The Official Playstation Thread

[newtmonkey]

@jhd

>>Previous comment about review deleted<<

 

Woah, I didn't realize that was your review.  Sorry for the harsh words.

 

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Most of the criticisms mentioned by jhd on his site apply to 99% of JRPGs, so I would caution anyone who likes JRPGs to take that into mind.  I don't love Beyond the Beyond, and don't mean to defend it really, but instead of being awful it's just mediocre imo.  I'd rate it slightly below Lunar on the Mega CD, but slightly above Cosmic Fantasy 2 on the PC Engine.

Edited April 23 by newtmonkey

[Van Halbgott]

I guess I posted about this system outside this topic by mistake.

 

But I see that someone posted about Oddworld as well.

[SlidellMan]

Another review of Rogue Trip: Vacation 2012:

Too bad that SingleTrac went downhill after this and Outwars were released.

[CapitanClassic]

If you like PS1 games, I like these two series by Sean Seanson, Japan Only PS1 games and Obscure & Forgotten PS1 games. You might want to start on O&F PS1 volume 3 that features Tiny Tank and Project Horned Owl (light-gun).

 

 

[RetroSonicHero]

Good evening.

 

I'm looking for some recommendations for relaxing PS1 games. The type of game you could turn your mind off to and kinda just play in the background. I'm particularly interested in sim type games, but am also open to new experiences.

[newtmonkey]

@RetroSonicHero

Have you ever played Aquanaut's Holiday?  It's a very chill game where you just explore under the sea looking for cool stuff, with no pressure or anything.

[RetroSonicHero]

11 hours ago, newtmonkey said:

@RetroSonicHero

Have you ever played Aquanaut's Holiday?  It's a very chill game where you just explore under the sea looking for cool stuff, with no pressure or anything.

Oooo, I've heard good things about that one. I'll see if I can get my hands on it. Thanks!

[newtmonkey]

Playing:

Final Fantasy IX

Having completed FFI through FFVIII, it's now time to finish the last game in the series that I actually want to play.  It's taken me many attempts to get into this one, for several reasons:

• Although it's technically impressive, the PSX really struggles to run the game... lots of loading before each combat, and a poor frame rate on top of that.
• There's quite a delay between selecting a command and the character actually acting.  FFIX uses the same ATB combat system as previous games, but it just feels off in this one.
• The super deformed proportions of the characters combined with the detailed textures (for PSX) end up making the characters look sort of hideous.
• The pacing is kind of poor, as the game often splits up the characters and switches back and forth between parties, and often drops very wordy exposition scenes on you every time this happens.

Anyway, I decided to push through my initial disappointment with this stuff, and came to enjoy what the game offers.  The equipment/ability system is really cool and addictive, the soundtrack is excellent, and the characters are interesting and likeable.  I like that each character has his or her own unique abilities and role in combat, somewhat similar to FFIV and FFVI.  It's also got some excellent dungeons so far, with lots of useful hidden stuff to find and fun little "puzzles."

 

I ended up finishing the first disc over a few sessions, and I must mention the massive jump in difficulty that occurs toward the end.  The game locks you out from entering town and sticks you with a party without any healing or buffing magic... and then starts throwing ridiculously powerful random encounters and bosses at you.  This means you have to rely on potions that barely heal up the amount of damage you take from a single hit, and cannot even go back to town to buy equipment upgrades... hopefully you managed to buy decent stuff before getting locked out!  If you run out of healing potions toward the end of the disc, you have to run all the way back through the wilderness and a dungeon full of tough encounters to the sole remaining item shop outside the town gates.

 

You fight the final boss of disc 1 after a very lengthy exposition scene that cannot be skipped, and if you die, it's back to the last save point and watching all that before fighting her again.  Luckily, I "won" on the first attempt... though actually, you cannot win the battle because the game scripts you to lose it for story purposes.  So, you either beat her (and then lose), survive for 10 rounds (and then lose), or die and have to reload.  What is the point of this?  Just make it an awesome FMV of me heroically getting my ass kicked and be done with it.

