RPG that you could replay over and over again?

[FlippyD]

Actually, I'd say popularity is a pretty good measure for quality most of the time. But that's besides the point. The point is people complain about certain aspects in gaming without realizing that there's a larger audience outside of their own personal tastes that enjoys it. As a game designer you shoot yourself in the foot if you limit yourself to what you can do based on your own personal tastes. Then again that's ok if you're Jonathan Blow and you "don't care" how many people play your game.

that mentality is exactly why the industry is overflowing with so much mediocrity. "Make a game based off of what's selling right now!"
im not trying to offend, btw.

The industry is actually flourishing in my opinion. Save the occasional space-marine FPS and generic anime JRPG things are great. We've got Bioshock, GTAIV, Portal, Castle Crashers, Everyday Shooter, Patapon, Cave Story, etc etc etc.

And yeah, I can see how it can look like I'm saying "Do what's popular", but listen. I said "I'd say popularity is a pretty good measure for quality most of the time." Most of the time, that's important. Gamers don't like crap, they like inventive and fun things as well. The problem I see is with game designers who make crappy games because they're so focused on what they want that the game suffers for it. As a game designer your job is to make an entertaining project, y'know, a game (unless you're going for a hippie-games-are-art project). Game design is centered around problem solving, and shutting down other ideas that could work isn't the best way to go about doing that.

Granted I can't see a lot of situations where grinding is called for, but etheon's point was quite clear: "No games should have grinding" which is based around the fact that he personally dislikes grinding. That's like saying "No games should have racing segments because I don't personally like racing in games."

Racing in games usually sucks, but sometimes it's well implemented and fun. Perhaps if there was a situation in a game that called for racing (say for instance, a high-speed chase scene) a racing element could be used successfully if it's well implemented. Maybe a designer wants to create a sense of growth and control. In this sense grinding can work so long as it's fun and not a bore. Most games are tedious exercises done ad-nauseam, but since the gameplay is fun and rewarding it doesn't feel like chore-work. Most RPG combat mechanics suck, and thus leveling is a chore.

 

[e]

First of all, the games we're talking about are RPGs. Second of all, what I meant wasn't that there shouldn't be grinding, but merely that no game (read: RPG) should require the user to grind a certain amount of time in order to be able to complete the minimum (that is, the main quest, or the main plot).

If you think about it a little while, it generally (most of the time) makes no sense for a roleplaying game to have grinding, and by grinding I don't mean the basic fights you'll encounter, but hours of repetitive battles in order to get that extra level that without it, it's just impossible to finish the game (i.e.: Lunar 2, if you're under level 50 without the three sword attack thing).

 

[bluehazed]

Tales of Symphonia
Ys The ark of napishtim
ToS is my favorite game ever.

 

[FlippyD]

First of all, the games we're talking about are RPGs. Second of all, what I meant wasn't that there shouldn't be grinding, but merely that no game (read: RPG) should require the user to grind a certain amount of time in order to be able to complete the minimum (that is, the main quest, or the main plot).

If you think about it a little while, it generally (most of the time) makes no sense for a roleplaying game to have grinding, and by grinding I don't mean the basic fights you'll encounter, but hours of repetitive battles in order to get that extra level that without it, it's just impossible to finish the game (i.e.: Lunar 2, if you're under level 50 without the three sword attack thing).

That's based on the assumption that the developers knew ahead of time you'd only be at X level, and decided to purposefully implement a grind to require you to be level X+20 to beat the game. Most of the time however the developer expects players to be at a certain level X that the player never reaches. You can't count on players making it through certain dungeons in a shorter amount of time than you expect, thus cutting down their level. In fact most of the time when I play JRPGs I have to go a little slower through dungeons and check every corner for treasure because I don't want my level to be lower than the expected level.

You can never really know if a grind was intentional unless the creators outright claim so, and I'm willing to bet your frustrations with grinding are caused by you playing the game to see the story and thus rushing through everything that isn't plot related (which makes sense as you've claimed that RPGs are based around storytelling.)

RPGs are games (though, usually very badly designed games with hackneyed storytelling with enough chaos to appear deep and meaningful), they are still games. When I use racing as an example RPGs aren't magically exempt from comparison because they're both games. They have goals and computer controlled rules utilized to reach said goal.

Lastly, a game that focuses more on gameplay and less on story could use grinding effectively, because the player isn't focused on finding out what happens next so much as she's focused on party control, team dynamics and character growth. This is why most RPGs suck fundamentally in my opinion: they use an interesting story as a carrot to dangle in front of your face, and force you to undergo a crappy game in order to see what happens next. In this case, yes, grinding sucks a bit fat floppy donkey chode and should be banished from the face of the Earth.

I think an RPG with a great grind mechanic is Megaman: Battle Network. You can pretty much get through most of the game no problem until the end. However the game provides you with a training tube where you can instantly summon up whatever monster you want, making the act of grinding a little less painful and a little more fun.

In fact, instead of removing grind (unless we have a story-centric game, which I have problems with but that's another post) how about we think about ways to improve it? WoW is grind-fucking-tastic, but the inter-locking quests and storylines help alleviate that problem. What if we create more interesting combat and puzzle-based content to supplant areas in which we feel the player might fall behind in levels? And reasons to retread old dungeons that might have new unlocked areas or quests to engage in.

