably argue that I'm being unfair and judging it as compared with the more recent games that did stuff better, but I only played the game six months ago, so I don't have the rosy tint of nostalgia to make me be extra special nice to it.

[Seil]

Tera, give Siken Densetsu 3 a try - I'm sure you could probably find it somewhere. Its very existence seems to negate some of your arguments.

[bluestarultor]

Originally Posted by NonCon

I can't speak for RT, but the game has plenty of flaws. The characters are largely forgettable, even for a Mario game, and wouldn't be remembered if it weren't for them being in a Mario game. The weird-ass 3D angle thing they pulled completely ruins the appearance and, worst of all, the platforming, which is the main selling point of the game. (That it's an RPG Platformer) The turn based combat would be considered mediocre at best were it not for the timing element, something that has been done far better by several games since, and wasn't really used as well as it could have been in that game. You can probably argue that I'm being unfair and judging it as compared with the more recent games that did stuff better, but I only played the game six months ago, so I don't have the rosy tint of nostalgia to make me be extra special nice to it.

I don't think you're extra special nice to anything not beginning in Final Fantasy and ending in XII. :p

Old games are old. Yeah, a lot of them get dated. A lot of the time, remakes that keep the dated systems and try to ride on pretty graphics are a disappointment because the graphics make people expect better. Pong is not going to win any awards for fantastic writing or amazing mechanics, even IF you make it all look like a neon sign and add in motion control.

On the other hand, there's something to be said for appreciating them in the context of their time. Chrono Cross may not have been the greatest, but it has better graphics on the PSX than some PS2 games and really shows just how amazing the face value at least could be on the system. Now that we're on the PS3, we could look at it and go "EEEWWWW! POLYGONS!" But why the Hell would we want to when it's so beautiful even by fairly recent standards? The same goes for the 16-bit era and its sprites. You've got some pretty sprites, there. I think ditching FF4's gorgeous sprites for chunky 3D really was a mistake.

An inability to appreciate a game for what it was than what it is now really is a pessimistic view. By that logic, plus a hill and axle grease, you should totally be scoffing at current-gen games because they don't link directly to your mind and run as 235324587 FPS with 325982485792631890256398479328534278952397634 polygons per square inch.

[Mirai Gen]

An inability to appreciate a game for what it was than what it is now really is a pessimistic view.

Not really.


And honestly Mario and Luigi spoils everyone, but for me SMRPG still has that nice rosy tint on it.

[Fifthfiend]

Originally Posted by NonCon

I can't speak for RT, but the game has plenty of flaws. The characters are largely forgettable, even for a Mario game, and wouldn't be remembered if it weren't for them being in a Mario game. The weird-ass 3D angle thing they pulled completely ruins the appearance and, worst of all, the platforming, which is the main selling point of the game. (That it's an RPG Platformer) The turn based combat would be considered mediocre at best were it not for the timing element, something that has been done far better by several games since, and wasn't really used as well as it could have been in that game. You can probably argue that I'm being unfair and judging it as compared with the more recent games that did stuff better, but I only played the game six months ago, so I don't have the rosy tint of nostalgia to make me be extra special nice to it.

I don't think you necessarily need to have the rosy tint of nostalgia to appreciate that a game was good for its time and advanced the medium. Going all "WORST GAME EVAR" just reads like the video game equivalent of going "The Beatles were no big deal, lots of bands since them have done all that stuff better", or maybe more like, "these Charlie Chaplin movies are awful, there isn't even any dialogue! Or color!!"

[Krylo]

I don't even like SMRPG for any of those things...

I just like it because the characters are silly. Like the toy dude with his palace and shit. He gave me the lulz.

Does that make me a bad person?

[Kim]

Originally Posted by bluestarultor

I don't think you're extra special nice to anything not beginning in Final Fantasy and ending in XII. :p

Oh I like a game you don't like and I don't like a game you do so that means that I'm a fanboy for that game whereas your enjoyment is totally and completely justified hardyharhar! Okay, that was probably overreacting, but the tone of that was just a little bit too nyeh for my tastes.

An inability to appreciate a game for what it was than what it is now really is a pessimistic view.

It's kinda hard to appreciate it when I wasn't appreciating it when that stuff was fancy and new.

The game had some good ideas, but, in all honesty, I think it's less that the new games did it so much better, but that the new games did it right. I think that SMRPG is a pile of badly executed brilliant ideas. Nothing more or less.

Going all "WORST GAME EVAR"

I'm not going all WORST GAME EVER, though. The game has some good things going for it, like finding Luigi's wish on Star Hill or whatever, but you didn't ask about what was good. You asked about what was bad. The platforming is clunky due to the weird-ass 3D thing they went for, which also made the game kinda ugly compared with the 2D games of the time. The combat wasn't anything special, but it did have a good idea, that would be later perfected in other games. The characters specific to that game rode too much on it being a Mario game and not enough on being genuinely interesting characters. Etc.