taskforce wrote:
... I prefer the PSX/PS2 eras for RPG's personally, and while the handhelds feature similar hardware, they are not similar feeling playing the games no matter how good they may be, simply because that tiny screen takes so much fun out of the games ...
Well, I prefer PSX/PS2 era for RPGs too, but I guess I'm biased.
For you to understand my opinion I'll have to talk a little about myself:
Just remember that I'm not american, I live on a third-world country, and everything electronic used to take a huge while to get here. Today is better, but we're still a little late.
I started my gaming life something like 1987, bought an ATARI, well, actually it was an ATARI clone, but I guess it counts, it's name was "Supergame".
I played it a lot, my favorite games were Berserk, Mousetrap, Montezuma's Revenge and River Raid.
I bet you guys don't know some of them. Berserk is basicaly what inspired games that are today known as "Dungeon Crawler"
Mosetrap is a Pac-Man clone, just easyer and funnier(don't complain, I was just a child)
And Montezuma's Revenge is like a Pitfall clone, just much better.
River Raid is widely known.
A couple years later, I bough a computer, just for gaming, it was an MSX Hotbit, known today as MSX 1.0
It was a huge improvement over my ATARI. My favorite games of this era were Knightmare and Bokosuka Wars.
Knightmare is a game very advanced for it's time, it had various weapons, warp zones and it even has bosses for each level.
And Bokosuka Wars is a little hard to explain, the most close famous game I can think of, is Dragon Force.
Then, another couple of years, something like 1991-1992 I bought a NES, well, it was a NES clone, it's name was "Phantom System". I had a lot of issues with the controls, it took almost a year to finish my first game, even though I played everyday. I was hugely atached to ATARI type joystick.
My favorite games were Super Mario 3 and Battletoads.
After some years, I don't remember it well, I bought a Genesis, known in Brazil as "Mega Drive", than a Super NES, and a SEGA CD. Still had issues with controls. Couldn't get used to directional buttons.
I used to play a lot of games on it. About RPGs, by that time I didn't even knew this genre existed. I ended up only playing FFVI(US III), Chrono Trigger, Phantasy Star IV, Shining Force 1 and 2. Much years later I finished more 16 bits RPGs, on emulators.
My favorite SEGA CD game was Final Fight CD, just because it's very close to the arcade version, what I used to play a lot.
Than, on 1997, a friend of mine called me to see his new videogame, it was a Playstation. When I got there I saw a game that I loved on the first sight, it was a japanese copy of Final Fantasy Tactics. On that same year I bought a PSX, but since FFT was still in japanese, I bought another game wich was a sequence of a game I liked a lot on Super NES, it was Final Fantasy VII. I get permanently hooked. But I still had issues with directional buttons.
I played a lot of RPGs and Strategy games, because they usually don't need too fast movements, and I could play even with issues with directional buttons.
Than, Sony launched it's analog controller. Finnaly I was in Heaven. Since I couldn't play well on directional buttons, the analog stick was the solution to my controller problems. But I was still hooked with RPG and Strategy Games. And I am untill today.
Lol, this was a pretty long post. But I hope now you guys understand the reason I usually prefer PSX/PS2 era for RPGs, even though I like 16 bits era RPGs too. It's just that I grew accostumed to it. I played and finished more than 400 games on 16 bits consoles(something like 98% were rented), but just a few of them were RPGs.