PixlBit

I’m aware that writing a countdown is a cheap and easy way to generate page hits and drum up popularity for your blog.  You don’t have to go through the effort of crafting a narrative, and errors in grammar or diction are less noticeable when digested in bite-sized snippets of opinions and description.  That having been said, let’s do more of the countdown!  This time I will be writing about the sad sacks from 110-101, those guys that couldn’t quite crack the seemingly important yet completely arbitrary TOP 100!  Haha, losers.  No, I'm kidding; don't feel bad for them.  They often possess many positive qualities, and are certainly sentimental favorites for many.  Without further ado…..

110) Wild Arms 4 (PS2)-  This was the one where X-Seed realized they weren’t going to compete with all the other traditional RPGs out there, and the only way they’d make any money was if they tried something radically different.  So, where 3 was your typical RPG with a (somewhat) unique, open, fantasy-western world featuring turn-based battles, 4 was pretty linear, and featured an out-of-leftfield hex-based battle system.  I’m not going to go into some meditation on why exploration is so important to the genre, but….. no really I’m not going to go into it.  But seriously, it’s pretty important.  Otherwise you are playing an action game with turn based battles and towns.  So, Wild Arms 4 tries to trim some of the “fat” that makes RPGs slow-moving affairs, and in the bargain they end up creating this strange hybrid, that while certainly playable, loses a bunch of the charm contained within third and first games.  Another strange aspect of 4 is the fact that there seems to be one music track that plays for a good chunk of the game.  It’s a good tune that I’ll link for you below, but it’s strange how often the designers used it.  I mean all the time- you are walking through a dungeon, there it is.  You leave that same dungeon and are on the world map, the music is still playing.  Click on the next location, a different place with vastly different aesthetics, and the music is still playing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiPxE3P2Qho

109) Grandia (PS1)-  This is one of those games that I feel like I don’t need to describe.  Here are some other games you might’ve enjoyed at some point in your life- Tales of Takeyourpick, Lunar or Lunar 2, Beyond the Beyond.  Okay, you probably didn’t enjoy all of those, but do those particular games evoke any images for you?  Big breasted anime chicks who play with the teen protagonists fragile emotions?  Grizzled 26 year old warrior with a mysterious past?  Some plucky kid with amnesia who wants to be a great knight some day?  That old shit?  Play Grandia if you want, I’m not going to stop you.  You’ll probably like it.  Grandia is an RPG; some people love it.  You might love it.

108) SaGa Frontier 2 (PS1)-  In my opinion, this is the best game in the SaGa series.  Even better than Unlimited Saga.  Hahaha, that was a joke- Unlimited Saga actually sucks!  You think you are more enlightened than the average gamer, and you think you are a pretty smart guy or girl.  You think that you can overlook Unlimited Saga’s many shortcomings and enjoy it on a level the other plebes couldn’t quite grasp.  You are wrong, you will hate it.  But back to SaGa 2, and why it is the best game in the series.  A) The rest of the series are not very good video games, despite their lofty pretensions.  B) SaGa 2 isn’t half bad independent of its namesake series, but is great compared to its namesake series.  For one thing, 2 is a more focused game than any other in the series, consisting of only two narratives that run parallel to each other.  You have freedom to jump between the narratives whenever you wish, meaning that you could technically beat one of the scenarios before attempting to tackle the other.  This, however, is not the easiest or best way to play the game, as working on both concurrently yields greater in-game rewards, as well as a more satisfying unveiling of the story.  The graphics are interesting watercolor drawings that give the game a storybook feel, and the music perfectly suits the atmosphere.  Overall, this is the one game of the bunch that I wouldn’t feel guilty for recommending.

107) Final Fantasy VIII (PS1)-  Triple Triad was my favorite part of this game.  Sometimes I go on Ebay, and I look to see if there are any decks of cards on sale for cheap.  There never are.  Final Fantasy VIII is a very weird game.  It was trying so hard to be different than FFVII that it ended up losing a lot of what makes an RPG so appealing.  The magic system, for one thing.  As I’m sure you know, you “draw” magic from various points or enemies, and then use them until depleted.  This is nothing but a glorified item system, as you cast magic until you’ve exhausted your inventory of spells.  There is some strategy involved in knowing at what point you should waste your magic, but the whole thing seems unnecessarily constrained.  FFVIII was one of the first console JRPGs I ever played where the enemies gained levels with your party, and thus it was easy to level yourself into a situation where monsters could kick the ever-living shit out of you.  It may add a bit of strategy to what was otherwise typical RPG-fare, but for me it just seemed strange and off-putting.  This is the sort of game that thinks giving a character the quirk of “really liking hotdogs” is the same as giving that character a personality.  Squall, the mainest of the characters, is a whiny emo kid that is a relic of his time.  And really, does anyone miss the nineties?  Seriously, do you know anybody who is still into nineties music?  And did you see how they dressed back then?  Look, it’s a testament to the series that even when I believe Square lays an egg, it still ends up as one of the top 110 RPGs of all time.  But not top 100.

