[Rubicant]

Hi guys,

been ages since my last post...

Anway - I got a question and I am pretty sure you can help me with this.
I just got my hands on a brand new playstation 2.
Now the real expensive part starts - the games.
To avoid lots of wasted time and cash I want to ask what games you'd recommend.

The genre I am looking for are RPGs (or SRPGs) strongly focused on Story.

So far I got
--------------------
Arc: Twillight of the Spirits (which has storywise been mediocre so far)
Front Mission 4 (looks promising)
Star Oceans (REALLY good)
Summoner 2 (not so great)
Jade Cocoon 2 (too child-oriented)
Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne (nice and more adult-oriented which is a plus)
Disgaea (weird...)
Phantom Brave (weird as well)

Apart from the obvious (I already ordered FFX and X-2), what can you recommend?
I don't mind pink-colored flying cats that can talk,
but generally a "serious" game appeals more to me.
I currently consider the ps2 installments of
Wild Arms, Suikoden, Grandia, the Saga Series, Breath of Fire, but sure there is more out there?


Cheers

Varlis

 

[Techie]

try ebay for games for the ps2, sometimes u can get a real good bargin, eg, i paid £3.50 + £1.25 for postage, for ff x

 

[Exodus]

wild arms and the suikodens are good choices. unlimited saga isn't too impressive. grandia xtreme and breath of fire dragon quarter aren't very heavy on story (grandia xtreme barely has one).

for regular rpgs, i strongly recommend shadow hearts 1 + 2, and xenosaga 1+2 for the epitome of story driven rpgs. legaia 2: duel saga isn't half bad either. and if you like shin megami tensei nocturne, there's digital devil saga from the same series.

thats about all that come to mind. the rest are probably mediocre at best.

 

[Vanit]

Like Exodus said, if you want stories, Xenosaga is definitely the way to go.

 

[Khelben]

I'd recommend you Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga which is IMO better than Nocturne and if you like 2D graphics - Atelier Iris: Eternal Mana as well as Shining Tears. I didn't find Grandia Extreme too good so I agree with Exodus here. I played it for about half an hour and found it quite poor... First part was decent, second good but Extreme isn't good at all. Also Xenosaga is a must for a Xenogears lover, otherwise you might find it too overloaded with cutscenes and dialogues. There's also an interesting tactical RPG entitled Stella Deus, you could try it too. BoF5 IMO doesn't even stand a chance with great 2 and 3 parts of the series. It is a big unfortunate that PS2 has so less to offer in jRPG's matter than PSX ever had...

 

[Rhombus]

It seems alot of RPG's of this generation have shifted towards having more depth of system and gameplay,but the stories pretty cliched. For example, pretty much all of the Atlus and Nippon Ichi ones have many many possible hours of gameplay (Atelier Iris, Makai Kingdom, Disgaea, Phantom Brave, La Pucelle, Stella Deus, etc.) but are pretty ho-hum in the story departments. There's also been a strong shift towards action as well... so there's a ton of also, fairly simple and/or cliched story action RPG's (Dark Cloud 1&2, BG Dark Alliance 1&2, etc.). I love a ton of RPG's of this gen, including most of the games listed, but it seems like after the massive amounts of epic RPG's on the SNES and the PSX, they've shifted towards having more engaging systems, and less on story (probably since so much has already been done before).

As others have mentioned, the Xenosaga games (1-2, 3 probably coming eventually) are pretty much nothing but story. The Shadow Hearts games (1-2, 3 coming fairly soon) get my top recommendation, as they are definitely my favorite PS2 RPG's. Star Ocean 3 also is pretty good story-wise, but it's an action RPG. I also highly recommend Suikoden 3, one of the best RPG's of the generation, though pretty rare and hard to come by, but stay away from Suikoden 4, it's pretty crappy. If Tales of Symphonia ever makes it to the PS2 in English, I recommend that, having enjoyed it thorougly on the GameCube. The Summoner games have their flaws, but they have a very rich game world, with excellent writing and a unique story.

 

[Exodus]

one of my favourite things about summoner 1 and 2 is that they're not japanese. that and the voice acting is top-notch. but they still had their flaws in gameplay, story was fine however.

 

[didamangi]

Shadow Hearts 1 and 2 gets my vote, 2 of the best RPG the current consoles can offer

 

[Rubicant]

Hey,
thanks a lot for the advice!

I have to agree with you guys - the focus seems to be more on innovative gameplay, minigames and stuff than on a deep, well-written story.
Pretty sad.

But I'll definetely take a look at Xenosaga and Shadow Hearts.

What is Stella Deus like? Similar to Final Fantasy Tactics?

BTW: Does anyone know if the Langrisser 3 remake will have an english release?