I'm pretty sure there are a lot of Poke-fans here in the community, so I decided to make this post.

I do not consider myself as a Pokemaniac but I have to admit that this kind of gameplay, search and collect new type of monsters, can be very addictive. The Pokemons hold the biggest fame but there are some other choices too.

Here we go :

The first one is the Monster Racer.



A really simple and easy turn-based RPG where the gameplay part is very similar to Pokemon games. Instead of fights, you have to competit in races with other trainers.

It's funny, cute, addictive BUT .... after a few hours I felt that Monster Racer is kinda boring too. It's worst part is it's repeatness in everything! The scenario is repeative, the backrounds in specific areas (Asia, Africa etc)..even the dialogues sometimes.




The second and last choice is the Dragon Quest Monsters - Joker 2.



In my opinion this is the best RPG for the DS. The value productions are very high and almost everything in the game is great. The sound, the graphics, the gameplay and even the simplistic scenario story has it's own "magic". I believe that the DS Pokemons should look alike this... You must try it!

Square-Enix released the Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker 2 Professional (j-only release) later this year but as far as I know there aren't huge differences.

In conclusion, if you feel that the above recommendations are not that good for your taste then don't worry...the NDS has some more choices like the Digimon series, Monster Rancher series, Spectrobes series (the links do not include only the DS versions) etc

Take Care ;)

I recently wrote a review for the DS version of X-Men Destiny for my blog (it's in Greek). I have never been a fan of the X-men franchise so the logical question is why bothering with the game?

The answer is simple. Curiosity.

For an unknown reason the DS version didnt recieve similar promotion to the other versions :
https://www.legendra.com/rpg/fiche-rpg_id-5227-rpg-x_men_destiny__.html

Searching the net in order to find more information about the game was a small pain in the back , so I decided to check all by myself. Besides, I had nothing new to play...


The whole experience is...CRAP!

Honestly, X-Men Destiny is a mistake , an accident, a disastrous experience or.. whatever.


The scenario is pretty simple. The hero is a mutant and he needs to discover more about his abilities. So, he is searching here and there...people, infos etc In the introduction, there's a dilema. You have to choose between physical and mental powers ~for your hero~. If you choose physical, then your hero will punch the enemies with his bare hands (one button does the job..). The mental power makes him shoot them with energy balls...

The enemies are ALWAYS sentinels or purifiers punks and the action is best described -> go from the point A to B.. nothing complicated. A straight forward RPG.

The gameplay is pretty basic. Walking around the city and killing enemies. It reminded me some old '90s beat 'em ups that I used to play when I was younger.

The development is old fashioned. In order to gain level you have to hit and kill as more enemies as you can. There's a counter in the main menu. Check the fourth screenshot.

The graphics are bad, very bad especially for an 2011 production. The 3D technics don't take advance of the DS's capabilities. Anyway, there's no need to explain why they are poor. It's obvious by watching the screens or a gameplay video. The worst part is the art design. Even the famous x-men characters look different.

Did I mention that there aren't videos ? The whole gaming experience is presented by static bad illustrated pics.


X-Men Destiny is one of the worst DS RPGs along with Izuna 2 & Dungeon of Windaria and from now on a part of my all time worst RPGs.










PS - By the way, the developer is : Other Ocean Interactive

PS 1 - Check my other post with my worst RPGs : https://www.legendra.com/blogs/blog_ticket.php?bid=82&tid=1787

PS 3 - I used the DeSmuME to grab the pics (but I finished it in a real hardware/DS)

The first time I bothered with Legend of Heroes - Sora no Kiseki FC was back in 2005. Many people in Falcom-related forums and Japanese gamers/sites, considered it as one of Falcom's greatest games. That's not pretty far from the truth because in general, FC is an ok game.

At this time, Im replaying it on my PSP. So, I felt like writing 3 of it's best & worst characteristics.

Here you are :


+

1. First of all, the game has a good character develpment pretty unusual for a Falcom game! Trails in the Sky has a nice cast of characters with interesting backround stories and each one of them has a very good presentation. Althought their not up to the standards of Final Fantasy VII or Xenogears, Falcom did a good job here.
2. The soundtrack is great. I always give attention to the OST. The Falcom Sound Team is one of the best out there.
3. The gameplay is extremely better than the Gagharv's Trilogy*. There are a lot of interesting options/choices but mainly, its more organized and faster.

