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The ARPGs of the SNES
- Thread starter oni-link
- Start date
Oh there are so many!
Earthbound
Super Mario RPG
Soul Blazer
Shin Megami Tensei
Dragon Quest 5, 6
Live A Live
Treasure Hunter G
Breath of Fire
Langrisser 2
7th Saga
Front Mission
Fire Emblem
Romancing Saga
And those are just a few
On top of what others have said, Star ocean and Tales of Phantasia. Past that we are getting kindab obscure, otherwise I'd add games like Robotrek.
Robotrek was the bomb. I rented it from Blockbuster once, but I got stuck at this one part and couldn't figure out how to get further.
Terranigma and Illusion of Gaia are both amazing games with excellent story.
In fact, Terranigma is my favorite game of all time, just in front of Turrican II (Amiga). Seeing ProJared's Let Play of Illusion of Gaia reminded me how great it is, especially how well written is the game and its characters.
- How do you feel about the ARPGs of the SNES?
The Gaia trilogy are some of my favorites in the genre
- Which games have the best combat systems?
Terranigma is the most fun to play.
- Do you think they hold up or have they aged poorly?
They held up.
- Which of them do you think are worth playing?
Gaia trilogy (Terranigma > Soul Blazer > Gaia). Tales of Phantasia.
The Gaia trilogy are some of my favorites in the genre
- Which games have the best combat systems?
Terranigma is the most fun to play.
- Do you think they hold up or have they aged poorly?
They held up.
- Which of them do you think are worth playing?
Gaia trilogy (Terranigma > Soul Blazer > Gaia). Tales of Phantasia.
Soul Blazer isn't turn based.
Uh Tales isn't turn based either.
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This looks amazing! Was this ever out in Europe I never heard much about not as a child. Might need to change that now..you broke up the Quintet Trilogy by squeezing SD3 inbetween :)
they belong together!
Terranigma is the best game ever so that naturally is worth playing. Combat is amazing.
Precisely, Europe was the only west territory that saw the game release. It was very late into SNES life so you could have easily missed it.
There are indeed many awesome RPG for SNES if japan only games are included (many of them have a fan translation).
In the future I would like to play more obscure japan only Snes RPG like GOD, Emerald Dragon, Tengai Makyou Zero, Dark Law, Solid Runner, Gunhazard.
I wish I had the time...
That's exactly the issue. You never do before and after. But you need it for that one fight. Unless you wanna grind to exactly lvl 25. Which takes a while.
PAL. Europe and Australia. A first party published and localized release (bonus fun fact: NOA did the English localization despite the game never coming out there, NOE did the rest).
Yeah I guess it was too late for me. But I think I will have to try it if I should believe the praise in this thread!
Ah I see
I just did the castle section last night (where you spike the food to send everyone to sleep) and I think I might need to grind a bit as even though I have about 150hp (I'm level 16 I think) enemies seem to do 20-35 damage a hit, so in most areas a few hits ruin me, so I'm spending all my money on healing items, which mean I can never afford new armor/weapons, which means I do 1 damage to everything in a new area for ages
Lvl 16 seems low for where you are. you're about to go to said castle in Spain. Just go back and forth a few times where some high XP enemies are. You can actually grind in that castle quite easily. With 20 you should be good and it shouldn't take too long.
I stand corrected, sometimes I forgot Australia were Pal sufferers like us.
They even got a terrible exclusive border around the gorgeous cover art. :)
left: Australian box
right: UK box
I'll never get what NoAUNZ was thinking.
No mentions of Lagoon? It's a pretty bad game so that could be why. But you gain levels and buy or find equipment and abilities so it's an ARPG.
I played the shit out of it when I was younger and had played all the worthwhile SNES games. I got stuck so frequently though. And no net back then.
I think it was featured on GDQ once in their awful segment. And they aren't wrong lol
I played the shit out of it when I was younger and had played all the worthwhile SNES games. I got stuck so frequently though. And no net back then.
I think it was featured on GDQ once in their awful segment. And they aren't wrong lol
Well, the closest you'll get is probably the Ys games which keep that ARPG torch burning still. And Tales is still Tales.
The biggest "oh!" from the Evermore team legacy is the little fun fact that the composer was Jeremy Soule whom everyone knows and loves from that mid-tier hit Skyrim. :)
Equinox was another bad one, my memory is hazy when it comes to the RPG elements though
Equinox was the spiritual successor to Solstice on NES. It has one of the most underappreciated Tim Follin soundtracks since it's way more ambient and focuses on atmosphere and sound design. It has some pretty genius tricks in the music that you won't hear anywhere else on the system.
