FFX or DQ8 ?

[doc_bean]

I'm currently on a buying spree for ps2 games so I can get a decent collection before they completely disappear from the shelves. I decided that I'd try one jRPG to see if I could still find the time and effort to play one.

So which one would the Orgahs recommend ?

I'm somewhat apprehensive about FFX (I distrust FF games since FFVIII, haven't played IX), does it have a decent story that isn't convoluted ?

I played the demo for DQ8 and thought it seemed pretty interesting, though not much was offered there. The game seems to require a certain amount of levelling up which might be tedious (?).

How far apart are the save points ? I rarely have more than an hour to spend on a game at a time (real life and a short attention span both contribute).

[frogbeastegg]

Dragon Quest!

I've begun FFX twice now, and never gotten further than 2 hours before exiting and never feeling like going back. This may be linked to the PAL conversion - it's dreadful, the worst I have ever seen. Slowdown, massive borders which have to be seen to be believed, and noticeable issues with animation due to everything playing at 50hz instead of 60. There is no 60htz option whatsoever, which is galling when most TVs made in the last 10 years support NSTC signals in addition to PAL.

From what I hear FFX can be very involved. If you want to max your characters, get the ultimate weapons and complete the side quests it takes hundreds of hours. Following the plot takes more like 40 hours.

Exploration felt limited. There’s no overworld AFAIK, and the area maps felt small and confined. Exploring didn’t feel worthwhile; items like potions were all I found. This harmed my desire to play the game; I felt like I was on rails.

Save points appeared to be the usual FF deal: placed often enough, but not evenly spaced.

I do want to play through it one day, though I doubt I'll bother with many of the extras and side quests. The story is meant to be decent, and I want to see this famous laughing cutscene people keep mentioning.



Dragon Quest is more of an old school JRPG. It's challenging - you need to do more than hold down X to select attack over and over. Dying is very possible. As you only lose half your money and get returned to a safe point being wiped out is not too bad of a disaster; it's not game over and all unsaved progress lost as in so many other games. Because of this challenge it is a good idea to level. That's normally a task I detest in games, but I didn't have too much of a problem doing so in DQ. I found that by exploring the area before the first dungeon thoroughly I hit level 7, which was 2 levels above the recommended maximum. From there on the lead was easy to maintain. Being over-levelled did not make the game a push over, I shall add. I did 3 more bouts of grinding after that, each time in an area with metal slimes. Because they give far, far more XP than other enemies an hour each time was enough. Metal slime hunting does take preparation; if you want the big rewards you have to plan ahead. If you want more detail, ask.

The story is classic, or clichéd if you prefer, and predictable. It's told with charm and humour, well written and voice acted. Cutscenes are in-engine, and said engine is beautiful. I must say that the regular ending ranks as one of my favourite game endings. Exploring the world is a pleasure, and it's a big world. There are some side quests and optional areas, and a whole extra section after the credits which leads to the second, secret ending.

You can save in every town by talking to the local priest. Very early on your hero will learn a warp spell which will take you to any major location you have already visited, and a second spell which takes you to the start of a dungeon is also easy to acquire. Between these two you can always magic your way to a save point at need. You cannot save in dungeons. I did find that I could complete most dungeons in a single sitting, and I didn't play for more than an hour at a time most days. One helpful thing is that dungeons will save any progress you have made in solving puzzles if you exit and save, so if you leave for any reason you can usually make your way back to where you left off more quickly than on your first run.

If you get it I recommend you look at some character Faqs, or ask for advice. You will need to choose which skill paths to follow with your characters, and bad choices can be costly or leave you without important skills until much later in the game.

[Xehh II]

FFX-2 isn't that bad, I haven't played FFX or DQ8 what is DQ8 anyway?

[Gregoshi]

Dragon Quest is more of an old school JRPG.

JRPG = Japanese RPG?

