Which highly rated retro games did you dislike?

[Jay]

DKC seems to get a lot of flak - not just on this forum but elsewhere on the net. I've only completed the first (this year in fact, after playing it for many years on and off with my son) but I think it's a fantastic game, let down slightly perhaps by a few difficulty spikes. It's way above the average platformer in terms of level design and the graphics and sound (especially the sound) are superb. The crocodiles' teeth chomping sound is my favourite sound effect in any game.

Also, Pac-Man. Pac-Man! Come on, it's a classic. Is it the plot that you don't like?

[Mayhem]

FF7>FF6. All day long.

(sorry, just joshing)

[nakamura]

Haha!

[Asura]

What I mean is that I found a lot of battles in VI to be very difficult, even after ridiculous grinding, because it required you to faff around with the characters' abilities in a way I didn't understand or couldn't be bothered with. Like the boss at the top of that giant tower, where you can't use any magic. That was ridiculous. There's nothing like that in VII.

Makes me think of one of the reason I like VII more than a lot of other JRPGs I've played; it lacks "pitfall states"; those moments in RPGs where you can save and get screwed by the situation.

FFVIII has a classic one - the Ultimecia/Rinoa fight. You could save just before it, and then end up in a state where you were too weak to fight the boss, but couldn't get somewhere to grind. If you only had one save, you could be genuinely screwed.

Admittedly, the Final Fantasy games on PS1 allowed for many save slots, so this wasn't a problem if you used cascading saves. However, some RPGs (particularly handheld ones) only give you one or two slots.

Even so, it did have problems where you could miss items if you didn't have a guide. I hate that about JRPGs. I'm convinced it's intentional just to sell guides.

[dataDave]

Or maybe to promote repeated plays and deeper exploration.

[Dogg Thang]

Yeah I can't see a problem with that. Yes, you can miss stuff but that in turn rewards exploration. For RPGs and adventure games, that's a good thing. Now if they are genuinely so obscure and complex that they couldn't be found without a guide or online army working in tandem AND the reward is core to the game, then I could understand the criticism. But I think the only examples I could think of would be more recent Pokemon games, where you couldn't ever expect to catch all Pokemon on your own. But then you never could.

[noobish hat]

Makes me think of one of the reason I like VII more than a lot of other JRPGs I've played; it lacks "pitfall states"; those moments in RPGs where you can save and get screwed by the situation.

FFVIII has a classic one - the Ultimecia/Rinoa fight. You could save just before it, and then end up in a state where you were too weak to fight the boss, but couldn't get somewhere to grind. If you only had one save, you could be genuinely screwed.

Admittedly, the Final Fantasy games on PS1 allowed for many save slots, so this wasn't a problem if you used cascading saves. However, some RPGs (particularly handheld ones) only give you one or two slots.

Even so, it did have problems where you could miss items if you didn't have a guide. I hate that about JRPGs. I'm convinced it's intentional just to sell guides.

That's why I never finished VIII. There was a bit where you're in some underground base or something, and you have a time limit to escape before it blows up and there's a boss to fight. I couldn't beat the boss, but I couldn't grind to level up either because the timer only had 30 minutes left on my save!

[boxhead]

That's why I never finished VIII. There was a bit where you're in some underground base or something, and you have a time limit to escape before it blows up and there's a boss to fight. I couldn't beat the boss, but I couldn't grind to level up either because the timer only had 30 minutes left on my save!

A similar thing happened to me in resident evil code veronica.

it was the last fight and I'd saved but there was no way to get back to the area before where all my items were stored so I only had the option to fight the last boss with a knife and 2 bullets in my handgun. I must have tried it about 10 times before realising it was completely impossible.

Theres a battle in FF tactics that has a similar problem as well. some older games had some crazy design flaws. I had to restart ff tactics.

[Asura]

Or maybe to promote repeated plays and deeper exploration.

True. Like Dogg Thang says, though, there's a line. Sometimes JRPGs have things in them that no-one could possibly just find themselves, and once you leave that area of the narrative, you can never go back.

[replicashooter]

FFVII holds the crown for this one. The random battles just really, really got on my tits. Especially when you were trying to limp to the save point after your umpteenth battle and sat there watching the screen fragment again.

A shame as I probably would've enjoyed the tale. I don't mind grinding but at least let me SEE em and decide whether I want to engage them in combat first.

Is the PSP reboot any good? Are the random battles gone?

[Asura]

Is the PSP reboot any good? Are the random battles gone?

PSP reboot of FF7? There's no such thing.

There's the PSP version of FF7, which is literally just an emulated PS1 game, and there's FF7 Crisis Core, which is a completely different game (it's a prequel).

[nakamura]

Wow. Some of you lot aren't very good at JRPGs! Not a historically difficult genre!

[Asura]

Wow. Some of you lot aren't very good at JRPGs! Not a historically difficult genre!

Depends if you find grinding the most difficult thing in all games. Seriously, I'd rather Alien Soldier sandpapers my face off with its difficulty than grind in a JRPG.

[nakamura]

Depends if you find grinding the most difficult thing in all games. Seriously, I'd rather Alien Soldier sandpapers my face off with its difficulty than grind in a JRPG.

Most decent JRPGS like FFVII and VIII don't actually need grinding. Just a common sense approach to not run from every battle.

[replicashooter]

PSP reboot of FF7? There's no such thing.

There's the PSP version of FF7, which is literally just an emulated PS1 game, and there's FF7 Crisis Core, which is a completely different game (it's a prequel).

Ah yes, it must be Crisis Core. If I were to play either one of these titles which one would you recommend? I imagine FF7 would look really good on the PSPs screen but those random battles, ugh. A quick search shows that a lot of folks over here thought the fanboyism/rose tinted glass made this one more hype than substance and based on my early impressions back then I'm inclined to agree but still willing to give it a spin if peoples here be recommends.