A new "best-of" list to complain about--top 10 SRPGs

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Prospero

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1. Disgaea/La Pucelle
2. Final Fantasy Tactics
3. Dynasty Tactics 1-2
4. Front Mission 3
5. Gladius
6. Vandal Hearts
7. Fire Emblem
8. Tactics Ogre (LUCT and KoL)
9. FFTA
10. Arc the Lad 1-3

I'll start. FFTA ranked higher than Arc 1-3?? Tactics Ogre at #8?? Disgaea (as much as I do like it) at #1???
 
I'm a bit of an SRPG n00b (and an RPG n00b in general, I guess) but can you really lump all the Tactics Ogre games in one listing? I've only played through Knight of Lodis, and I understood that that was the weakest/easiest TO game.

I'm a big supporter of Gladius as well, but #5?! Same with Disgaea/La Pucelle, I guess they weren't really trying to pay homage to the innovators.
 
I actually don't have a problem with Gladius at #5. It's the most carefully balanced SRPG I've ever played--the only problem it has is the stupidly low encounter rate when wandering outside cities.

On the other hand, I don't know how the hell FFTA managed to sneak in to the party, leaving Ogre Battle 64: Person of Lordly Caliber waiting outside.

And Disgaea is a really fun game, but it's just too exploitable to merit being called the best SRPG ever made.
 
Disgaea is kind of a special case - it's supposed to be that exploitable, and if you're the sort of person who enjoys finding and using the exploits it has a lot of power-levelling goodness to it. As well as providing a nice well-balanced gameplay experience to people who don't want to go down that route. Truly brilliant design on that one, and the only thing I'd hold against it is that perhaps it's a little too recent to really merit the number one spot (a lot of seemingly great games fade with age a little...).

I'm not sure I'd list FFTA and FFT seperately, and given the flawed balance in both games, I'm not sure I'd list them both in the top ten if I did. And the lack of Shining Force is a little surprising, given the big name recognition in some of the other titles.

Seeing Gladius in there is a little surprising, as is Vandal Hearts, although VH was probably the ideal introduction to SRPGs in its time. I might have thrown in something like the rather ingenious monster/item construction of Kartia rather than Gladius (was I the only person who enjoyed Kartia?)
 
I'm right there with the Kartia. FFT holds a special place in my heart though, I really loved that game. Maybe it was the soundtrack.
 
Kartia was wonderful. It was too easy, but it had the most ingenious gameplay system and perhaps the best story of any SRPG I have ever played. it certainly had the best characters.
 
I have no problem with Disgaea there.

I would have put Fire Emblem higher possibly, but I have just played the GBA ones.
 
I would have put both Front Mission 3 and Tactics Ogre higher on that list. FM3 in particular is just so .. mmm mmm mmm.
 
I gave Kartia a very positive review back on my Playstation fan site, many years ago..

..but I think it was mostly because Atlus sent me the game and I felt obligated. Bad "journalist"!
 
I disagree pretty strongly with the order of the list, but I agree with the items, except the glaring lack of Vandal Hearts 2.

I also thought that, while fun, Tactics Ogre Gaiden was highly overrated. The branching storylines were good, but the game was simply too easy. There was only one battle requiring any strategy (the first time where your group splits up). Other battles simply let you steamroll over the enemy. Thankfully, the final boss presented a little challenge which is rare in the genre.
 
Prospero said:
I actually don't have a problem with Gladius at #5. It's the most carefully balanced SRPG I've ever played--the only problem it has is the stupidly low encounter rate when wandering outside cities.
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My issue with Gladius was the entire upgrade menu available to view - it sapped a lot of enjoyment out of the "discovery" of new powers - if that makes any sense - which kind of took the desire out of playing future battles.
I have trouble justifying that reasoning myself, strangely enough, but that's how I felt about the game. I'm not saying it's terrible, just not what I was looking for at the time.

Prospero said:
On the other hand, I don't know how the hell FFTA managed to sneak in to the party, leaving Ogre Battle 64: Person of Lordly Caliber waiting outside.
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Not to mention March of the Black Queen!

Still, for all the flack Final Fantasy Tactics gets, it's still a very influential series.
 
No shining Force 3 on that list makes it irrelevant.

Moreover La Pucelle and Disgaea are different games, ranking them together is dumb.

Dynasty Tactis blows, period and gladius, while good, is nowhere near good enough for such a high spot.

And hugh.. Arc tghe lad.. please...
 
explodet said:
My issue with Gladius was the entire upgrade menu available to view - it sapped a lot of enjoyment out of the "discovery" of new powers - if that makes any sense - which kind of took the desire out of playing future battles.
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Yeah, I can see where you're coming from with that--on the other hand, having the entire upgrade list open form the beginning means that you can customize characters with lots of low-power attacks or a few high-powered attacks.

iapetus said:
Disgaea is kind of a special case - it's supposed to be that exploitable, and if you're the sort of person who enjoys finding and using the exploits it has a lot of power-levelling goodness to it. As well as providing a nice well-balanced gameplay experience to people who don't want to go down that route.
Click to expand...

Oh, I don't disagree with the first thing you say--I've been exploiting the hell out of Disgaea's game mechanics, and I'd agree that in several instances there are doors to power-levelling that have been deliberately left open.

