Solid video - I agree with all the picks - Sad to see Pokemon Red/Blue on here but going back to it now is so hard - No EXP share, item limits, long load times - It was great for 1998, but almost 30 years later it doesn't hold up.
@@dadgamingonline Haha yeah. I still play through it from time to time (and DO still prefer it over Leaf Green/Fire Red for some reason). The full party EXP Share is DEFINITELY something you miss though 🤣
i am a massive fan of White Knight Chronicles...i remember coming home from school and being excited to get my homework done to go online with my dad and do quests. Such a fun time, i remember being heartbroken when i heard the servers were shutting down......such a shame.
@@lordlank2099 Yeah dude! That game’s online was INCREDIBLY fun, and it honestly ruined the game without it. Did you play White Knight Chronicles 2, and if so what did you think of it? I don’t remember why, but I remember not really liking it for some reason.
@@dukey03 i really loved White Knight Chronicles 2, really liked that the avatar got their own Knight, and i liked how the combat system was slightly sped up, story wise i thought it was neat but wish they could have introduced more new locations instead of making you back track. Edit: but i think with all the gameplay improvements that 2 had, i think it is best (for new players) to just buy 2 since it has a completely remastered version of game 1 on the disc, making it easy to go from one to the other without having to buy two separate games
@@lordlank2099 Haha yeah I remember when I bought 2 and it came with a remastered 1; so I immediately replayed the first one again. It must’ve been the back tracking that put me off about the sequel. I do remember it being cool that your character got to be a Knight and I remember being able to customize it too which was cool af!
@@dukey03 back tracking didnt bother me too much back in the day because i still love the story even now, but thinking back on it, the world of wkc is so cool, i would have loved newer locations...but im glad you also thought the Avatar Knight was cool
As a huge Pokemon fan, can agree that Pokemon Red and Blue are super rough for sure. They have that nostalgia factor but they are really dated. I also loved White Knight Chronicles, super underrated in its time! By the way, your channel is the reason I am going to start the Dragon Quest series after only playing 11 for about 30 hours before dropping it! I am looking forward togetting through them and reviewing the series as a whole eventually so thank you for sharing your love of the series!
I know this isn't a JRPG but my pick for an RPG that didn't age the best is ES3: Morrowind. Don't get me wrong i like Morrowind and is in fact the last real Bethesda RPG, But the fact the game has some mechanics that have not aged well. The first one is that your attacks can miss even when the weapon clearly hit the enemy due to RNG, The second is that you can fail to cast a spell and how successfull you can cast a spell is based on you profficiency. Third and Finally is the fact that you don't have much to go on in terms of where to go to next.
WAtched video just because of Veemon in thumbnail. I played DW2 and DW3 extensively once I got hardware strong enough for emulation because I remember loving DW2 which I borrowed from a friend when I was a kid but not knowing english (or any other language available in EU version), I got stuck when I didn't know how to evolve a digimon and thus always remaining at lvl 11 with one digimon. Years later, I played it extensively and even without fastforwarding and yeah, slow and grindy af. DW1 I just couldn't. I didn't like the concept nor execution, DW2 I will play again with heavy fastforwarding abuse and d3 I played whole last summer. SO MUCH DAMN BACKTRACKING. Finished it but I was extremely annoyed at later parts. Plus, I liked much more how DW2 handled evolution branching than how DW3 did so I was bit dissapointed as well. All in all, they really aged badly. Fastforwarding is only saving grace. I got so traumatised by slow text and battles that my main concern in battle wasn't winning more efficiently but by first killing those that attack multiple digimons since their animation was the longest. XD I do still love DW2 and if was modded or remade for "modern" times, I'd play the shit out of it.
@@airbornefilip9139 So there is a Gameshark or Action Replay code that just sets the level caps for all Digimon to level 99 in Digimon World 2. I HIGHLY recommend using it if you want to play through it again. It gets rid of the handcuffs 🤣
Hard disagree with the Legend of Dragoon. It's still good over 20 years later. It has its problems for sure, and I wouldn't go for 100% unless you are prepared to grind, but the pacing is actually borderline great (long as you run from common encounters often starting at disk 3).There are some minor improvements that could be made if it ever gets a re-make- - freely allow use of any unlocked addition in battle, not just one - make animations faster, and skippable - buff the dragoon forms and allow early reverting - expanded inventory: 32 is way too small - improve the random encounters and voice acting other than these small gripes, LOD is still enjoyable today.
@@LeoSmashRoyale I was able to get through MM Battle Network 1 and 2 but with a bunch of frustration a couple years ago. But couldn’t force myself through the 3rd game. Like I said in the video, I do love the story, characters, and, combat. It’s just all the needless backtracking through super bland mazes that kill it for me.
@@dukey03yeah that's a hard disagree for me to chief Battle not worth three is amazing and battle network 6 is a really fun game You're really missing out by not playing six
@@dukey03and this is also why I hate the term out a day gameplay cuz if you use that argument well no s*** anything's out of date it's a really dumb gamer term I don't like how to date gameplay
@@LeoSmashRoyale Oh yeah I was gunna ask; I’ve never played the Star Force games. If I liked the story, character style, and combat of the Battle Network games, but not the mazey areas and backtracking; should I give it a try? Or would I likely not like the Star Force games either? PS: I LOVED Mega Man Battle Network games back when they first came out. But felt like I had to force myself through them when I replayed them a couple years back.
I always find it interesting just how uneven the Phantasy Star series was. PS2 was one of the first JRPGs I ever played and I convinced myself that I was enjoying it, simply because I didn't know any better. Looking back on it, though... eh. Not something I'd ever want to revisit. PS3 just bored me to the point where I stopped playing PS4 was one of my favourite games and absolutely aged really well
It's a somewhat different JRPG, and a lot of people will disagree, but the original Final Fantasy Tactics is such a poorly balanced mess with healing spells that can miss, enemies level up alongside you with bad scaling, Orlandu being so OP he trivializes the last portion of the game, and those nonsense random encounters where you might as well just save after every movement on the map, and reset if you get one... Great characters though, I give you that, but when it comes to gameplay, give me FFT Advance at A2 instead any day.
