>>11995382
I bought both these games off psn for $5 because I figured what the hell, that's less than a mocha. But then III came out and everyone fucking hated and instead of ending the story like people thought it might it just teased another sequel we will clearly never get. So now I'm kind of wondering if it's even worth bothering because if I end up liking the games it's still just going to go nowhere in the end. Are they worth playing despite the story being unresolved?

>>11918382
A man who makes great ascii art is a man who's enough of a sperg to write a thoroughly detailed FAQ

>>11878692
I actually enjoy replaying SOTC. It's a comfy game. But that the same time it chaps my ass that I will never 100% the game because fuck the everloving shit out of hard time trial 3. I know it's possible but the aggravation just isn't worth it

>>11847563
I'm conflicted about XII. I'm playing the remastered version of it right now and on the one hand, it's kind of amazing. Great worldbuilding, excellent music, lots of tiny little details like NPCs constantly having new shit to say after major events. And it's deep as fuck. Shitloads of weapons and equipment, 40+ clan hunts, 30 trophy hunts, 80 rare monsters, a ton of sidequests....there is a *lot* of content here and most of it is good.

But at the same time, I'm not sure I've ever played a JRPG with such overt contempt for the player's time. The drop rates and spawn rates for some of the crafting items and rare monsters are unconscionable, especially considering how slow the game is in general. Things only respawning if you move one or usually two areas over is such a fucking time sink and it results in you having to do the stupid back and forth "zoning" thing inn pretty much every area of the map if you want any hope of the rarest items. You might have to unironically use the steal command 100 fucking times in a single encounter to steal rare items. You have to farm multiple copies of multiple items that have like 1% drop rates from enemies that only appear in specific circumstances. You might have to zone in and out of one area in the mines for hours to get the zodiac spear. I gave it 30 minutes and gave up. It's not even worth the grief. There are so many obtuse and arbitrary parts that would be impossible to even start without a guide. The great crystal not having a map is just an insult. Terrible decision.

And then there's fucking Yiazmat, which is just irrefutable poof that the people making this game hated the people who were going to play it. That kind of horseshit has no business in a single player RPG. Fuck off with that. I played it a 4X speed just leaving it up t the autopilot until the end and it still took more than an hour. I love 90% of this game but I actively despise the other 10%. It's randomly malicious for no good reason

>>11838940
I actually really enjoy all the dumb little mechanics in MGS3 despite the facts that the menus are a pain in the ass. I would switch to random camos just for like five seconds of coverage in a unique environment then switch back. I found all the food and animals including The End's parrot, the hive of pain hornets and the tsuchinoko. Stamina killed the Fear with poisonous food. Threw tree frogs at Volgin. Also shot all the kerotans and boy was a pain in the ass.

Sometimes it was honestly more trouble than it was worth but I wasn't gonna *not* do all of it. In for a penny, in for a pound.

>>11830102
Sorry guys, I'm actually going to answer. My autism demands it.

Ideally, what Sega should have done, given that the Sega CD wasn't really equipped to do fully 3D games, was keep making somewhat traditional 2D games and just use the Cd-rom capabilities to juice up the music, graphics, and add some cutscenes. Every time they did this it actually worked. People liked Sonic CD. People liked Spider-Man vs. the Kingpin. People liked Ecco CD. And why not? If you make better versions of things people already like people will probably still like the thing. They should have had a new iteration of every 2D franchise ready to go for the Sega CD. IMO they really dropped the ball by not having a Phantasy Star CD game with cd music and fully animated cutscenes. If the turbografx CD could do it with Ys, why couldn't Sega do it with PS?

But that would have required them to plan ahead and they were were in their schizo "are we making games for the Genesis or the CD or 32X or saving it all for the Saturn?" stage so the transition was awkward and most of the 100% new games were FMV slop because it seemed novel at the time and they were chasing fads and superficialities. Kriss Kross: make my video was a non-game but it sure looked cool in commercials. They forgot about the meat and potatoes and just wanted to make flashy desserts