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[superaielman]

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This is a bit different than normal rate the RPG topics. What I'm looking for isn't a true review or an overall rating (Though you can list that), but a quick rundown on the game's good and bad traits.

Games this time are Fire Emblem 7 and Mana Khemia 1.

Mana Khemia 1


Best gameplay/mechanics trait:
Worst gameplay/mechanics trait:

Best plot/character trait:
Worst plot/character trait:

Has this game aged well?

Did the setting/world grab your attention? Why or why not? This includes music/art as well.

What from this game (Be it a funny character or story or good controls or even a catchy tune) you would you most like to see again?

Fire Emblem 7

Best gameplay/mechanics trait:
Worst gameplay/mechanics trait:

Best plot/character trait:
Worst plot/character trait:

Has this game aged well?

Did the setting/world grab your attention? Why or why not? This includes music/art as well.

What from this game (Be it a funny character or story or good controls or even a catchy tune) you would you most like to see again?

[superaielman]

Mana Khemia 1


Best gameplay/mechanics trait: Party switching. Gameplay goes from tedious to cool once you can rotate Pc's and aren't so hamstrung on SP.
Worst gameplay/mechanics trait: Item gathering/synthing. Two rooms for synthing is bad, and you can sometimes get in a vicious loop with synthing items to let you synth weapons and... yeah.

Best plot/character trait: Character quests were enjoyable. The final boss I thought was a cool concept- the game has no real traditional villians, so it has to make do with something else.
Worst plot/character trait: Female PC's suck. Never speak again, Nikki.

Has this game aged well?- Yes. Load times aren't bad and gameplay is fast; I don't think it'll ever be a chore to play.

Did the setting/world grab your attention? Why or why not?- The school setting is cool enough.

What from this game (Be it a funny character or story or good controls or even a catchy tune) you would you most like to see again?- Probably something related to combat. It was the game's high point.

Fire Emblem 7

Best gameplay/mechanics trait: Light was a very, very cool final level.
Worst gameplay/mechanics trait: Lack of reliable weapon shops. Fuck you, FE7. I'm docking you a point in the ranking topic for that. Needing to use rare items to promote is annoying as well.

Best plot/character trait: Supports. Annoying as fucking shit to get set up, but the writing is neat enough and it is a good look at otherwise generic characters.
Worst plot/character trait: Nergal/villians. Mostly Nergal.

Has this game aged well?- Yes. It's several steps down in polish from FE9/10, but is good in it's own right.

Did the setting/world grab your attention? Why or why not? This includes music/art as well.- No. The drawn art is good, but everything else is *flush*

What from this game (Be it a funny character or story or good controls or even a catchy tune) you would you most like to see again? The changing leaders/PoVs, which FE10 took.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Mana Khemia 1


Best gameplay/mechanics trait: The party switching and the mechanics connected to it (supports). It gets a little abusive towards the end but overall it's a great idea. Honourable mention for the FFX-like system of recharge times and so on and the plotting you do. Good integration of a bunch of systems.
Worst gameplay/mechanics trait: Too much time on synthing, and particularly the two different rooms. What Super said.

Best plot/character trait: Flay! Tony! Renee! for characters. On plot... Lack of traditional villains, and the final boss idea as a result. Game actually did a better job of being serious than I expected.
Worst plot/character trait: Yeah I struggle to think of a female PC cast I was less impressed by, discarding all the cases where just the entire cast kinda fails.

Has this game aged well? I'd assume so? I imagine a few things will compare poorly to MK2 if I went and played it again, but eh, no horribly major design flaws I can think of.

Setting/world: I thought the world was very undevelopped since it's obviously a different world from our own but we never learn why. Also do not dig school settings in general, they make me feel like I'm playing a game designed for someone half my age. I figure if I want to do that I'll play Pokemon and revel in the silliness of the setting.

Something I'd like to see again: Flay! oh wait. I'd like to see a game with a similar battle system that had more interesting random encounters (boss fights are already sexy) and way less non-combat stuff (synthing in particular). It's always been my biggest knock on the game that I seem to only really, really enjoy playing it during boss fights, and the rest of the time I'm going 4 hours waiting for the next.