@@RadishDoctor It definitely has some bangers! I loved it back when it came out tbh. It was like the perfect mix of Final Fantasy and Power Rangers to me hahaha!
@@dukey03 Secret of Mana is another big fat agree. I have the Collection of Mana and didn't get very far. Even for Trials of Mana I vastly prefer the remake.
Pokemon Red and Blue speedruns are always good for a laugh because there is no such thing as a 'Glitchless' run because you're just going to accidentally do a few glitches. As far as another suggestion for the list has to be Lufia and the Fortress of Doom - which is wild because Lufia 2 has aged magnificently. The Ancient Cave is still spectacularly replayable (rare glitches where you spawn a floor that has no exit notwithstanding).
@@chadmiller4976 Unfortunately I’ve never played the Lufia games despite hearing that Lufia 2 is a top tier SNES game. I’ve heard there are a TON of puzzles, and I really don’t like puzzles. The odd one is okay; but I’ve heard there are a lot.
@@dukey03 You've heard correctly, there are a ton of puzzles in the game and if that isn't your jam then it's an easy skip. The Ancient Cave, though, is a randomized 100 floor roguelike dungeon that is pure dungeon crawling, turn based combatting, treasure finding bliss that arrived early in the era of randomized dungeons and did what it set out to do really well. Unless you are doing Iris items.
I'm playing Visions of Mana right now, and I can't help but think how much better the Secret of Mana Remake would have been if they'd done it in either the Visions or Trials Remake gameplay style. At this point, after playing those two, I can't see myself going back to Secret for anything other than the nostalgia factor.
@@rwm4768 Yeah dude, it’s rough going back to Secret of Mana. I’d LOVE a remake in the same vein that Trials of Mana got for sure! Which console are you playing Visions of Mana on btw? I played the demo on the PS4 and it just.. ran so bad. So I’m wondering if it’s just the demo or if the actual game itself chugs quite a bit on the PS4.
@@dukey03 I'm on PS5, and I've noticed occasional framerate stutters, but nothing that really hinders my enjoyment of the game. I'm really enjoying it because it feels like they translated a SNES JRPG into a modern AA JRPG. It makes me feel nostalgic even though it's brand new.
Yeah Pokemon Red and Blue have definitely aged like crap and is overall a broken mess that can be beaten easily with a Psychic type, And this is coming from a big Pokemon fan. Whilst i like the Breath of Fire series, I don't really like the first game. Along with the stuff mentioned the fact that literally half your party is basically trash filler that exist only to be used as fusion fodder for Kahn. Also i never really got the hype for Secret of Mana and Legend of Dragoon.
This is gonna make some people angry, but my pick for a list like this is Earthbound. The sound is super compressed, the sprite work lacks detail and the interface was archaic even at the time of its release. Now, to be fair, I think Earthbound is a game you play mostly for the witty script, and the localization is still top notch even by today's standards, so it's not a bad experience if you can put the other issues to the side.
@@xxProjectJxx So, I still haven’t played Earthbound and am KINDA afraid to 🤣! I didn’t like Mother because of it’s awful “dungeon” designs, and I hate Undertale which is apparently similar to Earthbound.
I still enjoy playing through Pokemon Red and Blue all the time. It's probably nostalgia but I enjoy them qutie a bit even now. The inventory management is not bad if you know what to expect going in -- you don't need to switch boxes much if you're not going for a dex completion run as you'll only catch what you need (in fact, you can easily clear the game without ever needed to switch boxes once). The bag inventory management is still a pain, but if you regularly sell off most of your possessions it's not terribly frustrating. Just a little ;) Does make you wonder how we suffered through it being more completion-focused as kids, though.
@@femtrooper ♥️ It should be out next week or the week after; I always see you talking about which games you’re excited to play soon. So I wanted to do something similar.
I recently played through Secret of Mana again with my brother. Nostalgia and multiplayer is all it has going for it. Yeah, it's not great, and I'd never play it as a new player or alone.
And here I thought you couldn't make me laugh anymore then you have Dukey. Joke's aside I understand regarding battle network series that it maze like structure is not to your liking, mind you battle network 4 is probably the worst offender of the series but that aside I'd say give 3 a retry hell ask Crim since his favorites are 3,5,6 plus he still has a print out guide. Either way at the end of the day this is just your opinion which your entitled to have (even though you enjoy blitz ball) an as such everyone can take it with a grain of salt given that we're all grown ups here. Keep up the good work as always.
The hard part is that there's different degrees of aging terribly. While FF7 is a fantastic game overall, it's graphics aged like milk. Xenogears is widely considered one of the better JRPG's but with how the second half goes, it's for sure aged terribly, even though I know you'll argue that it was always bad LMAO
@@Soldier1stClass I also don’t necessarily dislike FF7’s graphics. It’s kind of the last game in the series (except for 9 I suppose) that kept that early FF charm. And I think FF7’s art style is a big reason for that.
Oof on Megaman Battle Network, but yeah, each entry does have that thing that makes them incredibly annoying. Though the deck building and combat are incredibly charming to me, the backtracking can be an interest killer.
Actually playing thru breath of fire 1 right now. I think its actually pretty good. The only thing that sucks is the horrible encounter rate. I will also respectfully disagree on battle network. Its combat is incredibly deep and there is still nothing quite like it
@@ElementShoota One thing I DID really like about Breath of Fire 1 is that it shows the Boss’ health bar. Even though they kinda come back from near death most of the time hahha! Yeah I do really enjoy MM Battle Network’s combat.
yeah i noticed the Megaman Battle Network games werent as fun when i replayed them lately in the legacy collection. still love them though. as for Legend of Dragoon, i love that game too but it sure doesnt respect your time so i get it.
