The Best of PS2?

[Nvidiaguy07]

FFX, Gran Turismo 4, GTA3, MGS, and star ocean was ok, but i never got a chance to finish it.

 

[PowerYoga]

pretty sure FF6 and 5 can both be pretty long, I spent well over 70 hours on FF6 doing stuff and lvling up.

I tried xenosaga 1, trying to play xenosaga 2... and it's just pretty slow like the first one. The first one is nothing spectacular, combat sucked and voice acting sucked and it was a super big letdown compared to xenogears.

 

[exdeath]

That's part of the problem. Comparing anything to Xenogears is going to dissapoint.

As for the pace, I'm more into plot and exploring a calm relaxing atmosphere rather than being rushed along in a hurry. If I want a quick fast paced fix, Ill play Gears of War. FPS are like chugging a keg, but RPGs are a fine wine to be saviored slowly and enjoyed.

FFXIII is great if you prefer a fast paced action arcade game with no story getting in the way.

 

[cl-scott]

pretty sure FF6 and 5 can both be pretty long, I spent well over 70 hours on FF6 doing stuff and lvling up.

I tried xenosaga 1, trying to play xenosaga 2... and it's just pretty slow like the first one. The first one is nothing spectacular, combat sucked and voice acting sucked and it was a super big letdown compared to xenogears.

We are very different people. I played Xenogears, and was completely underwhelmed after hearing about how great it was over and over again. It wasn't a bad game, but it was hardly this great and glorious game that goes down in history as one of the best ever.

I loved Xenosaga though. While there were definitely a number of things changed in Xenosaga 2 I wasn't a fan of, the combat was made much more interesting by the fact that you can place characters behind the enemy, and use break zones to multiply the damage. When you fight Margulus fairly late in the game, without using break zones, you're going to have a hard time staying alive long enough to finish the fight.

I was particularly impressed with the way the Xenosaga developers managed to weave a great deal of Judeo-Christian mythology into a futuristic sci-fi soap opera RPG. They beat you over the head with it in Xenosaga 3, but there's still quite a bit of it present in 1 and 2. I also don't know how you can say the voice actor for Albedo is anything but perfect for the part. And Allan is like the perfect mix of pathetic and flustered for his character.

 

[purbeast0]

i think at it's time, GTA3 was the best ps2 game. it was the first truly open world game to come along where you had a huge sandbox to do stuff with. it was just freaking awesome at it's time and kind of ahead of it's time.

 

[exdeath]

Albedo is a f@$&*$# nutcake. Its awesome.

Easily pwns Kefka or Sephiroth for most touched in the head character in a RPG.

Mechanically Xenogears isn't that great. Its old and clunky even for its time. Its the story and huge surprise in store for you towards the end that completely warps your sense of existance that makes it incredible. You play 3/4 of the game wondering what that intro video has anything to do with.... then BAM it all comes together in the biggest "OHHH SHHHIIIII....." moment I've ever experienced in a game.

And not just the main story but all the deep side story with all the previous generations, the love story between Lacan and Sophia, Krelian's fall from humanity and discovery of the truth, etc...so much rich story!

Then you start thinking outside the game... the world Deus was created in so long ago... and it makes the scope of what you played seem as insignificant as a gnat.

 

[Sulaco]

Kingdom Hearts and Xenosaga stand out for me. But listing just two games would not do PS2 justice.

PS2 marks the end of an era for me, specifically the last console of the 16/32 bit era with decent JRPGs.

XBox and beyond marked the start of the "Halo" "Fast and Furious" and "Call of Duty" generation which I have grown to loathe as it all but stamped out all other genres in favor of the quick cut and paste vs. mode FPS quick buck business model.

While I agree to a point, I don't think it's fair to lump that onto the Xbox, especially since the PS2 was vastly more popular, had just as high if not higher degree of "mainstream dumbed down-ness" and filler library. That, and at LEAST Halo was a quality game. The PS2 had...lol...Killzone.
The PS2 also had MORE exclusive, mindless Call of Duty ports and exclusives than ANY OTHER platform, so I fail to see how that's the fault of the Xbox, exactly.

The Xbox also had some real gems:

The Splinter Cell series, to this day, STILL tears MGS a new asshole. Chaos Theory alone is superior to the entire MGS series on the PS2. Not even close.
The Xbox was fairly weak in the RPG realm, at least JRPGs, but I contend that KotOR 1(an xbox console exclusive, not appearing on PS2) was such a better game than any of the PS2 era FFs, and I don't even generally like to compare western RPGs to JRPGs, but seeing the number of people recommending mediocrity like FFX, it's worth noting.
Heck I'd take any of the Xbox era Bioware games (KotOR, KotOR 2, Jade Empire) over any Square Enix offering of that era.

 

[MistaFreeze]

The Splinter Cell series, to this day, STILL tears MGS a new asshole. Chaos Theory alone is superior to the entire MGS series on the PS2. Not even close.