 

Anyway, it wasn't really that hard, but also not fun at all, so I'm glad to get that section over with.  It's apparently a well-known annoyance, so I'm looking forward to having fun again in disc 2.

[+atari2600land]

I'm playing Crash Team Racing.

 

It's the PSX equivalent of Mario Kart 64. But it's not as good as Mario Kart 64. Some of the weapons are odd, like the TNT box, but the graphics are great. A good selection of racers and tracks even if you don't want to attempt to play Adventure Mode to try to unlock the extra tracks, which, judging by the other tracks, would be insanely hard. But there's one thing that separates it from Mario Kart 64: The computer racers aren't scared to use the weapons they get on you! I also played a little bit of Pac-Man World recently. It's a fun game, but it's hard to know what to do or where to go at times. I had to rely on a guide someone else wrote to get me through one of the stages on the first level.

 

I was trying to find my copy of Solitaire for the SNES when I came across my old gray PSX. It's better than my PSOne I've been using with the sticky power button. It's so great, I'm considering trading in my PSOne the next time I go to the video game store. Sounds odd to get rid of a newer version of a console and keep the older version, but it's that good.

 

It's too bad Sony made the PSX so homebrew-unfriendly though.

[newtmonkey]

Final Fantasy IX

I put several more hours into this since I last posted, and now I really like this game!  It's a nice return to form after the semi-disaster of FFVIII, and I might end up even preferring it to FFVII (which is a fine games that has imo become somewhat unfairly maligned over the years).  There's a lot to like here.

 

The ability system is a stroke of genius as it makes equipment selection its own little game; no longer do you just automatically buy and equip whatever sword or whatever has better numbers.  It also gives you more to look forward to than just getting enough EXP to gain a level, and it's a ton of fun juggling equipment back and forth to gain new abilities.

 

Even though the game is completely linear, it does give you the opportunity (most of the time) to look around and take your time.  Each location is completely packed with stuff to do and find, from treasure chest and items hidden behind foreground objects, to optional "active time events" that provide exposition or character development.

 

Although I like most of the characters, they are very one-dimensional so far.  They all basically have one single characteristic, and every single line of dialog just reinforces it.  I'm close to 20 hours in, and there has been no character development whatsoever.  Normally I wouldn't mind, but the game is so wordy that it becomes annoying.  I think everyone has got that one friend or family member who's always just on the verge of turning their life around... but in the end never changes.  Playing FFIX is like being completely surrounded by people like this all the time.  This even extends to the token weird character, Quina, whose every line is a variation of "I want to eat it."  I assume that was an attempt to add some whimsy or quirkiness, but it's such a dumb character with such an overdesigned appearance, that I completely hate it.  It reminds me of those "original character do not steal" drawings, where it's clearly just Sonic the Hedgehog, but with an eye patch, gun, robot leg, top hat, and Dracula cape.

[SlidellMan]

Mark of the Mermaid:

 

[CPUWIZ]

On 6/12/2024 at 5:41 PM, atari2600land said:

It's too bad Sony made the PSX so homebrew-unfriendly though.

 

What do you mean by that?

[+atari2600land]

11 hours ago, CPUWIZ said:

 

What do you mean by that?

I guess I'm just mad that people can't burn a disc with a game on it and then be able to play it. Like you can with the Dreamcast.

[roots.genoa]

5 hours ago, atari2600land said:

I guess I'm just mad that people can't burn a disc with a game on it and then be able to play it. Like you can with the Dreamcast.

Oh so Sony should have made the PlayStation very easy to pirate to make it easier for homebrewers as well twenty years later? Makes complete sense.

[+atari2600land]

I know why Sony did what they did. I understand fully. But it's just so sad the world has to be that way.

[newtmonkey]

The PlayStation was actually the most (officially) homebrew-friendly console of its time (perhaps of all time!), as Sony released an actual homebrew development kit called Net Yaroze.  It wasn't just a toy to fool around with Basic, but an actual C development environment including a special region-free console and development tools you installed on a PC.