-

1. Falcom can't do nice 3D polygons. Most of their 3D games have graphical problems and the final result (not always) is not that great. But to be fair, they did a great work porting the game from the PCs to PSP ~althought the character sprites seem in worse condition than the PC thanks to the smaller resolution~.
2. The dialogues! OH MY GOD!!! I have never seen such a huge dialogue-scripting. The problem is not the scripting itself but... the extremely extented and nosense conversations! EVERY character in this game has something to say even the useless NPCs. The important - event dialogues might last 5-10 minutes thanks to their (especially that bitch Estelle) flooding. Yup! That's the right word for the dialogues. FLOODING!
3. Althought the gameplay is faster than the Garghav's Trilogy, it is still pretty slow. The tactical system in the fighting scenes needs a lot of improvments. It takes a lot of time to finish even an easy fight.

Anyway, as I told above Trails in the Sky (Sora no Kiseki FC) is not a bad game but also it's not for everyone. If you like the traditional Japanese RPGs where the heroes are teenagers that try to save the world with their superhero fighting skills and their non-stop talking mouth, then give it a shot. If you don't .. then PSP has a huge RPG library. Pick one from HERE (click on it) ;) .


* Gagharv Trilogy :
Loh 2
LoH 3
LoH 4

The title of my post is kinda confusing. I won't speak about the movie but for 3 of my less favourite RPG games. You can call it list of shame :P .



The first place or the "Good" goes to the : Ephemeral Fantasia (click to visit it's thread).



Actually, it's no good at all. But I have to admit that it is better than the next ones.
Everything about this game is wrong. It's artwork (what a terrible cover ~all versions~), the slow gameplay, it's graphics even the music is failed althought it's a musical RPG. The producers tried to mime the mechanics (time travelling) of the legendary Zelda - Majora's Mask but they failed 100%.


The bad goes to a bad game. I'm talking about Izuna 2 - The Unemployed Ninja Returns (click to visit it's thread).



Both Izunas are bad games. But the second part of this shitty series is the worst. A completely stupid scenario, tragic main and NPC characters, annoying dialogues. Let's hope we won't see the Izuna 3 in the future.This game is too generic and childish that it used to be my worst RPG of all time till I discovered...


The ugly or else, my worst RPG of all time, the Dungeon of Windaria (click to visit it's thread).



Windaria is one of my all time favourites anime. I always think how great would be If someone could make this anime into a videogame. And then, my wish became my worst nightmare. Compile Hearts manage to transform an excellent anime into a tragedy.

Seriously, WHAT IN THE WORLD they were thinking?

The gameplay is pretty similar to Izuna 2 (dungeon crawler) and most of times you will be inside a dungeon which, btw, is randomly generated! Yup, thats right. The design of the next floor is always random. But even worse, the references to the anime are completely ridiculous. Static anime pics with text (always tell you that you must escape this place). All the dungeons are in the same style but with different paths.

The game is pretty short too. I'm pretty sure that noone in this world have spent more than 3-4 hours for this... "game".


Btw, guys have you ever seen the movie?



It's a classic western with Clint Eastwood at his best! You must not miss it!

Besides it's better ~for all of us! to bother with the movie rather with the games above.

While I was searching for files in my PC, I accidentally found some artwork pics from several RPG games.

They were nice and I felt like to share them :)

Here you are :


Shining Force Cross Arcade




Bahamut Lagoon




Zill O'll Infinite




Venus & Braves




Baroque




Kiniro La Corda 2





Artwork is a really important part of every RPG. Sometimes the game artwork is better than the final product :)



PS - click on the game names to visit their threads

Ok, I admit it. I LOVE Alundra 2 and in my opinion is quite better than the 1st part for a lot of reasons. But this is not the reason of my post so I won't analyse it. Just keep in mind that before I play it, I had finished Alundra 1 and liked it a lot. I was quite pessimistic with the 3D look of the new Alundra. I didn't know what to expect from it.

It's strongest part is ~without doubt~ it's humour.

Years ago, I uploaded 3 videos in my youtube account that they show the funny part of the game. Enjoy!







What a funny game it was!