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Going for a full Ps1 Collection

124

Comments

  • Moderators, Category Moderators, Computer Games Moderators Posts: 51,853 CMod ✭✭✭✭Retr0gamer


    I only have my PAL copy to remind me of how bad gaming can get and not to give up on it like I nearly did because of that game.

    Also it's fun ti break out at retro meet ups to throw it on for people that haven't played it. Good fun laughing at how awful it is although the poor unfortunate playing it has yet to survive very long.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 560 ✭✭✭Flaregon


    Retr0gamer wrote: »
    I only have my PAL copy to remind me of how bad gaming can get and not to give up on it like I nearly did because of that game.

    Also it's fun ti break out at retro meet ups to throw it on for people that haven't played it. Good fun laughing at how awful it is although the poor unfortunate playing it has yet to survive very long.

    In fairness I want to play it to clear it....


  • Moderators, Category Moderators, Computer Games Moderators Posts: 51,853 CMod ✭✭✭✭Retr0gamer


    Flaregon wrote: »
    In fairness I want to play it to clear it....

    Good luck with that. The story is so naff and the battle system so devoid of any options and strategy that you'll more than likely give up and play something better before you hit the 40 hour mark. That's the clever thing to do. Don't be like me and clear it :'( I'll never get those 80 hours of my life back.


  • Moderators, Category Moderators, Computer Games Moderators Posts: 51,853 CMod ✭✭✭✭Retr0gamer


    This **** might make it worth it :

    52-valley-143.jpg

    57-valley-150.jpg

    58-valley-151.jpg

    9-prisonisland-020.jpg

    16-legends-036.jpg

    18-legends-039.jpg


  • Moderators, Category Moderators, Computer Games Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 34,633 CMod ✭✭✭✭CiDeRmAn


    LoD is awesome!
    But only because I sold a copy on eBay I bought for peanuts at a Sunday market, to a guy in Australia for a small fortune! :)


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  • Registered Users Posts: 151 ✭✭Kealy1994


    Retr0gamer wrote: »
    This **** might make it worth it :

    52-valley-143.jpg

    57-valley-150.jpg

    58-valley-151.jpg

    9-prisonisland-020.jpg

    16-legends-036.jpg

    18-legends-039.jpg

    Most of the games of that time had bad dialogue.
    Like Resident Evils voice acting is laughably terrible
    and you would be convinced some of the dialogue
    is a sexual innuendo but you play it for the laugh
    because you get enjoyment of playing through
    the game even tho the tank controls and laughable
    bad dialogue.Its the same reason you'd watch a B horror
    movie

    Final Fantasy 7's Character models are terrible for its time
    and the dialogue was terrible and Cloud even gets abused
    and thats considered a classic.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRxtxTfjiq4

    Most of the classics on the ps1 are cringe worthy now
    and Legend of Dragoon is by far not the worse lol
    I can look past the flaws of the ps1 libary.

    Theres alot of superior JRPGS on the psp/ps2/ps3/Nintendo DS/
    But this was one of the best JRPGS of its time.

    You just hate it because it dosen't hold up well today but when
    you loved it as a kid there wasnt really much better.Most ps1
    games dont hold up well you just look past it.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 35,262 ✭✭✭✭o1s1n
    Master of the Universe


    Kealy1994 wrote: »
    You just hate it because it dosen't hold up well today but when
    you loved it as a kid there wasnt really much better.Most ps1
    games dont hold up well you just look past it.

    There's an absolute plethora of PS1 games which still hold up well. Saying they don't is nonsense.


  • Registered Users Posts: 151 ✭✭Kealy1994


    o1s1n wrote: »
    There's an absolute plethora of PS1 games which still hold up well. Saying they don't is nonsense.
    I said most and 60 percent of the games are sports and shuffle ware but I like that shuffle ware because I grew up with those games.

    Then some of the classic Jrpgs on the ps1 are inferior to later systems.It was 90s most jrpgs had flaws.
    I take that back saying they all dont hold up.
    ps1 games werent very refined because 3d game development was new at the time is a better way to say it or conveys
    what Im saying better.

    Similar to how Nintendo didnt really perfect 2d gaming til the snes but the nes still had some great games and some unrefined ones which are fun to play and its flaws just make it more fun to play especially with friends.

    Like I love to play Gran Turismo on the ps1 but 4 and 5 are superior.

    I really like Final Fantasy 7 even tho it had bad character models/bad dialogue for its time etc and Crisis core was better in every way.

    The ps2 persona games are superior than the ps1 ones but they are still great games.

    The Psp Jrpgs are more refined,better written but I still prefer the ps1 ones.
    Because I grew up with them and had great fun replaying them years later
    and I appreciated how cheesy they were and looked past its flaws.

    The Resident Evil ps1 games had very poor dialogue and controls compared to Silent Hill 2 I still prefer Resident evil 2.

    Then there is Castlevania Symphany of the night which is the best one
    I have ever played and that holds up very well.Great controls and storyline.

    Im saying that 3d game development was fairly new and the games
    werent very refined but the when I play the ps1 the bad dialogue,
    clunky controls,bad camera angles are all apart of the charm and
    I still get enjoyment out of them thats why its my favorite system.

    I'm just saying Retrogamer must have had a high opinion of legend
    of dragoon as a kid because the other JRPGS were just as unrefined
    so it shined in comparison back then but now looking back it might seem inferior compared to DS and PSP
    JRPGS But Legend of Dragoon was one of the better JRPGS of its time.


  • Moderators, Category Moderators, Computer Games Moderators Posts: 51,853 CMod ✭✭✭✭Retr0gamer


    We can say PS1 games like Resi 1 and FFVII had crap dialogue and the latter had bad character models but that doesn't excuse Legend of Dragoon. Those 2 games came out in 1996 and 1997 respectively while LoD came out in 2000, or 2001 in Europe. PS1 games and had moved on massively. It came out looking terrible with a terrible story and dialogue and was up against stuff like Valkyrie Profile, Front Mission 3, Chrono Cross, Suikoden 2, Parasite Eve and Vagrant Story. Now if the graphics were bad it wouldn't matter if the gameplay was good but they substituted any semblance of strategy with a battle system that relied of a rhythm action mini game every time you wanted to attack or perform any other action. Most PS1 RPGs have a flaw that battles last too long what with loading times and such but LoD was excruciating.

