Seems like you're a big Valve fan?-Team Fortress 2
If you follow my post during the release period, you'll realized I reference this game a lot and its comp scene as a frame work for our comp scene. It should be a no-brainer this is my favorite game.
-Ys Origin
The sheer difficulty of this hack-n-slash JRPG led to broken controllers and tears after beating near-impossible bosses. Even its normal difficulty is hard in its own right. Three different characters with different story lines leads to a lot of replay value to tear your hair again.
-The Desolate Hope
Before Five Nights at Freddy's, Scott Cawthon sci-fi platformer/RTS(?) game puts you on an abandon planet trying to debug robots as a coffee pot. It will make sense once you play it. (IT'S FREE ON STEAM!)
-Half-Life
I don't know why I have this on the list. Maybe it's the story, the levels (except Xen, forget that) or the fact that Ross Scott's voice is stuck in my head when I hear the name Gordon Freeman. It may not aged well, but it's still fun.
-Portal 2
The puzzling world that is Aperture Science becomes fully fleshed out, and it feels great now it has more depth in both story and gameplay.
YeahSeems like you're a big Valve fan?
Ooh, I've been meaning to play Skies of Arcadia : OHm... I'm going to take liberties here by naming games on Nintendo consoles that weren't developed by Nintendo or close affiliates, as I've barely played anything on other consoles. In no particular order (and I've likely forgotten an entry or more):
- Tales of Xillia (PS3): I claim to love the Tales of series, but I've only actually completed three games (and gotten very far in a fourth). Still, this particular title just shines to me as an example of how everything can go just right in a game. Symphonia has a slower-paced battle system with less freedom, and Xillia 2, although bearing one of my favourite storylines of all time, is, I have to admit, very repetitive. But Xillia itself fails to do anything wrong! Love the characters, love the ability to chain attacks even between party members who aren't active in the battle, love the visual style, love the story.
- Infinite Space (DS): Underrated games? Here they are. It was lauded by critics but subsequently forgotten all around. This is an... immense title and I can never understand how it was fit on the pitiful DS cartridge. A story spanning galaxies, a really unique system of characters, stats and the battles themselves, aaand... well, that suffices for a game which I've played through twice and still have yet to come across so much content. The spaceships are crunchy-looking, it has to be admitted, but I find the graphical limitations endearing.
- Skies of Arcadia (GCN, originally Dreamcast): An atmosphere can make a game. The environments here, the themes of discovery and the awesome dress sense of the Blue Rogues contribute to a game in which I really want to live. I like high places in general, so just walking around on sunny sky islands with an endless drop around them is thrilling. The combat is fairly standard JRPG fare but I'm a fan of that, and some boss battles are fiercely difficult - I've never beaten several bonus bosses. Oh, and the battle cries for Special attacks are delightful; see here. Last time I played it, I was perhaps 2/3 through the game before the disc became unreliable... I hope that I can get it to work in future, as this is a game that one needs to play more than once (I had completed it prior to that).
- Dust: An Elysian Tail (PC): My furry renaissance. Well, no, not too accurate, as I hadn't been much of a furry before playing this. But anyway, what a fun game! Love the soundtrack. If I have a qualm, it's that it's possible to make the latter parts of the game unreasonably easy by using Fidget in the correct way... I guess that if I replay this, I'll try a higher difficulty and limit my usage of her magic. Then the game, like, looks really good, and my point about environments from Arcadia stands here as well (apart from the 'in the sky' bit).
- ... I can't think of a fifth. Any other games I would list probably categorise as Nintendo titles. I could just say Portal 2, as it's a game I've played and enjoyed, but I really don't love it in the same way as I do the other games I list. Viewtiful Joe... ? Yeah, that's probably not too Nintendo to count, so provisionally that. But I hope to be able to put some other awesome JRPG here in future!
Which version? The GCN release has at least one extra sidequest but I'm informed that the Dreamcast original has slightly better soundfonts. However, I think that the encounter rate (either on the world map or generally) is annoyingly high in the Dreamcast version. No huge differences, still. I'd estimate it to be at most a 60-hour game if you go for all sidequests and are slow like me; one can probably reasonably do so in 40 hours, though, so it's not the hugest JRPG.Ooh, I've been meaning to play Skies of Arcadia : O
GC. We've already got that version, and last I checked, the Dreamcast version was pretty expensive : pWhich version? The GCN release has at least one extra sidequest but I'm informed that the Dreamcast original has slightly better soundfonts. However, I think that the encounter rate (either on the world map or generally) is annoyingly high in the Dreamcast version. No huge differences, still. I'd estimate it to be at most a 60-hour game if you go for all sidequests and are slow like me; one can probably reasonably do so in 40 hours, though, so it's not the hugest JRPG.
Well, there WERE remakes of the first two SaGa games for the Nintendo DS, in Japan only of course. Still, there's fan translations if you want to check out those ridiculous-in-the-best-ways-possible games remastered!SaGa Frontier would have to be one of my favorite PS1 RPGs out there. I remember it well where I watched my best friend played this game from a long time ago, he was at the final boos of Emelia's story, but lost because his party was under level.
Years later, I picked up this game and started on Emelia's story and took my time to understand everything about the game, truly the game is amazing on what it has to offer.
Once I have nearly maxed out my party's stats, I went to fight the final boss, I pretty much wrecked the final boss and finish Emelia's story for my friend. I mean this game is something that I wish that had a remake, seeing on what was cut from the game and it could use a bit more polish as yes the localisation is a bit weird on how it's translated.
Also surprisingly despite what the artwork shows Emelia holding guns, this is another mistake as Emelia is actually a pretty good sword user, the programmers mixed her stat growth in guns with another person.