Tales of Vesperia has a good story, TWEWY has a good story. Fallout 3 is good to a certain extent. These games however are pretty damn time consuming. Mass Effect has a good story though its not officially 2008. Nothing needs to be said about FFIV , DQIV and CT DS. Valkyria Chronicles is supposed to have a good story.
Infinite Undiscovery and thus TLR do not have good stories. Tales of Symphonia 2 I haven’t finished it; up to now its so so. I find that Too Human is underappreciated. FFTA2 was a DISASTER (predictably). The game is flawed, but I enjoyed what it was trying to do. Its an interesting spin to norse mythology. Did FFXII Revenant Wings come out in 2008? It wasn’t bad. Not a pullitzer but palatable.
(edit) Man we forgot Lost Odyssey. This game convinced me that Sakaguchi needs to retire because his ideas are outdated. It starts off in an interesting way and has a couple interesting ideas but they, like the story, go nowhere.
There are a lot of non RPGs that have come out that have great stories like GTA IV and MGS4.
On another note, the reviews I tend to look at is the metacritic average and 1up.com’s.
Edit 2: no one mentioned VC games. Secret of Mana and SM RPG are on the VC now.
Wait wasn’t Barkley’s Shut Up and Jam released in 07 though?
Originally Posted by Big_Dizzy But if GTAIV doesn’t count… well fuck. I’ll go with Chaos Wars. I never got to finish it, but it was a GameStop exclusive SRPG for PS2 featuring characters from Growlanser, Shadow Hearts, Gungrave and a couple other titles.
That’s actually a pretty lousy reason for nominating a game especially considering that it’s only a fairly unremarkable game (not counting it’s localization which would cause it to plummet to the depths of hilariously godawful). However, I will suggest that it be awarded the title of “Biggest Conundrum of the Year” for receiving a localization over games like Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom.
That said, I really haven’t kept up with all the latest releases from last year. In fact the only ones I can think of having played are Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn and Eternal Poison. It’s not like I’ve been ignoring all of the games that have been coming out, but almost all of my purchases for this year have either been for the PS2 or were released before Jan 1, 2008. I’m just now beginning to catch up with all the games that I’ve acquired thanks to my new PS2 that I got last week so I haven’t got a lot to talk about aside from the two games I’ve already mentioned.
I can’t, in all honesty, cast any vote for Best RPG of '08 simply because I haven’t played many RPGs from this year and of the two that I have played neither of them feel worthy of the title. IMHO both games were pretty flawed. FE:RD, while it does deserve credit for trying something new (for the series) with the multiple parties and perspectives, loses those points for lack of progression balance (i.e. the Dawn Brigade really sucks compared to everybody else) and receives further dings for making everybody irrelevant by the Endgame anyway thanks to some really lol broken units acquired near the end along with a final boss that can only be harmed by them. As for EP despite having multiple character scenarios (ala Suikoden III) and good character art (which for a Flight-Plan game is almost unbelievable) the utter lack of a RNG (Random Number Generator i.e. attacks made under identical conditions will always produce the same results, regaining the same level for the same character will produce the same stat gains, and so on) and relevant side characters pretty much takes the wind out of this game’s sails.
Originally Posted by Sinistral Edit 2: no one mentioned VC games. Secret of Mana and SM RPG are on the VC now.
There’s also Suikoden on PSN (finally the PS3 has a game worth getting a PS3 for), and didn’t Castlevaina SoN come out on XLA early in the year as well?
Barkley Shut Up And Jam Gaiden was released on January 22nd, 2008.
There’s a really simply reason why Tatsunoko vs Capcom isn’t released here - In America, several different companies own the rights to all the various Tatsu characters, making it virtually impossible to acquire the rights to all of them. Last I read on the Capcom forums (which have Capcom employees posting on it), they’re working on it.
Persona 3 FES is definitely my favorite rpg of this year. Persona 4 tries to be more of the same but they made the combat half of the game a good bit more tedious and less interesting. I also like most of the characters in P3 better than the ones in P4, especially Junpei.
The Crono Trigger remake is great, but it’s straight port of bloody Chrono Trigger so that’s a foregone conclusion. The added content sucks balls, though.
Fallout 3 was just yet another overrated Bethseda game, now with deathclaws and 300 miles of sewers to explore.
Super Robot Wars Alpha Gaiden just got translated and so far it has been better than any srpg I’ve played all year. Then again anything with Ryouma Nagare mowing shit down, plus the introduction of Zengar, has to be great.
That’s because it is awesome. You need to find a friend with a PS3 and force him to buy it, and then steal it and his PS3.
I didn’t mind Fallout 3. It’s not quite as good as Fallout and Fallout 2, and sadly it’s kept the retarded AI, and I wanted to strangle Three Dog and the Inkspots. I’ve still got that bleeding song stuck in my mind. It kept me distracted though and I wouldn’t call it wasted time, well, except any time spent pursuing the main quest or in downtown D.C.
Well, the only mistakes you can do in this game are to get lost in downtown (I SPENT TEN HOURS TRYING TO FIND G.N.R) or by going and, well, finishing the game. Some suggest a mod to lower XP rewards, but when pretty much every place gives you the same loot, there’s just lots of exploration to do… which I do not mind even at lowest settings. It is pretty… for a barren wasteland.
((Also, Valkyria Chronicles. Saved me from WoW, it did. And it’s pretty too. All it lacks is a Finnish dub. srsly.))
Yeah it is. But, I am going to stick by GTA IV, however as best RPG. Whether or not anyone else here thinks it is an RPG, I believe it is, in almost every aspect of it. Now I just need a new graphics card so I can play it on my notebook. Maybe '09 will give me what I’m hoping for, (Fable 2 for PC, or a good hack 'n slash with an interesting story like Soulbringer, which came out many years ago) which is a good action RPG title for PC, seeing as I have more or less abandoned consoles and television in favor of the PC. Come tax time, if I’m not busted on bills, I may pick up a 360, even though that would require me to break my boycott of it. Just because it’s actually seeing more console style RPGs than PS3 as of late, and Micro$oft does guarantee replacements for RROD.