    A lot of early PS1 games haven't aged well but by late 1997 devs had the console under control and games were being released with decent framerates. I don't feel any of the PS1 RPGs really aged badly because RPGs aren't really affected by framerates, just look at FFVII, a game that runs at a disgraceful 15 FPS in NTSC yet is still playable. A few have plots that have aged since when I was younger I was willing to think FFVII and Xenogears trying to copy Evangelion was deep and meaningful :)

    I take back what I said about LoD being the worst RPG on the PS1, that honour goes to Beyond the Beyond but I'd definitely place it 2nd worse.

    BTW I'd take FFVII over Crisis Core any day. I couldn't stand the immature story with the delusions of pretentiousness and it felt a bit shallow even if it was fun in short bursts.


  • Moderators, Category Moderators, Computer Games Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 34,633 CMod ✭✭✭✭CiDeRmAn


    The PS was home to simply tonnes of great games, end of.
    Sure, it can be argued that polygons don't hold up in the same way as sprites but Wipeout 2096 and Rollcage 2 would beg to differ.
    Good dialogue, good visuals and stunning games are not the exclusive purview of 8/16 bit games, as any Saturn and DC owner will attest to.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 151 ✭✭Kealy1994


    CiDeRmAn wrote: »
    The PS was home to simply tonnes of great games, end of.
    Sure, it can be argued that polygons don't hold up in the same way as sprites but Wipeout 2096 and Rollcage 2 would beg to differ.
    Good dialogue, good visuals and stunning games are not the exclusive purview of 8/16 bit games, as any Saturn and DC owner will attest to.

    I actually never mentioned graphics.I mentioned that Final Fantasy 7
    had terrible character models for its time.
    Heres an example
    retro+gamer.jpg


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 35,262 ✭✭✭✭o1s1n
    Master of the Universe


    Depends what you mean by 'terrible' though. Does less lifelike automatically mean terrible? I always really liked the FF VII character models. They were simple but it worked.

    Also that Lara is not very indicative of the in game model. She was far more triangular! :pac:


  • Moderators, Category Moderators, Computer Games Moderators Posts: 51,853 CMod ✭✭✭✭Retr0gamer


    o1s1n wrote: »
    Depends what you mean by 'terrible' though. Does less lifelike automatically mean terrible? I always really liked the FF VII character models. They were simple but it worked.

    Well you could argue that. I think FFVII's worse crime in terms of character modeling is the inconsistency of the art. You have the popeye type characters for the world map and the much higher detail characters for battles. It's a little bit jarring and I'd say the popeye models were made early in development and they didn't update them later on, the game was a big rush job remember. Of course the in game models changing isn't too bad but it's inexcusable in the cutscenes were the early CGI done in japan uses the popeye models but since there was such a huge gap in when all the CGI was made there's different quality models in the CGI with gorgeous models used in the later stuff by the Hawaiian studio followed by cutscenes with popeye characters.

    The devleopment of that game was a mess which lead the game to being a complete mess but somehow that managed to be part of the charm. It's so annoying how cagey japanese studio's are about talking about the development process of their games because there's probably a hell of a story about the games devleopment.


  • Registered Users Posts: 151 ✭✭Kealy1994


    Retr0gamer wrote: »
    We can say PS1 games like Resi 1 and FFVII had crap dialogue and the latter had bad character models but that doesn't excuse Legend of Dragoon. Those 2 games came out in 1996 and 1997 respectively while LoD came out in 2000, or 2001 in Europe. PS1 games and had moved on massively. It came out looking terrible with a terrible story and dialogue and was up against stuff like Valkyrie Profile, Front Mission 3, Chrono Cross, Suikoden 2, Parasite Eve and Vagrant Story. Now if the graphics were bad it wouldn't matter if the gameplay was good but they substituted any semblance of strategy with a battle system that relied of a rhythm action mini game every time you wanted to attack or perform any other action. Most PS1 RPGs have a flaw that battles last too long what with loading times and such but LoD was excruciating.

    A lot of early PS1 games haven't aged well but by late 1997 devs had the console under control and games were being released with decent framerates. I don't feel any of the PS1 RPGs really aged badly because RPGs aren't really affected by framerates, just look at FFVII, a game that runs at a disgraceful 15 FPS in NTSC yet is still playable. A few have plots that have aged since when I was younger I was willing to think FFVII and Xenogears trying to copy Evangelion was deep and meaningful :)

    I take back what I said about LoD being the worst RPG on the PS1, that honour goes to Beyond the Beyond but I'd definitely place it 2nd worse.

    BTW I'd take FFVII over Crisis Core any day. I couldn't stand the immature story with the delusions of pretentiousness and it felt a bit shallow even if it was fun in short bursts.

    Isnt Legend of Dragoon known for how good its visuals were for its time.
    Didn't the bad review you sent me even point that out about how good the
    visuals were.?

    parasite eve is survival horror and Chrono Cross and Vagrant story etc had its flaws aswell.

    Thats 5 games out of a system thats known for its JRPGS
    and back in the day.

    It had a few bad lines of Dialogue and a simple Battle system

    But it had an amazing soundtrack,its cutscenes could pass off
    as an early ps2 game.The character models are some of the best
    I have seen on the system and the voice acting in the cutscenes
    were decent.I even like its simple battle system.

    Like Id rather play the operation rainfall wii games but once
    your done one jrpg you move on to the next and legend of dragoon is
    not the worst.Its an excellent entry for anyone getting into jrpgs because
    the battle system is so simple.

    Its a decent game,its not perfect but its still enjoyable.
    It still gets 3-4/5 off critics and its highly praised by users
    on metacritic.They must have done something right for people
    to praise it so highly.Just look on the user reviews. http://www.metacritic.com/game/playstation/the-legend-of-dragoon


  • Moderators, Category Moderators, Computer Games Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 34,633 CMod ✭✭✭✭CiDeRmAn


    Kealy1994 wrote: »
    I actually never mentioned graphics.I mentioned that Final Fantasy 7
    had terrible character models for its time.
    Heres an example
    retro+gamer.jpg

    Well now, my comment wasn't just limited to graphics either.
    And your character models are a tad selective too.
    The more popular a platform the more suck ass crap is out on it.
    The percentage of dung on popular formats like the gameboy, MD, Snes, PS, PS2 and so on is high.
    It is lucky for us, from our lofty perspective in the future of these machines, that we can limit our focus on the best each format offers, and none disappoint.