If by "MGS" you mean Metal Gear Solid, I honestly think your in the vast minority.

 

[Dumac]

The Splinter Cell series, to this day, STILL tears MGS a new asshole. Chaos Theory alone is superior to the entire MGS series on the PS2. Not even close.
The Xbox was fairly weak in the RPG realm, at least JRPGs, but I contend that KotOR 1(an xbox console exclusive, not appearing on PS2) was such a better game than any of the PS2 era FFs, and I don't even generally like to compare western RPGs to JRPGs, but seeing the number of people recommending mediocrity like FFX, it's worth noting.
Heck I'd take any of the Xbox era Bioware games (KotOR, KotOR 2, Jade Empire) over any Square Enix offering of that era.

You kind of just sound like a xenophobe.

 

[shortylickens]

I got a PS2 slim a couple years ago to play some games I thought I might enjoy. Grandia 3 alright, Dragon Quest 8 was OK but not super. I got annoying with Final Fantasy X-2.

 

[clok1966]

Kingdom Hearts and Xenosaga stand out for me. But listing just two games would not do PS2 justice.

PS2 marks the end of an era for me, specifically the last console of the 16/32 bit era with decent JRPGs.

XBox and beyond marked the start of the "Halo" "Fast and Furious" and "Call of Duty" generation which I have grown to loathe as it all but stamped out all other genres in favor of the quick cut and paste vs. mode FPS quick buck business model.

I hear ya.. COD=MOH=same old thing with new paint (still fun, but damn , does every game need to be a copy). halo? maybe the first FPS to work good on a controler, but its one of the lamest FPS made.. 2 weapons? Regentrating health, same 3 building blocks used to make every interior? You can argue 2 weapons is "stategy" sorry had that with ammo management on the crap to good guns on shooters before it.. health regen.. while i admit health packs laying all over was a bit bad.. regenerating health is EASY street.... its the reason new gamers say Demons Souls and Dark Souls is Brutal and us old school gamers go SWEET a game that make me think before every move.

 

[Nvidiaguy07]

We are very different people. I played Xenogears, and was completely underwhelmed after hearing about how great it was over and over again. It wasn't a bad game, but it was hardly this great and glorious game that goes down in history as one of the best ever.

I loved Xenosaga though. While there were definitely a number of things changed in Xenosaga 2 I wasn't a fan of, the combat was made much more interesting by the fact that you can place characters behind the enemy, and use break zones to multiply the damage. When you fight Margulus fairly late in the game, without using break zones, you're going to have a hard time staying alive long enough to finish the fight.

I was particularly impressed with the way the Xenosaga developers managed to weave a great deal of Judeo-Christian mythology into a futuristic sci-fi soap opera RPG. They beat you over the head with it in Xenosaga 3, but there's still quite a bit of it present in 1 and 2. I also don't know how you can say the voice actor for Albedo is anything but perfect for the part. And Allan is like the perfect mix of pathetic and flustered for his character.

i never fininshed xenogears, but LOVED xenosaga - actually forgot about it until someone mentioned it here. For me the combat was a little easy though, and at times i got bored with the fights, but the story was really good as far as i remember, and im not sure why i never went back and played 2 or 3. Besides FFX it was one of the last JRPG's i ever played. Maybe ill come back someday.

 

[cl-scott]

I got a PS2 slim a couple years ago to play some games I thought I might enjoy. Grandia 3 alright, Dragon Quest 8 was OK but not super. I got annoying with Final Fantasy X-2.

Sadly the Grandia series went progressively downhill with every release. The PSX port of the Dreamcast original was pretty good, though I understand they replaced all references to beer with coffee. The game was pretty good, and the combat system was unique.

Grandia 2 for the PS2 was a fairly lackluster game. It was very competent mechanically, but the voice actors were just kind of phoning it in and the story was kind of <yawn>.

Grandia 3 seems like they tried to stitch together a game that was about 3/4 complete just to get it out the door. One of the hallmarks of Grandia has been that you have a rotating cast of characters, with most of them coming and going at various points in the game. But Grandia 3 was just odd... The main character's mother, who looks like she should be his sister, spends a good chunk of the beginning of the game complaining about how much she hates the guy with the boat, and then all of a sudden she's going to run off and explore the world with the guy?! Then as I recall, they never really explained why the evil mastermind of the game was doing what he was doing. Then they make this big deal out of some guy who invented the airplane in the game's world, only to kind of drop that pretty shortly after, then pick it back up again briefly when you finally meet the guy about 3/4 of the way through the game.

Dragon Quest 8 was a pretty solid RPG, and anyone who played some of the original Dragon Warrior games for the NES will get a bit of nostalgia for the text messages scrolling past. "You attack the Red Slime and cause 10 damage!" It kind of dragged on a bit at times, and you just wanted to wring the neck of the troll king guy because his voice is like a rusty nail on a chalkboard.

