Hahaha…well, I definitely appreciate the encouragement towards Suikoden III…I think its the one I’m gonna have to pick up. I remember being pretty enthralled when the first suikoden came out on the PSX so many years ago. If the 3rd part in this series has any of the essence of that first game, I’m all over it. Plus many of the sites I frequent where readers can submit reviews all have Suikoden III ranked higher than KH.
yeah, Ive heard some of the tunes from VC…the soundtrack is sheer brilliance.
I’ll put in another vote for Suikoden 3 as well! It’s not as good as the second one, but it certainly holds its own.
You couldn’t give me that soundtrack though. Blech. Just play with headphones or something. Ehheehe…
I’m at the Final Battle now, but I tend to stall when I get to that point in games.
While you’re at it, you could also consider Wild Arms 3 and Legend of Legaia 2.
Tony Hawk 4 has been surprisingly addictive for me. For full effect, you really need to construct a custom skater that looks as close to yourself as the various head/torso/whatnot options allow–this really only works if the image of yourself on a skateboard is laughable, though.
Tony Hawk 4 is all the goodness of TH3, plus reverts… and an open ended play. It’s not all time attacks, you can randomly skate around and practice, pick up missions as you choose. Pretty near perfect. Good music, too.
Oh, and if you haven’t been to http://www.gamerankings.com/ you may want to do so immediately. Sort of the Rotten Tomatoes of games. Overall averages of reviews. Every time I go to the used game place, I take a copy of their Top 200 PS2 games list, to get an idea of whether I should take a flyer on a game I’m not sure of.
Sorry to hijack this, but are there any decent RTS games for PS2 yet? Or just strategy games, like the old school favorite, Genghis Khan and the Grey Wolf Clan for the NES?
I’ve been stuck playing Kengo (I think I may be the only one) and I want something different.
Ace Combat 4 is a lot of fun. The actual game is short, but it has lots of replay value. It’s very arcadey, not simmy, but the planes do handle very differently from one another. It’s also greatest hits, and more than worth $20.
Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy is good too, and it’s now available at a greatest hits price. It’s a free-form platformer, where everything interconnects instead of having discrete level entrances like Crash Bandicoot or Super Mario World. Plus, there are no lives (always nice), and you can get the good ending without getting every single little Precursor Orb in the game.
I agree that Kingdom Hearts gameplay isn’t all that great. In fact, in many cases it’s annoying with the damn camera and not being able to plan your jumps or tell where the enemies are (a big problem with many 3D games). It’s fun to visit the different Disney worlds and characters, but if you hate Disney then don’t bother.
I got bored of Wild Arms 3 rather quickly. Not much variety in the battles. The only thing that changed was that the enemies took more damage. I enjoy the soundtrack to that series though. I’ll probably go back and play through it fully eventually, just because I spent the money on it. It didn’t grasp my interest though.
Another nother (possibly nother) vote for Suikoden III. I hadn’t played the series at all up to this point but so far it has been one of the most enjoyable console RPGs I’ve played in a long time. Excellent character designs, great XP/skill system, and just a lovely game all around. The story is roughly ten-hundred-million times better than FFX.
So what’s the verdict on the music of Suikoden III? I’m hearing that its not that bad, that its good, and that its utterly vile. Whats the general consensus?
If you want to hear a little of the Suikoden III music for yourself, check out this review of the soundtrack album. It’s used somewhat sparingly in the game; there’s music for almost every battle, and one theme for each area in the game. Several areas are silent except for sound effects.
And not to hijack the thread even further, but you really should make an effort to find a reasonably-priced copy of Suikoden II. It’s verging on “old-school RPG,” since it’s almost entirely sprite-based, as it was a PS1 game. But it’s about the most engrossing and just plain enjoyable game I’ve ever played. The plotline is fairly linear – much more so than in III, but it’s packed with side-stuff and mini-games and subplots.
The premise is the similar; wander around and recruit the 108 stars of destiny to join your army. But it seemed to me that more of the characters could join your fighting party, and because they were all sprites, the fighters just had more character. One of your fighters was basically Sanjuro from the movie Yojimbo, right down to the scratching-his-neck idle animation. Another was an chef who fought with a ladle and hatchet and had his own Iron Chef mini-game with ingredients you collected in the game world. Suikoden III has many of the same aspects, but II just seemed jam-packed with them; the main plotline was almost secondary to all the extras. The three simultaneous plotlines is new to Suikoden III, though, and II is much more linear.
(And lukaspriest, the same goes for you! Unless you’re dead-set on the latest and greatest, you could do a lot worse than finding a copy of Suikoden II.)
I would have thought that the Dope would have some RTS folks on.
I’m borrowing a copy of Hitman 2. I like it, although I feel the controls are a bit clunky. Once you get used to them though, it moves really well. I’ll get back to you when I’ve played a bit more.