Edited June 16 by newtmonkey

[CPUWIZ]

40 minutes ago, newtmonkey said:

The PlayStation was actually the most (officially) homebrew-friendly console of its time (perhaps of all time!), as Sony released an actual homebrew development kit called Net Yaroze.  It wasn't just a toy to fool around with Basic, but an actual C development environment including a special region-free console and development tools you installed on a PC.

 

They made one mistake with the Yaroze and that was not letting people get at the GS.

[newtmonkey]

Final Fantasy IX

I'm still enjoying this, but now at 25 hours in it has become somewhat tedious.  It get very linear partway through disc 2, with you just walking from screen to screen following the story with little to no wilderness trekking.  You also often get stuck with a party with only a single damage dealer.  At one point, all you have is Zidane as the only characters really capable of doing damage, along with Vivi (whose spells cost way too many MPs for the damage they do), and two white mages.  It makes sense from a story perspective, but every single battle is basically just attacking with Zidane while the other characters defend or heal as needed.  The slow combat engine doesn't help, so it seems like every battle no matter how simple takes minutes to finish.

 

Anyway, I finally got through that section and can finally choose who to put in my party.  I immediately swapped in Salamander (another strong character) for one of the white mages, and hopefully things will get less tedious now.

 

It still looks and sounds great, and the ability system is still cool.  It's always exciting when a character learns a new ability after a fight, and you can then go in and swap that piece of equipment out for something else.

[newtmonkey]

Final Fantasy IX

I finished up disc 2 the other day.  Although I really do like this game, I've noticed that I've been sort of forcing myself to play it lately, probably due to how linear the latter half of disc 2 is... as mentioned above, you spend a lot of time just walking from one screen to next following the story.  Instead of forcing my way through the game, and possibly ending up disliking it, I've decided to take a short break and play something else:

 

Genso Suikoden

This is one of the first games I ever got back in the day for the PlayStation, and while I never got very far in it back then, I thought it was pretty cool.  Anyway, I continued my save from what seems like years ago, and although it took some work to figure out where I was and what I was supposed to do, I ended up becoming addicted and ended up playing something like 15 hours over the last few days!  That brings me up to 30 hours so far, and things seem to be wrapping up, so I'm not expecting the game to go on for much longer.

 

There's a lot to like about this one, including a six-person party, lots of customization with equipment, and of course TONS of characters to recruit.  Most of them just hang out at your base and do nothing or maybe provide some kind of shop service, but a lot of them are actually playable characters.  This is absolutely the best thing about this game, as many of these characters are optional and it's fun traveling the world tracking everyone down.  I will admit that I'm following a recruitment FAQ as I play, as I want to get all the characters but several can be permanently missed (or even die) if you do the wrong thing.

 

The only real negative so far is that the game is way too easy!  I didn't really do any party planning at all, in fact I just went with what seemed to be the main characters in the story, and added Kai (the main character's martial arts instructor)... and get through most battles without taking any damage at all.  Outside of healing during boss battles, I haven't even used any magic.

 

It's fine though, not every game has to be a challenge.  Sometimes it's fun to build a party out of a bunch of characters and steamroll everything while you follow the story.

[SlidellMan]

Newt, if you liked Suikoden, I bet you would also like Vandal Hearts.

[newtmonkey]

@SlidellMan

I definitely plan on playing it, though I'm more of a fan of traditional RPGs than strategy RPGs.

[newtmonkey]

Genso Suikoden

It took me slightly over 30 hours to complete the game including recruiting all 108 characters, although I did reference a character recruitment list as I went along.  This was a lot of fun, but the complete lack of difficulty is a major problem.  Even without putting any real thought into my party other than "that character looks cool" I could auto-battle through 99% of the game and never come close to dying.  Oh well, at least the battle system is snappy and quick.