@@johnrambo4018 Yeah dude! Legend of Dragoon would be fantastic if they were able to even just speed up the combat. I heard that you CAN get an item that essentially does all the Additions for you, so maybe I’ll go for those the next time I play it.
Great vid. Secret of Mana is awful. How people class it as one of the greatest of all time is hilarious. Breath of Fire 1 is abysmal too. Phantasy Star 2 isn't that bad though, yes, it's overrated, but it's story is way above the likes of Secret of Mana and Breath of Fire.
Oof, hard disagree with that last point, of Phantasy Star 2 being worse than 3. 3 was easier, sure, but MAN was that game bland. That game was such a waste of potential of such a cool concept.
@@dukey03 with 2 I liked the vibrant, simple graphics, world/game feel, music, and plot (what little of it there was, there needed to be more development and cutscenes). The gameplay wasn't *bad*, but the difficulty, level scaling, and dungeons were legit ungodly. It's a game I've always been torn on, it could benefit from a complete remake, not a remaster, but complete remake/reimagining.
Oh man don't attack legend of dragoon that game is amazing what are you doing I would disagree with the age badly on this one too cuz I played it on the PS5 on the port came out and I didn't have any issues with it
@@amacandtheswordoflight310 I heard the remaster has a fast forward feature, but that it was crashing the game or something? Not too sure, just what I’ve heard. Whenever I go back and replay it, I’ll likely be playing this version unless that crash issue is still there.
nah bro the PS1 digimon world games have no place being there. world 1 in 2024 with guides is unironically a fine game, it's probably better now than when it came out. world 2 didn't age badly it was always garbage. world 3 maybe but it's not even a BAD game it just drags. and less than many RPGs from that era since it's mostly backtracking and not grinding.
@@AlexanderMartinez-kd7cz I’ve never liked Digimon World 1, but understand that a lot of people do. I KINDA warmed up to that style of Digimon game when Next Order came out, but overall not a fan of those kinds of games (and I do have a few Digimon Virtual pets and Digivice games). The 2nd one was the first one I played and I loved it at the time, but the battles are painfully slow and the DNA Digivolving aspects made it SOOO much more grindy than it needed to be. 3 I agree isn’t a terrible game by any means. But I was highly disappointed when I replayed it, didn’t remember the backtracking being so bad. It can definitely ruin the experience.
For my money, the two that I can think of are Lufia II and Lunar: Silver Star Story. Lufia II was groundbreaking for its time, but looking at it from a modern lens shows how awful it's aged. The game is riddled with glitches and bugs, the translation is abysmal, and the puzzles began to get extraordinarily tedious at around the halfway point. Every other quest had you going to some god-forsaken tower where you fight the boss and get both a generic key item as well as a literal key of some kind. To be honest, I find that Lufia 1's more straightforward experience has aged much more gracefully, since the dungeons were (mostly) less tedious with their puzzle-solving and the translation was significantly less glitchy and awful. Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete is a game that I have a hard time fathoming its popularity. The characters are obnoxious, the plot is horrible, the battles are tedium personified, the music - with a couple of exceptions - is forgettable, and worst of all, you have a way of getting a game over at the ending even after beating the last boss. One that is actually pretty easy to do, in fact. It's that last little middle finger to the player that solidifies this game as truly terrible. It was bad then, and it's worse now.
@@dukey03 well I think the dungeon layouts are the same, but the spells are kinda reworked. You move twice as fast on the world map and dungeons, the long drawn out blinking the game shows you when an enemy takes damage is a lot shorter, the meseta and exp drops are increased while the enemy encounter rate isn't made to be overwhelming. And other stuff I can't recall right now
Saying the Breath of Fire series, which is basically dead and gone and has a miniscule niche fanbase of JRPG enthusiasts is "overrated" is simply unfair.
My overrated RPGs? I only got two on my mind Golden Sun- this game has amazing gameplay and graphics for an early GBA game. It's just that the dialog scenes dragon on FOREVER and you can't skip them. It got really annoying when you gotta fight a boss, and before the boss fight there's a long dialog scene. Say you get beaten by the boss and you gotta reload and try again. THE SAME CUTSCENE PLAYS AND I CANT SKIP IT. My other pick was Xenosaga (not Gears). This game also had long cutscenes. Thankfully they are skipable but I tried paying attention to them once. I felt like I needed a wiki, and I hate it when game stories force me to do "homework". Also the boss fights were stupidly complex
Disagree on Secret of Mana. Replayed it fairly recently, and still enjoyed it. Partly disagree on Phantasy Star II. Also replayed it fairly recently, and it hasn't aged well, but I didn't find it that horrible and didn't have the grind issue you had (makes me wonder if you wandered off the wrong way).
@@TheTateful ROTFLMAO!! Dude I loved that game! I just have less patience/don’t have time to spend 10 minutes on each battle. This is also a big reason why I’m not the biggest fan of Tactical RPGs.
@@dukey03 this one time in my late teenage years, I got stabbed. That experience was more pleasant than Legend of Dragoon's combat and progression systems.
@@dukey03 I just played Dark Cloud last month and was working on a VS file not too long ago. Your smugness is hilarious, you could have just gone "Hey man, these are just my opinions." but instead you do the typical gas lighting "OH YOU HAVEN'T PLAYED THIS IN YEARS" shit.
#1 WAS ALWAYS TERRIBLE. LOL. I will fight people over this. Agree with everything PS1 on this list. The entire PS1 library curdled and spoiled a very long time ago.
I did not play Secret of Mana as a kid, but I did get the Mana collection for the Switch after hearing how great it was. And boy, oh boy, by not having any sort of rose-tinted glasses for the game, the flaws were absolutely noticeable.
That being said, I do have rose-tinted glasses for Dark Cloud 1. I did replay it a few years ago, and found myself encountering some rough spots with it though. Namely grinding the material needed to level up the weapons, and that terrible feeling of a weapon breaking after putting so much time into leveling it up (ended up loading an earlier save so that didnt happen). As much as I loved the party members you get, no way in hell was I going to try and get their max weapons. It was just not worth the effort.