    Comparing the Jumping Flash games to each other and to earlier and later games is interesting.
    The first one looked, if not terrible, then at least perfunctory, but the gameplay was and is sublime, nothing really evolved a better way to represent 3D platforming in the first person.
    The first sequel made a feature of the visuals, using the low tech polygons to it's advantage making it date slower than other games of the time while preserving the gameplay.
    The third Japan only release brought the visuals up to date and it looks lovely, still with the winning mechanics, still on the PS.
    And there the franchise ended.
    But there really is nothing around to compare, and only the Metroid Prime series had gotten 3D first person platforming right since.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 35,262 ✭✭✭✭o1s1n
    Master of the Universe


    Retr0gamer wrote: »
    Well you could argue that. I think FFVII's worse crime in terms of character modeling is the inconsistency of the art.

    I dunno, I kind of like it :) Experienced something very similar in Fire Emblem Awakening.

    At the highest level there are absolutely incredible cut scenes with lifelike characters.
    Then there are cut scenes with cutesy type models.
    In game you have cutesy sprites, but then during conversations you have detailed anime drawings.

    So I count that as 4 different representations of the characters which you are being thrown between constantly - but it does work. Well I quite like it anyway. I know some others have complained about it.

    So you reckon in FF VII the in game character models may have originally been set out to look like the battle models? (but they didn't go for it as the game was rushed?) that's pretty interesting. Would give the game a completely different feel.


  • Registered Users Posts: 151 ✭✭Kealy1994


    Look how beautiful this low res image of gameplay of Legend of Dragoon is
    how detailed it is and the shading of the grass and trees.
    lod2.jpg
    Legend of Dragoon has more beatoful scenery than Digimon world
    but look at its character models they are amazing.
    digwps002.jpg
    The Character models in Legend of Dragoon are just as
    impressive and theres another impressive and detailed
    background
    521648-ps1_game_legend_of_dragoon_screenshot1.jpg
    Then heres a character model and background from
    final Fantasy 7.
    images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQP_McH5Oqfn-fgYigOJAjkZ-96_EVI-NWLvTO3w7ctnF_SME8fXQ

    Heres a voice acted opening scene in legend of dragoon
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esznHPru_vU
    The animation is terrific and voice acting is impressive.
    The soundtrack is decent.

    Now heres vagrants storys opening
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chO8hTZylA8
    The animation is less impressive and theres speech bubbles
    instead of voice acting and the animation runs very slow.But still a great game none the less


  • Moderators, Category Moderators, Computer Games Moderators Posts: 51,853 CMod ✭✭✭✭Retr0gamer


    Kealy1994 wrote: »
    Didn't the bad review you sent me even point that out about how good the visuals were.?

    Nope, every review pointed out how awful the graphics where. The pre rendered backgrounds looked great but the character models, world map and battle graphics were terrible for their time. The review I pointed to you says that as well if you read it as does every other.
    Kealy1994 wrote: »
    parasite eve is survival horror and Chrono Cross and Vagrant story etc had its flaws aswell.

    Parasite Eve is an RPG. PE2 on the other hand is a ropey resident evil clone. Chrono Cross and Vagrant Story had flaws but at least they had depth and weren't boring. a few flaws won't kill a game especially if it tries something interesting but in comparison LoD tries absolutely nothing new and is boring, and boring kills games.

    Kealy1994 wrote: »
    The character models are some of the best I have seen on the system and the voice acting in the cutscenes were decent.

    Not sure how you can say that with a straight face:



    The delivery of the final line cracks me up :) It's even worse in the ending cutscene and the characters calling out the name of their attacks gets old fast, although the awful translation error 'Flurry of Styx' is hilarously bad, how the hell did that make it through QA! :)

    Those character models are a small step above FFVII but FFVII's character models looked a bit ropey on release and by then you had fully texture mapped characters like in FFVIII 2 years before LoD came out.
    Kealy1994 wrote: »
    Its a decent game,its not perfect but its still enjoyable.It still gets 3-4/5 off critics and its highly praised by users
    on metacritic.They must have done something right for people
    to praise it so highly.Just look on the user reviews. http://www.metacritic.com/game/playstation/the-legend-of-dragoon

    User reviews mean nothing. LoD has a rabid fanbase of really obnoxious individuals. Not saying you're one of them because you like the game but those types are the ones that are posting those positive reviews and really rabid fanboys are not the best barometer of quality. As for how obnoxious these LoD fanboys can be, just look at the comments in my own review or else the comments that the Gaming Intelligence Agency review got:

    http://thegia.psy-q.ch/sites/www.thegia.com/features/f010625b.html

    The critics slated the game on release and rightfully so. Even IGN which gave any JRPG at the time a 9 gave it a seven and said it was boring for anyone but novices to the genre.
    o1s1n wrote: »
    I dunno, I kind of like it :) Experienced something very similar in Fire Emblem Awakening.

    At the highest level there are absolutely incredible cut scenes with lifelike characters.
    Then there are cut scenes with cutesy type models.
    In game you have cutesy sprites, but then during conversations you have detailed anime drawings.

    So I count that as 4 different representations of the characters which you are being thrown between constantly - but it does work. Well I quite like it anyway. I know some others have complained about it.

    So you reckon in FF VII the in game character models may have originally been set out to look like the battle models? (but they didn't go for it as the game was rushed?) that's pretty interesting. Would give the game a completely different feel.

    Well it's a theory of mine. However the visual inconsistency in the CGI is definitely not intended. For example:

    Gorgeous character models:



    'What's wrong with your face!' models:



    You have a point about the in game ones maybe being a distinct style, possibly unintentional but it's really weird to have cutscenes vary in quality like that but it's also interesting to see the difference in CGI quality from the cutscenes rendered in 1995 to 1997.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 35,262 ✭✭✭✭o1s1n
    Master of the Universe


    That's gas, when you said that, the one FMV which popped out of my memory was the one of Cloud in the wheelchair.

