It probably depends on how many times you’ve played through it. FFT had a lot of ancillary characters and difficult names (iirc).
I absolutely LOVED Operation Darkness on 360, even if the battles are really long. The setting and superpowers are just too awesome, and there were some incredible cameos in it.
I also loved Vandal Hearts II on PSOne, which hasn’t been mentionned yet. I loved the original battle system, and the plot was almost as good as the one in Final Fantasy Tactics, only a lot more twisted.
Tactics Ogre is probably the best SRPG of all time, though. For anyone who loved FFT this is a MUST.
I’m with tha majority view on what the best games are so far but this one hasn’t been mentioned and was a cracking hotseat with buddies game:
Space Crusade
The Amiga version was the best. I tried the PC version a few years back and it was amazingly terrible compared to the amiga; graphics, UI, feel - everything. So maybe best to look for the amiga version on some kind of emuation if you don’t have the hardware to hand?
I actually think FFT is a much better game than Tactics Ogre. I do own TO for the PSX though. It’s a very good game, and I agree it should be played.
I really liked Chaos Legion too, in the mode of Zak’s WH game. But I think I was alone in that.
Yeah, the NDS is the premier RPG machine of this generation. If you’re even slightly interested in moving little minions around in turn-based battles with spells and items and combos you owe it to yourself to pick up an NDS.
FFT had the most promising story of any FF game, certainly, but I still hated it. In a standard FF game I expect the plot to be simplistic and obvious and aimed at 11 year olds. FFT teased me with a rich political intrigue plot which slowly built up to a crescendo of . . . a simplistic plot aimed at 11 year olds.
Hold on to that game. I found a copy in a thrift store for a dollar, then sold it through Amazon for 90 dollars.
I kind of wish I’d kept it, though.
If you really liked Jagged Alliance and Silent Storm you might give Hammer and Sickle a try, which uses the Silent Storm engine. You play as a Soviet Spy who loses contact with his HQ, trying to figure out what is going on, and what you should do. It’s brutally unforgiving by modern game standards (e.g. you can run out of time, fail key disguise rolls and have things fall apart, mission balancing is poor at times, etc.), but if you can get past that it’s a great SRPG.
Freedom Force 1 & 2 are still my favorite games in the genre, despite being nominally real time. Just turn the game speed down (exactly) two notches and right click to pause and give orders.
This. I lost my save and never finished the game, but I started to lose interest around the point the fantastic civil war plot got sidelined by yet another white-haired dude who wants to blow up the world.
Not-so-coincidentally, I stopped playing FF9 about the time I met up with the white-haired dude who wanted to blow up the world as well.
All this FFT talk has reminded me of a certain thread I left hanging… I’ll get back to it and remind you all of the greatness of FFT’s story.
But FFT’s story wasn’t great.
I was fine with the mechanics, but the gameboy version kept flinging those damned cutscenes at me and I got bored. The summary sounds like a medieval Xenosaga, which is only praise to a seriously damaged subset of RPG fans.
The mechanics are exceptional, IMO.
Saying “FFT had the best plot of any Final Fantasy game” is not really a compliment. I’m not sure I’d advance that argument (see below), but in the event it gets advanced we all lose no matter waht.
I never played Xenosaga, actually. What I’ve read/been told about the plot doesn’t paint a pretty picture. This seems like a decent comparison; FFT always struck me as pretentious. The plot does start interesting, but it’s like some hack trying to do fantasy like Martin. So it just fails, more spectacularly because it tried to be deep, and this is what Xenosaga seemed like to me from afar. I never actually beat FFT. I didn’t realize how awful the post-game stuff was (e.g. the “tragedy” of Delita and Oveila. lawl).
Enh, I’m not going to advance the argument. Suffice to say that I liked the story, but like I’ve said in the past I’m easily entertained by video game stories that others show disdain for. I guess I just would rather enjoy myself than think critically about it.
So did you decide on any?
I hate most recommendation threads. :)
Where did you pick this up at? I can’t find a US release for this anywhere!!
I love JA2 and similar games. I hate tiny little screens. In theory at least you can plug a PSP into a TV, but the DS was I guess explicitly designed to make that impossible. So much for the DS.
Yes, and it’s best to leave it at that.
I never played Xenosaga, actually. What I’ve read/been told about the plot doesn’t paint a pretty picture.
It’s an atrocity, which is why it takes a monster (screenshots from actual game make it NWS) to review it accurately. Interestingly enough, by making the entire plot as unobtrusive as possible, Xenosaga III managed to be an enjoyable RPG with some cool features in it. The beginning was murderously slow, though.
This seems like a decent comparison; FFT always struck me as pretentious. The plot does start interesting, but it’s like some hack trying to do fantasy like Martin. So it just fails, more spectacularly because it tried to be deep, and this is what Xenosaga seemed like to me from afar. I never actually beat FFT. I didn’t realize how awful the post-game stuff was (e.g. the “tragedy” of Delita and Oveila. lawl).
Yeah, I think we’re on the same page here. In terms of what I think constitutes a good JRPG/JSRPG plot, I would argue that Disgaea 1 is pretty much my only positive experience. The fact that a PS2 game managed passable to excellent voice acting alongside a good story and amusing satire and humor despite being translated from Japanese is not something you can downplay easily, although I have made fun of people that get a little too carried away with it. The sequels were not as good in that department, but certainly not failures either. Then aga
You didn’t like the stories in the Persona games?
It’s only in a few countries in Europe. Not even in UK right now.
Just wait, when i finish the game i will post some in-depth impressions in the forum.