Ah cool, havent touched the game since I was a kid. Might play through it again for nostalgia.
Nice to see Secret of Evermore getting a bit of attention. It's probably my favorite game of this type. Very underrated. I could never really get into Secret of Mana, but I loved Secret of Evermore, as I feel that it refined some of the more tedious aspects of Secret of Mana. Also, I love it when you get to the space station and your dog turns into a laser-equipped toaster dog.
I went back to the forest area to grind levels and in about 45 mins I only managed to go up one level
How have I managed to get this far so under-leveled?
I was really enjoying the game to this point but if I seriously need to spend another 2/3 hours just grinding to get close to level 20, never mind level 25, then it's going to knock my estimation of the game from an 8/10 to a 6/10
Surely I must be doing something wrong?
don't go BACK to level, go FORWARD, to the castle, like I said :D ...and don't bother with 25 ...20-ish will do with the elec rings.
I'll try that then
Normally when I get to new areas I do barely any damage, so I read that as the game telling me to go back
In the forest I did 1 damage to the wolfs until I leveled up and could do 6 damage, going from 16 to 17 just now let me do 12 damage, and even then it's 6/7 hits to kill them
Yeah good examples
Were the SNES versions of Dragon Quest 5 & 6 released in english?
Why only the SNES? Landstalker is one of my all time favorites and is a Genesis exclusive.
Don't forget Beyond Oasis or Popful Mail (which has a poor SNES port).
No. They both have fan translations available, but VI was never completed. The patch out there is meant to be 90% done, but when I played it I ran into a lot of garbled text in optional areas near the end of the game which spoiled it for me, so I stopped playing.
Or Crusader of Centy! Loved that game. Genesis didn't have as many it seems, but what it did have was great.
As far as snes was concerned, secret of mana, evermore, act raiser and soul blazer were in constant rotation as a kid at my house. I feel terranigma was the best but I didn't play that until I was older as I don't think it was released in the US.
Terranigma is at a local shop in a glass case and I'm tempted to pick it up every time. But I also want to jump into Seiken Densetsu II, III, and ... everything.
if the price is reasonable get it now while it's still there...
that's why the castle boss is so BS, you do 1dmg unless you're lvl 25 or use the elec rings. it's the one bad thing about the game.
I mean, Secret of Mana is almost universally praised as magical by anyone who owned a SNES in the 90s.
Terranigma's pretty niche but very atmospheric.
Evermore was pretty bland.
This is true (check my avatar for proof).
Terranigma's pretty niche but very atmospheric.
Evermore was pretty bland.
Why only the SNES? Landstalker is one of my all time favorites and is a Genesis exclusive.
This is true (check my avatar for proof).
All three 16bit consoles are pretty great for genre high watermarks tbh. SNES has Actraiser, SoulBlazer, Gaia, Terranigma, Mana 2-3, Evermore, Zelda 3, Brain Lord, Gunman's Proof, MD/CD has Landstalker, Beyond Oasis, Crusader of Centy, Monster World 3-4, Popful Mail and PCE/CD has Ys I-IV, Neutopia I-II, Dungeon Explorer I-II, Exile 1-2 and Xak III. It was probably the genre peak overall.
It's rather unfortunate that the SNES version of Ys 3 is so poor. Wonky hit detection (in a game that already didn't have the best hit detection), poor music, muted drab graphics, and screwed up difficulty make it the worst of the three console ports.
The Genesis version is pretty good as far as APRGs go, providing you can withstand the high difficulty.
The Genesis version is pretty good as far as APRGs go, providing you can withstand the high difficulty.
Ys 3 on the SNES was my intro the series so it holds a special place in my heart. Beat it dozens of times as a kid in the 90s. I will say it was always hard, and I didn't know how bad of a port it really was until recently. I really need to try the Genesis version some day.
SoM gets a lot of its praise from being pretty much the only co-op ARPG (accessibility!) with high production values (dat art, dat music!) with a global localization into many languages at the time that all those huge flaws (the grinding, lots of useless weapons/spells, all the cuts that had to be made due to the shift from CD version to the cartridge version) got waved away. I'd wager it's a lot harder to fall in love with that game today, even though co-op ARPGs are still not very plentiful.
As for Terranigma, that's not niche. It's about as mainstream as it gets. "Niche" describes appeal. The problem is that it's overlooked due to never coming out in the US and the US perspective dominating the internet conversation as well as general coverage of older games so this never really gets its due while all the US releases like Earthbound, Chrono Trigger, and the FFs get all the spotlight.
That's an action adventure, not an RPG.
This song/music is so fucking good. The part that kicks in at the 42 second mark is amazing. Love Actraiser.