    Even when I first played the game back in 1997, I did find that one scene very odd. They used the in game character models in an FMV. Never sat right in the game.


  • Moderators, Category Moderators, Computer Games Moderators Posts: 51,853 CMod ✭✭✭✭Retr0gamer


    Back then I was more forgiving of the inconsistencies in visual style but play it now and the game is like some kind of weird fever dream. There's lots of really out of place areas like costa del sol, Wutai and the snow resort which are in stark contrast to the rest of the game which also has visual inconsistencies in their style. It's like they rendered a load of backgrounds and then had to use them because it would take too long and cost too much to render more so used what they had. Even the story is weird. Oh Aeris is dead, let's go snowboarding. That first video was made very early while the second was made near the end probably by the Hawaii studio which had much more resources available to them and 2 years of advances in CGI and processing power to help them.

    It's such a strange inconsistent game and I never noticed it until I was older. The game was meant to be more like Parasite Eve at the start, being only 20 hours long and about a detective in Midgar solving a murder mystery conspiracy. It seems they chickened out at the end and went more traditional which is why Midgar was so well developed and the rest of the game seems slapped together and rushed with a story that totally rips off Chrono Trigger. Even the battle system and materia system are just a dumbed down version of the FFVI esper system (which was kind of basic to begin with as well).

    I can only imagine the paradigm shift the game would have caused for RPGs if they had been a bit braver and went with the short 20 hour RPG. Some RPGs need to be long but then if you play something like Panzer Dragoon Saga or Parasite Eve and the way they have no filler they just belt along at a wonderful pace and never get tiring. It's probably the big reason those games are so much fun to play. I suppose there was so much riding on the project they couldn't afford to take too many chances so made it more traditional in the end.

    It's such a mess that it's amazing it turned out so well. I guess even though it's about 40-50 hours long it manages a good pace which helps. It's a fascinating game whatever way you look at it. It might not be perfect and does a lot wrong but it's a weird mix of 16 and 32-bit RPGs. It tries and fails to go for that Evangelion philosophising, just like most 32-bit RPGs but it can't let go of it's goofier moments from the 16-bit games.

    I've got to hand it to square, they might have played it safe in terms of gameplay in FFVII but that total reinvention that they go for with every FF game was still there in FFVII is how it was structured and it formed the scaffold of most JRPGs in the 32-bit era. Most RPGs built and added to it but LoD just blatantly copied it, from structure and story and managed to mess up the battle system as well.

    It's like he designers were listening to the main complaints about FFVII at the time, the fact that you choose from a menu and watch your characters attack. They made it so you pressed a button in time to attack without realising the idiots making these complaints weren't RPG fans and the game wasn't aimed at them. There's so much crazy design decisions in that game. Even using an item means you have to bash the button as fast as you can to get the maximum effect of it. Then there's stuff like the way there's no real spells in the game so every character has an elemental affinity. If you go into a boss battle with the wrong set of characters it's a disaster, not so much a disaster that you have to start again since the game is a cakewalk but a disaster that the battle could last 30-45 minutes. There really is no strategy to the battle system since all you have is attack and when you get your dragoon (which is basically just a sort of limit break) you can cast spells or attack which just raises your attack power, very few characters have spells that do anything other than attack. Defending gives you 10% of your health back which is a good idea in practice but for a game with a problem with how long battles last it just prolongs them even more.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 151 ✭✭Kealy1994


    Saying user reviews mean nothing.....
    I favor user reviews over Critics
    because they tend to be biased
    inaccurate and money tends to
    sway there view.

    The users are the players and the gamers
    which play the game and majority of those
    gamers who played it gave it a good review
    on metacritic,Some said it was their favorite
    game of all time.

    How can a big handful of people call a game
    the best game they ever played and the game
    not have any redeeming qualitys.

    The link you posted was full of messages of
    people praising the game and maybe they
    have a valid point.

    There cant be thousands of people who
    pretend to like that game because their fanboys.

    The pre rendered backgrounds did look great.
    But the Character models look great aswell
    This model at the bottom of the post
    from the game looks just as good
    as the tomb raider 3d models.

    It has it flaws but maybe people do actually like the game
    and get enjoyment out of it? I played it and it was a good enough game,It wasnt my favorite game of all time but It was a decent JRPG
    and you just don't like the game.
    Just like I don't Final Fantasy 7 that much which is one of the most
    praised ps1 games.
    Maybe its just your taste ?


    58107ec7632ac9c4f0f7212057f74eec-d4wkyqc.jpg


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 35,262 ✭✭✭✭o1s1n
    Master of the Universe


    50 Cent: Bulletproof sold over 1 million - just goes to show the mentality of a lot of gamers out there. There's not a chance I'd trust a review unless it was from a notable writer on the subject.


  • Registered Users Posts: 151 ✭✭Kealy1994


    o1s1n wrote: »
    50 Cent: Bulletproof sold over 1 million - just goes to show the mentality of a lot of gamers out there. There's not a chance I'd trust a review unless it was from a notable writer on the subject.

    I don't think the same people who were playing Legend of Dragoon
    were the same people who bought 50 cent bullet proof.
    I think that was the casual gamers or the people who only buy
    GTA,Fifa and Call of duty every year.

    I would never trust any of the big review sites because most
    of them don't know what they are talking about.

    IGN game Lollipop chainsaw a 5.0
    While the community gave it a 7,4
    because the gamers know its a hilarous
    quirky ecchi game and its easily a 7.

    If I listened to IGN I would have missed out
    on a lot of good games.


  • Moderators, Category Moderators, Computer Games Moderators Posts: 51,853 CMod ✭✭✭✭Retr0gamer


    Kealy1994 wrote: »
    How can a big handful of people call a game
    the best game they ever played and the game
    not have any redeeming qualitys.

    No matter how bad something is or how critically panned it is you will always find people that love it and call it the best thing ever. The fact that those people don't have a full grasp of english grammar says a lot about them. Welcome to the internet.

