old school rpgs

[thedustbustr]

so im finally going to beat an old school rpg. im not gonna put much more than 35 hours into this thing. i have nes, snes, ps2, and can acquire other platforms if you guys think its worth it.

so right now im thinking chrono trigger, ff7, or secret of mana. other choices? your pick?

[Alexisonfyre]

I bought Final Fantasy Origins(contains FF1 and FF2), Final Fantasy Chronicles(contains FF4 and Chrono Trigger) and Final Fantasy Anthology(contains FF5 and FF6) for the PSX last year. They were pretty cheap, something like 25$CDN each. I'd also recommand FF Tactics and Breath of Fire 3 for the PSX.

For the SNES, along with the old FF I would recommand Breath of Fire 2 and Lufia 2.

I haven't played a lot of PS2 RPGs but I really liked FFX (40 hours maybe?) and Dark Cloud 2. Dragon Quest VIII is also good but it takes a little bit longer. I also really liked Breath of Fire : Dragon Quarter but it didn't receive good reviews.

[thedustbustr]

ok, now pick one of those.

[Wheatsauce]

If you are only gonna do one, then I say go with FFVII...especially if you have never played it before.

I would also recommend FFVI (3 for SNES), which is my personal favorite FF. But every RPG fan should be required to beat VII at least once.

You can't go wrong with Chrono Trigger either, but stay away from the PS1 version...the load times are extremely annoying and borderline unbearable.

[Mark L]

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If you are only gonna do one, then I say go with FFVII...especially if you have never played it before.

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[Alexisonfyre]

FFVII is the best of those.

[THAY3R]

Super Mario RPG and it's not even close.

[Dire]

I'd definitely go for Final Fantasy 3 (6 in Japan) on the SNES. I think it's actually aged a bit better than the PS1's 7 has. The pseudo-3d of 7 could easily end up tiresome and frustrating for someone used to true 3d games. Part 3 is still just glorified sprites.

[Needle77]

If you want to beat an NES classic I say Dragon Warrior 4. That is my favorite RPH of all time. I'm not entirely sure but I don't see it taking more than 30 hours to beat.

If you want some awesome RPG's for the Playstation, try suikoden 1 and suikoden 2. Both are absolutely terrific, better than FF7 imho. The storylines for the Suikoden series(they are to #5 now) are fantastic. #1+#2 combined should take 40+ hours. #1= 15-17 hours and #2= 20-25 hours.

If you can only get one, get Suikoden 2.

[Xhad]

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You can't go wrong with Chrono Trigger either, but stay away from the PS1 version...the load times are extremely annoying and borderline unbearable.

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QFT. There's one tower in an early castle where you move from one floor to the next in like 2 seconds, and the load time for each is like 7 seconds; I wanted to stab people. One thing cool about CT is that you can beat it pretty easily in not much time, but it has multiple endings and a feature where you can start a new game but keep all your experience/items from a save where you already beat the game, so really it's about as long as you want it to be. This is easily my first pick if you can get your hands on the SNES version.

If we're considering oldish PS2 games to be "old school" Dark Cloud is also a good choice (pretty much the best dungeon crawl I have ever played). If you want action RPG I would recommend Soul Blazer (or the sequel Illusion of Gaia) over SoM but I know I'm in the minority there. FFIII for the SNES (soon to be rereleased as FFVI for the GBA) is the best FF with FFVII a close second imo.

Screw anything on the NES. All of them that I've played either require too much grinding, were rerelased in a better form later (see: the original FF), or both. I guess there's Zelda II, if that counts.