Great Games No One Knows

Remembering the games of yesteryear.

Postby DrkTr14ce » Sat Dec 29, '07, 3:33 pm

Yeah, and it's been rated #10 for Gamepro Magazine's Top 10 Forgotten Gems.
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Postby Celeith » Sat Apr 12, '08, 11:13 pm

Thousand Arms is a fun game and very unique. The games your typical save the world type deal but the gameplay is different. You are Meis Triumph. To advance in the game and become stronger there are 4 female characters that join you who you must date. This is not a dating sim game its a RPG. Each girl has a different element, and when you date them their effection level for you increases. The higher it increases the better chance for items as well as increases when you increase your weapons power at the smith. If Meis' weapon was level 1 but Meis was level 10 and he had a good effection for Sophia he could forge a level 10 weapon as well as get some basic healing spells for himself.. Getting the effection with all girls is a key to this game because if all your characters want all the magics you have to take the dating slow at times and forge each of your characters weapons 1 level at a time, but only if you want all the levels. You can date minor NPC's as well and get boosts for your weapons from them only in those towns. In total there are 7 characters, 3 men *only Meis gets dates but the other 2 seem to attract women quite often* and 4 women.

The games battle system is unique as well, fights consist in parties of 3, but the main fight is 1 on 1. If you're lead character is defeated or decided to run from the battle the player behind him can take his spot, and so on until you either completely run from the battle or are defeated. The characters behind you can help minor such as healing with spells or items, they cannot attack in any way possible. The game is great but alot of people haven't heard of this game. I never heard of the game before myself until I visited my cousin and traded for it. Overall this is a good game and would be good to look into.
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Postby Wolf Bird » Sat Aug 16, '08, 3:43 pm

Alright, I have to post it here as I've now started going through it for the third time...

The game I refer to is Earthbound, an RPG for the SNES. Apparently, Earthbound is fairly popular in Japan (where it's called the Mother series, Earthbound being the second game in the series) but it's not too well-known anywhere else. It was released around the same time as PSIV, when RPGs were stuck in the medieval-knights-and-dragons rut. I'm not saying that the medieval setting was bad, it was just getting overused. But anyway, here in the states, the Smash bros. games introduced a lot of people to Earthbound as Ness is a playable character in all of the smash titles to date, but it still seems to have relatively few, if devoted, fans. As an aside, I think the name 'Smash brothers' may have come from Earthbound to begin with, as HAL Laboratory developed both the smash games and Earthbound. In Earthbound, when you get a critical hit, it's a 'SMAAAAAAAAASH!' attack.

To Earthbound itself...overall, it's a fantastic game. Like any others, it has its flaws, and I guess I'll get those out of the way. For one thing battle system is pretty basic, but there are some things I want to point out about it later. The game's also fairly linear, but not necessarily straightforward, so it can be a little confusing sometimes. But generally, as long as you just talk to people like you should in RPGs, you'll get through it. The biggest flaw are the multi-bottle rockets, an item that only Jeff can use...they really do break the game if you use them. These things can take most of the bosses in one hit. It makes things a little easy, but the good thing is that you don't HAVE to use them if you don't want to.

Now the good points. About the battle system, I must point out a few things...one is the Auto-fight function. In many RPGs, some battles against weaker enemies you just use your basic attacks against, but you have to go through each character and input the command. The auto-fight feature takes care of this for you. Another is the 'automatic win'. If you're strong enough and you run into a weak enemy, you get a green swirl on the screen and it turns multi-colored, and you get a 'you won!' message. So you don't have to bother fighting weak guys. And then there's the rolling HP meter...instead of your HP just dropping when you take a hit, it rolls down like a slot machine and you don't die until you hit 0. This gives you a chance to heal someone who's taken a mortal hit. I like that.

