The PS3’s release is imminent. Retailers are clearing out PS2 inventories to make room for the new. Serik, cheapskate extraordinaire, wants to buy the best PS2 RPGs at rock bottom prices. Now all he needs is your help.
I don’t trust videogame review sites to give me a straight answer about how good an RPG is. All I’m asking is for a quick recommendation of what the best PS2 RPGs are. I found Wild Arms 3 for $10, for example, and while it has favorable reviews, I’m still not sure if it’s worth my time. Ya, I’d only be out $10 even if it blows, but my goal here is to make my $120 go as far as possible (thanks to whoever dropped that 20 spot on the sidewalk the other day ). I did the same thing when the PS2 came out and snagged an ass-load of PSX games for nothing. And I’ll repeat this process in 5 more years when the PS4 comes out.
WA3 is a very very fun game, and so is WA:ACF (to a slightly lesser degre). Both have crappy stories, though.
I’m about ten hours into FF12 and it has the absolute best story I’ve yet seen in an RPG - really, it’s so much more realistic than the predictable tripe that’s been passing as plot recently. The gameplay has me going “meh” so far though.
If you’re okay with action RPGs, Kingdom Hearts and KH2 are a lot of fun; I’ve replayed the first at least four times so far and the second will probably get the same treatment eventually.
Valkyrie Profile 2 is also fun, but really really hard and doesn’t have much story to recommend it.
The Xenosaga series has some hiccups, but ends on a really high note. Very interesting story.
I still haven’t managed to find Disgaea anywhere. 8-(
The best way I can describe it is like Turn-Based Vagrant Story. I’m not sure if you would like it.
On the other hand, you can pick it up damn near anywhere for fucking 12 dollars, and the game is incredibly short for an RPG (18-20 hours); so what’s there to lose, really? Not money or time, that’s for sure.
I second Disgaea if you can find it. If not, get Disgaea 2 anyway. If you like SRPGS like I obviously do, you can’t go wrong by any game Nippon Ichi has made, execpt maybe for Atelier Iris. That game as fun because of the localization geniuses at Gust and NIS, but the game was way too easy.
PS2 RPGs you say? I know which ones are the best. Well, these are just my reccommendations, but my favorite PS2 RPGs are as follows: Final Fantasy X, Star Ocean: Till the End of Time, Dragon Quest 8, and Tales of the Abyss.
Xenosaga I is alright, don’t know about Xenosaga II and III, though. But word of warning; Tales of Legendia and Wild Arms 4 are pure crap. Avoid those at all costs.
Don’t know if FFXII is any good. Haven’t had a chance to rent that yet.
EDIT: Although it’s not an RPG, Devil May Cry 3 Special Edition is totally kickass and no PS2 collection is complete without it.
Oh yeah, Dragon Quest 8 is nice. I personally couldn’t stand BoF5, and while Star Ocean 3 has some nice aspects, there are way too many annoyances to make it a really good game.
You could also try the Baldur’s Gate Dark Alliance games, or Champions of Norrath (and it’s sequel). You can find them all for under 20$, and the latter 2 are both online capable, or 4 player offline. Grand multiplayer games.
It’s a crime not to buy it! Also, there is a decent bit of replay value unless I remember incorrectly.
I’d recommend FFX and Dragon Quest VIII without hesitation. I enjoyed the first and third Xenosaga games, but the second one turned me off gameplay-wise.
I also suggest Arc the Lad: Twilight of the Spirits. Don’t get the End of Darkness game though. It is for PS2, but the only real reason one would want it is for the online gameplay, and if my memory serves me right, the game servers were discontinued.
You forgot the graphics and music. And, uh, don’t forget the main theme of the story, which it incorporated quite well without compromising the humour or the motives of the characters. But who cares about that, right? These are RPGs we’re talking about! What makes a good RPG story is pretentiousness. How silly of me.
Yeah, especially because all the endings either didn’t make sense or blue balled you. Nevermind the fact that it retconned just about every major plot point of the first game, so that it could offer a bunch of contrived bullshit (funnily enough, even the game acknowledges that this is true near the end) with hardly any character interaction or development til the end of the game. Yeah, SH2 was WAAAAAAAAAAY better than SH1. Right. But then again, I forgot - RPG stories are about pretentiousness, and the promise of an ‘epic’ adventure. My bad.
Suikoden 3 seemed like it was really good, but I couldn’t get over how much I disliked the combat in that game.
Suikoden 3 sucked balls. I was extremely disappointed by it. I liked the story, it seemed interesting, but the gameplay was crap. I loved the first 2, but I just could not get into Suikoden 3. I tried and tried, but it never happened. It might have gotten better as the game went on, but I just couldn’t pull myself through to see. It didn’t help that the battle system was boring and retarded.
). I did the same thing when the PS2 came out and snagged an ass-load of PSX games for nothing. And I’ll repeat this process in 5 more years when the PS4 comes out.
Also, there is a decent bit of replay value unless I remember incorrectly.