And then this shit happens for some reason.

106) Secret of Mana 2 (SNES)-  I want you guys to like me, but I have a secret.  I didn’t love Secret of Mana.  There, I’ve said it, and I feel liberated for having done so.  I recognized it as a quality title, and back in the day I played it through to completion rather quickly.  Actually, I rented it from Blockbuster Video, and then returned it immediately because I knew I wanted to own it, and I didn’t want to waste time on a character that I wouldn’t play to completion.  So I liked it enough to plop $60 on it, but remember that back then, quality RPGs were few and far between.  I used to make lists during class of which games I was going to play in the future, and how long I thought they’d last me.  Invariably I’d end up having to play games I’d already beaten, simply because there just wasn’t anything out there that was new.  So I bought Mana, and I enjoyed it well enough.  But I didn’t think it was the groundbreaking title that….. oh, this blurb is supposed to be for Secret of Mana 2, the Japanese-only sequel?  Oh, I must not have much to say about it.  It’s a weird game.  There are multiple characters to play, and each has an intertwining story that culminates in everybody fighting the big evil guy at the end.  Other than that, it’s more of Secret of Mana, which would certainly make some of you happy.  I didn’t finish this game, as I got tired with the lack of clear goals and how I would get my ass kicked by random enemies, and because I forgot to save every fucking second I had to redo lots of minutes of gameplay and how the environments, while colorful and pretty, dominated the screen to the point where I often wouldn’t know where my character could walk.  I plan on replaying it this Summer to see if it’s as good as many of the reviews say.  But until then……

105) Shadow Hearts (PS1)-  A very strange, very underrated series for the Playstation.  Really, these titles deserve more attention.  They take place in some alternate-history earth that is all steampunk and filled with demons and vampires and crazy wrestlers and talking dolls and the like.  You face some of history’s great villains as you travel from Japan to Paris to America (throughout the series, that is, not all in one game) and London and back.  The series, starting here, does not take itself very seriously, and the dialogue is often humorous as well as informative.  The game sets a nice atmosphere that is only bolstered by its interesting new gameplay mechanic.  As far as I can tell, this is the first (and only?) series to feature the action ring, whereby every time an important task is attempted, a spinner rotates around a wheel and needs to be stopped within a small area.  The ring appears every time you attack or cast a spell at an enemy, every time you attempt to gain a discount at a shop, and even every time you use an item.  If you are successful in stopping the spinner at the right time, you can gain healing bonuses or inflict extra damage; unfortunately, if you do not properly stop the spinner, you are penalized by either losing a turn or paying in excess of an item’s price.  This adds an engaging component to turn based battles, and makes a simple trip to the item shop a heart-pounding affair.  You can customize the rings for each of your characters, slowing the spinner, or increasing the “safe” area in which it can land.  The game features a lot of strategy; tradeoffs where you fix the ring to specifications that make it easier for you to succeed.  There’s a lot more I can say about the series, and I will when I get to the better games that come next.  This one is a bit short and unrefined, and for those reasons, it doesn’t quite crack the top 100.  Oh, almost forgot- it's got one of my top fifty all-time game music tracks.  See below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hmp0SCpjnLs

104) Pokemon Silver/Gold (Gameboy)-   See 103.

103) Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire (Gameboy Advance)-   See 104.

102) Willow (NES)-  For starters, this one is a NES-era game from Capcom, so you know it'll be pleasant to look at and pleasant to listen to.  It's a Zelda-style action game with a levelling system, lots of loot to find, spells to cast, slimes to kill and the such.  It's one of those games that is quite fun- my brothers and I pop in the cartridge every year or so and blow through it in a few hours.  The controls can be a bit stiff and sometimes you are left without much idea where to go next, but those are inherent in most RPGs of the time, so I don't dock it too many points for the transgression.  And it's more accessible than many of those grindy, slower-paced games from the 80s/early 90s, so RPG historians should give this one a shot!

Just like in the movie.....

101) Elder Scrolls: Oblivion (Xbox 360/PS3)-  And for the PC as well, I’m sure, but whatever.  I don't dislike western RPGs, but I'd always rather play a story-heavy, character-driven JRPG.  Oblivion was vast and engaging, with a large world to explore and a lot of loot and earned skills to scratch my grinding itch.  I can't remember a damn thing about the story, and that is often the case with games where your protagonist is a cypher, and most NPCs look the same and spout a novel's worth of dialogue.  Let me be clear- I enjoyed my time with Oblivion, but it didn't exactly grab me.  It's absolutely worth playing, but you probably know that it's been rendered completely obsolete by its follow up, Skyrim.  More about this kind of game later.....

And that's that for now.  I'm in the process of a move, so I don't have time to post as frequently as in the past.  Hopefully that will change next week.  Enjoy!