Lol, comical but NO offence meant here, all I hear is they didnt age well 'cos it's something YOU personally didn't like. . The problem here is youre getting to play most of these games more recently (which youre stating in comments below) and not on original hardware back in the day when they first came out. There's a certain QoL, expectation and standard gamers expect in games these days, especially Jrpgs/Rpgs. Back in those days some things just wern't even possible to program on the game's engine, or devs just didnt know how to. . What you said about Secret of Mana's translation, the mess of it I agree slightly but I also understand why it wasnt such a great translation to English. It's story was effectively butchered because it was too big to fit the original version of the game onto a cartridge when it was being made for that Ninendo/Sony CD SNES Add-on that got cancelled, not to mention the rush to get thegame released on time to the public, Japaese Devs were dead set on release dates back in the 90's. They split the game into two games, kept Secret of Mana as it is and from what was left over (allready programmed) and ideas, maps, music, characters and time travel they decided to put it all together and make Chrono Trigger with the remaining stuff. . Originally Secret of Mana was going to have time travel and such in it but it never happened 'cos the Nintendo/Sony collab collapse, (which then sony eventually did their own which was then named PS1/PSX). Even music and characters in both games are very much alike and very similar in look, Randi and Chrono, Pirum and Marle, etc. In secret of mana, after you defeated the end guy you were originally going to be pulled through time and this is where the storyline of Chrono Trigger (in part) was going to happen, but obvioulsly at the time, space issues of carts compared to CDs, they cut the game, added flammie as the end boss and finished the game at that point with the collapse of the Mana Fortress. . So there's reasons, reasons you dont mention at all, you just say.. "didnt age well 'cos the translation was crap" (in a sense), or "'cos its grindy as hell", those are from YOUR own perspective and pretty biased, it's unfair you label these games as "Didn't age well". Some of these games were made near 25+ years ago, tech and knowledge of what was and what wasnt possible in games at the time was still young for newer consoless that wasnt home computers.. Commodore, Spectrum, or Amstrad. LOL!
@@SylarDean First of all of COURSE it’s my opinion, I made the video. Second of all; with the exception of the original Breath of Fire and and Phantasy Star II I DID play all of these originally when they came out. It was when I came back to them that I realized that they hadn’t aged well at all. Third; I liked all of the games back when I first played them with the exception of Vagrant Story.
What are some other JRPGs that didn’t age so well?
Goldeneye
@@Soldier1stClass Worst JRPG ever!
I went back to Golden Sun recently and was disappointed with myself for being like ughh. A remaster with qol would be nice.
@@ThatOldIcedTea Aww that’s too bad. I haven’t replayed it since it came out; but I think you’re probably right.
@dukey03 it ain't terrible, but the magic is a bit dimmer. Maybe it makes a "10 more jrpgs that didn't age well" lol
Solid video - I agree with all the picks - Sad to see Pokemon Red/Blue on here but going back to it now is so hard - No EXP share, item limits, long load times - It was great for 1998, but almost 30 years later it doesn't hold up.
@@dadgamingonline Haha yeah. I still play through it from time to time (and DO still prefer it over Leaf Green/Fire Red for some reason). The full party EXP Share is DEFINITELY something you miss though 🤣
bro talking about EXP share and item limits when your starter soloing the game isn't even a challenge run lol
@@AlexanderMartinez-kd7cz Haha, who needs to share the EXP with a level 100 Blastoise!
i am a massive fan of White Knight Chronicles...i remember coming home from school and being excited to get my homework done to go online with my dad and do quests. Such a fun time, i remember being heartbroken when i heard the servers were shutting down......such a shame.
@@lordlank2099 Yeah dude! That game’s online was INCREDIBLY fun, and it honestly ruined the game without it. Did you play White Knight Chronicles 2, and if so what did you think of it?
I don’t remember why, but I remember not really liking it for some reason.
@@dukey03 i really loved White Knight Chronicles 2, really liked that the avatar got their own Knight, and i liked how the combat system was slightly sped up, story wise i thought it was neat but wish they could have introduced more new locations instead of making you back track.
Edit: but i think with all the gameplay improvements that 2 had, i think it is best (for new players) to just buy 2 since it has a completely remastered version of game 1 on the disc, making it easy to go from one to the other without having to buy two separate games
@@lordlank2099 Haha yeah I remember when I bought 2 and it came with a remastered 1; so I immediately replayed the first one again.
It must’ve been the back tracking that put me off about the sequel. I do remember it being cool that your character got to be a Knight and I remember being able to customize it too which was cool af!
@@dukey03 back tracking didnt bother me too much back in the day because i still love the story even now, but thinking back on it, the world of wkc is so cool, i would have loved newer locations...but im glad you also thought the Avatar Knight was cool
Great picks. My biggest issue with Pokemon Red/Blue is just how unbalanced it is. All you need is a psychic type and you’re pretty much golden. lol
@@TheAgingGamer Haha yeah pretty much! I always used Haunter instead, that way I was still strong af; but didn’t completely break the game 😂
As a huge Pokemon fan, can agree that Pokemon Red and Blue are super rough for sure. They have that nostalgia factor but they are really dated. I also loved White Knight Chronicles, super underrated in its time! By the way, your channel is the reason I am going to start the Dragon Quest series after only playing 11 for about 30 hours before dropping it! I am looking forward togetting through them and reviewing the series as a whole eventually so thank you for sharing your love of the series!
@@ploopachooptv That is so awesome to hear ♥️! This is the literal REASON I make content! Thank you!
I know this isn't a JRPG but my pick for an RPG that didn't age the best is ES3: Morrowind.
