RPG Rambles

I’ve been playing a lot of videogames during the break(s) from work over the past couple of weeks. I started Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core a little while back, as well as Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep, and PSP emulation works pretty well on the laptop, so that’s been fun. But I’ve hit kind of a brick wall on the former, and just haven’t revisited the latter yet. I’ve mentioned this recently on Mastodon, but honestly, I keep coming back to the notion that the Super Nintendo is probably my favorite system of all time. NES is a close second, but I’ve had trouble reconnecting with the NES; it is difficult to get invested in those games any more, but a SNES game I can really dive into. Zelda and Zelda II are notable exceptions, as they’re really quite rich. But NES RPGs are somewhat inscrutable and inaccessible to me; I’ve tried quite a few of them and they just aren’t entirely my thing. I would much rather play the Origins port of Final Fantasy than the original, and I really couldn’t get into II (Japanese), and III was also really just not my thing.

Speaking of Final Fantasy, IV was my first introduction to the series and I can’t overstate my love for it. I remember renting it and digging into it a bit, but of course, whenever you rent a game, you can’t really fully invest in it. Unless it’s a one-off platformer or something you can beat in a night, it’s better to buy the game. I remember a lot of my friends loved it too and we’d swap tips and discuss it here and there. But I always felt like I connected with it (and videogames) in a deeper way that others didn’t really understand. I’ve met very few people who share my appreciation for videogames, but maybe I could be misinterpreting. In any case, I tried to buy it on eBay (mind you, ’90s eBay was a real disaster trying to buy things, and I was a kid, too, so I needed my parents’ help), but ultimately found a copy for $50 or $60 at a local game store. I got a copy of Final Fantasy VI at the same game store, not in great condition (it was missing the label and just had a masking-tape label, ugh). But yeah, I played the shit out of FFIV and I remember sinking about 48hrs into the game to get everyone to level 99, that was wild. Imagine that, 48hrs being a long time for a game! My sister said she sunk 100+ hours into FFVII and was still working on finishing it. Amazing how much playtime those old games would provide; most of it now is padded out with sidequests and DLC and all of that. Just different.

So yeah, FFIV was my gateway to RPGs, alongside Zelda and Zelda II, so it will always have a special place in my heart. I have a savefile going now at Cave Magnes and haven’t picked it up for awhile, mostly because I have too many other games that are as yet unplayed.

I managed to get Nintendo 64 emulation working, too. I was previously using Mupen64plus and I really had trouble getting it to work with my N64 USB controllers, which was real frustrating, and its interface, though modular (thumbs up!), is infuriating. I found a cool fork of Mupen called simple64. They provide Flatpak packages, which is not my favorite thing in the world, but oh well. Was playing some GoldenEye earlier today (little choppy on my laptop, ugh), and also tried Paper Mario for the first time! It is lovely and kind of an action RPG, unlike its sequel Super Paper Mario on the Wii, which is also nice but more of a platformer. Will be playing more of that, and I’m checking out other titles I may have missed on the 64 when I owned one.

“But you titled this RPG Rambles! What about the RPGs?” The RPG in question that I’ve been enjoying lately is Mahou Kishi Rayearth, or Magic Knight Rayearth in English. It’s one of the earlier JRPGs that was fan-translated for the SNES. I never saw the anime, but I’ve heard of it, and no, it’s not necessary to appreciate the game. Typical story of heroes sucked into another world and tasked with saving it (see Choumahou Tairiku Wozz, “The Magical World of Wozz,” an RPG with similar sensibilities and setting, definitely one of my favorites), but it’s really quite fun. It’s cute, it’s colorful, battles are interesting, magic spells are cool, and leveling is a snap. Apparently people say it’s “too easy,” but honestly, who cares? It’s fun. You’re going around and trying to wake up the Rune Gods (also very standard for RPGs, find the mystical artifacts/things/monsters/helpers) and fighting the ultimate bad guy, all while he sends ridiculous henchpeople after you. I’m about halfway or so through the game and immensely enjoying it. It’s very linear, which is fine (I like sidequests, but yeah), and just enjoyable. I highly recommend playing it if you get a chance. Check out the ROMHacking project page here.

I’ve found a number of PSX RPGs lately, fan-translated or localized, that have also been of interest. I’d like to revisit Valkyrie Profile, but I confess I have a ton of FOMO with that game, since apparently you can only visit locations a certain number of times. So I’ll be using a FAQ for it, and I enjoyed what I played of it previously. I’d also like to play Final Fantasy IX (and X, maybe X-2) in earnest; I owned IX for years but never played it on the console itself. I think my sister played through it. PoPoLoCrois Monogatari seems like a cool game and I’ll be interested to get to that translation eventually. Hell I’d also like to give Vagrant Story another whirl; Square Enix may kinda suck these days, but back in the day, both Square and Enix were fabulous companies. Wild ARMs 2 is another one I never played and would definitely like to check out, since I loved the original. There are a number of PS2 games as well that I’d like to play; Ephemeral Fantasia is one I used to own but never really got into, and it apparently has a Majora’s Mask-style timeloop going on (Majora’s Mask and Ocarina of Time are also in the queue!). Radiata Stories, Odin Sphere, Suikoden III-V (I loved I & II!) are also in the queue. And I would really like to give Shadow of the Colossus another shot, and also check out Ico.

There are also quite a few Wii RPGs I missed out on. Xenoblade Chronicles was my favorite that I did play (I love the Xeno series in general, Xenogears and the Xenosaga games of course are a must). Another game I’ve played a bit of, but not a ton, is Game Boy Advance’s Magical Vacation. It’s actually very cute and fun, with a semi-modern setting, and I’d like to get back to that soon. Of course EarthBound and EarthBound Zero / Mother are also excellent and I need to devote more time to them at some point. Too many RPGs, too little time! I hear Mother 3 is also excellent but of course I haven’t tried it yet (I am kind of a completist at times). If you’d like a nice modern turn-based RPG, with a killer story, I’d highly recommend G.O.D. (Grow or Devolution); find its English translation patch here. It’s got one of the saddest stories I’ve ever seen in an RPG, but it’s really great and entirely worth playing. I’ve written about it (and many of these others) in my retro videogames post, so please feel free to check that out. Honestly I need to update that post with all of the new stuff I’ve gotten!

I don’t know where I was going with all of this. I have just been enjoying retro videogames lately (and newer ones like Stray and TUNIC!), and wanted to share the love with y’all.

Please feel free to reach out and let me know if you have any recommendations, I am all ears! Otherwise, until next time, friends.