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[Spastic Colon]

I thought PM2 was better than ToS, but interestingly enough, I finished ToS and PM2 is gathering dust somewhere. My biggest complaint about PM2 is that it gets utterly boring and extremely repetitive. Nothing compelled me to finish it.

I quite agree about Paper Mario 2 getting boring and repetitive.

It started out alright, but after all the backtracking and what not I said to myself "Is this supposed to be fun or something?"

I guess my Nintendo reality-distortion field only lasted so long.

I'm not much of an RPG player, so take that into consideration.

 

[Scrow]

get Donkey Kong: Jungle beat. one of the best, most fun games this generation. a bit short though.

 

[evilromero]

Paper Mario 2 works best if you think of it as a 2D platformer. I wouldn't call it "engaging", it's just fun.

I'd call it a labor in love. Borning a majority of the time; fun and rewarding for the rest.

Get Prince of Persia 1. Also, DK: Jungle Beat would be the perfect companion game.

 

[DrLazy]

Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance -- absolute must-buy if you like SRPGs. While I still generally prefer Tactics Ogre SNES/PS uber alles, Dragona is really winning me over to the FE camp.

Batallion Wars -- total crap. Terrible controls/camera, dated mission design, and a generally ugly aesthetic.

Killer 7 -- much as I'd love to dismiss this game, it DOES have a weird sort of pretentious charm. The gameplay is rock bottom, but like one of my favorite non-games, Silent Hill 2, the off-kilter priorities of the game's director make it an amusing playthrough. Just don't expect ANYTHING resembling quality mechanics.

Tales of Symphonia -- crap. The fighting engine is actually quite good, but to experience it, you have to slog through the most cliched characters ever committed to an RPG plot. And speaking of plot, it's pure anime sewage: magical submissive angel girl saves the tree of mana type sewage. Pass.

Donkey Kong: Jungle Beat -- crap. If you MUST have a platformer, buy a GBA Player and Yoshi's Island. This is throwaway platforming fluff of the Yoshi's Story variety given any sort of note solely because of the gimmicky bongo controls. Four hours later, you'll realize you utterly wasted your time.

Prince of Persia 1 or 2 -- get 1, skip 2. 1 is 3D platforming genius. 2 coulda been genius, but they spent so much time designing chainmail bikinis and licensing Godsmack that the few moments of brilliance are separated by swathes of utter mediocrity accompanied by the worst soundtrack of all time. Get the PC or Xbox version of 2 if you must; the GC version has some of the worst 16-bit color artifacts I've ever seen.

Geist -- crap. Second-rate FPS design wed to a possession gimmick that results in second-rate adventure game design. The end result is a third-rate game that does nothing truly right.

Pikmin 2 -- good game. Get it. It gets a bit tedious towards the end, but the Pikmin really ARE fucking cute, and the controls should be considered for other RTS variants in the future. Fun and deep.

Paper Mario RPG 2 -- also great. Like Pikmin 2, it's not without its problems -- the backtracking is wearisome and frequent -- but the kickass battle system and funny, self-deprecating dialogue get me every time. Good, good stuff.

I pretty much agree with everything here (I even admit Pikmin 2 gets tedious at the end), EXCEPT Donkey Kong Jungle Beat was a really really great party game, and one I'll never sell because its great to bring out when friends are over. It does have some depth too, it took me a bit to get all platinum metals. Buy it.

 

[Pellham]

'cuz you yourself identified the disconnect: you're daunted by unnecessarily complicated RPGs. Me, I embrace and revel in fantasy-themed spreadsheets with arbitrary rules and generally PREFER them to all other kinds of RPGs.

You don't get how columns of numbers comingling with inexplicable modifiers might be some sort of low-grade mathematically-deviant fun for the OCD set. I don't get what makes dragons sexy. It's all good!

:lol burn


on topic, I haven't played anything on the list except Fire Emblem.

 

[James-Ape]

DK Jungle Beat is great fun, short but lots of replay value (if you dig that sort of thing)

Paper Mario 2 goes Boring to Great to even more Boring over the 8 or so chapters. It becomes a chore to finish, but has it's moments in the middle.