Fire Emblem 7

Best gameplay/mechanics trait: Awesome overall character balance in a large cast, despite most PCs feeling very different and distinct. To this day I don't think any other FE has this balanced a cast. Otherwise, usual FE goodness, though nothing that hasn't been implemented better elsewhere. Rankings are cool though! Great idea, more games need these.
Worst gameplay/mechanics trait: The shop system needs ten kinds of different fire. Promo items I have less problem with but I prefer them being generic Master Seal types a la FESD.

Best plot/character trait: A few bit characters are played very well. Matthew who is this lovable rogue but crossed with a mentor figure in an unusual way. Serra and Erk's silly slapstick routine. That's all that really stands out to me.
Worst plot/character trait: The main lords lacked much chemistry and were three different kinds of dull, while Nergal was fairly terrible with his boring portrayal spiced only by his SEKRET NG+ BACKSTORY which is also pretty uninteresting! Black Fang was pretty bad too. Also, really fails as a prequel for FE6, they should have had the guts to make it about Zephiel.

Has this game aged well? Not as well as I'd personally like, since now that I've played other FEs they clearly do things better than it. That said, its own polish is still fairly high, see things like scene skip and instant help.

Setting: FE settings rarely do much for me, and 7 is certainly no exception. Oh, yes, the character art -is- good.

Something I'd like to see again: Rankings! Seriously, adding them in no way detracts from the experience of those who don't care about them (I'm not suggesting they have gameplay ramifications or anything) and obviously there are people who do care about them. Adding these back in is a no-brainer. C'mon IS.

[superaielman]

Worst gameplay/mechanics trait: The shop system needs ten kinds of different fire. Promo items I have less problem with but I prefer them being generic Master Seal types a la FESD.

It really becomes a problem when you can sell the items for a large amount of cash. Just look at how much money you get for the Ocean Seal.  It could be an interesting balance if generic master seals's cash value was part of the balancing act between project units and prepromos, but I'd rather the system just be scrapped entirely.

[Dark Holy Elf]

It also makes the promotion barrier a significant one instead of "Level 21 gives huge stat boosts for no real reason", and I rather like this. Agreed that the Ocean Seal needs to die in a fire.

[Tide]

Sweet, this is back.
*thumbs up to Super*

Mana Khemia 1

Best gameplay/mechanics trait: Largely echoing NEB. But the support system was well implemented when it first started. There's some creative ideas between offensive switches and defensive switches that really sets this mechanic apart from other games that also utilize a switch system.

Worst gameplay/mechanics trait: The switching mechanic EVENTUALLY steps on its toes and makes it such that the opportunity cost for switching is largely reduced. This is fine in the aftergame dungeon, where enemies easily have enough offense to make you work those supports. It does however, nuke the main game in a way that is largely unnecessary. Honourable mention to speeding up Night time enemies. Increased enemy stats? Fine. Increased enemy speed so I cannot avoid them when I want to and they randomly run into me, gain initiative to do hueg damage? No.

Best plot/character trait: Roxis on the PC side for me. Hey let's create a character that everyone thinks is an asshole, and then OPENLY mock him for it. You know, some games do that, but only do it once or twice for OMG DRAMATIC PLOT TWIST. MK takes it a refreshing step up and openly steps on him, which works well given MK's environment. TONY on the villain side. He is like Dr.Claw. Except BETTER. Honorable mention goes towards Flay of course.
Worst plot/character trait: Mm...Nikki's pretty bad yeah. Plot is kinda non-evident for a while, but I wouldn't call that the worst aspect (since some games have an evident plot but it's just trainwrecky). Nikki's just really annoying whenever she's on screen.

Has this game aged well? Mmm...I would think so? There's some definitive polish issues here (with the equipment forge and synth forge in two separate rooms), but the core gameplay should still be fine. Not as good as MK2 to me, but yeah.

Did the setting/world grab your attention? Why or why not? - Not...extremely I don't think. Pretty MK2 does a better job here overall. MK1's school environment didn't really have me buying it.

What from this game you would you most like to see again? - Offensive and Defensive supports being differentiated in the characters. It's a pretty cool concept on paper since some PCs just offer a really good support that makes them worthwhile to keep in the party and adds a different element of balance. I kinda felt MK2 reduced this aspect (which was one of the cool things in MK1), but mm....maybe its just because some of the aspects are on garbage characters so I never saw it.