But I don't agree that the game is balanced if you refuse to use exploits. Uber-items are undervalued with respect to the effort it takes to get them. Mages are overpowered, clerics and other healing classes are underpowered because they only get XP from kills, thieves are underpowered notwithstanding their high steal rate, and with his unique attacks, Laharl is so overpowered that he nearly breaks the game by himself. In order to get a decent cleric or a thief, you absolutely have to power-level and exploit--there's no way to get one in the normal course of play. I'd go farther than you, and say that if you expect your games to have fair rulesets without being exploitable, then Disgaea's not for you.
 
I can't believe NONE of the Shining Force games are in there. Heck Shining Force on the Genesis s what made that genre popualr. No mention of Master of Monsters, Dark Wizard, Military Madness/Nectaris or WarSong/GrowLancer. But hey, they're entitled to their opinion. I just think ther list is a little off to say the least........

Oh my goodness, I just realized that Ogre Battle is not on that list......what a travesty!
 
sp0rsk said:
have you tried giving your cleric some offensive magic? thats hardly exploiting.
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Yeah--I've outfitted both my clerics with offensive spells. They still had to be power-levelled, and equipped with power-levelled items, in order to have any truly useful healing ability. Some people like power-levelling; I tend to think it's a chore.

Fortunately, my offensive characters are so overpowered that they rarely ever need a backup cleric anyway. And in the end it's much more efficient to give Laharl or a mage healing spells than it is to level up a cleric.

A smarter mechanic would have been to grant XP to character classes for performing the tasks for which they were designed--clerics should get XP for healing, thieves should get it for stealing.
 
It's kinda sad that Tactics Ogre (LUCT) is still the best SRPG out there from what I've played (though I admittedly haven't touched Disgaea/La Puicelle or any Japanese Fire Emblems yet). Surprised Shining Force didn't make the cut though, epsecially when Arc the Lad is in there (essentially a watered down SF, which itself was just a watered down Fire Emblem). Hoshigami also deserves a little recognition imo, flawed as it is.

Oh and are the Dynasty Tactics games anything special? People usually just dismiss them?

My top 5 (by series)...

1. Ogre Battle Saga
2. Front Mission
3. Fire Emblem
4. Final Fantasy Tactics
5. Shining Force
 
Prospero said:
Mages are overpowered, clerics and other healing classes are underpowered because they only get XP from kills, thieves are underpowered notwithstanding their high steal rate, and with his unique attacks, Laharl is so overpowered that he nearly breaks the game by himself.
Click to expand...

Bizarre. I found mages next to useless on my first run through - stuck mostly to close combat guys.
 
iapetus said:
Bizarre. I found mages next to useless on my first run through - stuck mostly to close combat guys.
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Mages are "AWESOEM" for getting rid of groups of characters, especially galaxy mages.
 
iapetus said:
Bizarre. I found mages next to useless on my first run through - stuck mostly to close combat guys.
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Interesting--I'm finding exactly the reverse, my first time through. The only close combat character I use in every battle is Laharl. I have an array of four mages (ice, fire, wind, and star) that I use to soften up the enemy before I send him in as the finisher. Half the time, my mages are done with enemies in the area before Laharl even gets in an attack.

True enough that Disgaea is really good at allowing extensive customization--if I'd built up Warriors and whatnot instead, I might not be using mages much.
 
Apharmd Battler said:
I can't believe NONE of the Shining Force games are in there. Heck Shining Force on the Genesis s what made that genre popualr. No mention of Master of Monsters, Dark Wizard, Military Madness/Nectaris or WarSong/GrowLancer. But hey, they're entitled to their opinion. I just think ther list is a little off to say the least........

Oh my goodness, I just realized that Ogre Battle is not on that list......what a travesty!
Click to expand...

That should be Warsong/Langrisser. :)

I'd call Military Madness a straight-up strategy game rather than an SRPG (if anything, it plays like a stripped-down Advance Wars), and I'm inclined to say the same about Master of Monsters and Dark Wizard, too--they don't have the deeper character-building element that I tend to associate with SRPG's. (That doesn't mean I don't love both of those games, though. I can't count the number of hours my friends and I killed playing MoM multiplayer, and Dark Wizard rocked. Yet another good reason to own a Sega CD back in the day :) ) I definitely agree that Warsong, the Shining Force series, and Ogre Battle all deserve a mention--Warsong in particular is an underappreciated gem.
 
Were the Dynasty Tactics games really that good?

While I don't agree with the list very much, at least there are a lot of great games on there.
 
For my part, I've got to back the PS1 Tactics Ogre (Damn Quest, why couldn't they have given us a SNES port of the Super Famicom version instead of this loading time crap?!?!) as number 1. Branching story (sort of), challenge, and awesome mechanics make it superlative.
 
Diomedeskun said:
Kartia was wonderful. It was too easy, but it had the most ingenious gameplay system and perhaps the best story of any SRPG I have ever played. it certainly had the best characters.
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I enjoyed it as well. The battle system wasn't all that. It was a simple rock/paper/sissors setup.
 
Dynasty Tactics games are interesting... however, too much emphasis is on getting combinations. You must make sure that every special attack leads into at least two others, or you will have wasted it. You only get special attacks (tactics) back when you're involved in a combo kill.

But it gets points for being in the RotTK world :)
 
That list is fucking garbage. I was half hoping to see "in no particular order." I'm devastated.
 
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