And I wholeheartedly agree that FFX-2 was such a complete waste, especially since the NA release didn't include a little 3-5 minute movie done with the game engine that kind of bridges the gap between the end of FFX and the beginning of FFX-2. While others clearly disagree, I thought FFX was a great RPG, one of the best FF games ever made (though I haven't played 5 and 6 yet for more than a couple of hours). FFX-2 was a blasphemous use of the FFX world and story. Especially since what little plot there was in X-2 had almost nothing to do with X. I'm sure it won't happen, but maybe while porting FFX to the Vita and PS3, they can make a FFX-3 that is a proper sequel.

 

[exar333]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATu9Iw0zdnU

Or just see first link in my sig for one of the best game trailers I've ever seen.

The Xenosaga series will make you forget FF VII+ even exists.

THIS!!

 

[cl-scott]

i never fininshed xenogears, but LOVED xenosaga - actually forgot about it until someone mentioned it here. For me the combat was a little easy though, and at times i got bored with the fights, but the story was really good as far as i remember, and im not sure why i never went back and played 2 or 3. Besides FFX it was one of the last JRPG's i ever played. Maybe ill come back someday.

Xenosaga 2 will require a little effort to stay with it the first time. They went a little overboard on the number of skills, and some of the boss fights are pretty much impossible unless you know what you're doing (like the first fight with Albedo), but they did make the combat somewhat more interesting, and despite being pretty focused on Jr. and Albedo, the story was pretty good.

Xenosaga 3 is where they really hit their stride, so it's a shame it was the last game in the series. Like some of the reviews say, by the end of the first disc of Xenosaga 3, there are so many new questions, you wonder how they could possibly wrap up the story in one last disc, but they do. Every character gets something of a proper sendoff, and they do leave just enough open for the possibility of a future game or two. The somewhat interesting thing about Xenosaga was that the "evil doers" weren't exactly evil. It was a shades of gray kind of thing, once they finally tell what the ultimate goal is of the other side.

 

[exdeath]

I got a PS2 slim a couple years ago to play some games I thought I might enjoy. Grandia 3 alright, Dragon Quest 8 was OK but not super. I got annoying with Final Fantasy X-2.

Yeah.... Charlie's Angels X-2 is a joke.

 

[exdeath]

Xenosaga was supposed to be 6 games. It got cut short and everything packed into the third. Thats why it feels rushed and too much too soon.

See why I hate CoD games? Xenosaga as most RPGs didn't sell 10 billion copies on launch and thus got its budget pulled. Fvk the mainstream gamers.

 

[piasabird]

Have ff12 at home. It is kind of interesting. You either love it or hate it. Also have FF10.

 

[cl-scott]

Xenosaga was supposed to be 6 games. It got cut short and everything packed into the third. Thats why it feels rushed and too much too soon.

See why I hate CoD games? Xenosaga as most RPGs didn't sell 10 billion copies on launch and thus got its budget pulled. Fvk the mainstream gamers.

I swear I heard 8, but you can definitely see that in how the first Xenosaga is kind of focused on Kos-Mos and Shion, then 2 is largely about Jr. and Albedo, I'm guessing 3 would have been about Ziggy and Voyager...

While I largely agree about CoD or whatever the latest combat shooter of the month is popular, to be fair Xenosaga 2 was a bit of a letdown compared to 1. There was no real distinction between the characters since they all had the exact same skill tree, and managing that skill tree was a PITA. There was also this odd sort of hollow sound to all the voice acting, like they were using some kind of low quality microphone to record it. And some of the audio was obviously just a loop, like when going up/down ladders. The Albedo fight in the Summer Domain is pretty much impossible unless you know the trick to it, and then later when you're on the Ormus ship blocking the path between the two black holes, the fight with what's her name Manes and something else, was a real PITA. But it did have Shion telling Allen to act like a man and shoot something, so that was certainly a plus.

And I've played FF12 twice now, and I still can't really figure out what's going on for half the game... One superpower invades some little country between another superpower, and then a ragtag group of people from that little country go running around with the deposed princess for... reasons.

 

[Sulaco]

You kind of just sound like a xenophobe.

Because Splinter Cell is a superior game to MGS, and KotoR is superior to recent Final Fantasy games? Seriously? If so, that's on you. How sad it is that someone recommending a western game over a Japanese one must be doing so out of some perceived xenophobia. Perspective, please.

 

[zerocool84]

Because Splinter Cell is a superior game to MGS, and KotoR is superior to recent Final Fantasy games? Seriously? If so, that's on you. How sad it is that someone recommending a western game over a Japanese one must be doing so out of some perceived xenophobia. Perspective, please.

Both Splinter Cell and MGS are "stealth" games but MGS is more about the story and I prefer MGS because of that. Also I don't know how someone can compare KOTOR to FF games. They are very different.