Don't get me wrong i like Morrowind and is in fact the last real Bethesda RPG, But the fact the game has some mechanics that have not aged well. The first one is that your attacks can miss even when the weapon clearly hit the enemy due to RNG, The second is that you can fail to cast a spell and how successfull you can cast a spell is based on you profficiency. Third and Finally is the fact that you don't have much to go on in terms of where to go to next.
WAtched video just because of Veemon in thumbnail. I played DW2 and DW3 extensively once I got hardware strong enough for emulation because I remember loving DW2 which I borrowed from a friend when I was a kid but not knowing english (or any other language available in EU version), I got stuck when I didn't know how to evolve a digimon and thus always remaining at lvl 11 with one digimon. Years later, I played it extensively and even without fastforwarding and yeah, slow and grindy af.
DW1 I just couldn't. I didn't like the concept nor execution, DW2 I will play again with heavy fastforwarding abuse and d3 I played whole last summer. SO MUCH DAMN BACKTRACKING. Finished it but I was extremely annoyed at later parts. Plus, I liked much more how DW2 handled evolution branching than how DW3 did so I was bit dissapointed as well.
All in all, they really aged badly. Fastforwarding is only saving grace. I got so traumatised by slow text and battles that my main concern in battle wasn't winning more efficiently but by first killing those that attack multiple digimons since their animation was the longest. XD I do still love DW2 and if was modded or remade for "modern" times, I'd play the shit out of it.
@@airbornefilip9139 So there is a Gameshark or Action Replay code that just sets the level caps for all Digimon to level 99 in Digimon World 2. I HIGHLY recommend using it if you want to play through it again. It gets rid of the handcuffs 🤣
Hard disagree with the Legend of Dragoon. It's still good over 20 years later. It has its problems for sure, and I wouldn't go for 100% unless you are prepared to grind, but the pacing is actually borderline great (long as you run from common encounters often starting at disk 3).There are some minor improvements that could be made if it ever gets a re-make-
- freely allow use of any unlocked addition in battle, not just one
- make animations faster, and skippable
- buff the dragoon forms and allow early reverting
- expanded inventory: 32 is way too small
- improve the random encounters and voice acting
other than these small gripes, LOD is still enjoyable today.
I must respectfully disagree. Battle Network continues to hold up to this day, for me at least. Sorry they don't for you my good sir.
@@LeoSmashRoyale I was able to get through MM Battle Network 1 and 2 but with a bunch of frustration a couple years ago. But couldn’t force myself through the 3rd game. Like I said in the video, I do love the story, characters, and, combat. It’s just all the needless backtracking through super bland mazes that kill it for me.
@@dukey03yeah that's a hard disagree for me to chief Battle not worth three is amazing and battle network 6 is a really fun game You're really missing out by not playing six
@@dukey03and this is also why I hate the term out a day gameplay cuz if you use that argument well no s*** anything's out of date it's a really dumb gamer term I don't like how to date gameplay
@@LeoSmashRoyale Oh yeah I was gunna ask; I’ve never played the Star Force games. If I liked the story, character style, and combat of the Battle Network games, but not the mazey areas and backtracking; should I give it a try? Or would I likely not like the Star Force games either?
PS: I LOVED Mega Man Battle Network games back when they first came out. But felt like I had to force myself through them when I replayed them a couple years back.
When you defend the design choices of a twenty year old handheld game so vehemently that you give Godzilla a stroke.
I always find it interesting just how uneven the Phantasy Star series was.
PS2 was one of the first JRPGs I ever played and I convinced myself that I was enjoying it, simply because I didn't know any better. Looking back on it, though... eh. Not something I'd ever want to revisit.
PS3 just bored me to the point where I stopped playing
PS4 was one of my favourite games and absolutely aged really well
@@buffelbek1803 Yeah it really is a mixed bag in terms of quality. I loved Phantasy Star 1 and 4, but 2 was just awful imho.
It's a somewhat different JRPG, and a lot of people will disagree, but the original Final Fantasy Tactics is such a poorly balanced mess with healing spells that can miss, enemies level up alongside you with bad scaling, Orlandu being so OP he trivializes the last portion of the game, and those nonsense random encounters where you might as well just save after every movement on the map, and reset if you get one... Great characters though, I give you that, but when it comes to gameplay, give me FFT Advance at A2 instead any day.
I LOVE Final Fantasy Tactics, but I’d agree that there are definitely some balance issues.
yup I'm just here for LoD's OST but the game was a relic when it came out in 2000 and is just even more of a relic now
@@RadishDoctor It definitely has some bangers! I loved it back when it came out tbh. It was like the perfect mix of Final Fantasy and Power Rangers to me hahaha!
My first idea: Pokemon Gen 1 and it came up immediately. That alone makes this a great list.
@@m.m.2341 Hahaha thanks!
@@dukey03 Secret of Mana is another big fat agree. I have the Collection of Mana and didn't get very far. Even for Trials of Mana I vastly prefer the remake.
Pokemon Red and Blue speedruns are always good for a laugh because there is no such thing as a 'Glitchless' run because you're just going to accidentally do a few glitches.
As far as another suggestion for the list has to be Lufia and the Fortress of Doom - which is wild because Lufia 2 has aged magnificently. The Ancient Cave is still spectacularly replayable (rare glitches where you spawn a floor that has no exit notwithstanding).
@@chadmiller4976 You know a game is kinda broken when… 😂
@@chadmiller4976 Unfortunately I’ve never played the Lufia games despite hearing that Lufia 2 is a top tier SNES game. I’ve heard there are a TON of puzzles, and I really don’t like puzzles. The odd one is okay; but I’ve heard there are a lot.
@@dukey03 You've heard correctly, there are a ton of puzzles in the game and if that isn't your jam then it's an easy skip. The Ancient Cave, though, is a randomized 100 floor roguelike dungeon that is pure dungeon crawling, turn based combatting, treasure finding bliss that arrived early in the era of randomized dungeons and did what it set out to do really well.
Unless you are doing Iris items.
