Obviously, the time when the biggest convention of front-line gaming innovations around is happening is a perfect time to discuss older games.

I'd recommend I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream and Psychonauts, both of which I played through within the past year. Psychonauts is a cartoony and conceptually unique platformer with a great setup (I encourage you to research it yourself) and a good unlock system that integrates smoothly with the puzzles. Unfortunately, no, there's no Hypnosis skill.

IHNMAIMS, on the other hand, is a bizarre Freudian sci-fi horror adventure game from 1996 that's based on a short story of the same name. It's my particular favorite of the two due largely to its semi-surrealist narrative style and unflinching attitude towards covering very taboo subjects that you don't find very much in games any more (I mean this game goes DARK), as well as its focus on character introspection. Do not approach it haplessly, though, because the difficulty level (between multiple endings, ridiculously tough puzzles, hard decisions, and general mind games) will absolutely throttle people who aren't careful.

What about you? (protip try not to list 15 nintendo games)

I started to list off a few, then realized most of my choices were old CRPGs. I'll limit myself to one, and in that case... Planescape Torment. A bit cliche of a choice, but definitely one of the best (Not to diminish Baldur's Gate or it's sequel).

And has a sequel in the works.
www.fig.co/campaigns/psychonauts-2#updates

Yeah, man, that's one of the reasons why I banged out a playthrough now

You mean like X-Com and it's sequel Xenonauts?

Wait, what do you mean Bethesda made an X-Com game?
I know they made an easy tactical game named X-Com...

They also made this game called Fallout 3, which had nothing to do with Fallout or Fallout 2, it just happened to have a similar setting. Your character was so high powered they could overcome anything in Fallout 3, there was only one hooker (Fallout 2 had New Reno... you could become a porn star), and you can't kill Juan Cruz. Is four like that? Haven't played it yet.

Other than a few really old PC games I bought, I grew up on the Playstation console so... not going to get much out of me.

As a PS2 guy, Sonic Gems Collection was the shit, DBZ Budokai 3 is one of the best fighting games ever, Ultimate Spider-Man trumps Spider-Man 2 IMO, Shadow the Hedgehog was great, fuck you, X-Men Legends 2 is pretty rad, and I owe Tekken 5 my namesake.

I'm a big fan of these series, so there's the possibility of bias, but here it goes:

(Note that these are from the PS2 era; also...WARNING, WALL OF TEXT INCOMING.)

Xenosaga Episodes 1, 2, and 3. It was Monolith Soft's first big series after they split from Squaresoft, and they followed the spirit of Xenogears in making this series. They're also known for making the Xenoblade Chronicles games (which are also spiritual successors to Xenogears and Xenosaga), and have worked on a number of games besides that (including Project X Zone 1&2, and I believe Namco X Capcom).

Xenosaga 1 and 2 were published by Namco, and 3 was published by Bandai Namco. It's a cult hit series, with Episode 1 actually managing to get added to the PS2 Greatest Hits collection. It's a turn-based JRPG series with improved mechanics from Xenogears (save for Episode 2, which took a weird turn due to the team from Episode 1 not being involved. For some reason, they thought switching from mechanics that depended on turn order, 'Break'ing an opponent to prevent them from attacking, and a really engaging card game to a 'zone'-based system where you need to knock down or up an enemy to render then stunned for a turn was a good idea.), elements, special attacks, multi-target attacks, etc. Sadly, I don't think Episode 1 or 3 got a Western release outside of North America; Episode 2 was the only one I've heard getting released in Australia and Europe, and both the title and combat mechanics confused fans when it came out in 2004-05.

On top of that, the Xenosaga series had a host of issues stemming from conflict between Monolith Soft and Namco/Bandai Namco, as well as plans to incorporate a reworked Xenogears into being Episode 5 of Xenosaga. Talks were attempted with Squaresoft, who ultimately refused to let Namco use the rights for Xenogears. Not to mention that the game series was planned to be six episodes, but due to no headway with negotiations and hardware limitations with the PS2, they had to condense what they had going for what was originally Episode 1 and 2 to become Episode 1. Episode 3 became Episode 2, and Episode 4 became 3. Episode 6 was supposed to wrap up the ending to what became Episode 3, but since Xenogears wasn't cleared (and the fallout from Episode 2's changes causing a big fan backlash), the series ended with Episode 3.

