Friday, May 23, 2008

Overview of the 360 RPGs

Here's something I wrote as a reply to a 360voice forum post that might be of benefit to RPG fans who have a 360 but not sure what game to get.

My overview of the RPGs on the 360:

Arkadian Warriors: Nice XBLA title - fit into the size window by having the dungeons randomly generated. Action style combat, though nice and easy to complete.
Blue Dragon: Took 96hrs for a complete playthrough to get all the achievements (with a guide, I'm a fan of official guides that rock). Created by the FF team (story and music) and art done by the Dragonball Z guy. It's quite fun if you like FF and/or DBZ.
Enchanted Arms: Graphically great, not so good storyline. 35hr completion (achievements for completing the game), can get boring in places, so it's a bit of a grind.
Eternal Sonata: Not properly played yet (no decent guide, the official one is crap), but still RPG style battles in an action environment. A new idea, implemented well, with a good storyline. Requires two playthroughs minimum for 1000 GS. A cross between FFVIII and Blue Dragon, though much shorter.
Lost Odyssey: IMO, a new standard in J-RPGs for the next gen consoles (I still love Chrono Trigger). I'm ~22hrs in and now on the 3rd disc, so I dont see it being more than 60/70hrs for the full 1000GS. Excellent 'blow your mind' story, great graphics, excellent lip synching etc. Every so often the town visits break the flow of melee combat, but still an excellent game.
Marvel Ult. Alliance: Almost completed the GS in this, just imagine Marvel characters + action combat + A levelling system. To me, a bit boring, but it has its fans.
Mass Effect: Too much dialogue, but good implementation of FPS/RPG type elements. I'm a JRPG fan, so meh.
Oblivion: Nice FPS/RPG type game as well, but see Mass Effect. My g/f has spent 160hrs on the game, and only done 10% of the story, as she has tried to visit EVERY dungeon in the game.
Phantasy Star Universe: Played the originals on Dreamcast, so I loved this. 35hr completion - some action elements and an average story, but nice graphics and combat system.
Two Worlds: Like Oblivion, but a small notch worse. I quite liked it, as it incorporated new elements to that type of game, but it tried to incorporate a lot very quickly, and wasn't fully developed.
KuF: A retail version of Arcadian Warriors basically - better graphics, but pure dungeon grinding with a small hint of a story. Online play though, which is a bonus.

Top 3 IMO:

Lost Odyssey
Phantasy Star Universe
Blue Dragon

(Because I prefer JRPGs over games like Oblivion and Mass Effect)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Nice article dude!