I’m surprised that Rogue Galaxy didn’t make the cut
@@Schuh525 It was close. I LOVE Rogue Galaxy, but it hasn’t aged all that well unfortunately.
I'm playing Visions of Mana right now, and I can't help but think how much better the Secret of Mana Remake would have been if they'd done it in either the Visions or Trials Remake gameplay style. At this point, after playing those two, I can't see myself going back to Secret for anything other than the nostalgia factor.
@@rwm4768 Yeah dude, it’s rough going back to Secret of Mana. I’d LOVE a remake in the same vein that Trials of Mana got for sure!
Which console are you playing Visions of Mana on btw? I played the demo on the PS4 and it just.. ran so bad. So I’m wondering if it’s just the demo or if the actual game itself chugs quite a bit on the PS4.
@@dukey03 I'm on PS5, and I've noticed occasional framerate stutters, but nothing that really hinders my enjoyment of the game. I'm really enjoying it because it feels like they translated a SNES JRPG into a modern AA JRPG. It makes me feel nostalgic even though it's brand new.
@@rwm4768 YEAH dude! It’s the perfect 3D realization of the artstyle, charm, and atmosphere the Mana series has
Yeah Pokemon Red and Blue have definitely aged like crap and is overall a broken mess that can be beaten easily with a Psychic type, And this is coming from a big Pokemon fan.
Whilst i like the Breath of Fire series, I don't really like the first game. Along with the stuff mentioned the fact that literally half your party is basically trash filler that exist only to be used as fusion fodder for Kahn. Also i never really got the hype for Secret of Mana and Legend of Dragoon.
So there's no nostalgia to be had here and there comes the legend of dracoon I believe the game actually holds up in 2024 / 2023
Yeah, I played it for the first time last year and thought it was pretty fun. I wish additions also tied into defending from enemy attacks though.
This is gonna make some people angry, but my pick for a list like this is Earthbound.
The sound is super compressed, the sprite work lacks detail and the interface was archaic even at the time of its release.
Now, to be fair, I think Earthbound is a game you play mostly for the witty script, and the localization is still top notch even by today's standards, so it's not a bad experience if you can put the other issues to the side.
@@xxProjectJxx So, I still haven’t played Earthbound and am KINDA afraid to 🤣! I didn’t like Mother because of it’s awful “dungeon” designs, and I hate Undertale which is apparently similar to Earthbound.
@@dukey03 I have a soft spot for Mother 1, but yeah, no argument here. Some of those dungeons were rough, lol.
@dukey03 Earthbound is an experience. I love the game but it's definitely an acquired taste.
@@JesTeeVee 🤣 Don’t say THAT dude! Now I’m even more nervous to try it haha!
I still enjoy playing through Pokemon Red and Blue all the time. It's probably nostalgia but I enjoy them qutie a bit even now. The inventory management is not bad if you know what to expect going in -- you don't need to switch boxes much if you're not going for a dex completion run as you'll only catch what you need (in fact, you can easily clear the game without ever needed to switch boxes once). The bag inventory management is still a pain, but if you regularly sell off most of your possessions it's not terribly frustrating. Just a little ;) Does make you wonder how we suffered through it being more completion-focused as kids, though.
@@metapod Yeah I still really enjoy playing through Gen 1 as well. I just don’t think it’s aged the best.
Oh man I loved PSII.
Gonna have to respectfully disagree on almost all of these. Thank you.
@@funisinfinite6171 No worries bro
This is awesome!!! It's so honest and I was actually laughing! Great video!
@@femtrooper Thanks!! Glad you enjoyed it. I was actually inspired by your video style for an upcoming video that I hope you’ll also enjoy!
@@dukey03 OH MAN! I’m so hyped!!!
@@femtrooper ♥️ It should be out next week or the week after; I always see you talking about which games you’re excited to play soon. So I wanted to do something similar.
shout out to Crim!
I… I never cared for Secret of Mana. I didn’t like Breath of Fire either!
I recently played through Secret of Mana again with my brother. Nostalgia and multiplayer is all it has going for it. Yeah, it's not great, and I'd never play it as a new player or alone.
@@KnightRaymund Yeah it’s definitely pretty roughski.
Just subbed. Great content man. Exactly what I was looking for.
@@radandpaisley Thanks a LOT dude! Glad you enjoyed it!
And here I thought you couldn't make me laugh anymore then you have Dukey. Joke's aside I understand regarding battle network series that it maze like structure is not to your liking, mind you battle network 4 is probably the worst offender of the series but that aside I'd say give 3 a retry hell ask Crim since his favorites are 3,5,6 plus he still has a print out guide. Either way at the end of the day this is just your opinion which your entitled to have (even though you enjoy blitz ball) an as such everyone can take it with a grain of salt given that we're all grown ups here. Keep up the good work as always.
@@TheGrave013 Thanks dude! Glad you enjoyed it!
The hard part is that there's different degrees of aging terribly. While FF7 is a fantastic game overall, it's graphics aged like milk. Xenogears is widely considered one of the better JRPG's but with how the second half goes, it's for sure aged terribly, even though I know you'll argue that it was always bad LMAO
@@Soldier1stClass It’s hard to argue FF7 has aged badly when it’s still far better than the remake 🤣
@@Soldier1stClass I also don’t necessarily dislike FF7’s graphics. It’s kind of the last game in the series (except for 9 I suppose) that kept that early FF charm. And I think FF7’s art style is a big reason for that.
Oof on Megaman Battle Network, but yeah, each entry does have that thing that makes them incredibly annoying.
Though the deck building and combat are incredibly charming to me, the backtracking can be an interest killer.
@@nekonomicon2983 Yeah, I’d love to see them get properly remade and remove all the tedium of the backtracking.
Actually playing thru breath of fire 1 right now. I think its actually pretty good. The only thing that sucks is the horrible encounter rate. I will also respectfully disagree on battle network. Its combat is incredibly deep and there is still nothing quite like it
@@ElementShoota One thing I DID really like about Breath of Fire 1 is that it shows the Boss’ health bar. Even though they kinda come back from near death most of the time hahha!
