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[I Am Not Amused]

Specifically:

Grandia III

Radiata Stories

Romancing Saga

and Star Ocean: Till the End of Time



Anyone play any/all of these games. If so, which (if any) are worth purchasing or renting? Thanks much!

P.S. If anyone tells me to go to a review site, I will tell them that I prefer feedback from normal players as opposed to reviewers who most of the time have their heads up their collective asses.

[The Cosmic Fool]

I've never played any, however I have heard that Star Ocean and Grandia are really, really, really good. Star Ocean is suppose to be long as hell, which in an RPG's case is usually a positive things. Spanning four disks, I believe.

Don't entirely discredit reviews. Some are biased and some are not. I prefer to read the ones that give the pros and cons. That way it's just a process of outweighing one another.

[Shale]

Grandia III: I haven't played it yet, but I know Grandia. The story will suck, and the characters will probably be kind of cool but not enough to carry the game, and the battle system will be incredibly awesome but most of the fights will be easy enough that you don't need to use everything the system lets you do. Like I said, I haven't played it, but that's been exactly how the first three games went, and from all I've heard G3 is no different.

Star Ocean: It's pretty long (I've put in 70 hours and still haven't finished the extra stuff), and it's mostly love-it-or-hate-it material. The story is different from the norm, but also includes a really ridiculous plot twist that nearly turned me off to the game, and the first half is pretty cliche. The battle system is...different, unless you played the PSX Star Ocean. It's real-time, and you have full control of one member of your party, while the others have (often remarkably stupid) AI. It's pretty action-based, and generally involves chaining a bunch of moves together with the character you control while trying like made to keep everybody healed (since the AI doesn't like to do that for you).

[Storm Rider]

I haven't played Grandia yet. According to most reports, the story is really dumb, but the battle system is good.

Star Ocean is only 2 disks, but it's still long as all fuck. I never finished it, it ended up boring me. But if you can get it for a reasonable price, it's not a bad choice.

[lb969]

Star Ocean TtEoT was suprizingly good.

Its Final Fantasy-ish with a bit of Kindom Hearts, and ChronoCross thrown in.

But it is long. Even following the Prima guide, it took 50+ hours to beat the game.

[I Am Not Amused]

For reference's sake, I have played Star Ocean: The Second Saga for PSX. I owned it at one point, loved it, loaned it to a friend and never got it back. I am forever kicking myself because it was SUCH a fucking amazing game. If Till the End of Time is similar, then, most likely, I shall purchase it.


Grandia III, given that I really like storyline stuff, will probably get kicked off the list (or maybe just given a rental opportunity).


Anyone played the other two? Radiata Stories and Romancing Saga?

[Shale]

You'll probably like Star Ocean, then. The characers are weaker than in SO2 (There's nobody who can match up to Ashton or Chisato for humor, especially), and the skill system is gone, but the story and battle system are much improved. Plus it's cheap.

[Scandanavian War Machine]

i haven't played it yet but i heard good things about Radiata Stories. dunno about Romancing Saga though.

[IronOxide]

I have Star Ocean, and it's good. I'm stuck on one thing that is all but impossible to figure out though. I may end up breaking my vow and using a walkthrough on the first time through. A year is long enough.

[Rubby]

Star Ocean TtEoT is great. The only problem I have with it is all the back tracking. I like to go to new places and meet new people (NPC's) but most of the game is going back to places you've already been. But dont let that discourage you, if you a fan of SquareSoft, you should get this for sure.

[I Am Not Amused]

Bought SO:TtEoT. Only a few hours into the game and I already like it. I almost completley forgot about the whole cooking and alchemy and super advanced skills stuff from The Second Story for PSX! Oh, man, I cannot freaking wait. Also, if anyone has TSS that they want to sell cheap, please contact me NOW> I want that game so bad.

[The Mighty Mopdecai]

I really liked Grandia II I played it on the dreamcast. Which was supposely the better version. then PS2 I don't about III it will probably be quite enjoyable rent it out.

[Narr]

Specifically:

Grandia III

Radiata Stories

Romancing Saga

and Star Ocean: Till the End of Time



Anyone play any/all of these games. If so, which (if any) are worth purchasing or renting? Thanks much!

P.S. If anyone tells me to go to a review site, I will tell them that I prefer feedback from normal players as opposed to reviewers who most of the time have their heads up their collective asses.

Grandia 3:  A good friend of mine said he couldn't stop playing for the first 6 hours.  Then he got to the second disc, and was so burnt out on the game going soley by the gameplay and not story, he's having a hard time finishing the game.

Radiata Stories:  Honestly, I don't know.  I worked in a video game store last holiday season and didn't hear a word about it.  I did look through a strategy guide and found out Lenneth Valkyrie, the main character of Valkyrie Profile, was a secret character and Lezard Valeth, one of the main enemies in the same game, was a secret boss, and almost picked it up for that alone.

Romancing SaGa:  It's a SaGa game.  Avoid it like the plague.

Star Ocean:  I hated it with a passion, because I went into it thinking it was, you know, going to be FUN like Star Ocean for the PS1 was.  I was horridly dissapointed.  The fighting system is so convoluted and grotesque.  Maybe it's because I was playing the vastly superior Tales of Symphonia at the time.  If you've got a gameCube or can import the Japanese version, get ToS.  Trust me, it's worth it.

AND!  I would like to mention the best game that Squeenix has made in about 6 years, you didn't mention, that being Dragon Quest 8.  I don't know a single person that played it, that liked more traditional RPGs in the past, that didn't enjoy it.

To be completely honest, I haven't been a fan of Square since the SNES days.  The only things they made post SNES that I enjoyed were Final Fantasy Tactics (which is one of my favorite games ever, I'll admit), Valkyrie Profile (or was that an Enix title?  Doesn't make much difference now, I suppose), and Final Fantasy 9.  After they made Final Fantasy 7, which was trash in my exceedingly unhumble opinion, they've been corporatized, making games entirely formulaic, not putting any effort into them, just going for the bottom dollar instead of making something that's genuinely enjoyable.

[Merkava]

Radiata Stories is a refreshing, fun experience. You may have some fun with that one.

Grandia III has one of the best battle systems ever, but everything else sucks. The story is annoying and cheesey and there's not motivation to do anything. There are some moments, but the whole thing ends up being mediocre. This is a shame, since the first two games are classics. Pick them up. I highly recommend them.

Star Ocean 3 was pretty good. There were only two things that annoyed me about the game. One was the fact that you were stuck on the medieval planet for most of the game, leaving the visits to the other places feeling kinda rushed and underdeveloped. The other thing was that plot twist. Still, I enjoyed the game immensley. It's so fun and it's pretty darn well-made.

Also, FFVII trash? Sorry, but I can't see where you get that. FFVI was trash. Sorry, but at least FFVII's plot didn't fall apart half-way through and have a villian that had no development or motivation. Also, FFVII is revolutionary to the industry. It's a classic. But I don't want to start an FF fight, so I'll just bow out of that part of the conversation now. I think we can all agree that DQVIII is the best thing to come out of SE in a long while. That game kicked so much ass.