 

I ended up really liking the story and characters in this game, which is actually quite rare for me.  It's a pretty mature take on things, where the "villains" are not simply evil caricatures but instead have their own reasons for what they're doing.  The last battle was a letdown, though, and should have been a one-on-one duel or something.

 

I'll definitely be holding onto my final save file so I can import it into the sequel.

Edited June 28 by newtmonkey

[CapitanClassic]

9 hours ago, SlidellMan said:

Newt, if you liked Suikoden, I bet you would also like Vandal Hearts.

Not sure why someone who likes Suikoden would like Vandal Hearts. The RPGs play nothing alike. The closest thing to Vandal Hearts in my mind is WarSong (GEN) / Der Langrisser, without the soldiers, or Shining Force  The gameplay is mission based rather than wandering the map like a standard RPG. You also have the leveling up effect where you have to choose which way you want to promote your characters.

 

The cool thing about Vandal Hearts was the blood fountains when killing characters.

[newtmonkey]

Final Fantasy IX

I didn't have much left to do to finish this one up.  It ended up taking just under 60 hours, though I did some (unnecessary) grinding toward the end to learn all the abilities for all four characters I used (Zidane, Steiner, Vivi, Eiko), just to be a bit of a perfectionist.

 

The game has some major issues, so I'll start with those.  First, combat is way too frequent and way too slow, with much of combat spent watching your action bars slowly filling up.  Second, the villain Kuja is absolutely ridiculous with his gloating and longwinded monologues... the game even makes a point of making fun of him for it, which makes it worse (instead of making jokes, why not write a better character?).  Third, the dialog and story become increasingly corny and childish as the game goes on ("we won with the power of friendship!"), and this is made worse by the fact that the game is so damned wordy as every single character in your group has to comment on every single thing that happens with their one-dimensional personalities.

 

Having said that, I ended up enjoying this one overall, thanks to the mostly lighthearted sense of adventure, some great dungeons (with tons of stuff to find), and the completely addictive Ability system.  The battles look absolutely amazing for the hardware, though perhaps not as good as the battles in Chrono Cross.  The rendered backgrounds are a bit hit and miss; many are absolutely gorgeous, but some suffer from the artist's trying to fit too much detail into such a low resolution.

 

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With this, I've completed FF1 through FF9.  Since this is the PSX thread, I'll just rank the PSX games:

FF7 > FF9 > FF8

[newtmonkey]

After finally finishing an RPG or other long game, it's always fun to sit down and play a few games for a bit to decide what to play next.  This is extra fun when it comes to the PlayStation, as that's one of the few consoles for which I have a pretty decent collection of actual discs. I looked through my PSX shelves and decided to play:

 

Legaia Densetsu (or, according to the cover, The Legaia)

This was released as Legend of Legaia outside of Japan.  I never played this one back in the day, though I knew of it from magazines.  I've had a copy of this game for years, but only played it for an hour or so and had trouble getting into it.  I still had my save, but decided to start over.  Although it's not anything amazing (especially coming straight from playing FFIX), I like it.

 

It's a pretty dark story so far.  An evil mist spreads across the land, bringing with it an army of vicious monsters.  Humanity is forced to take refuge in small, fortified settlements.  It's up to you and your two companions to find the source of the mist and stop it.

 

The gimmick for this one is that it's sort of a "fighting game" RPG; it's still turn-based, but you can string together attacks sort of like Tekken (for example, low, low, medium, high), with certain combinations unlocking special moves that do more damage.  Another gimmick is that you can capture and summon monsters, which serve as your spells.  I dislike this kind of thing, but it's thankfully pretty simple in Legaia and not really a huge part of the game.  You don't have to do anything special to capture monsters; instead, each characters simply has a random chance of absorbing a monster after killing it.  Once you capture a monster, it's added permanently to that characters as a spell... that's as complicated as it gets.

 

It's not very difficult so far.  It's extremely linear, although you do at least get to travel on a world map from location to location.  So far, so good.