It's one of those series that uses data flags to unlock extras in the next entry with game clear data from the previous, like the .hack series. Regardless of all this, it's a pretty enjoyable Sci-fi Opera, and has a number of my favorite characters in the entire industry (I'm a massive KOS-MOS fanboy, and I really like Ziggy and Jin for their backstories and general attitude.). Episode 1 also has long cutscenes. I mean LOOOOOONG cutscenes, surpassing that of MGS4. One sequence of cutscenes was notorious as being over an hour long with no gameplay and three to four save points in between them (though important points in the story and in character development were made during that point in time, and you could save between them, so it wasn't as if you couldn't stop after a certain point and come back.). Episode 3 was also considered the best in the series, due to a good mix of the art styles in Episode 1 and 2, as well as having a slightly upscaled combat system from Episode 1. Sadly, the fallout from Episode 2's drastic change in visual style, it's combat, and the fact that there are no stores to buy restoratives from (making it so that you had to fight to stock up or get said items, increasing the difficulty needlessly) had done a lot of damage, and after Episode 3, Namco Bandai ended the series on a bittersweet note. At least KOS-MOS, T-elos, and Shion have had appearances in Namco X Capcom and PXZ1&2.

That was a lot...now for the other series, which also ended up being a Bandai Namco series. .hack.

First four games were published only under Bandai, and developed by CyberConnect2 (Yes, the same guys who made Asura's Wrath...*sigh*). They were essentially a cyber mystery series based in an online MMORPG (if you've watched Sword Art Online, it's essentially a much better version of that concept, though with less emphasis on action and combat). Gamers falling into comas, main character gets an "item of power" that can have big negative consequences if used unwisely, other gamers who are either affected by these events or are just weird join him, etc. But interestingly, it does give a more realistic depiction of what can happen if "the system" gives you a boost and its administrators don't recognize it, as well as the core of the problem stemming from a man's unrequited love and trying to create an A.I. that was essentially his child.

The combat and some environments were pretty bland, and would've been considered "great" on the Dreamcast, but this series got released from 2003 to 2004 on the PS2 in North America. There was no excuse not to invest some time in better visuals and not simply give alt skins to environments and NPCs. Then again, the series was somewhat popular, since it, .hack//SIGN, .hack//Legend of the Twilight Braclet, and manga series tie-ins did sell pretty well between 2003-2006.

The last three games, the .hack//G.U. series (which were published by Bandai Namco), improved upon the combat and visuals, but it's story wasn't as great as in the initial series. Still decent, but it sort of rehashes the core plot while changing up the flavor. It did have better voice acting (Yuri Lowenthal and Johnny Yong Bosch were two of the main voice actors for the game, and a number of other noted voice actors from anime and video games also worked in it.), and the cutscenes and graphics had a lot more care put into them. Plus, the combat is genuinely fun, if a bit button-mashy. It also had a couple of tie-ins, mainly the .hack/Roots anime (which didn't pull in as many people due to a lack of Toonami during 2007-2009, as well as CN MOVING THE SHOW ALL OVER ITS TIME SLOTS. THAT'S HOW FAMILY GUY GOT CANCELLED AFTER ITS FIRST TWO SEASONS. HAVE NETWORKS LEARNED NOTHING?).

Sadly, the .hack series must've run its course of popularity in the West after that, as .hack//Link was never released (mostly due to the PSP selling poorly outside of Japan), and there have only been a couple of OVAs for the series localized.

Just two series that never achieved their full potential due to issues and reasons outside of their control.

Imma just stick this here.

secure.avaaz.org/en/petit..._for_Global_Release/?pv=3

From the name, I was going to guess Lunar would be your choice, but I won't complain about the Xeno games getting rep'd. Xenogears was great, and though I never got into the Xenosaga games, they seemed pretty good. And I never got into the .hack games primarily because there were so many of them. Made it a bit of a commitment if you wanted to get into them from the start.

And did you just dis Asura's Wrath? Sure it wasn't great, but it was fun. It was pretty much just shonen anime distilled. PLUS it let me punch Ryu into the moon. So much catharsis factor there.

Also, yeah, that is QUITE a wall of text.

Too bad the guy in charge is a psychopathic SJW now.

Picking Lunar would be too obvious. :P

Besides, I'm not the only one on here who has advocated for the Lunar games, so I figured I'd go for a couple of series that I don't see mentioned too much on here.

I've played Xenogears as well; it's a great game, but sadly there are some Xenogears fans that give the Xenosaga games hate for whatever reason they can come up with. Most of the reasons are bullshit, while the rest can be simply summed up to personal taste and preference. When I encounter the latter, I just move on.

