Welcome Thread!

[Bejeweled City Ruin]

I realize that it's not likely to be a common opinion, since it does rely on the very specific combination of my personal preferences.

When it comes to fantasy worlds, I'm really not terribly interested in the construction of coherent and cohesive 'believable' worlds, though I do think that's an impressive achievement. I'm much more interested in them as a series of evocations of senses and feelings - I'm more interested in them as almost an invocation of the 'spiritual' sense, as vehicles for the sense of the uncanny, of otherworldliness, of fantasy. So, I'm not that interested in whether a world is complex and detailed, or feels 'real', in-and-of itself. Likewise, I'm not really that interested in whether it has a deep 'lore' (and I hate that term) - though, again, it doesn't bother me if it does, provided it's done well (Legend of Mana, for example, provides almost all of that for the Mana series, and as my name here being derived from the title of a song - the best song - on the LoM soundtrack might suggest, I love that game and consider it an absolute personal favorite).

But I just don't like that kind of sci-fi-ized fantasy that became ubiquitous in JRPGs at the time, which the massive success of FFVII obviously encouraged - yet I do like more 'pure' science fantasy (Panzer Dragoon Saga is one of absolute top-5-on-any-list favorite games). Moreover, although Japanese games have always been heavily influenced by anime in the same way that Western games have always been heavily influenced by Hollywood, VII was really the point in which the series began to really feel like a shonen anime. Which I'm just not a fan of.

It was an immediately visceral reaction, too, actually going back to that incredibly misleading commercial for the game. Having been introduced to the series by IV, which at the time instantly became my favorite game, and possibly loving VI even more (I went and go back and forth on which I like more - I think VI is indisputably a better game, but IV has a kind of singular quality, and nostalgia, that appeals to me, but then VI has more emotional resonance and a fascinating world of its own...), Final Fantasy was the greatest game series in the world to me in 1997. And I had such an immediate dislike to the feel of VII that it was so disappointing to me that I've basically been incapable of ever being disappointed with a game like that again. It kind of broke me. Which is actually good.

And for a system that's famous for being a failure, the Saturn has far too many great games. I love the whole Panzer Dragoon series, despite Saga being the only one that's "my kind of game", and NiGHTs into Dreams is probably my favorite arcade-like game of all time. I will also defend the Saturn's 3D capabilities. Because everyone 'knows' the Saturn was bad at 3D, people convince themselves that games like Burning Rangers and Panzer Dragoon Saga somehow look worse than imaginary PS ports of themselves. But the Saturn was just as good at 3D as the PS, if the developer was able to make use of the hardware to its fullest. Unfortunately, yet also unsurprisingly, only Sega ever really did.

I need to learn how to make short posts about things like this.

[toei]

I have to ask you, since you've been talking about settings and science fantasy - how do you feel about Phantasy Star (pre-Online)? It's more space opera, maybe, and granted, a big part of why I love its setting is that it is so developed and detailed, down to the creation of its inhabitants and with an history spanning thousands of years, but it's also unique, with intelligent non-human species like the Motavians and Dezorians that aren't derived from generic anime.

About FF, I find that IX, particularly in its first disc, did a good job at bringing back that sense of earnest wonder. I liked the grimy future of FFVII a lot; my biggest issues were that it becomes a lot more generic after that, both narratively and in terms of setting.

[Bejeweled City Ruin]

I haven't really played Phantasy Star enough to have a valid opinion. But from the immediate sort of response, they don't bother me in that same way. They're more space opera and don't have that viscerally off feeling to me that the late-90s and on Fantasy/Sci-Fi hybrid species of JRPG (like Final Fantasy or, say, the later Breath of Fire series) do. But I've never been that driven to get into them since Sci-Fi doesn't much interest me. I still should play them.

IX is actually the last Final Fantasy I cared about, but then it was a deliberate attempt to return the series to its roots. That was destined to be a short-lived return, though. It's long since become a completely different series, and that's absolutely fine. I'm pretty sure any company catering to my tastes would go broke very quickly.

[Snake]

I never thought of Sega Saturn as being inferior in 3-D to Playstation. Though it was my understanding that the system was more difficult to program and produce games for. I haven't played Grandia on Sega Saturn, but I was always under the impression that it was the superior version.

Pity we haven't had a proper follow-up to Secret of Mana/Legend of Mana. One thing that I really miss from that period was the watercolor aesthetic that also worked fantastically in Saga Frontier 2. Speaking of which, Saga Frontier 2 did a good job of building a story around a family's generational relevance. Even though Phantasy Star 3 did it before Saga Frontier 2, and offered multiple endings, it was missing some personality where you would actually care more about the characters.

[Bejeweled City Ruin]

Right. The Saturn was overly complicated but it had similar or even theoretically slightly superior capabilities to the Playstation - if the developer could figure out how to work with it. Yet I can't tell you how many times I've seen people claim it was inherently worse at 3D or even 'incapable' of it (which is just bizarre).

I absolutely, utterly, wholeheartedly agree about the visuals in Legend of Mana and SaGa Frontier 2! In my opinion they are and I think always will be two of the most beautiful looking games ever made (most of my personal list of 'most beautiful' games are 2D I think). Very much a testament to how the visual beauty of a game is about art direction more than technical prowess.

[xolta]

Howdy I read the hard core gaming site every so often. Mostly I play pc and nintendo games, if any wants to play smash then i can give you my switch code. So yeah.

[halftheisland]

Hey all, quick introduction. Been gaming for as long as I can remember, but over the last few years I seem to have dropped out of it a bit as a hobby. Trying to get back in to it and always enjoyed reading HG101 so this seems a good place to be to chat with people who are also interested.

Main system is PC, but I also have a 2DS and a PS4, and as far as retrogaming my main interest is with the Sega Mega Drive / Genesis.

[toei]

Jun 16, 2019 10:37:59 GMT -5 halftheisland said:

Hey all, quick introduction. Been gaming for as long as I can remember, but over the last few years I seem to have dropped out of it a bit as a hobby. Trying to get back in to it and always enjoyed reading HG101 so this seems a good place to be to chat with people who are also interested.

Main system is PC, but I also have a 2DS and a PS4, and as far as retrogaming my main interest is with the Sega Mega Drive / Genesis.

Welcome to the forum! Nice to see another Genesis fan.

[windfisch]

Jun 16, 2019 10:37:59 GMT -5 halftheisland said:

Hey all, quick introduction. Been gaming for as long as I can remember, but over the last few years I seem to have dropped out of it a bit as a hobby. Trying to get back in to it and always enjoyed reading HG101 so this seems a good place to be to chat with people who are also interested.

Main system is PC, but I also have a 2DS and a PS4, and as far as retrogaming my main interest is with the Sega Mega Drive / Genesis.

Welcome!