Fire Emblem 7

Best gameplay/mechanics trait: This was the first FE game for me, so the element I found most refreshing at the time was making EXP a finite resource. You usually have other resource concerns such as equipment or money, but early FEs and FE7 as well forced you to think about which units you wanted to activate spend your time and money on. Thinking on it...this is probably what still sells FE7 to me. AND it doesn't have some of the stupid polish issues like in FE6 that just makes me avoid replaying it altogether.

Worst gameplay/mechanics trait: The inventory/shop system is pretty bad and I have no idea why they did it. Also dislike Con being used as a determination for AS loss. I'm not sure if the FE9/10 versions of using strength make it any better (since it's a direct double whammy on units with poor strength) but I do know I enjoyed the handling of AS in those games better.

Best plot/character trait: Um...hm. High point for me is probably how Hector/Eliwood got a couple of decent scenes despite the fact that they are fairly generic and boring otherwise. Some of the other introduced characters are okay too (Matt/Serra). Nothing terribly spectacular though.
Worst plot/character trait: The game kinda fails itself up at being a prequel since it shows like a grand total of ONE scene of Zephiel (gj IS). Nergal is also like the worst generic babyeating villain ever with a backstory that is equally lame and stupid. Hurray!

Has this game aged well? Yes and No. Some portions of it are definitely still good (such as finite EXPs thing, needing to adapt on the fly as needed and what not). Others definitely show some problematic issues (inventory and shops)

Did the setting/world grab your attention? Why or why not? - Nope. It's a GBA FE...so I'll give it credit that its probably pretty hard to begin with, but IS really didn't do much to sell me on it.

What from this game you would you most like to see again? - No idea. Probably the optional Gaiden chapters though? FE9/10 didn't have it, and while you didn't have to play through them, they did provide some decent rewards sometimes, so...it would be nice to have around and make the player decide whether or not its worth their time at playing those. Remove the stupid bullshit requirements on some of them though (lol getting Nils to level 7 in Lyn Mode).

[superaielman]

Updating! This topic is more freeform, so I'm just going to post new games whenever. Feel free to rate older games as well.

Final Fantasy Tactics

Best gameplay/mechanics trait:
Worst gameplay/mechanics trait:

Best plot/character trait:
Worst plot/character trait:

Has this game aged well?

Did the setting/world grab your attention? Why or why not? This includes music/art as well.

What from this game (Be it a funny character or story or good controls or even a catchy tune) you would you most like to see again?

Xenosaga 1

Best gameplay/mechanics trait:
Worst gameplay/mechanics trait:

Best plot/character trait:
Worst plot/character trait:

Has this game aged well?

Did the setting/world grab your attention? Why or why not? This includes music/art as well.

What from this game (Be it a funny character or story or good controls or even a catchy tune) you would you most like to see again?

[superaielman]

Final Fantasy Tactics

Best gameplay/mechanics trait: Job system.  The balance isn't perfect, but who cares? There is a ton of depth and you can unlock it at your lesiure. The JP system means you can pick and choose what you want as well.
Worst gameplay/mechanics trait: The fucking camera. I can forgive being unable to take back moving, but the camera just sucks and makes a few maps frustrating. Give me free movement, not that 90 degree angle shit.

Best plot/character trait: Ramza and Delita were both good.
Worst plot/character trait: Algus is third for camera time for characters, I think? Maybe fourth. You recruit people and they vanish, which makes for horrible storytelling. Ramza in Bethla Garrison is just silly and nicely encapsulates the problems there.

Has this game aged well?- Yes, gameplay is still good and the graphics are enjoyable enough.

Did the setting/world grab your attention? Why or why not? This includes music/art as well. - Yes, in spite of the translation. Story ideas are cool and you have a pretty neat overarching drama that frames the game. 

What from this game (Be it a funny character or story or good controls or even a catchy tune) you would you most like to see again?-  The job system. XF is the only game to really do something in the vein of FFT.

Xenosaga 1

Best gameplay/mechanics trait:- Sceneskip. No, I'm serious. It's the first major RPG that I remember having it.
Worst gameplay/mechanics trait:- The Song. What the fuck to the jump randoms take there.