 

[JD_Slasha]

I'd have to say that the only RPG's I would really sit down and play over are as follows:

• Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross:
  Like it's been stated over and over again, I would most definitely play both of these games over and over again. Not only is the replay value high, the different endings make the whole thing well worth the time invested. Plus, they're both such great games (although Trigger is still by far better than Cross) that it wouldn't feel like a chore to go through again. It's like watching a Disney movie you haven't seen in years. Magic's still there.
  
• Final Fantasy IX:
  You may hate it or love it, but I have to say that this is probably the only Final Fantasy that I would definitely go out of my way to sit down and play again. i've replayed this atleast twice now, but it's been a few years. My biggest thing about FFIX is that it had such a warm little tale at the heart of it all. Don't even get me started on the ending scene.
  
• Pokemon Gold/Silver:
  By far, these two versions were and still are the greatest versions of the monster Nintendo franchise. I absolutely HATED what they did with the 3rd Generation (Ruby/Sapphire), although they did get better with Diamond/Pearl. I can't wait for the remake of these two games. I'll definitely be rebuying Silver in no time flat. I mean it's like having two epic games for the price of one.

 

[dadevvtsvre]

I haven't played many RPG's, but my votes go for Mother 3 and Earthbound. Man...amazing. Even in Japanese Mother 3 is purely awesome.

 

[Romancer_Zero]

I own a lot of ****ing RPG's, but these are the ones I revisit most often.

Morrowind: Countless hours of gaming, it just never ends!
Grandia 3: Short and lacking in plot, but it's damn fun!
Wild Arms 4: Also kinda short, but I loved just about every aspect about it.
Tales of the Abyss: This one actually takes a while, but something about it keeps me sucked in.
Arc the Lad: This might be the shortest RPG ever made, besides maybe Rhapsody.
Any Ys game: Most are fairly short, so replays are easy.
Most of the Zelda games: By that, the classic NES entries have been doing very little for me.

Many of the games mentioned above are on the short side, that's what does it for me apparently.

Be careful, dude. This is almost a two month old necropost. Try to be more aware in the future before posting in old threads :D ~moog

 

[___]

The only games I've played multiple times were Final Fantasy 6 (which I replay every few years), Chrono Trigger (also replay often), and the Fallout series. I think I had several characters in Morrowind too, even made a few expansions for it that I never quite finished just because the map editor was freakin' sweeeet.

Also, this is a cool thread now that it's necroed.

 

[Dawne]

[*]Final Fantasy IX:
You may hate it or love it, but I have to say that this is probably the only Final Fantasy that I would definitely go out of my way to sit down and play again. i've replayed this atleast twice now, but it's been a few years. My biggest thing about FFIX is that it had such a warm little tale at the heart of it all. Don't even get me started on the ending scene.

this.

Played this game over and over, by far my favourite RPG.
And not just because I'm a teenage girl and it has a cute little love story,
I love the setting to death. Whenever I'm mapping cities/towns I always think of this game.

Oh and it was the first game with the first system I actually owned, instead of just playing my older brother's games,
excluding gameboy.

 

[Fayte]

Grandia 2 and Final Fantasy 9 are pretty much the only rpg's i'd play over for enjoyment and not just because im bored.

 

[___]

Man I still don't get you people who love the post-SNES Final Fantasies. Sure they're prettier, but they just don't hold a candle to the classics. It must be a generational thing. I'd take FF1 on the NES over FF9 any day, and 4&6 over 7 (though 7, I have to admit, was pretty cool).

 

[Fayte]

when i was trying to think of a valid response to that i remembered that i could also play final fantasy 5 a hundred times over. (i've played it like 4 times and i still haven't beaten it yet :[)

 

[Cruelty]

Grandia 2 and Final Fantasy 9 are pretty much the only rpg's i'd play over for enjoyment and not just because im bored.

as much as i love final fantasy 9, it doesn't have very good replay value imo.

2 rpgs i could definitely play multiple times over are disgaea, and monster hunter. monster hunter is so god damn hard, but it's growing on me. i've got like 56 hours on that shit, and i'm still on hunter rank 1, and on the elder's level 3 quests! this game is designed to soak up as much playtime as it possibly can, and i can imagine it's probably pretty fun to start anew and work your way from the bottom again!

 

[moog]

when i was trying to think of a valid response to that i remembered that i could also play final fantasy 5 a hundred times over. (i've played it like 4 times and i still haven't beaten it yet :[)

.....please say you meant VI.

YOU MEANT SIX, RIGHT FAYTE?

 

[moog]

also as much as i loved ff9 i agree with cruelty, its replay value wasnt that high in my book.

the first grandia was pretty amazing though, id play it again. the second was too "been there done that" ish.

 

[FlippyD]

I could play any of the Tales series over and over again.

As an RPG fan that doesn't give two-shits about plot it's easily one of the best series for pure fun while gaming to me.

 

[___]

I didn't like 5 much. The job system was cool when it was introduced in FF3j (the NES game that STILL hasn't been released in the US afaik, not FF3 for the SNES which was FF6j for anyone who doesn't know that), but they really didn't get it right until Final Fantasy Tactics (and by the way the remake for the PSP is totally worth a new play-through, the new cinematics are great).

@ixis: Tales games were fun in general but I got stuck on most of them at one point or other, I don't think I've ever finished one.

 

[candle]

Newsflash:  FFIII for the NES was remade in 3D and released worldwide for the DS back in 06 or 07.

 

[___]

I thought that was FFII?

 

[___]

Anyway, the DS is a gay little gimmick toy and the only good games on it are remakes, I don't own one. I want to though