    While sometimes the critics can get it wrong (say hello Nier) user reviews aren't objective at all. Look at any metacritic user section and it's all 9-10 or 2-1. Something is either than best thing ever or the worst thing ever, comic book store guy style. The people that don't like LoD aren't the ones bothering to post user reviews unless they are trolling (the LoD fanbase is full of fantastic trolling opportunities).

    Also the 3D model you showed isn't from the game, it's pre-rendered and possibly fan art. Let's look at some real in game photo's:

    Legend of Dragoon from 2000:

    legend-of-dragoon-ps1-ingame-71532.jpg

    FFVIII from 1998:

    FF803_a.jpg

    LoD can't even manage to texture map everything, resorting to gouraud shading bare polys.

    Sure you might have got enjoyment out of it, I can't deny you that you did but with all those flaws it might be more a guilty pleasure. I've no problem with that. I do have a problem with people recommending the game to other people that like JRPGs since this game was so bad it nearly put me off JRPGs and gaming forever.


  • Registered Users Posts: 151 ✭✭Kealy1994


    I usually check a few small time
    youtubers videos who have a similar taste
    to mine to get their view on a game
    I'm considering buying.


  • Moderators, Category Moderators, Computer Games Moderators Posts: 51,853 CMod ✭✭✭✭Retr0gamer


    Kealy1994 wrote: »
    IGN game Lollipop chainsaw a 5.0
    While the community gave it a 7,4
    because the gamers know its a hilarous
    quirky ecchi game and its easily a 7.

    If I listened to IGN I would have missed out
    on a lot of good games.

    IGN are pretty much terrible anyway. They gave God Hand 3/10 for crying out loud.

    Games journalism is really crappy at the moment. You really should never trust a metacritic score. There's far too many hack journalists out there that colour reviews. They're all either in their early twenties and very impressionable or just trying to get a better journalism job. I should know how many hacks there are, sure I did a stint in it myself for a while that says more than enough! :)

    You should never go on aggregated users scores or metacritic aggregated review scores. What I do is I have a few games journalists that I know I can trust and use them to gauge whether a game is good or not. For me it's people like Jeremy Parish, Jon Davidson, Kat Bailey and a few others. I find a lot of other people get caught up in the hype with games and award large scores to undeserving games or ignore unknown games. Just look at SMTIV which is kind of getting ignored with 8's while people I trust are saying it's be best thing to happen to RPGs since Xenoblade. I've not played it myself but the circle of gamers I trust and reviewers all have that opinion and it's a better opinion to go on.


  • Registered Users Posts: 151 ✭✭Kealy1994


    Retr0gamer wrote: »
    No matter how bad something is or how critically panned it is you will always find people that love it and call it the best thing ever. The fact that those people don't have a full grasp of english grammar says a lot about them. Welcome to the internet.

    While sometimes the critics can get it wrong (say hello Nier) user reviews aren't objective at all. Look at any metacritic user section and it's all 9-10 or 2-1. Something is either than best thing ever or the worst thing ever, comic book store guy style. The people that don't like LoD aren't the ones bothering to post user reviews unless they are trolling (the LoD fanbase is full of fantastic trolling opportunities).

    Also the 3D model you showed isn't from the game, it's pre-rendered and possibly fan art. Let's look at some real in game photo's:

    Legend of Dragoon from 2000:

    legend-of-dragoon-ps1-ingame-71532.jpg

    FFVIII from 1998:

    FF803_a.jpg

    LoD can't even manage to texture map everything, resorting to gouraud shading bare polys.

    Sure you might have got enjoyment out of it, I can't deny you that you did but with all those flaws it might be more a guilty pleasure. I've no problem with that. I do have a problem with people recommending the game to other people that like JRPGs since this game was so bad it nearly put me off JRPGs and gaming forever.

    So under every youtube video I watched,Every user review section
    on multiple websites.Friends,Youtube reviews and reccomendations
    I have heard nothing put praise about this game all the comments
    are all positive everywhere and I go and buy and play the game myself
    and end up liking it and you havent considered that maybe that you just
    didnt like the game but a lot of other people do and that they arent wrong
    or fanboys for liking the game.

    I understand if you dont like the game because peoples opinions differ.
    But you cant tell thousands of people their wrong because you dont like
    the game they love.

    Its not a guilty pleasure.I liked the game.
    I played Final Fantasy 8 and 9 and legend
    of Dragoon is visually more pleasing.

    Nier is an amazing game I complete it years ago,I have to
    finish the alternative ending some time.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 35,262 ✭✭✭✭o1s1n
    Master of the Universe


    Kealy1994 wrote: »
    I don't think the same people who were playing Legend of Dragoon
    were the same people who bought 50 cent bullet proof.
    I think that was the casual gamers or the people who only buy
    GTA,Fifa and Call of duty every year..

    Back in the PS1 days, people's gaming choices weren't as pigeon holed as they are now.

    When I was in secondary school, everyone was playing FF VII. Literally everyone. From nerds to scumbags. And they were all like that with most games. I can remember talking to the most illiterate person going about how great Parasite Eve was.

    It's not like now where you have a large group of folks who only play COD and Fifa 20XX.

    Therefore there were people who would have played LoD back then who also bought 50 Cent Bullet Proof - without a doubt.

    I've never played LoD by the way, just listened to Retr0's many arguments and reasoning about how bad it is. Will give it a go some day to see if there's any weight to his argument.

    The fact that he stands over the Zelda CDi games so much worries me somewhat... :pac:


  • Moderators, Category Moderators, Computer Games Moderators Posts: 51,853 CMod ✭✭✭✭Retr0gamer


    Yes I would say they are wrong. Youtube reviewers are ordinary people with a camera and are definitely not an authority on videogaming tastes. Youtube comments and user reviews are a cesspit. I'm going to sound like a total hipster but screw it because it's true, the common consensus about something is usually not a barometer of taste. If it was the dirty dancing is one of the greatest movies ever made.

