Yer RPG picks, broken down by console:

"what's my motivation?"

I don't think you should take the phrase "role-playing game" too literally. Videogames that get called RPGs have roots in Dungeons & Dragons and similar board games where the phrase made more sense.

Yeah, the modern connotation of RPG is usually with stats n' shit. Zelda II is the closest thing, due to bumping up skills.

Then you have things like action rpgs, which tend to muddy the waters a bit.

N64: Quest 64 (lol just kidding)

Did the N64 even have any rpgs, previous example excepted?

Paper Mario, and a few that didn't make it out of Japan (Super Robot Wars 64, Robot Ponkottsu 64).

NES:

FF I, Dragon Warrior. Ultima was cool, I think I used to rent it and never got very far.

SNES:

FF II (or whatever), fucking Chrono Trigger (I didn't play this until after graduating from college, when I was unemployed for a couple of weeks lol)

Genesis:

Shadowrun, even though I mostly messed around and never played it properly (maybe I should get the SNES version...were they the same?). The D&D rpg was sorta okay, I think my game got wiped out at some point.

PSI:

FFVII
Wild Arms (never finished)

GBA:

The FF reissues, I think that's it.

I don't think I played any RPGs on GC/PS2/Xbox? I played KotOR for a few days, didn't really get into it.

CHRYSTALIS! Played through that game at LEAST 10 times in my life. Very, very satisfying.

GC: Tales of Symphonia

Was it Secret of Mana or Chrono Trigger that had multiplayer mode for battles? And what other console RPGs have multiplayer?

Oh oh oh! SWORD OF VERMILION on Genesis! No one ever talks about that game but I loved it.

http://dorando.emuverse.com/images/sword-of-vermilion_03.png
http://www.sega-16.com/Reviews/Genesis/Sword%20of%20Vermilion/Watling_8.gif

Crystalis! I forgot about that one, that was pretty awesome!

Oh, I guess the SNES Shadowrun was way different.

Any good ones for the Game Boy (Color)?

I didn't like the first two Final Fantasy Legend games, and never played the third. Pokemon Red/Blue was too simple and boring for me.

what are the best RPGs for the DS?

ie, of the non-tactical variety

Can't believe I didn't namecheck Crusader of Centy (aka Soleil) on here. Head and shoulders the best Zelda-like on the MegaDrive/Genesis. I think I like it more than Link to the Past, in fact.

cannot believe someone made a live action Sword of Vermilion video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dXQ7pfPk9I

Parasite Eve the original for psx, that was real cool. The sequel was utter crap of course

czn- not sure if DS specific is what you're looking for , but the Golden Sun GBA games were excellent zelda/FF hybrids.

I think I'm the only person here who will rep for Mystara on the Saturn, mostly because I think I'm the only person here who played it.

argh I meant MystarIa

you may well be the only person to now admit that they owned one. i had a friend that owned one, and his dog died the day after he bought it. FACT.

SNES: Chrono Trigger, Earthbound, FF6, Secret of Evermore

lol HI DERE I played Mysteria I also liked the Shining Force dungeon-crawler for the Saturn that being the only other RPG I can remember playing on that console. Also there was/maybe is a Shining Force game for the DS but I haven't played it.

czn: the best RPGs for the DS are probably either startegy games are reformats of old SNES games. Top three non-reissue, non-strategy games are probably The World Ends With You, Contact and... maybe one of the Lunar games, I can't really think of another.

THE SHINING FORCE FOR THE SATURN WAS SO SO SO AWESOME

I loved Dragon Force but never played any of the Lunar games because Albert Odyssey SUCKED so hard, plus the online interactions I had with the WD CEO convinced me he was a giant cock who didn't deserve my money.

i liked how Dragon Warrior II showed your whole party on the overworld screen, so that you led around a little conga line of dudes (or maybe Millipede is a better image).

Mario and Luigi: Partners in Time was pretty good. I like the GBA one a little more, but the DS one was still solid. If you liked Paper Mario/SMRPG it's a no-brainer.

Hardcore old school fans seem to love Etrian Oddysey, and Shiren the Wanderer (though that's a SNES port) and Izuna seem to be received okay, if you like roguelikes.

I wouldn't recommend Contact unless you are an Earthbound style-fetishist or a fan of Grasshopper, which I am - it's only an experience worth doing if you don't care that the gameplay isn't that good but everything else is kind of interesting.

Doesn't seem like there's a ton of love for most of the Square-Enix games, like FF 12: Revenant Wings, Children of Mana, Crystal Chronicles, etc. But FF IV comes out this week, there's that odd Bioware Sonic RPG coming out later, DQ IX probably next year.

Secret of Evermore

there's that odd Bioware Sonic RPG coming out later

waht

Contact is both too easy and too hard at the same time but I'll still recommend it because it's different and interesting enough to be worth a playthrough. Children of Mana was A+ but I was trying to avoid rec'ing any of the DQ, FF, Mana &c. games

DQ 9 for the DS! Eventually. And redoing DQ 4 for it, too.

Where is love for POKEMANS, people? Srsly.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonic_rpg

Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood is an upcoming Nintendo DS console role-playing game, based on the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise, developed by Canadian RPG developer BioWare which is now part of Electronic Arts. Due for release in 2008 in North America and Europe[3], the game focuses on the events surrounding the kidnapping of Knuckles, and the disappearance of the Chaos Emeralds.[4]

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/68/Chronicles.png

i've been playin star ocean 2 on tha ps1 lately, it's pretty solid. i tried to play kotor recently but i guess my disc is fucked up or something cuz i can't get past the first area or save w/o my xbox freezin up

Anybody else try Infinite Undiscovery? It's kind of a bummer. The game's not one-tenth as ridiculous as the name. Just a standard-issue JRPG with below average dialogue and voice-work.