Yeah I do really enjoy MM Battle Network’s combat.
@@dukey03lol ya true. That part is pretty weird
yeah i noticed the Megaman Battle Network games werent as fun when i replayed them lately in the legacy collection. still love them though. as for Legend of Dragoon, i love that game too but it sure doesnt respect your time so i get it.
@@johnrambo4018 Yeah dude! Legend of Dragoon would be fantastic if they were able to even just speed up the combat. I heard that you CAN get an item that essentially does all the Additions for you, so maybe I’ll go for those the next time I play it.
I love the T shirt
@@ZefoniusLinestraf Haha thanks dude!
Great vid. Secret of Mana is awful. How people class it as one of the greatest of all time is hilarious. Breath of Fire 1 is abysmal too. Phantasy Star 2 isn't that bad though, yes, it's overrated, but it's story is way above the likes of Secret of Mana and Breath of Fire.
Oof, hard disagree with that last point, of Phantasy Star 2 being worse than 3. 3 was easier, sure, but MAN was that game bland. That game was such a waste of potential of such a cool concept.
@@montefisto I didn’t LIKE Phantasy Star 3 per se, but I didn’t HATE it. And I freaking HATED Phantasy Star 2.
@@dukey03 with 2 I liked the vibrant, simple graphics, world/game feel, music, and plot (what little of it there was, there needed to be more development and cutscenes). The gameplay wasn't *bad*, but the difficulty, level scaling, and dungeons were legit ungodly. It's a game I've always been torn on, it could benefit from a complete remake, not a remaster, but complete remake/reimagining.
@@montefisto Yeah I agree there. A full blown remake would need to happen.
You bagging out Number 1 had me rolling 🤣 Great video brother, but I know some folks won't be happy with this list, hahaha.
@@uppernimbus Dude Phantasy Star II was fucking AWFUL 🤣! Can never please everyone, so might as well be true to yourself.
Oh man don't attack legend of dragoon that game is amazing what are you doing I would disagree with the age badly on this one too cuz I played it on the PS5 on the port came out and I didn't have any issues with it
@@amacandtheswordoflight310 I heard the remaster has a fast forward feature, but that it was crashing the game or something? Not too sure, just what I’ve heard. Whenever I go back and replay it, I’ll likely be playing this version unless that crash issue is still there.
@@dukey03 I didn't have any issues with it
@@amacandtheswordoflight310 good to hear!
nah bro the PS1 digimon world games have no place being there.
world 1 in 2024 with guides is unironically a fine game, it's probably better now than when it came out.
world 2 didn't age badly it was always garbage.
world 3 maybe but it's not even a BAD game it just drags. and less than many RPGs from that era since it's mostly backtracking and not grinding.
@@AlexanderMartinez-kd7cz I’ve never liked Digimon World 1, but understand that a lot of people do. I KINDA warmed up to that style of Digimon game when Next Order came out, but overall not a fan of those kinds of games (and I do have a few Digimon Virtual pets and Digivice games).
The 2nd one was the first one I played and I loved it at the time, but the battles are painfully slow and the DNA Digivolving aspects made it SOOO much more grindy than it needed to be.
3 I agree isn’t a terrible game by any means. But I was highly disappointed when I replayed it, didn’t remember the backtracking being so bad. It can definitely ruin the experience.
For my money, the two that I can think of are Lufia II and Lunar: Silver Star Story.
Lufia II was groundbreaking for its time, but looking at it from a modern lens shows how awful it's aged. The game is riddled with glitches and bugs, the translation is abysmal, and the puzzles began to get extraordinarily tedious at around the halfway point. Every other quest had you going to some god-forsaken tower where you fight the boss and get both a generic key item as well as a literal key of some kind. To be honest, I find that Lufia 1's more straightforward experience has aged much more gracefully, since the dungeons were (mostly) less tedious with their puzzle-solving and the translation was significantly less glitchy and awful.
Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete is a game that I have a hard time fathoming its popularity. The characters are obnoxious, the plot is horrible, the battles are tedium personified, the music - with a couple of exceptions - is forgettable, and worst of all, you have a way of getting a game over at the ending even after beating the last boss. One that is actually pretty easy to do, in fact. It's that last little middle finger to the player that solidifies this game as truly terrible. It was bad then, and it's worse now.
There's a romhack for 2 that fixes a lot of the balance issues
@@TheLostWoodshed For 2 of what?
@@dukey03 phantasy Star 2
@@TheLostWoodshed Ahh gotcha! Unless it completely redesigns the dungeons; it still would hardly be playable imho haha!
@@dukey03 well I think the dungeon layouts are the same, but the spells are kinda reworked. You move twice as fast on the world map and dungeons, the long drawn out blinking the game shows you when an enemy takes damage is a lot shorter, the meseta and exp drops are increased while the enemy encounter rate isn't made to be overwhelming. And other stuff I can't recall right now
Saying the Breath of Fire series, which is basically dead and gone and has a miniscule niche fanbase of JRPG enthusiasts is "overrated" is simply unfair.
My overrated RPGs? I only got two on my mind
Golden Sun- this game has amazing gameplay and graphics for an early GBA game. It's just that the dialog scenes dragon on FOREVER and you can't skip them. It got really annoying when you gotta fight a boss, and before the boss fight there's a long dialog scene. Say you get beaten by the boss and you gotta reload and try again. THE SAME CUTSCENE PLAYS AND I CANT SKIP IT.
My other pick was Xenosaga (not Gears). This game also had long cutscenes. Thankfully they are skipable but I tried paying attention to them once. I felt like I needed a wiki, and I hate it when game stories force me to do "homework". Also the boss fights were stupidly complex
Disagree on Secret of Mana. Replayed it fairly recently, and still enjoyed it. Partly disagree on Phantasy Star II. Also replayed it fairly recently, and it hasn't aged well, but I didn't find it that horrible and didn't have the grind issue you had (makes me wonder if you wandered off the wrong way).