Best plot/character trait:- Ziggy was cool. The setting was fantastic, and the game had top notch VA/good writing to help exploit this. The setup of a miniseries in game format was fun, and there was a lot of potential for coolness.
Worst plot/character trait:- MOMO. Pantyshots+Albedo rape scenes=*SETS FIRE TO XS WRITERS*. chaos is a close second. Shion's failure I have ranted about at length, but I barely noticed her in XS1. This was likely a coping mechanism, but still. chaos failed utterly from the start, keeps on failing in XS2, and fails massively in XS3. But... he fails badly enough here, whereas Shion and Wilhelm barely exist here.

Has this game aged well?- No. Unskippable animiations marr the gameplay side, and the plot side... well. XS3. We know how that cool potential ends.

Did the setting/world grab your attention? Why or why not? This includes music/art as well.- Yes.  See the plot/character stuff, but the setting was damn good and the game programmers spent a lot of money making it so. They swipe some of XG's plot elements, open the game with a futuristic setting mixed with plenty of old fashioned RPG monsters, and even have the main character get called a moron by one person. (Sadly Virgil is the only person who calls Shion a retard in the entire series. My theory is that if KOS-MOS had killed Shion, the entire game would be 5000x better as a bitter, half insane space marine learns to treat Realians like real people and Shion is banished to the hell dimension with Kevin thanks to Virgil, who listens to four seconds of their retarded blather and beats them into a pulp.)

What from this game (Be it a funny character or story or good controls or even a catchy tune) you would you most like to see again?- Some of the space opera elements the game used. What can I say, it had the potential to be great.

[Tide]

Final Fantasy Tactics

Best gameplay/mechanics trait: Gameplay, yeah. It's game you can constantly go back to and there's almost something you can learn on every play. For the record, the plot was pretty decent too for its time, even if its basis is off another play. Well sans Chapter 4.
Worst gameplay/mechanics trait: The poaching system is very bad, but its not needed to beat the game (thankfully). My biggest complaint now (especially AFTER LFT) is that you're running 90% of the game with Gained JP Up, which kinda neuters a consideration for gameplay. The 1v1 battles, most notably Wiegraf, is also something that should've had a pre-warning on.

Best plot/character trait: LOTS of choices here. Ramza, Delita, like Super mentioned. Dyce is also good, as well as Izlude and even Wiegraf up to a certain extent.
Worst plot/character trait: Balk or Kletian. Balk is the random guy that appears out of nowhere because ARISTOCRATS NEED BURNING. Kletian is supposed to be OMG THREATENING SHRINE KNIGHT but succeeds in this role around as well as AI2 Chaos. Also, neither do anything at all. Otherwise, end of C4 is always a let down for me. Would've enjoyed it more if Vormav was just EBIL instead of possessed by the demons.

Has this game aged well?- Echoing Super more or less. Gameplay is still great, which keeps the game largely intact. Translation even gains campy value.

Did the setting/world grab your attention? Why or why not? Very. The main selling point for the setting grabbing me was the entire Chapter 1/Chapter 2 + Music. It's just done very well.

What from this game (Be it a funny character or story or good controls or even a catchy tune) you would you most like to see again?-  The entire package? If we're looking at one single aspect, probably the gameplay - which we haven't even seen sans XF (and even XF isn't exactly the same; there's a lot more maps that are totally set up around a certain class, which FFT doesn't do).

Xenosaga 1

Best gameplay/mechanics trait:- Using TP to boost stats was kinda neat. It DID diminish PC differences eventually, but it gave the player a decision and choice as to whether or not to use TP to boost techs or stats, since they had different benefits. The event wheel was also pretty cool, since it gave you a variation on the objective every battle (stop it on the Skill boost!)
Worst gameplay/mechanics trait:- Core battle system otherwise is kinda bad. I mean, its not XS3 terrible, but its not like it was great starting at XS1. Advice Dog moment: TAP TWO BUTTONS, WATCH ANIMATION

Best plot/character trait:- Ziggy? Gainun? One of the two. Probably Ziggy.
Worst plot/character trait:- chaos/Wilhelm. Cryptic as shit starting at XS1 and doesn't get any better in any of the games to come. Shion would win, but agreed on XS1 Shion being largely irrelevant (yay!).