Was thinking of picking up Baldurs Gate for the PC. I played the xbox version. Is the PC version worth getting if I've played the console version?

http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/baldurs_gate_the_original_saga

It's a totally different game iirc.

RINGS OF POWER is the best Sega RPG.

It is a totally different game.

Rings of Power kept me going for weeks, fantastic game.

thx

BG1 I never played; BG2 I have and is awesome and completely worth it.

SNES - Earthbound (Mother 2), Chrono Trigger, Super Mario RPG, Secret of Mana, Illusion of Gaia
N64 - Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Paper Mario
GameCube - Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker, Paper Mario 2: Thousand Year Door
Others - Mother (NES) Mother 3 (GBA, only English version a fan hack), Cave Story (Freeware)

7TH GENERATION:

nintendo wii: zelda? i guess?
xbox360: eternal sonata, oblivion, mass effect
ps3: demon's souls, valkyria chronicles

baldur's gate is awesome, one of the best rpgs. I actually think BG2 is better, but it's more fun to start with BG1 and then just keep going with the same character in BG2.

I've never even held a controller for any of those consoles xpost

Making my way through the baldur's gate and icewind dale games in coop mode with my roommate at the time is probably the most fun I've ever had playing rpgs or even video games really

Questions:

1. I have a terrible graphics card (126mb). Will I trouble with BG?
2. According to the link I posted, BG is compatible with VISTA but was released in 1999?! Did they upgrade it?

*Will I have

1. you should be fine as far as graphics are concerned
2. I guess either gog.com did some tweaking to get it to work with a modern os or no tweaking was required and it just works with vista. Either way, the game is gonna look exactly the same as it would have in 1999.

thnx!

the Ys remakes on PSP are great

lol/sigh at folding together sega cd and saturn

SEGA (8-bit)

phantasy star
ultima iv
---

man, that ultima iv conversion was fantastic. i had it as a kid, a parent bought it on sale somewhere and for some reason all the extra materials were in french. this was kind of a problem in terms of working out how all the spells worked and so forth. i never really got past that enough to actually get anywhere in terms of finishing the game: just wandered around finding people and putting stats up until it got to the point where the wandering monsters were too much to survive encounters with. i spent so much time playing it that eventually the contacts on the cart got dirty and random squares of the environments kept being replaced with menacing purple blobs

http://i109.photobucket.com/albums/n45/jamescostello/ultima4set.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIMT9otk-G0

man i feel like my snes picks would be soooooo challopsy compared to lamp's list

some deserving games that haven't been mentioned in this thread yet

SNES: Dragon Quest V
GCN: Baten Kaitos Origins
DS: Dragon Quest IX

can't believe jordan repped for sword of vermillion upthread! that game was awful

on the other hand i had it on some family chalet holiday with a megadrive and nothing to do, and no other games i hadn't played, and i was sick, flu-ey, headache and wanting to vomit all the time, so i can't think of playing it without thinking of playing it in a semi-trance state (it is a very repetitive game), half-conscious, nauseous

like looking at the screen shots made me feel, briefly, like i wanted to yak

the Ys remakes on PSP are great

yeah, I've been slowly playing through these and they are v. fun. definitely into the stripped-down feel of ys 1. (about 3 towns! just 5 pieces of armor!) basically a perfect diversion for a long plane ride.

first two games def have too much backtracking tho.

my SNES picks: earthbound, final fantasy 6, chrono trigger, lufia 2

talked a bit about lufia 2 in the retro thread. very streamlined mechanics for its time.

lol/sigh at folding together sega cd and saturn

yeah that was a total cheat.

http://dorando.emuverse.com/images/ys-ancient-ys-vanished-omen.jp3.png

i got in trouble with my big brother, because there was a bit at the back of the instruction booklet to 'write down hints and tips you obtained from the townspeople', and i had copied a bunch of random villager dialogue into these pages in terrible six-year-old cursive

ys was great!!

i feel like those last three posts were posted in reverse order

so dragon crystal (the fourth game shown in that youtube upthread (and the first i have not played (i have now watched that clip seven times (oh god)))) turns out to be a master system roguelike, which is making me glad i kept that sms emulator around once i got bored with phantasy star

I wouldn't claim to know much about any other platform but the Genesis/Mega Drive answer is Rings Of Power imo.

PC PC PC PC

Sorry for the trolling, just feeling a bit left out and don't understand why it has to be this way /sadface

Rings of Power gotta be top 3 Megadrive yeah. Wd try to make a case for Crusader of Centy aka Soleil too.

lol repeating myself every couple of years

Sword of Vermillion on the Megadrive was fantastic. Shining In The Darkness, too.

I have Phantasy Star II / III / IV and Shining Force / Shining Force 2 on a Megadrive collection for the Xbox 360. It's sad that i'll never get the chance to play them when i can't find the time to complete Dragon Age.

Hylics series looks fascinating
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yo8I1-kZ6U

Can't recall the last time I saw such a well developed look for a game.

that is nuts. wow.

hylics is cool, didnt know there was a 2 coming but i guess its out today?

yeah man that looks fucking sweet

v. interesting

reminds me of Undertale a little

Dread Delusion
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lH3M_lCZZWA

that is definitely an aesthetic

looks like a king's field tribute/spiritual successor. wonder if they'll keep the vintage control scheme