Downplayed PSX Games

[KefkaTaran]

Vicious: Tomba was one fo the first PS1 games I ever played!! I always thought about getting the sequel, but never did get to picking it up. And y'know, I never passed Tomba! I must've gotten very close though. Was there like no saving in that game or something?

[IHateMakingNames]

I played the Tomba! demo... I really should have bought the game, that was the best demo I ever played.

[Krylo]

Originally Posted by Kenryoku_Maxis

Well, Krylo... I really have to question your argument when you claim you keep falling asleep durring FF1 and yet scold people for not liking FFX-2 because it isn't plot driven. I agree that a game can be fun dispite many things, including story and theme, but it seems somewhat contradictory in that way.

Unless you mean you're falling asleep durring FF1 because of the battle system. But then, it was the first FF game done on a small budget and so yeah... Still, FFIV wasn't much different from I in my view (in terms of battle system).

Combination, actually. The battle system is quite a bit worse than FFIV's actually... in that you hardly ever hit, and your characters will attack an already dead enemy repeatedly, so you're either wasting rounds or risking an enemy surviving, which is annoying... and to even do that much you have to calculate the hp of every enemy you fight. Plust the battle graphics, music, etc... none of it really made me excited to be there... and the magic system annoyed me as well. In FFIV most of the things I just listed off are changed or gone.

As for the story, FFX-II does have a poor story/plot, but at least it has characters with personalities. Even if they aren't particularily well done (and in most cases they're average at best), and the game is funny. The biggest punchline I've found in FF1 is "look at how dirty you are" or whatever it says when you look in that fountain... in other words, while FFX-2 is not plot driven but is funny and obviously not meant to be serious... and has a plot despite it not being the center of the game as well as characters with actual personality, FF1 is plot driven but it's plot is very poorly done. Even compared to some of the other games of relative time, like the ultima games or the first phantasy star... and none of it's characters are anything but wordless protagonists, or sages that tell you flat out what you need to do with no real story.

The only redeeming feature I can find is being able to make your own team however you want.

[Kenryoku_Maxis]

Well, you're comparing one of the first Console RPGs with less than 8 Mega Bytes of Data, limited time, lack of graphics to be able to present personalities and etc. etc. to a PS2 game with 2-3 years development already playing off a reformed graphics engine made prior with lots of time put into it and characters that have been in two games (except Paine).

I do understand somewhat because I find it hard to go back and play some old NES games because of their limits. But at the same time, we can't say they are totally horrible because back then those were the limits.

[Krylo]

But they weren't the limits. Note my example of phantasy star 1 and Ultima. Ultima actually pre-dated final fantasy and had a far superior battle system, plot, and character development.

[Kenryoku_Maxis]

Originally Posted by krylo

But they weren't the limits. Note my example of phantasy star 1 and Ultima. Ultima actually pre-dated final fantasy and had a far superior battle system, plot, and character development.

Yes, but I didn't mean that the first FF had reached the limits the system could produce. I just meant that your comparing their first work where they spent less amount of time and had some limitations to one of the FF games with the most money put into it and a staff about 50-100 times larger than that of the NES one. And 12+ FF games before it to take ideas for characters, plot and their evolved battle system from.

Some old NES games aren't the best I admit. Just saying we should realize what they had going for them then. And Ultima was on the PC I believe.

[Priest4hire]

And Ultima was on the PC I believe.

Yes and no. Yes, the Ultima series was released on the PC. However, it was originally an Apple II series and was ported to other platforms. As well, Ultima III: Exodus, Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar and Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny were ported to the NES. The quality of the port was inversely proportional to the number of the particular game. By the fifth Ultima game the limits of cartridge size butchered the game. For that matter, even the fourth was pretty hacked. Only the Sega Master System version managed a perfect port, and that was on a cart four times the size.

Though it should be noted that people have hacked the original Final Fantasy ROM and managed to upgrade the visuals. That's still running on stock NES hardware, or emulated hardware. Still, considering that Phantasy Star and Ultima V came out at the same time as Final Fantasy, with Phantasy Star being released in North America before Final Fantasy... I just suspect a lot of the attraction to that original iteration of the Final Fantasy series simply due to nostalgia. For many gamers it was one of their first RPGs after all.

But Kenryoku, why do we have to give games extra credit just because they didn't have the tools or time? Nobody amazes at how fast (6 weeks is really speedy) E.T. came out, they laugh (maybe for eternity) at how horrible the game is.

[Wolf99x]

Mechwarrior 2 was made in record time for games of its time (<12 months) and it's a great classic. But still...yeah...ET sucked.

[Vicious]

Originally Posted by KefkaTaran

Vicious: Tomba was one fo the first PS1 games I ever played!! I always thought about getting the sequel, but never did get to picking it up. And y'know, I never passed Tomba! I must've gotten very close though. Was there like no saving in that game or something?

I beat it! I think there was saving. I almost beat all the sidequests in it, except for getting the highest speed on the course for the 1,000,000 year old man.

The sequel was pretty good, but they did away with the 2-D goodness.. And it felt more linear than the first. Sadness.