I've been playing games since I was 6 years old. I'm not the best gamer out there. In fact, I'd probably say, at this point, I'm not even a true gamer. I don't play enough to count as one. I'll play just about everything. I know my strengths, though, and I certainly know my weaknesses. So I don't tend to play any sports, strategy or survival horrors. The latter of these I will always attempt, but I'm just not very good at them. Not observant enough or too observant. My favourite genre, though, is RPG, and that's almost generalised to JRPG.
When I was 6, I didn't understand the significance of Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy. They were just really fun games to me. I was wrapped up in a story and the characters I had chosen to play with. I didn't finish either game, but when the SNES came out, Final Fantasy II (IV) came out, and I just about beat that game. I got to the moon, and then accidentally saved over my game with my brother's or dad's (I can't remember). So I never finished it until I was an adult.
The fact is I love turn-based games, and I never saw a problem with playing that way. I continue to play them without caring too much. There's a level of strategy involved. Granted, I love action games, and action RPGs. And I love the real time element. So when my favourite franchises take on some of that, I don't mind. I'm not a purist. I just like to play the games. Mostly for their stories... The stories for FFIV, VI, VII are some of the best I'll ever see. Chrono Trigger is a personal favourite, but the sequel Chrono Cross was enjoyable too.
There was a point in the history of JRPGs that things started to turn a bit south. Mainly because Square seemed to dominate the market for it, and they went from making great stories with state-of-the-art graphics to making state of the art graphics games with a story somewhere in there. FFXII attempted to step away from the method, but it came out too late for me and looked really awful on the big screen when I did finally want to play it.
My Final Fantasy list goes something like this VI - IV - VII - I - IX - VIII - X. I never played II, III, or V. Why they never brought those games out at the time it was released in Japan, I'll never know. Super sad I haven't played them. Didn't finish XII or XIII. Didn't enjoy the MMOs. Loved Tactics Advance. Crystal Chronicles was too hard solo. So never got into them.
Anyway. The reason I'm talking about it, is because I'm currently playing Theatrhythm Curtain Call, and it's made me super nostalgic for the games of old. It's nice that a lot of these games have been re-released. But in the instance of V & VI, they have only been released on the crappy mobile port and they didn't even try to make the sprites look right. Other games like IX don't seem to even get mentioned or added anywhere. And Even though it's 5th on my list, it is still an amazing game!
But additional to that, are the Mana series that lost its way. Secret of Mana and Legend of Mana are great games that never get any love. Chrono Trigger gets lots of love, but its sequel, Chrono Cross, barely gets mentioned. The music for all of these games are amazing too. Nobuo Uematsu is the best composer, but Mitsuda from these others is almost as great!
The tragedy is that Square pretty much exists thanks to its back catalog, and sometimes they focus too much on it. But other times they don't. Like with V and VI not being refreshed like III and IV. And IX not even released anywhere... well, not in Australia, at least. Maybe it is.. like Chrono Cross. pfft... Damn regions.
Maybe next time I write about this I'll take less a personal stance on it and more of a historical stance. It sorta deserves it.
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