RPGs for the DS

Rodimus

Rodimus

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I own a DS but mainly use it to kill time at work or when I'm travelling. I don't keep up with games so much. I'm looking to get a turnbased RPG because I find level grinding to be a great way to kill time. I'm not intrested in GBA games so don't bother with FF VI, Tales of Phantasia or anything else. I've been considering the following, please let me know if they sound good for me:

Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time
Final Fantasy III
Contact

And please, if you have any other recomendations I'd like to hear them. I know there are more and I'm sure I'm unaware of some great DS RPGs. But just remember I'm looking for turnbased & NO GBA games. Thanks in advanced.
 
Yes, I agree, wtf why no GBA games. Gameboy advance has had some of the best games (RPG or otherwise) of this and last generation of games. Oh yes, and get Hoshigami remix, and Luminous arc (LA is a very easy to learn, but still challenging TRPG that requires a lot of grinding)
 
Why no GBA games? - I don't really want to get into a big explanation why, but it has to do with putting it in sleep mode at a moments notice and conserving the battery. It's not that I think GBA RPGs are sucky (far from it.)

And yes, JRPGs are fine, I've beat plently in my days. Ohh, also don't bother to mention Pokemon, I'm 25 years old and I have standards. :nottalking:
 
Contact was not very good. I played it for a couple hours, then got bored/frustrated by the levels and design.

I loved the Mario & Luigi game on GBA, but hanvt played the one for DS. I asked my brother about it, he said that its good, but not as good as the GBA one. You should check it out, those games are fun.
 
Of those three, FFIII would probably be your best bet (turn-based + grinding). However, I would highly recommend Etrian Odyssey (turn-based traditional first person dungeon crawler with tough but fair difficulty) or Puzzle Quest (turn-based RPG with a battle system based on Bejeweled).
 
I beat FFIII and am currently playing Etrian Odyssey.

I didn't think FFIII was very good. To unlock the endgame stuff you will need to swap friend codes with people and send a certain amount of messages to other people over Wi-Fi. If this sounds like a hassle, don't even start playing, because it will stink to not get the ultimate weapons and fight the ultimate boss (in this game, the Iron Giant).

All of that said, it's got truly mindless grinding if that's what you're up for!

Etrian Odyssey is a much better game in my opinion. The grinding is a little harder to do with your mind completely off, but I sit down for about 20 minutes of my lunch hour and can get a good run or two in.

Then get Pokemon. 13 year olds worry about if things make them look childish, 25 year olds are mature enough not to care.
 
[quote name='Sideswiper']Then get Pokemon. 13 year olds worry about if things make them look childish, 25 year olds are mature enough not to care.[/QUOTE]

So I'm immature because I decide not to play Pokemon?
 
I played the poke'mon, its ok. Same old thing these days. But now I have been playing Age of Empires allot. I love tactics style RPGs so this one is pretty cool. Good level of challenge and variety of units to choose for your army. Lots of fun!
PS- any decent RPG for any system (GBA included) will be remade for the DS pretty soon. Especially all the FF games. They seem to be trying to come out with all the first 10 for both DS and PSP.
 
I have both Mario and Luigi: PIT and Final Fantasy III.

Mario and Luigi is fun, but really easy. If you're looking for a challenging game, this isn't it.

I just picked up Final Fantasy III at TRU last week. I'm not very far into it at all. So far, I think it's kind of boring. The characters don't really have much personality and the job system seems clunky to me, especially compared to Final Fantasy V's job system. You fight enemies that are easily killed and give around 6 experience points per battle, then 5 minutes later, you fight another enemy who is slightly harder to kill, but can take 30-50% of your HP in one attack. That doesn't make much sense to me.
 
I'm playing Etrian right now. Truly a war of attrition. You get your ass handed to you by a mini boss and, literally, will need to level up for 1-2 hours. Might want to put a TV show on in the background.

