Aside from a few names and story elements that can be excused since the games are intended to be set in the same world (albeit Symphonia many, many years before Phantasia) I don't see their overall plots as being all too similar, but then again I usually pay more attention to the smaller character driven plots than any bigger picture stuff. The games are obviously intended to have a similar air; of all game makers, Namco seems to be one of the most nostalgic, personally i don't see that as too big of a fault.

But you're right about annoying characters (I wanted both Colette and Genis to die the second they were introduced). I was glad to find no more annoying characters in the party when I played Tales of the Abyss (which is far and away a better game, no matter what anyone says).

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I only had major issues with Genis. It sucks going without a party mage just because he's so **** annoying.

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Xenogears, Chrono Trigger, the Suikoden series, ff 5-7&9, the Tales series, the Lunar series are some of my favorite games for their stories.

Oh and the Dragon/Warrior Quest games I have been able to play are pretty good to.

Yeah, he was pretty much too annoying to use. For me, Colette was worse though. In fact, once I got all the characters, I stopped including them both in my party entirely along with Lloyd. It was more fun to play as Sheena (especially once you get her swimsuit alternate costume).

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I usually had Sheena, Presea, and Raine. My "Special Friend" in the plot was Sheena.

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Hmmm.

- Persona 2: Eternal Penishment (and also Innocent Sin)
- The Final Fantasy games (including Tactics)
- Suikoden 2 (and im sure the other ones except 4)
- The Front Mission games
- Xenogears
- Chrono Trigger & Chrono Cross
- Kindom Hearts (for the most part)
- Vagrant Story
- Parasite Eve 1 & 2
- Jade Cocoon (thats right, I actually liked it)
- Valkyrie Profile
- Wild Arms 2

Non RPG games:

- Okami
- Beyond Good & Evil
- Ico & Shadow of the Colossus
- The Zelda games (especially Legend of the Twilight Princess & Ocarina of Time)
- Alundra
- Devil May Cry 3 (and im sure 4 aswell)
- The Onimusha games
- Alone in the Dark the New Nightmare
- The Rachet & Clank games
- The God of War games
- Brave: The Search for Spirit Dancer

And im sure theres some other ones that im not remmbering just on hand.

My party also consisted of Sheena, Presea and Raine always. Either Regal or Zelos filled the other spot as they were less annoying than Lloyd

Sheena was my "friend" the first time I played as well (and probably the "friend" of every heterosexual male without a very strong loli complex who played the game and knew about the friendship system). I got Presea the second time and probably would go for Raine if I ever pick it up again, which is doubtful since I'd probably sooner replay Tales of the Abyss.

Sheena is sexy, but Tear is far sexier.

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^Oxymoron, at least for games that try to even attempt anything near "complex" and "interesting" storytelling. Specially, specially RPGs. Western or Japanese, they are all riddled with horrible dialog/script/scenario and a lot of the time their plot is just plain gibberish/rubbish/stale crap.

I recommend playing games that play it safe like the Legend of Zelda series, or simple RPGs like the Breath of Fire series or Arc the Lad. Hideo Kojima games are also pretty fun to get into, his best work is probably MGS1 for the psx and definitely Zone of the Enders: The Second Runner. Emphasis on the latter, as the MGS series tends to be over the top in a lot of cases. Sometimes it works(MGS3) sometimes it just spells disaster(2: Sons of Liberty). Saw someone mention Ookami, that's a great one too.

Last edited by Nomad at 4:33 pm, Sep 21 2008

you guys ever tried casting meteor shower in a new game plus? genis's saving grace.

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YES! BIOSHOCK FTW!

I'm surprised no one's mentioned Halo as one yet (I won't though. It had the most clicheic plot I've ever seen)


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Cave Story was pretty good.

Bioshock is awesomely original in their story telling and plot. I also forgot to mention Marathon really good story and the way they tell it.

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All men are born with a nose and ten fingers, but no one was born with a knowledge of God. - Voltaire

The original game has been made by Wolfteam (which was a part of the Telenet company), not by Namco. They asked Namco to publish the game because all their previous games sold so badly that they wanted to try to sell it under a more famous company. So I wouldn't say that Tales series is a Namco series.

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Yeah, you're right; however, at the time of Symphonia (the game I was discussing), what was left of Wolf Team had essentially already become a part of Namco (Namco Tales Studio). Personally, I think at this point it's fine to say Tales is a Namco series. The original team has nothing to do with a couple of the games now a days.


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Ok, my point is that they only didn't invented the saga, but they picked it up after it was invented.


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