Hidden RPGems

I don't know about anyone else, but I loves me a good RPG. Here are a few of the rarer ones I've given a go at:

Suikoden III: An RPG with 108 playable characters. I would say it's 85% classic RPG, 15% tactical squad based combat. Rather interesting, style-wise, and there's quite a few off the wall characters.

Tales of Legendia: One of (if not the) first Tales games to hit the PS2, I'm only about 3 hours in to the gameplay. I keep getting distracted by other games *shakes fist*. It looks like it will be entertaining, though. I'll keep you all posted ^^.

Any of the Suikoden games are great! I've played through 1 and 2 for PS1 and they're just as good as 3, and still have 108 recruitable characters.

My personal favorite game of all time is Lufia 2: Rise of the Sinistrals for SNES. It's a great JRPG with an interesting story, cool characters, and a couple really interesting aspects to its battle system that set it apart, as well as having puzzles throughout each dungeon that would make even a veteran Zelda player cry. They released a new version of it for the DS recently. The new version is more of an action RPG, but still maintains a lot of its puzzle aspects and tells the same great story.

Lucas.Greene wrote:Any of the Suikoden games are great! I've played through 1 and 2 for PS1 and they're just as good as 3, and still have 108 recruitable characters.

My personal favorite game of all time is Lufia 2: Rise of the Sinistrals for SNES. It's a great JRPG with an interesting story, cool characters, and a couple really interesting aspects to its battle system that set it apart, as well as having puzzles throughout each dungeon that would make even a veteran Zelda player cry. They released a new version of it for the DS recently. The new version is more of an action RPG, but still maintains a lot of its puzzle aspects and tells the same great story.

I MUST PLAY THIS GAME.

Lucas.Greene wrote: ...that would make even a veteran Zelda player cry.

To be honest though, there was no really big focus on Zelda puzzles. They are pretty easy unless you can't seem to find that one small key you missed 5 rooms back. -.-

Stupid keys. XD

My roommate recently started playing Eternal Sonata, and I was really impressed with it. One of the things that I especially liked was the interactivity of the game, such as being able to react when you get hit, and run around the battlefield on your turn. While I love JRPGs, I really like when RPGs make the effort to involve you in the battle beyond selecting attacks from a menu, or just watching your characters fight (*cough* FFXII&III *cough*). It made me think back to other games that use a similar formula.

The first game I remember really emphasizing this kind of gameplay was Super Mario RPG for SNES. Not only did it have a great platforming aspect out of battle, but you couldn't just pick 'fight' off the menu and watch your guys fight. When enemies attack you, you can reduce the damage. When you attack them, you can increase it. Special attacks require you to do things like rotate the controller, tap buttons, or time each attack just right to continue. It was challenging sometimes, but it kept you involved in the battles.

A game that took that concept to the next level came on the Playstation: Legend of the Dragoon. Instead of just pressing the attack button in time, you had to enter a button combination for each special attack, some of which were complex enough to frustrate even people who play fighting games regularly. Once you got the combos down, however, the game was a lot of fun and every attack became epic.

Finally, we move up to Playstation 2 for a series of games that all utilized this kind of gameplay. Shadow Hearts and Shadow Hearts Covenant both have an extremely interactive battle system utilizing timed button presses on a circle for basic attacks, and special button combinations for other attacks. Besides that, it was a great game with a really intense story, definitely worth checking out!

I know it's not really a hidden gem, but Borderlands rocks. I really enjoy my siren and berserker. My siren is largely impossible to kill, she regenerates shields and health faster than enemies can take them down, after she's killed one person. She also has unlimited ammo and is a bullet hose. Which is quite fun. My berserker isn't high enough level to be unstoppable, but he should be before long. Anyone spent any major amount of time on Borderlands?

the persona series is awesome, as is the shin megami tensei series. Both rather unique takes of what the characters are like in rpg's

Biodragon wrote:the persona series is awesome, as is the shin megami tensei series. Both rather unique takes of what the characters are like in rpg's

I need to play more of these games. I've played Persona 3 and it was pretty good. Great story, great characters, and a really interesting system of interaction between the relationship/dating sim aspect of the game and the dungeon crawl/jrpg aspect of the game. Besides that, the cut scenes and music have a really trippy anime feel to them that kind of reminded me of the .Hack series.