    I do however understand why people can like it and it's mostly down to people playing it as one of their first RPGs during a time when they were young and impressionable and would swallow up anything that was an RPG. They might have enjoyed it then but looking back in retrospect it might not be so good. There's nothing wrong with doing that but it amazes me that so many people will defend their views on something when they were younger and not change their mind (that's not to say everything you look back on in retrospect is automatically crap). I can tell you now looking back on my collection of music from the time I wasn't a barometer of taste during the PS1 days (I played LoD in 2003). Kat Bailey, who I would consider to be the best journalist around when it comes to RPGs, doesn't like the game either but did write a great piece trying to understand the love the game has, it's worth a read: http://www.joystiq.com/2012/05/02/understanding-the-legend-of-dragoon/

    Of course I can't tell you what you did or did not enjoy, if this comes across as a bit argumentative it isn't. I'm just debating with you, so don't take it personal. I enjoy doing this :) I just don't understand how you can say the graphics in the game are good if you compare it to games that came out even 2 or three years beforehand let alone games from 1999/2000 or deny that the game has flaws. People can enjoy games with flaws in them, hell Fragile Dreams is one of my favourite games this gen, it's just that the ones that LoD commits are sins to me :)

    As for Nier, you've not played New Game +??? You need to get on that, it totally changes the game, it's the best thing about it!


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  • Moderators, Category Moderators, Computer Games Moderators Posts: 51,853 CMod ✭✭✭✭Retr0gamer


    o1s1n wrote: »
    The fact that he stands over the Zelda CDi games so much worries me somewhat... :pac:

    Another reason not to listen to youtubers and populist games journalism. They might be flawed and not the best games ever but they are pretty good, far from contenders for the worst game ever lists. The third game that most of them seem to say is good is however one of the worst games ever made. It's pretty obvious they never played the games or at least never played them on original hardware.


  • Registered Users Posts: 151 ✭✭Kealy1994


    o1s1n wrote: »
    Back in the PS1 days, people's gaming choices weren't as pigeon holed as they are now.

    When I was in secondary school, everyone was playing FF VII. Literally everyone. From nerds to scumbags. And they were all like that with most games. I can remember talking to the most illiterate person going about how great Parasite Eve was.

    It's not like now where you have a large group of folks who only play COD and Fifa 20XX.

    Therefore there were people who would have played LoD back then who also bought 50 Cent Bullet Proof - without a doubt.

    I've never played LoD by the way, just listened to Retr0's many arguments and reasoning about how bad it is. Will give it a go some day to see if there's any weight to his argument.

    The fact that he stands over the Zelda CDi games so much worries me somewhat... :pac:

    Back when I was young we only had a handful of people
    who were into anime and Final Fantasy.
    I don't even think the rest of the class knew what
    final fantasy or anime was.They know nothing about JRPGS.

    They were all off playing Fifa,Resident evil,Crash Bandicoot etc on the ps1.
    We use to sit around playing Pokemon games and kindly asking people to get out of out light and talking about who would win 'sephiroth or Goku from Dragonball Z'

    Those were the times...Even tho I was about 6 or 7 lol


  • Moderators, Category Moderators, Computer Games Moderators Posts: 51,853 CMod ✭✭✭✭Retr0gamer


    Was listening to retronauts and I think it was either Chris Kohler or Ray Barnholt who owned a game store at the launch of FFVII and they said half the copies were returned by people saying they didn't know you had to read in the game :) You have to remember it was sold on TV on it's cutscenes, the game was never sold. A nice stealth tactic by Square to get more people to pick up an RPG when they normally wouldn't.

    I remember at the time I used to laugh at RPGs and say they were crap. At the time one of the my favourite games was Shining Force but I didn't even realise it was an RPG so that tells you everything :)


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 35,262 ✭✭✭✭o1s1n
    Master of the Universe


    Retr0gamer wrote: »
    Another reason not to listen to youtubers and populist games journalism. They might be flawed and not the best games ever but they are pretty good, far from contenders for the worst game ever lists. The third game that most of them seem to say is good is however one of the worst games ever made. It's pretty obvious they never played the games or at least never played them on original hardware.

    You had me play them on original hardware and although it might not have been for long, I wanted to break your CDi :pac:

    That side scrolling one was akin to Dark Castle.
    Kealy1994 wrote: »
    Back when I was young we only had a handful of people
    who were into anime and Final Fantasy.
    I don't even think the rest of the class knew what
    final fantasy or anime was.They know nothing about JRPGS.

    They were all off playing Fifa,Resident evil,Crash Bandicoot etc on the ps1.
    We use to sit around playing Pokemon games and kindly asking people to get out of out light and talking about who would win 'sephiroth or Goku from Dragonball Z'

    Those were the times...Even tho I was about 6 or 7 lol

    Ah now, 6 or 7 is a bit of a push for kids to be playing JRPGs! I'm talking more about teenagers and kids in secondary school. You wouldn't believe how huge FF VII was when it came out - everyone would be talking about it in the corridors between classes and on lunch breaks. There were even TV ads. (can't say I ever really remember seeing ads for specific games around that era)


  • Moderators, Category Moderators, Computer Games Moderators Posts: 51,853 CMod ✭✭✭✭Retr0gamer


    o1s1n wrote: »
    You had me play them on original hardware and although it might not have been for long, I wanted to break your CDi :pac:

    That side scrolling one was akin to Dark Castle.

    Well the controls when you are jumping are pretty terrible and the delay in getting your shield up takes a while to get used. It's unfortunately one of those games you have to put a little time into before it clicks and you start enjoying it. Those jumping sections are pretty unforgivable in fairness :) It doesn't help that you have to use third party controllers on the machine as well like the squeaky piece of **** I had!

    FFVII was massive of release, it's the second best selling game on the system ever. I don't think it's for kids aged 6 or 7. Christ I only got my first C64 on the Christmas just before my 8th birthday! Kids these days!


  • Moderators, Education Moderators, Music Moderators Posts: 10,686 Mod ✭✭✭✭melekalikimaka


    Retr0gamer wrote: »
    Was listening to retronauts and I think it was either Chris Kohler or Ray Barnholt who owned a game store at the launch of FFVII and they said half the copies were returned by people saying they didn't know you had to read in the game :) You have to remember it was sold on TV on it's cutscenes, the game was never sold. A nice stealth tactic by Square to get more people to pick up an RPG when they normally wouldn't.

