[tcaudilllg]

SoM deserves a remake, IMHO. A retelling of it's story, at least.

The original telling was awful and bland.

[Sirocco]

Oh yes, the soundtrack was superb. There were a few tracks that were a little on the grating side, but overall I really enjoyed it (I own the OST). There were some funky bugs in the game, probably from the programmers not being very experienced with the SNES architecture. For example, the hit detection, also the jerky scrolling, and the fact that when you hear sound effects they cut into the music itself, occasionally knocking out a track temporarily (imagine listening to a 4-track MOD and losing track #3 for about four seconds...feh).

The magic bug is highly exploitable; there are ways to beat some of the later bosses without ever taking a hit, assuming you time your magic attacks just right. Then there's the bug that allows you to start a new game and 'keep' your first sword expansion, allowing you to level the sword up higher than it normally would. This backfires if you do it more than once, as the game will lock up if the sword levels up too much :(

Aah... the memories. Did anyone notice SquareEnix dropping a hint on their new project World of Mana?

.

[js71]

World of Mana... Mana World... Heh. :p
The bugs in SoM that you mentioned are a bit odd, especially the scrolling and sounds cutting into the music... I only really noticed that last one on a lot of NES and Sega Genesis games, rarely on the SNES. Strange, seeing as how experienced Square must've been by then. Though I suppose it was a completely different team than, say, those working on any given early FF title...

[tcaudilllg]

The sound cutting is a factor of the SNES only having eight sound channels, and most composers preferring to use all eight for their music. It's in just about every SNES game out there, if you pay attention.

I recommended a fix to the ZSNES team, but they said it was unworkable.

[js71]

Yes, but it VERY rarely happens. I've made lots of songs in modplug that use 6 channels or less, it's quite feasable to use, say, 7 channels and leave one for sound effects. Compared to earlier consoles (such as NES and Genesis) which I'm assuming had somewhere around four.

[tcaudilllg]

Well, I don't mean to be argumentative, but it does happen a lot. Play Final Fantasy VI, and notice when a sound effect plays, one of the drums goes off.

[js71]

Hmm, never really heard that to be honest. I'll have to check it out.

[Ren]

Here's some contentious titles (In no particular order):

Shenmue: I loved these games because of the free wheeling nature and kung-fu-movie feel of them. People usually don't know where to catagorise this thing, but i'd say it was more RPG than anything. It was the oddities in this game that marred it, most noticably large loading times and the way it could get pretty boring in places. Ultimately though, i've never seen a game with a more engrossing and realistic world. In fact, no other game even comes close.

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time: You've all played this, so you know what it's like. Fun, sweet, and engrossing, generally a joy to play.

Final Fantasy VII: I have a theory that everyone likes the first final fantasy they played best. I happened to play 7 first, and despite some pretty odd dialogue and some bizzare areas of story (or perhaps because of those things? Who knows) I liked 7 very much. I'm also quite a fan of the pre-made backgrounds they used, very pretty.

Ico: OK, so this isn't an RPG. But i'm going to list it anyway, simply because the story and character elements are the best in any game I have ever played. Interactions between the two main characters are sweet and endeering, and the way the world is designed to fit the mood is bordering on perfect. In short, it suceeds in some of the most important elements of RPG's where every other RPG has drawn up short.

Pokemon: Sorry. In all honesty Pokemon is the game I spent the most time playing in total. I proberbly finished it a good 3 times, adding up some ridiculous number of hours. Nowadays if anything even resembles pokemon it ensures that I don't play it, because i'm sick to death of the whole concept.

Games that nearly made the list: chrono trigger, some other final fantasy games, planescape: torment, Grandia (can't wait for III, it's got a great trailer), fenix blade (my favorite indie RPG ever!), and proberbly some other's i've forgotten about.

If you look at the list actually, most of them are oddball titles. I guess there's something to be said for originality, and not having played-it-all-before.
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Previous nicks: MidnightDreamer, The_Anarchist, Shroomasta.

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[Rainer Deyke]

[DrunkenCoder]

Robotrek - awsome and sweet, like pokemon just better.
7th Saga - simply awsome
Baldurs Gate II - too friggin huge! but 300hours playtime later I just can't say it's a bad game.
...
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If there's life after death there is no death, if there's no death we never live. | ENTP

[Sirocco]

[Ren]

Hmm, yeah the time traveling aspect wasn't done to it's full potential I thought. I mean, getting stuff with floating plants is a good idea, but in practice it takes a long time, and the stuff you get is usually boring. Still, remember when you had to learn the Song of Storms in order to drain the well in kakariko village? Link leaned the song from the organ guy when he was an adult, and then went back in time and taught the organ guy the tune in order to drain the well. So, who wrote the song? I remember that seemed so clever when I was 12.
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Previous nicks: MidnightDreamer, The_Anarchist, Shroomasta.

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[Terry]

[Nephilim]

I think my favorite would have to be Ultima IV. It was the first RPG that attempted to have an expansive, living world, and had the added benefit of challenging the player morally as well as intellectually. For its time, it had incredible detail, lots of player freedom, nontrivial dialogue with NPC's, and detailed magic and combat systems, which let you play for days and still find new and exciting things around every corner.

One aspect of the game that I'm still to this day waffling on with regard to whether I like it or not was the challenge of keeping track of your progress. Nowadays, RPG's pretty much bonk you over the head with "WHAT YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO DO NEXT" and then shunt you towards that goal. Ultima IV, on the other hand, let you go wherever you want and do whatever you want, and left it up to you to keep track of your own goals. By the time you beat the game, you find you've written a gazeteer of Britannia, with notes on peasants, lords, flora, fauna, legends, histories, mystic symbols, sextant coordinates, and elements of a strict moral code.

That can be fun, because you really feel like you are exploring and cataloguing a world. But the flip side is that unless you invest some dedication to the game, you cannot hope to get anywhere - if you play the game casually, you will fail miserably. And nowadays, I don't have the time or energy to put into that level of game playing. For that reason, I guess I'll always be fond of Ultima IV, but I'll probably never play another game like it.
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Visit the Sacraments web site to play the game and read articles about its development.

[Sirocco]