But what really stands out about this game is the plot, setting, and sense of humor. In the end, the plot is save-the-world, so that's not different, but the story in getting there is quite touching and takes you to a whole host of bizarre places (like Saturn Valley, where the Mr. Saturn live.) Your main quest is given to you by Buzz-Buzz, an alien bee from 10 years in the future who comes out of a meteorite that crashes in Ness's (you) quiet suburban neighborhood. Buzz-Buzz tells you to visit the eight sanctuaries located around the world, and gives you the Sound Stone so you can record the eight parts of the earth's melody contained at these locations, so that Ness's psychic powers will be channeled and multiplied by the earth (represented by Ness getting an absurd stat boost after you've visited all 8 sanctuaries) so you can defeat Giygas, the bad guy. This journey takes you to several suburban areas and eventually the city of Fourside, as well as a swamp, deserts, a town ruled by a cult obsessed with blue, the floating realm of Dalaam, a beach resort, and the Lost Underworld where dinosaurs rule. All you're armed with at the beginning is your PSI powers and a baseball bat. You'll also find references to the Beatles (a yellow submarine, mainly), Monty Python, countless 50s sci-fi B-movies, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and countless other things. Just be sure to call your dad to save your progress sometimes, and if you're feeling homesick, your mom is just a phone call away too.

Wow, this is long. I don't want to give too much else away if anyone does give this game a try, but I do just want to post this link...
http://www.ocremix.org/remix/OCR00123/
That is the earth's melody (granted, it's a remix, but oh well). That particular tune falls under the category 'great video game music' as far as I'm concerned, despite it being short and simple.
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Postby Thoul » Sun Aug 17, '08, 2:49 am

Another is the 'automatic win'. If you're strong enough and you run into a weak enemy, you get a green swirl on the screen and it turns multi-colored, and you get a 'you won!' message. So you don't have to bother fighting weak guys.


This should be required by law in every RPG ever made. Seriously, they should even go back and rerelease all the old RPGs with this feature. It's just that great a concept. I've never played Earthbound, but now I want to just on the merits of this alone.
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Postby Wolf Bird » Sun Aug 17, '08, 4:45 am

It is a GREAT feature, especially if you're trying to get some of those rare items that only certain enemies drop. Even stronger enemies, if you manage to get them from behind and no buddy joins them, you can get that message. I should mention that you can see enemy sprites on the screen too, so you know where the fights are and can try to manipulate the situation so you get a surprise attack.

Regardless, I heartily recommend this game. It has aged well.
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Postby DrkTr14ce » Tue Aug 26, '08, 7:02 pm

Ah, Earthbound: A true forgotten gem. Thinking about it only makes me madder knowing that Mother 3 (Aka Earthbound 2) remains only in Japan, and Nintendo doesn't appear to have put Earthbound on the Virtual Console. The bastards.. :bang:

...Wow...has it really been that long since I've been here?
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Postby Wolf Bird » Wed Aug 27, '08, 4:24 am

DrkTr14ce wrote:Ah, Earthbound: A true forgotten gem. Thinking about it only makes me madder knowing that Mother 3 (Aka Earthbound 2) remains only in Japan, and Nintendo doesn't appear to have put Earthbound on the Virtual Console. The bastards.. :bang:


No, they haven't released it on the VC. Apparently, it WAS given a rating by the ESRB, so MAYBE there's hope. And I agree, I really wish Nintendo would translate Mother 3 and bring it to the states! :x
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Postby Celeith » Sat Aug 30, '08, 6:46 pm

Lunar Silver Star Story (LSSS and LSSSC) is a game most people don't know about. Now if you grew up in the NES - PS1 days then you would know what I'm talking about when i mention Lunar. But for the majority of people who have grown up on the PS2 era and are only interested in graphics rather then storyline this game I believe falls in the category of games no one knows. Its such a shame that newer gamers cannot understand the greatness of sprite based games.
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Postby Lemina » Sun Aug 31, '08, 4:43 pm

^ That's a shame, people don't know what they're missing if they haven't played Lunar: SSSC. It's truly Game Arts' finest work, storytelling wise.
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Postby Thoul » Sun Aug 31, '08, 6:01 pm

I wish they would be rereleased again. I know they were ported to the PlayStation, but it's impossible to find those games for a reasonable price. I'd like to give them a try one day.
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