    I remember at the time I used to laugh at RPGs and say they were crap. At the time one of the my favourite games was Shining Force but I didn't even realise it was an RPG so that tells you everything :)

    maybe i'm a bit older, but when ff7 came out everyone i knew was raving about it, it was a huge hit IMO, a natural progression from the more child orientated zelda series for many. back in those days everyone bought gaming mags so i cant see how any would be under the illusion it was anything other than what it was?


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  • Registered Users Posts: 151 ✭✭Kealy1994


    Retr0gamer wrote: »
    Another reason not to listen to youtubers and populist games journalism. They might be flawed and not the best games ever but they are pretty good, far from contenders for the worst game ever lists. The third game that most of them seem to say is good is however one of the worst games ever made. It's pretty obvious they never played the games or at least never played them on original hardware.

    The youtubers I watch have physical copys and play on the original hardware.They are collectors more than reviewers.The IGN type crowd
    are the type to play on emulators and have a biased opinion.
    They give every unknown decent game from Japan a low score because
    they are call of duty fanboys and Jessica Chobit or the rest of them knows as much about gaming as I know about Rocket Science which is not very much at all.

    I highly doubt thousands of people give legend of Dragoon high praise
    because they all played it as a kid and enjoyed it and now over rate it because of nostalgia.Especially when Legend of Dragoon came out near the end of the life of the ps1,When everyone would have gotten a ps2.That is why I find most people I watch who reviewed legend of dragoon,never played it til many years after its release.

    Like me.I played it this year and liked it.I know many people who played
    it later in life and loved it.It has a few flaws not anymore than any other JRPG on the system.I would definately reccomend it before final Fantasy 7 because if theirs a game thats over rated..it deserves a prize.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 35,262 ✭✭✭✭o1s1n
    Master of the Universe


    maybe i'm a bit older, but when ff7 came out everyone i knew was raving about it, it was a huge hit IMO, a natural progression from the more child orientated zelda series for many. back in those days everyone bought gaming mags so i cant see how any would be under the illusion it was anything other than what it was?

    He's talking about Legend of Dragoon being crap, not FF VII ;)


  • Registered Users Posts: 151 ✭✭Kealy1994


    maybe i'm a bit older, but when ff7 came out everyone i knew was raving about it, it was a huge hit IMO, a natural progression from the more child orientated zelda series for many. back in those days everyone bought gaming mags so i cant see how any would be under the illusion it was anything other than what it was?

    Also if Legend of Dragoon is a rip off of Final Fantasy.
    Final Fantasy is a rip off of Dragon quest/warrior.


  • Moderators, Category Moderators, Computer Games Moderators Posts: 51,853 CMod ✭✭✭✭Retr0gamer


    maybe i'm a bit older, but when ff7 came out everyone i knew was raving about it, it was a huge hit IMO, a natural progression from the more child orientated zelda series for many. back in those days everyone bought gaming mags so i cant see how any would be under the illusion it was anything other than what it was?

    Not everyone is as clued in as most other people and you have to remember that this happened in 'murica. As for FFVII being a natural progression from zelda, zelda isn't a RPG. FFVII really didn't make much progression as a game since Chrono Trigger and FFVI came before it and it's very similar. To us europeans it seemed new since we never got those games.
    Kealy1994 wrote: »
    I would definately reccomend it before final Fantasy 7 because if theirs a game thats over rated..it deserves a prize.

    I'd recommend FFVII first because it's actually fun and generic and dull. I could see LoD actually putting people off RPGs. My girlfriend played LoD recently. She had to give up after an hour it was so bad. Youtube reviewers are as bad as the IGN crowd. Just look at youtube reviews of Goldeneye just to see how much nostalgia can colour reviews. It's near unplayable now but many will claim it's still one of the best FPS games ever made. A good reviewer will be able to look back on stuff objectively without nostalgia colouring their view.


  • Moderators, Category Moderators, Computer Games Moderators Posts: 51,853 CMod ✭✭✭✭Retr0gamer


    Kealy1994 wrote: »
    Also if Legend of Dragoon is a rip off of Final Fantasy.
    Final Fantasy is a rip off of Dragon quest/warrior.

    FF1 was a rip off of Dragon Quest however I'd actually say it's more a rip off of Wizardry with art stolen from D&D rulebooks. After FF1, Dragon Quest stayed quietly innovating slowly while FF differentiated itself by totally reinventing it's gameplay with every entry. FF and Dragon Quest are very different beasts and it's FF's reinvention with each iteration which defines the series.

    Now were LoD rips off FFVII is in it's story. To give the game credit the battle system is very different even if it's terrible and cribs from Mario RPG or FFVIII's gunblade more than anything. LoD is so obviously designed by marketing men that instead of making a game they wanted to play they looked at what was popular and stole from it. So you have a character with mysterious past that acts like an asshole. You spend most of the game chasing after a Sephiroth clone for half the game just like in FFVII. They also try to make you like a character ( and utterly fail, he's a totally boring goody too shoes cardboard cut-out ) who he then kills. They managed to really mess that up, I was delighted he was going to die and saw it coming a mile away. He might as well have been shouting 'love me, I want you to feel when I die!'.

    There was no originality there. While FFVII fails at being deep and meaningful at least it tries. LoD on the other hand just has you chasing after MacGuffins with silly names, the modus operandi of dull RPGs with no originality.

    It's just so designed by committee. It's trying to be everything to everyone and failing miserably to do any of it due to a deep misunderstanding of story, it's audience and how JRPGs work. It's like the Resident Evil 6 of JRPGs.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 151 ✭✭Kealy1994


    Retr0gamer wrote: »
    Not everyone is as clued in as most other people and you have to remember that this happened in 'murica. As for FFVII being a natural progression from zelda, zelda isn't a RPG. FFVII really didn't make much progression as a game since Chrono Trigger and FFVI came before it and it's very similar. To us europeans it seemed new since we never got those games.