Has this game aged well?- No. I mean, one of XS' selling points at the time was plot potential. And we all know how well THAT turned out.

Did the setting/world grab your attention? Why or why not? This includes music/art as well.- Not sure if I agree with Super here. They do well enough to get you to grab the high-fi tech theme as the first five hours of the game are pretty much on a futuristic spaceship with robots, evil monsters and androids. Past that...I never really got a feel for the dramatic plot epic the game wanted me to buy. This could just be hindsight speaking though. Lack of music diminishes the atmosphere to boot.

What from this game (Be it a funny character or story or good controls or even a catchy tune) you would you most like to see again?- The Xenocards card game. Surprisingly. The only other game to have a card game based off itself was Triple Triad. And yeah, for some reason, these card games are almost always entertaining as a way of killing time.

[Meeplelard]

Just noticed this topic existed or something!

Final Fantasy Tactics

Best gameplay/mechanics trait: Job System.  Just very well handled.
Worst gameplay/mechanics trait: Inability to take back a movement after you've confirmed it; needless restriction that makes you have to manually check ranges and such, remember height, rather than plan via trial and error like any other RPG has.

Best plot/character trait: Just how well it handled the political stuff, and showed the scope of things.  It was nice seeing how there was serious stuff going on not directly related to Ramza, a pitfall many other RPGs fall into where "THE MAIN MUST BE THE CENTER OF EVERYTHING!"  Nice to see Ramza, while related, was often just tangentially so, so we could focus on other traits not directly related to "Ramza saves the world!"
Worst plot/character trait: PCs generally losing all their quality when they join your party.  Yeah, Agrias and Meliadoul get a rare Boss dialog thing, but otherwise, it really hampered the ability to develop Non-Ramza PCs.

Has this game aged well?
Generally it did.  The plot shows its age, in terms of exposition and writing, but overall, its still fun and what not.

Did the setting/world grab your attention? Why or why not? This includes music/art as well.
As I said, the political stuff I thought was well handled.  Ivalice as a world I find pretty "meh" though; semi-realistic was cool at first, but then the bringing in of the Zodiac Stones really undermined it.  Music was nice in game, but a lot of stuff isn't special on its own.

What from this game (Be it a funny character or story or good controls or even a catchy tune) you would you most like to see again?
Just a character as well handled as Delita.  Its nice to see a morally questionable character, but at the same time, you can at least sympathize and understand where he's coming from, and ultimately, the game does *NOT* force the main to confront him in any sort of antagonistic way.

Xenosaga 1

Best gameplay/mechanics trait: The ability to blow barrels up near enemies and get bonuses as a result.
Worst gameplay/mechanics trait:  The repetitive battle system; ok, something unique for the time I guess but do something more with it other than "watch same animations over and over again."

Best plot/character trait: Cherenkov.  'nough said.
Worst plot/character trait: Cutscene length.  I felt this game did a lot of "say 10 words when 3 would suffice."  Tried to be cryptic too much when often it served no purpose either.

Has this game aged well?
No, it has not.  Meh battle system, exposition is now standard, just plot scenes are long, etc.  Game is very much "for its time" at best.

Did the setting/world grab your attention? Why or why not? This includes music/art as well.
The usage of space was cool, but that's about it.  The music was a horrible failure in terms of usage in game.  One battle theme sans the Final Boss?  Seriously? What is this, an NES game?  And half the time, there was no background music as is, and when there was music, it was often hard to pay attention to due to stuff going on in plot.

What from this game (Be it a funny character or story or good controls or even a catchy tune) you would you most like to see again?
Well, the idea of KOS MOS being a "All Style, No Substance" character, and them pretty much sticking ENTIRELY to that (barring the one "Will I become human?" scene that is completely random and has NOTHING TO DO WITH ANYTHING) I thought was neat; ignoring the "Hookerbot" design, just the idea that a character can be likable and fun based entirely on shallow "Wow, that was kick ass" merits is something games tend to forget, and I thought KOS MOS in XS1 pulled that off well enough...

...pity what XS3 did to her -_-