I might have to give Dragon Quest a shot some time. I'm currently wading through FF XII. I'm at about 130 hours into it, but I'm taking my time, exploring and doing side quests. The description of DQ says it is turn based, which I think I like much better than real time like Dark Alliance or Champions of Norrath - assuming DQ combat plays similarly to FF XII. In the turn base FF, I actually feel like a hero when battling the bosses. With the real time RPGs I've played, you must run away from the bosses until they are vulnerable, quickly attack and then run away some more. Hardly heroic in my mind. With the turn based FF combat, I can actually stand and fight the bosses like a "real" hero. I've had some dandy fights lasting 15-30 minutes or longer and I loved every minute of it. That is what fantasy RPG is all about to me. It sounds like from froggy's description that DQ plays similarly.

[doc_bean]

what is DQ8 anyway?

Dragon Quest 8

JRPG = Japanese RPG?

Yep.

I'm currently wading through FF XII.

How is it, story and gameplay wise ?
I heard that you 'program' your characters rather than play them, doesn't that make the game even more 'watching' rather than 'playing' ? Most jRPGs (past the SNES era) imo already suffer from having too little gameplay, I can't se FFXII's system as improving on that.

[frogbeastegg]

How is it, story and gameplay wise ? I heard that you 'program' your characters rather than play them, doesn't that make the game even more 'watching' rather than 'playing' ? Most jRPGs (past the SNES era) imo already suffer from having too little gameplay, I can't se FFXII's system as improving on that.

That's something I wonder as well. FFXII polarises opinion in most conversations I see about it. Either it's "teh r0x0rz!!!11!" or "teh wurstist game evar!!!11!" There's precious little middle ground, and not much discussion of the game itself. :eagerly awaits Gregoshi's answer:

Another peeve of mine is bosses which take forever to kill but don't pose much threat. Nothing worse than spending half an hour spamming attacks and spells to sap away 100,000,000 HP from a boss who poses virtually no threat to your well made team. Every JRPG I've played does this. DQ took it one step further with its final boss by having very boring music playing throughout the encounter. I expect FFXII is quite bad for this; it's a FF trait.

DQVIII wasn't too bad for cutscenes. I can't comment fairly on FFX except to say that the beginning was - predictably - very cutscene heavy.

The description of DQ says it is turn based, which I think I like much better than real time like Dark Alliance or Champions of Norrath - assuming DQ combat plays similarly to FF XII.

DQ is turn based in the traditional sense of the word. You can take as long as you like on your turn; it's not artificially real time. Each character gets one turn per round; some bosses get to move twice or three times per round. Rather than having the player team all move first and the enemies all go second DQ has everyone move in order of their agility. Some small random bonuses are applied to keep the turn order from being too predictable. Unlike FFXII (I gather; I've not played it) you are always in full control of your characters. At the start of each round you set need to plan ahead. If Angelo kills one enemy out of a group of two it will be a waste of magic and damage potential for Jessica to cast a fireball on both enemies. Better to have her target another group, or to use a different spell.

[Fragony]

Haven't played Dragon quest but FFX didn't dissapoint. It has just about every cliche to be found in japanese rpg's but still a great title with great production value. It's also long and not as hard as other FF

[Gregoshi]

How is it, story and gameplay wise ?
I heard that you 'program' your characters rather than play them, doesn't that make the game even more 'watching' rather than 'playing' ? Most jRPGs (past the SNES era) imo already suffer from having too little gameplay, I can't se FFXII's system as improving on that.

Well doc & froggy, you can "program" your characters via the "gambit" system, but you can totally control them too. You can program conditions and corresponding actions called gambits. Then you can turn gambits on/off for each of the characters as you see fit. Even if gambits are turned on for a character, you can override the programmed action with a manually selected action as you desire. What I do is maintain full manual control of the party leader and set up the other two with some very basic gambits that are good for 90% of the normal game situations you run into. For the special cases I intervene manually as needed. Unless there is a trick for setting up gambits I can't figure out, they have limited flexibility. The basic gambits are "attack foes party leader is attacking" and "if ally hit points < xx%, cast cure spell". These simple gambits help reduce the tedium of many normal combat situations. I've tried setting up more complex gambits but the system does not have "and/or" capabilities - just prioritization of gambits - and I've had characters drain all their magic points repeating an action that is ineffective against certain foes.

