Hoping to make your life's design a bit more dynamic!

I will miss his good side as well. He was very helpful on some of our projects in catching things here and there. And I appreciated what he did on those projects, as well as the positive and productive posts he made to our forums in all areas. So thank you Master_Chan for what you've done for us. And I hope you eventually understand why we had to do what we did and we can have you back contributing to a fun and positive atmosphere.

Secret of the Stars 2-party system could have been a neat idea if it was better utilized throughout the game.
However, most of the time, the secondary party was only useful for gathering extra treasures. Even then, it was pretty much junk that wasn't worth the effort, except for one that had a Moon Drop inside (the extremely rare full MP recovery item). All plot scenes had to be accessed by the main party, and of course all boss fights were behind barriers only the main party was allowed to cross.
But suddenly in the final leg of the game, they give you four mini-dungeons that only that second party can enter, to get some key items. Then in the last dungeon, you need both parties because each can only unlock one color barrier.

I don't think Evermore was all that bad, it just wasn't the Mana game people wanted it to be. Certainly in the translation scene we've seen much worse games that were clearly passed over for quality reasons.

I personally couldn't stand to play Lord of the Rings for SNES for very long. Awful, tiny graphics (that would've been okay on Genesis, but I'd have expected more out of the SNES graphics capabilities ). Off-centered hit detection that made combat frustrating. Passwords (they should've banned in RPGs by the SNES era ). The only apparent way to heal characters besides items was to get a game over. (they also lied when they said it was the first multiplayer RPG. It came out after Secret of Mana, Yaiba (I think it's RPG, maybe just action, but haven't played it much), if not more Japanese games I can't remember. But that's a minor point.)

Lagoon. I'm probably not the only one who thinks the soundtrack was the only good thing about it.

I tried playing Ys for NES. It's like the game was designed for you to save-spam. I got as far as the dark cave with almost no visibility. If an enemy sneaks up on you, it can drain your entire HP in less than a second. Nice game otherwise, but that cheap difficulty really kills it. Not sure if the other versions were any kinder.

I'd agree with you there. In fact, I'd probably rate one I personally worked on at about the same level. That being Villgust. Villgust would have eaten any localizers lunch and put them out of business had it been brought over here.

However, I would say that Villgust beat Evermore in the one key area that matters, story. Villgust was a fun game to localize because it had a fun little story with interesting characters. Was it a great epic story, definitely not, but it was a fun quarky story, and sometimes fun stories can be as memorable and entertaining as epic ones. It was just too bad the graphics (and at times gameplay) probably turned too many people off to find the fun story.

But this really shouldn't be a Villgust advertisement post, sorry about that

I would actually say the same thing about Koudelka.

Koudelka had an epic story, but probably 90% of the people who picked it up never found out how grand a story it had simply because the gameplay mechanics in battle were beyond bad. That battle system was probably one of the top 10 most horrible of all time. And it ruined much of the fun for a lot of people of the games grand story. And it is also the reason most people never realize that Koudelka is part of the Shadow Hearts series (even though Koudelka is actually in Shadow hearts I) and unlike Shadow Hearts III is also a directly related game to the series. Shadow Hearts III was the one that shouldn't have been named Shadow Hearts and not Koudelka.

Oh, It's quite upsetting knowing what's happened here, and I can't help but feel partly responsible because I created this topic.

Ah, and I had a go at Secret of the Stars a few months back as - for some reason - it really appealed to me, but I just couldn't get into it. I enjoyed the music though, and the battle system was quite pretty at times.

I can't get into Villgust either, which is a shame... There's just something about it which makes me want to play something else instead. It had a really interesting opening though.

Haha! Yeah, Lunar Dragon Song was terrible! I can't believe I spent money on it.

Nah, Zetshiro, it's all good with you. Eveyone is responsible for his or her own behavior. Thanks for coming up with this excellent topic of discussion. Another RPG that I plowed through all the way but didn't enjoy that much was called Ghost Lion, for the NES.

Zetshiro: No worries bud, it didn't start here, it just finished here. Sorry it wound up taking over your thread which was very appropriate. Thanks for making it.

Hmm I can't say for sure which my least favorite is, but Phantasy Star 3 tends to be on my no-no list.
I have no idea why its so different from the rest of the series and in my opinion it was a change that didn't fit well.

Least favorite

Rudra No Hihou - sorry, I know this is a cult classic, but the spell system was too complex. Also, it seemed like, towards the end of the game, unless you knew some of those obscure spells, you were not getting past some of the bosses. Thus, the game was too hard, harder than 7th saga IMO, which I beat. I got pretty far into RnH, I would venture a guess and say 40..maybe even 50% or more.

Live a Live - Sorry, another cult classic, I know. I just could not get into it. Did not really get the ninja portion and tried a second portion which seemed more like a cheap fighting game. Maybe I will try again in the future...

Saga Frontier 3 - I think this is partially due to the (poor) translation of the game as I could not understand certain aspects of the game or what to do. Maybe a better translations exists out there. But also, it was just too non linear. Similar to Live a Live maybe I will give it a shot in a few years.

Bahamut Lagoon - I swear I do not have anything against square games! I loved SoM, almost all of the FF games, minus 8, CT and XG, for starters. But I guess when a company releases sooo many games, there is bound to be a few stinkers no matter who you are. This game does not know if it wants to be a SRPG or JRPG, it seems. The SRPG just did not feel fleshed out enough and the JRPG was just too generic for me. Though I only made it a few chapters in I just felt bored with this game. Sometimes it happens...

Dark Half - Maybe I did not understand the battle system but it seems I did not have enough control over the other characters. I do not like that.

Magna Braban - Again, battle system was not my cup of tea. I do not like to watch as things happen. I want more control. Now I could say the same for Star Ocean, ToP and Emerald Dragon, but I liked those three games because despite somewhat lack of control in each of those three, they all had engaging stories and beautiful animations and old school graphics. MB had none of that, from what I could see. I just could not stick around long enough because of the battle system.

Shin Megma Tensi 2 - I liked Persona games for the psx so maybe this game just shows its ages too much. Battle system seemed too archaic to me. I mean, I think a game like DW6/ (aka DQ6) has aged much better, compared with SMT2, at least battle system wise. Too bad cause SMT2 seemed to have a compelling story, I just could not get past the battles and navigation outside of battle. I can say the same for Persona on the psx..hated the navigation at first and took me a long time to get used to it..But in the end I liked the game and beat it. Maybe this game is just "too old", in a bad way for me to do the same. Funny I should say that, as I generally like old school rpgs for the snes, etc.

Brave Fence Mushasi - I actually liked quite a bit, until the end. The dancing part will be the bane of my existence. Never could get it down and thus, never beat it!

**When I was younger I did not like Paladins quest, but trudged through it anyway and got about 50-60% of the way done. When the cart died on me. I hated the game for so long. HOWEVER, I recently played Lennus 2 and really liked that game so I want to give it another shot as I feel I might like it now.

I have just listed a bunch of cult classics that others love, don't shoot! Haha, I like a lot of other cult classics like Treasure Hunter G and Wozz etc.!