Pikmin2 is brilliant.

 

[Speevy]

Exactly. The parts with Rawk Hawk and the spooky level (been so long that I forget the names) are Nintendo heaven.

I want that damn music from the train level! It only plays once and you never hear it again, but I really liked the tune.

 

[Spike]

Where are the Batallion Wars lovers. IGN and Gamespot rated it high? Why the hate?

I really, really, really wanted to like it, but it was not meant to be. The controls are weak, and the missions are not very fun.

AWDS coming out a short while before pretty much killed BW as well.

 

[Tarazet]

Personally, I liked Battalion Wars a lot, but General Chaos it ain't. The lack of multiplayer really hurts.

 

[Vlad]

I disagree. The second one was more about exploration and the charm of it all. It was still very challenging (and quite fun) making it through those caves hoping that you could make it with enough Pikmin at the end. You really had to plan and manage how many Pikmin you'd take, how many you could afford to lose, and which Pikmin to bring with you while you were in the caves to the different sections.

I think I wouldn't have had as much of a problem with the caves if they didn't take up such a huge amount of the playtime, either by having less of them, or making an individual cave shorter. As is, the fact that you can't replenish your forces in there, for the most part, makes it so that you're forced to slowly creep along, and pick off the enemies one at a time. Sure, it requires strategy, but it also ends up dragging the game down.

One of these days I'll sit down and trudge through what I assume are the last few caves so I can actually see the ending, but I just can't bring myself to do it.

I also really enjoyed that we weren't looking for objects for a spaceship, but common items found on earth, and the description Olimar gives to them. Seeing those things from his perspective was a huge plus.

I did like those aspects. I can't argue that the game isn't polished. Heck, it's one of the more polished games I've played recently, it's just those two aspects (caves and the removal of the time limit) that brought the game down for me.

 

[john tv]

Here is what I plan to buy
Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance - Must-buy
Batallion Wars - Haven't tried yet, looks at least worth a rental
Killer 7 - Garbage
Tales of Symphonia - Very good, recommended
Donkey Kong: Jungle Beat - Haven't played this either, but hear it's quite fun
Prince of Persia 1 or 2 - First one looks good. Second one looks dumb

Not Sure..
Geist - Looks lame to me, but haven't tried it
Pikmin 2 - Want to play this bad!
Paper Mario RPG 2 - Hilarious game, really fun (and funny)

 

[DDayton]

Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance -- Haven't played yet, but I will buy it shortly.

Buy Now
Pikmin 2 -- fun, as the other folks pointed out

Paper Mario 1000 Year Door -- quite good. If you liked Paper Mario, you'll enjoy this.

Donkey Kong: Jungle Beat -- great, quirky game. A bit on the short side, but a really fun and unique platformer.

Buy at a Discount
Batallion Wars -- I like it, but I find myself 1/2 way through the game and loosing interest.

Geist -- I actually really enjoyed this game, to a point. The unique concept and "posession" gameplay elements were fun... however, about 1/3 to 1/2 of the way through, you get stuck in a "combat simulator" that seems to emphasize FPS over exploration. I put the game down 3 weeks ago and haven't touched it since.

Tales of Symphonia -- I really enjoyed this game, but eventually left it out to dry. I seemed to loose interest somewhere in the second disc... and when I put down an RPG for a while, I have a REALLY hard time getting back into it.

Feel Free to Skip 'em
Killer 7 -- I can't "get" this game. I've tried and tried and tried. It's weird and quirky, but I just don't find myself enjoying the gameplay.

Prince of Persia 1 / 2 -- I played PoP1 for a few hours... but, well, I just got tired of it.

 

[Hydro_Alexis]

All the good supposed "exclusive" 3rd party games got ported to the playstation.

 

[Scrow]

Donkey Kong: Jungle Beat -- crap. If you MUST have a platformer, buy a GBA Player and Yoshi's Island. This is throwaway platforming fluff of the Yoshi's Story variety given any sort of note solely because of the gimmicky bongo controls. Four hours later, you'll realize you utterly wasted your time.

your opinion is wrong.

please ignore the quoted impressions above.

 

[dannyQ]

get Paper Mario 2 NOW