Regarding turn based/real time, again, there is some flexibility with FF XII. It is real time but you can control the speed of the real time turn interval. You can also set it up that real time freezes when you pull up a character's action menu, in effect making it more like a turn based system with all the time in the world to select your action.

As far a character development, the game takes a two tiered approach. First, for each creature you kill, your characters get license points. You use these license points to buy licenses. Licenses allow you the ability to cast certain magic spells, technics (skills, sort of), use certain weapons, wear certain armours on magic items. Second, you need money to actually buy the magic spells, armour, weapons, gambit slots, gambit conditions, etc. You have to select the licenses with care as they don't do you any good if you can't find the actual item for sale in a store. So you have to purchase licenses for things according to what is available at the time and/or place.

The story is pretty good so far and rather complex. The concept of good guys vs bad guys gets blurred at times. Every time I've thought I knew what the ultimate task was to restore your downtrodden kingdom, there was a new twist to the story. If you follow the story line, there is a railroading factor, but the world is pretty open and you can deviate off the main plot as much as you want. I recently spent about 20-25 hours away from the story to pursue other activities to level up, build up my wealth and increase my status with my clan. The game provides many diversions if you so choose to pursue them. The game only reminds you of your next story goal when you pull up a map to consult..."psst, buddy, you want to go here next...".

The graphics are spectacular, the cut scenes are extremely well done, the voice acting is first class and the soundtrack is pretty good too. I recently got a home theater system and the game is done in Dolby Pro Logic II which really adds to the immersion factor - I hear the creatures to the side or behind me. When I kill a big creature and the body hits the ground, I get a room rumbling "thump" from the sub-woofer.

As I mentioned in my earlier post, some of the boss battles I've had were epic. I've beaten bosses on the first try after a 30 minute battle in which I had to "raise the dead" a few times during the battle. I've had fights that took me several attempts to beat and others I just had to give up on because either the boss was too powerful (run away!) or I hadn't figured out a weakness to exploit to make the battle easier - this latter game practice being a pet peeve of mine.

FF XII is my first experience with RPG Japanese style. It is odd mix of stuff. From some pretty terrifying monster that you'd expect from an RPG, to humourous looking killer tomato-like creatures, to silly bunny creature that call everyone "kupo", to an all female, rabbit-eared humaniod race with ample breasts and outfits showing plenty of cheek. The world is also an strange mix of technology and fantasy. You fight with magic, swords, bows, and muskets in a world that has islands floating high in the sky and massive air ships and smaller fighter-like craft. Somehow it all works - at least for me.

That is probably more than you wanted to know but I tried to cover the feel of the gameplay. It is very good. I don't think I can say it is the best RPG type game I've ever played, but it ranks pretty high. I hope that all the above helps.

[doc_bean]

Thanks Greg !

Your description about the feel of the fame reminds me a bit of hows I felt playing FFVII (my first jRPG), it's weird, but interesting and fun.

I'll probably check FFXII out after I've gone through most of my stack.

[frogbeastegg]

Thank you, Gregoshi. Hehe, it sounds like if I set it up right I can spend half the time reading a book as well - now that's efficient use of time! I'll bump it up the pile so it's at the same position as FFIX and FFX instead of close to the bottom; not sure which I'll play first.

female, rabbit-eared humaniod race

Oh no, not again! The last JRPG I played had one those … those things in it and I spent the entire game wishing it would die. :goes nauseous frog green at the memory of Lassi from Magical Starsign: I wonder how it is possible for a character design to invoke strong hatred at first sight? Something about the red eyes, zombie like expression and nasty combo of big hairdo and fat floppy ears ...

[UltraWar]

They are both made by the same company so it wouldn't really matter which one. It just depends on what game series you feel that you prefer to play.

[doc_bean]

Picked up DQ8 and played it a bit. I am about 5 hours in, so I've gotten a feel of the game. I have to say, this game really captures the 'fun' aspect of 16bit RPGs. It doesn't seem to have a deep story or a particulary great battle system (though the tension system is nice) but it's pure indulgence for those that like the occasional jRPG.