Yeah, the sheer amount of .hack games that have been released in North America are somewhat intimidating. But part 1 and 2 of the games are about 10-15 hours with some minor side quests, with part 3 and 4 being around 17 to 20 hours for the same reasons. You only go over 20 hours in each game when you're trying to fill up the Books of Ryu to unlock background music and some other cosmetic stuff. Grunty Raising/Racing can either be entertaining or frustrating as hell. And the Golden Goblins start out enjoyable and end up aggravating.

As for the G.U. games, those last longer. Typically, they go over 15 hours of cutscenes and gameplay, and can easily pass 20-25 hours when doing Book of Ryu objectives, PKK events, and Arena fights. It's obvious that more effort was put into the gameplay and presentation of G.U., even though the story is essentially the same. I would recommend that you play them all, starting from the first four, if at all possible.

Your best bet at this point, if you want to play any of these games, is to use a PS2 emulator. The games themselves can be found on eBay or Amazon for more than 25 USD each, and typically above 30 USD. You could probably find Xenosaga Episode 1 for around 20 USD, but that would likely just be the Greatest Hits version. It's easy to break 75 or 100 USD if you try to buy each series as a collection, so for the sake of saving money, stick with an emulator.

And I didn't mean to diss Asura's Wrath, as I've never played it. However, I heard about the issue with it's ending and how the true ending was locked behind DLC, so that's more what I was referring to. The gameplay looked like mindless fun, but there were a lot of complaints from those who played the game, so I was factoring in what I've heard to my response.

Steambot chronicles was a game that touched my heart in a multitude of ways. The control scheme for the mechs was a bit clunky at first but was also what made the game memorable. Even if the maps were a bit small, even for it's time, the fact that there was so much shit to do helped make the game feel way bigger than it actually was. While the main thing about the game was the steampunk robots and battling/customizing them, there was an almost unreasonable amount of stuff you could do that had nothing to do with the robot battles (street performer, concert singer, taxi driver, just to name a few). It was also one of the few times when a comparison quote was accurate. "[steambot chronicles] is what would happen if hayao miyazaki made a video-game." (not the actual quote but basically what it said) the themes of nature vs technology and the bad guys that aren't all that bad are things that are right up miyazaki's alley.

Destroy all humans was also a really great open-world style game (first 2, anyway. never played the others). Crammed with 50s and 60s style humor and celebrating the corniness of sci-fi b-movies, It was just a fun experience. I mentioned it in an old thread but it was also a hypno-fetishist playground. The first game had basic "put to sleep" or the classic "act like a chicken (distraction)" commands along with story specific commands. The 2nd game went all out. In addition to the previous commands, you were able to outright posses people, make them follow/protect you, and even allowed you to start your own cult. To this day, it is the single most regretted trade-in I have ever made. Well, aside from pokemon yellow but that got re-released on the nintendo store so it's all good in that regard.

everyone who uses that term unironically is an idiot bye

Fair points all round. I think personal preference thing is why I never got into the XSaga series, they just didn't hit home for me. That and the (from what I can remember, it's been a while) slow pacing near the start of the series. Just never hooked me in, you know? And with my schedule, I'm not sure I could reasonably find time to play the .hack stuff, even though it seems neat. Maybe I'll find an LP to keep me occupied during downtime at work.

And it's completely cool on Asura's Wrath, I see why people would have issues with it and I'm not going to get up in arms about "sullying it's name" or anything. It is, as I said, not a great game, and definitely has issues, even if I do think it was better than people tend to put it down as.

Mostly I just wanted to bring up the fact that Ryu got punched into the moon. That never ceases to put a smile on my face.

And I just remembered a PS2 RPG I loved that has a bit of a controversial state in its series.

Star Ocean 3: Till the End of Time. Active battle system in an RPG, simple but passable combo system, space opera feel, and a huge twist that turns the entire franchise on its head. Unfortunately they just kinda ignored so much they could have done with that twist. In spoilers to be absolutely safe here...

So, you go through the whole game, and then you find out that the world your characters are in is an MMO where all you are NPCs in this video game created by beings in a dimension above you. You then break out of the game through the use of sufficiently advanced tech/magic, get dumped into the server hub/company center for the game and decide.... "Uhh I dunno, I guess we ask the creator of the game to give us NPCs freedom?" He refuses, calls himself your god, then you beat him into the dirt, and the entire endgame just kinda stops there when your characters just kinda shrug and go "Alright, I guess we're free enough now?"

It was just a really neat idea that just didn't get capitalized on. *Shrug* Still a fun game, and one I put far too many hours on way back when.

SJW confirmed.
Go back to your hugbox for retarded children over at tumblr.

Holy crap, I had almost forgotten about those games. The first two at least were fantastic.