Also, they boast something like 20 skills for each of the characters, but most of them take a million years to get - like, consider it takes at least an hours or two of solid grinding to get a skill point and, say you need a certain spell. well you better get ready to hit the pre-reqs, which might be (literally) ten points in a skill that you don't really want and five points in two other skills that you also might not want. it's very laborious to say the least.

the problem i find with this, is that after boatloads and boatloads of grinding you find out that the skill you just did all work for is neither graphically or functionally anything really all that amazing.

but then again, if mega-grinding is your thing you might not mind it so much.
 
I ended up getting FFIII. I found it preowned for $15 at a local CD Trader store. Not bad since they still sell them for $30 prewoened at Game Stop.

Thanks for your input everyone, I appreciate it :D
 
[quote name='Rodimus Donut']So I'm immature because I decide not to play Pokemon?[/quote] Certainly not in the objective sense, but when you make comments like so:
[quote name='Rodimus Donut'] Ohh, also don't bother to mention Pokemon, I'm 25 years old and I have standards. :nottalking:[/quote] I think that immature would be an understatement. When you scratch underneath the saccarine-sweet surface, Pokémon easily has the deepest play mechanics/gameplay of all RPGs, heck games period, on the market. You're totally missing your goal of wanting good turn-based RPG gameplay. You use an online handle that references a children's toyline that you probably still collect, don't pretend that you're too cool for pokémon.
 
[quote name='Yertle']Certainly not in the objective sense, but when you make comments like so:
I think that immature would be an understatement. When you scratch underneath the saccarine-sweet surface, Pokémon easily has the deepest play mechanics/gameplay of all RPGs, heck games period, on the market. You're totally missing your goal of wanting good turn-based RPG gameplay. You use an online handle that references a children's toyline that you probably still collect, don't pretend that you're too cool for pokémon.[/QUOTE]

My fy first comment:
Ohh, also don't bother to mention Pokemon, I'm 25 years old and I have standards.
Click to expand...

...was actually ment to be sarcastic. I've owned a few Pokemon games in the past, but I'm just not a big fan of the series, simple as that. I have no problem with the Pokemon series. Thanks for being an a-hole about it. :applause:
 
[quote name='banpeikun']ff3 is $16 if you can find it at TRU still[/quote]

Is this true? If so I that must have flown over my head because my TRU is stocked with em and ive been looking for a good deal on it.
 
[quote name='Rodimus Donut']My fy first comment:


...was actually ment to be sarcastic. I've owned a few Pokemon games in the past, but I'm just not a big fan of the series, simple as that. I have no problem with the Pokemon series. Thanks for being an a-hole about it. :applause:[/quote]
That was some pretty shitty sarcasm (sarcasm shouldn't have the same register as the rest of the speech, emoticions shouldn't be a necessity), but I guess I shouldn't find the quality that surprising, for one thing I didn't think it existed at the board you hail from. It certainly seems that way most of the time
 
[quote name='Yertle']That was some pretty shitty sarcasm (sarcasm shouldn't have the same register as the rest of the speech, emoticions shouldn't be a necessity), but I guess I shouldn't find the quality that surprising, for one thing I didn't think it existed at the board you hail from. It certainly seems that way most of the time[/QUOTE]

There's no need to be rude anymore, it was just a simple misunderstanding. No worries on my end, mate.

But what do you mean by:

for one thing I didn't think it existed at the board you hail from. It certainly seems that way most of the time
Click to expand...

Do you mean the Fighting Thread?
 
why is it such a big deal if he doesn't like pokemon?

I wouldn't buy a pokemon game either. It may be stupid but the graphic style is a big turn off for me and there are plenty of other good games to be had instead. It's just a personal preference and it's hardy immature.

What would people recommend for GBA RPGs? I was thinking I might try to get my hands on Golden Sun.
 
[quote name='Yertle']Certainly not in the objective sense, but when you make comments like so:
I think that immature would be an understatement. When you scratch underneath the saccarine-sweet surface, Pokémon easily has the deepest play mechanics/gameplay of all RPGs, heck games period, on the market. You're totally missing your goal of wanting good turn-based RPG gameplay. You use an online handle that references a children's toyline that you probably still collect, don't pretend that you're too cool for pokémon.[/QUOTE]

Sounds like you're a fuckin asshole lookin for a fight on a video game forum. And you wanna fight about pokemon. You're so damn lame.
 
dude disses the fighting game thread.. and talks about pokemon having some of the deepest mechanics in gaming?