    I'd recommend FFVII first because it's actually fun and generic and dull. I could see LoD actually putting people off RPGs. My girlfriend played LoD recently. She had to give up after an hour it was so bad. Youtube reviewers are as bad as the IGN crowd. Just look at youtube reviews of Goldeneye just to see how much nostalgia can colour reviews. It's near unplayable now but many will claim it's still one of the best FPS games ever made. A good reviewer will be able to look back on stuff objectively without nostalgia colouring their view.

    Lets forget Legend of Dragoon for now.
    You dont Like Goldeneye....


  • Moderators, Category Moderators, Computer Games Moderators Posts: 51,853 CMod ✭✭✭✭Retr0gamer


    Goldeneye was one of the most important FPS games ever made. Unlike stuff like Halo which where very similar to stuff on PC, Goldeneye differentiated itslef and managed to hugely affect the way FPS games were made. At the time there wasn't much else comparable to it until Half-Life came along.

    And well it's Half -Life that ruined Goldeneye. Everything before Half-Life seemed dated because it was such a huge advancement for the genre.

    While I think Goldeneye was hugely important it's very old hat now. It's been totally surpassed by later games in the genre.

    The biggest factor affecting how it plays is the framerate. It runs at a maximum of 30 FPS but it never hits that cap and usually hovers at an inconsistent 15-20 FPS. As a noob game designer I know that for an action game like Goldeneye 15-20 FPS is aboslutely criminal and introduces horrendous lag into the controls. It means that now that Goldeneye isn't the height of technical and gameplay innovation in the genre you can't forgive that low frame rate that makes the game today near unplayable. It's unfortunately what happens in a genre like FPS were the goal posts are constantly taking massive strides forward and leaving older games seem so dated.


  • Registered Users Posts: 151 ✭✭Kealy1994


    Retr0gamer wrote: »
    Goldeneye was one of the most important FPS games ever made. Unlike stuff like Halo which where very similar to stuff on PC, Goldeneye differentiated itslef and managed to hugely affect the way FPS games were made. At the time there wasn't much else comparable to it until Half-Life came along.

    And well it's Half -Life that ruined Goldeneye. Everything before Half-Life seemed dated because it was such a huge advancement for the genre.

    While I think Goldeneye was hugely important it's very old hat now. It's been totally surpassed by later games in the genre.

    The biggest factor affecting how it plays is the framerate. It runs at a maximum of 30 FPS but it never hits that cap and usually hovers at an inconsistent 15-20 FPS. As a noob game designer I know that for an action game like Goldeneye 15-20 FPS is aboslutely criminal and introduces horrendous lag into the controls. It means that now that Goldeneye isn't the height of technical and gameplay innovation in the genre you can't forgive that low frame rate that makes the game today near unplayable. It's unfortunately what happens in a genre like FPS were the goal posts are constantly taking massive strides forward and leaving older games seem so dated.

    Xbox 360 games don't even run at 30 frames per second anymore.
    They run at an average of 26 frames per second and they are even
    making the games 720p to deal with the high poly count in games and get
    it to run close to 30 frames per second.

    while if you have a very powerful PC you can play those games at double that frame per second.

    Maybe you should stop playing shooters on modern consoles because their dated and inferior to pc.

    Golden eye still stands up.the game is very stealthy compared
    to run and gun shooter games and I have never seen the frames
    per second become so low that its unplayable.

    By saying Goldeneye dosen't stand up.Your basically saying
    neither does perfect dark or jet force gemini,Doom etc.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 35,262 ✭✭✭✭o1s1n
    Master of the Universe


    Don't lump Doom in with all that N64 crap :pac:


  • Registered Users Posts: 151 ✭✭Kealy1994


    o1s1n wrote: »
    Don't lump Doom in with all that N64 crap :pac:
    It was on the n64 ! : )


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 35,262 ✭✭✭✭o1s1n
    Master of the Universe


    Kealy1994 wrote: »
    It was on the n64 ! : )

    Oh, Doom 64? I try to pretend that game doesn't exist :D


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 30,123 ✭✭✭✭Star Lord


    Kealy1994 wrote: »
    Golden eye still stands up.the game is very stealthy compared
    to run and gun shooter games and I have never seen the frames
    per second become so low that its unplayable.

    By saying Goldeneye dosen't stand up.Your basically saying
    neither does perfect dark or jet force gemini,Doom etc.

    As a lover of Goldeneye, and someone who played through the whole thing many times in an effort to beat each difficulty level and unlock most (not all, didn't have the patience for that!) of the cheats... it doesn't hold up, for the reasons that Retr0 stated. I'm not saying it's not a good game, just that it's painful to play because of the poor frame rate and the inconsistencies in the frame rate.

    Perfect Dark is probably worse in that regard. It was never quite as good as Goldeneye back in the day, and holds up worse than Goldeneye does.


  • Registered Users Posts: 151 ✭✭Kealy1994


    The way you guys are going on you would swear you hated retro gaming.

    If we should stop playing all the n64 shooters because they dont hold up
    then we should stop playing pac man on arcade/atari/nes because there
    is a hd version on Xbox live arcade.

    We should stop playing racing games because the newer mario karts,
    wipeout,gran turismos look and play better.

    We should stop playing snes/ps1 rpgs because the newer ones
    are fully voice acted and use highly detailed 3d models and they are HD.

    That's the sort of impression I'm getting.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 33,733 ✭✭✭✭Myrddin


    I was never into rating old games based on modern precepts, only the 'elite' handful of games will ever manage to hold up against standards set ten or twenty years after they came out.

    Some games are a pain, because of limitations of their era no doubt, but realistically how can we ask games to stand the test of time when technological limitations play such a part in how they are judged?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,963 ✭✭✭Mr.Saturn


    Kealy1994 wrote: »
    The way you guys are going on you would swear you hated retro gaming.

    If we should stop playing all the n64 shooters because they dont hold up
    then we should stop playing pac man on arcade/atari/nes because there
    is a hd version on Xbox live arcade.

    We should stop playing racing games because the newer mario karts,
    wipeout,gran turismos look and play better.

    We should stop playing snes/ps1 rpgs because the newer ones
    are fully voice acted and use highly detailed 3d models and they are HD.

    That's the sort of impression I'm getting.

    I like to think it's about celebrating games that do hold up, as opposed to sullying the notion of retro-gaming with blind nostalgia.


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