Secret of mana is god tier
I'd argue that Legend of Dragoon doesn't belong on this list because it was also terrible when it came out.
@@TheTateful ROTFLMAO!! Dude I loved that game! I just have less patience/don’t have time to spend 10 minutes on each battle. This is also a big reason why I’m not the biggest fan of Tactical RPGs.
@@dukey03 this one time in my late teenage years, I got stabbed.
That experience was more pleasant than Legend of Dragoon's combat and progression systems.
@@TheTateful 🤣 jeez!
@@dukey03 that's what I said when the guy was stabbing me!
@@TheTateful 🤣
As an ugly lonely human with no friends I can say with confidence nothing has aged worse than me! 😤 therefore I win lol
@@R-Otaku747 Aww don’t be so hard on yourself dude! Look how ugly I am, and I put my friggin mug in the damn video! 🤣
This schtick is old, seek help and fix your issues.
@@jordankelly4684 lol I’ll go when you do
@@dukey03 lol Nah I’m just bein honest wit myself that’s all lol but fam yer like a super model Fr!
@@R-Otaku747 ROTFLMAO, naw dude. I am Lord Chancellor Uggo SUPREME!
Vagrant Story and Dark Cloud on this list, didn't bother watching the rest.
Go play Valorant or FF16. I'm sure those are up to your speed.
@@vyadhis Nice try bud. I’m assuming you haven’t played Dark Cloud or Vagrant Story in the past 15-20 years.
@@dukey03 I just played Dark Cloud last month and was working on a VS file not too long ago. Your smugness is hilarious, you could have just gone "Hey man, these are just my opinions." but instead you do the typical gas lighting "OH YOU HAVEN'T PLAYED THIS IN YEARS" shit.
@@dukey03 good job deleting my comment, proof to me youre just another redditor roleplaying as a classic jrpg fan. Go enjoy your DQ remasters.
@@vyadhis I didn’t? I replied to it even 😂
@@vyadhis bro.. YOU are replying to it right now 🤣
#1 WAS ALWAYS TERRIBLE. LOL. I will fight people over this.
Agree with everything PS1 on this list. The entire PS1 library curdled and spoiled a very long time ago.
I love a ton of PS1 JRPGs, but these ones aged exceptionally bad imho.
Also, the only 2 games I’ve never liked in this video are Phantasy Star II and Vagrant Story.
Hard agree for Legend of Dragoon. The battle additions were cool, but I don't want to do that for /every/single/attack. Give me a break!
@@openmoose Yeah exactly!
I did not play Secret of Mana as a kid, but I did get the Mana collection for the Switch after hearing how great it was. And boy, oh boy, by not having any sort of rose-tinted glasses for the game, the flaws were absolutely noticeable.
@@simpsonwizekid Yeah dude, it’s super rough.
That being said, I do have rose-tinted glasses for Dark Cloud 1. I did replay it a few years ago, and found myself encountering some rough spots with it though. Namely grinding the material needed to level up the weapons, and that terrible feeling of a weapon breaking after putting so much time into leveling it up (ended up loading an earlier save so that didnt happen). As much as I loved the party members you get, no way in hell was I going to try and get their max weapons. It was just not worth the effort.
What exactly does it mean by "didn't age well"?
You aren't wrong about Legend of Dragoon. Game play is meh to the point of not being interested enough to even getting through the second disc.
Lol, comical but NO offence meant here, all I hear is they didnt age well 'cos it's something YOU personally didn't like.
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The problem here is youre getting to play most of these games more recently (which youre stating in comments below) and not on original hardware back in the day when they first came out.
There's a certain QoL, expectation and standard gamers expect in games these days, especially Jrpgs/Rpgs.
Back in those days some things just wern't even possible to program on the game's engine, or devs just didnt know how to.
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What you said about Secret of Mana's translation, the mess of it I agree slightly but I also understand why it wasnt such a great translation to English.
It's story was effectively butchered because it was too big to fit the original version of the game onto a cartridge when it was being made for that Ninendo/Sony CD SNES Add-on that got cancelled, not to mention the rush to get thegame released on time to the public, Japaese Devs were dead set on release dates back in the 90's.
They split the game into two games, kept Secret of Mana as it is and from what was left over (allready programmed) and ideas, maps, music, characters and time travel they decided to put it all together and make Chrono Trigger with the remaining stuff.
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Originally Secret of Mana was going to have time travel and such in it but it never happened 'cos the Nintendo/Sony collab collapse, (which then sony eventually did their own which was then named PS1/PSX). Even music and characters in both games are very much alike and very similar in look, Randi and Chrono, Pirum and Marle, etc. In secret of mana, after you defeated the end guy you were originally going to be pulled through time and this is where the storyline of Chrono Trigger (in part) was going to happen, but obvioulsly at the time, space issues of carts compared to CDs, they cut the game, added flammie as the end boss and finished the game at that point with the collapse of the Mana Fortress.
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So there's reasons, reasons you dont mention at all, you just say.. "didnt age well 'cos the translation was crap" (in a sense), or "'cos its grindy as hell", those are from YOUR own perspective and pretty biased, it's unfair you label these games as "Didn't age well". Some of these games were made near 25+ years ago, tech and knowledge of what was and what wasnt possible in games at the time was still young for newer consoless that wasnt home computers.. Commodore, Spectrum, or Amstrad. LOL!
oops sorry for the long post.. LOL! just my opinion on YOUR views of those games.
@@SylarDean First of all of COURSE it’s my opinion, I made the video.
Second of all; with the exception of the original Breath of Fire and and Phantasy Star II I DID play all of these originally when they came out. It was when I came back to them that I realized that they hadn’t aged well at all.
Third; I liked all of the games back when I first played them with the exception of Vagrant Story.