WOW

i gotta hear the reasoning behind this one..
 
[quote name='kristianator']dude disses the fighting game thread.. and talks about pokemon having some of the deepest mechanics in gaming?

WOW

i gotta hear the reasoning behind this one..[/QUOTE]

I'm not 100% sure he was dissing the Fighting Thread, but I'm still curious what he ment by that. Maybe he's avoiding my question.

I see ol' Raz is still up to his usual trolling. ;)
 
[quote name='Rodimus Donut']Thanks guys, I'll research Luminous arc, Etrian Odyssey. Most likly I'll end up getting FFIII.[/quote]

I'm about 4 hours into Luminous Arc (average exp. level 10-12) and if you like SRPGs then you'll probably enjoy it. I got it for about $27 used w/ the Edge card at GS and so far have no regrets on it.

I wish there was more character customization (choice between abilities to earn, or even more detailed stats system) but it's definitely got a decent challenge. Unlike a lot of RPGs where your characters can own enemies but enemies do fairly insignificant damage, I've found even my strongest characters can get destroyed fairly quickly if I'm not careful.

Mixed feelings on the experience system. It's effective but sometimes it feels like a cop-out so they didn't have to balance the game more. Basically, every 100 EXP your character levels up, and has all HP/MP restored. It's helpful, but you get about half of that experience for every kill you make, so your characters have the potential to get all their HP/MP restored 1-2 times in a long battle, so you end up using levels as a strategy to keep someone alive or to get your magic back. I guess it works, but I'm glad it isn't like that in every game.

Voice acting is very decent, though, and technologically impressive for a DS game.
 
I really enjoyed Contact myself, but a lot people didn't or couldn't get into it. Also the game is very short, probably only around 13 hours long or so.

Mario & Luigi PIT is ok. It's pretty short and easy again, but my biggest disappointment here was that the first M&L on the GBA was much better.

FF3 will not disappoint(at least not at the prices it's going for now), it's very good.
 
[quote name='pygmy carnotaur']I really enjoyed Contact myself, but a lot people didn't or couldn't get into it. Also the game is very short, probably only around 13 hours long or so.

Mario & Luigi PIT is ok. It's pretty short and easy again, but my biggest disappointment here was that the first M&L on the GBA was much better.

FF3 will not disappoint(at least not at the prices it's going for now), it's very good.[/quote]

Some people were comparing Contact to Earthbound, would that be a fair comparision? It looked intresting, but I just haven't heard enough good things about it.
 
The only comparison to Earthbound is in terms of humor, and Contact is a very funny game... though some of the jokes may be a bit dated already(like the Snakes on a Plane reference, though at the time I thought it was hilarious). The two games play nothing alike though, with Earthbound being by far the better game.

Contact isn't turn based, it's got a... unique battle system, that essentially plays out as a regular action based system, only without mindless button mashing(the character automatically attacks if you're close enough to an enemy, and you can bring up a menu at any time to pause and use an item or special attack). Still, I enjoyed the game. The biggest complaint(and the reason I never finished all the sidequests) is that it takes forever to level up your skills(fishing, cooking, etc.). My favorite feature is the karma system... especially once I realized it's just more fun(and profitable!) to be evil.
 
What about Zelda: Phantom Hourglass? I know it's not really an RPG, but I barely felt that M&L:piT was either. Zelda releases Oct. 1st.

There's not much of a point to only do DS RPGs, touching doesn't really affect them much. M&L: PiT had absolutely no touch screen use, so it might as well have been a GBA game.

Golden Sun 1&2 can usually be found at most EB/GSs for under $7 each, they're definitely worth getting if you want a good long RPG experience.

One more to throw out: Deep Labyrinth for the DS. It's a first-person dungeon crawler with touch-screen everything. TRU had them pretty cheap on clearance for $6.98 not too long ago.

I concur with others about Contact: I bought it and couldn't stand it after about 1/2 hour.
 
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