I’m doing this again? Yeah. I really didn’t like Final Fantasy 8. After being unable to come up with an idea of what I thought the best RPG on the Playstation was in my last entry I looked through some of my games for ideas. It turns out that most of the games I liked the most on the playstation were SRPGs. I’d say the best game Square put out on the PS was Final Fantasy Tactics, at least going by the games I have. I never did finish 8 or 9 or any of the Shin Megami Tensei games.

Anyway I feel like it was a disgrace to have let Suikoden 2 slip my mind. I didn’t play that far into 5, but definitely out of the other 4 games 2 was hands down the best and I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s better than 5 also. I thought 3 was better than a lot of people made it out to be, but comparatively 2 was still better. 4 really wasn’t any good gameplay or story wise (did it actually have a story? something about cannon balls made from a magic tree I think….) although it did still have a fair amount of character in some of the character interactions and things you could come upon in your base. The whole confession thing for instance, I was enraptured by that.

So according to me Suikoden 2 was the best original playstation RPG I’ve played. I put the distinction of original in there sine  Chrono Trigger did get a remake on the system after all. I’m actually mildly surprised they didn’t remake CT for the GBA along with FF 1-6 (did they skip 3 on the gba?) . I was thinking that it would be a fair candidate for a revamp on the DS but if they were going to go to those lengths I think most fans would rather just see a new entry into the series. That quite possibly may never happen since japanese video games are after all about business (even more than they’re about money) rather than fan satisfaction.

Was Chrono Cross a disappointment? Absolutely. But it wasn’t a bad game, it just failed at trying to be Suikoden. And to be fair Suikoden 4 showed that even Suikoden games can fail at being Suikoden (wtf). It was still a pretty interesting game, much more cerebral than Chrono Trigger. It’s been quite some time since I played that game though, at least 5 years if not the 7 since it first came out.

Well fuck that. Star Ocean 2 and Valkyrie Profile were interesting prospects in my collection as well, but both those series are filled with too much crap.

Chrono Trigger was not even close to being the first casual RPG, but it probably still stands as the most successful one. Unless you want to call FFX casual maybe. Anyway the game is easy, it’s filled with side-quests but they’re pretty easy to find without much work (the only one I missed originally was the Toma/Rainbow Shell business), and it doesn’t take all that long to beat it and get the multiple endings. Which leads to it being by far the most re-playable RPG that I’ve ever played. In other words even though it’s casual it’s still otaku but it isn’t really hard core. The Xenosaga and Star Ocean franchises are pretty hardcore by way of comparison. The battle trophies in SO3 certainly made my life a living hell.

None of this matters of course, of course?