The Shrine

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>In fact, I didn't play it beyond the first 3 hours or so in Chris's scenario and watched my roommate played the rest of the way. I think this could've been a good game, but it's stupidly long. The game would be better if it's just 10-20 hours and leave out all the dungeon, fighting, and 108 stars of destiny scavenger hunt. The villians is a poor excuse of 'I may be evil but I'm actually a good guy' kind of trend, and in this respect Sarah and Yuber are much better villians because the former is just plain stupid (or maybe devoted) and the latter is just plain evil. There's nothing iffy about either two or why they are involved, unlike Luc who supposedly was trying to save the world by killing a million or so people in the process.

Also it seems the hero in the Suikoden series gets progresively weaker. The True Fire/Lightning/Water Runes are probably some of the least powerful True Runes known to Suikoden history. I mean yeah you can do 1K damage or something but with the inflated damage in this game a 1K spell from True Fire/Lightning just can't compare to the 1K spells you get with the Soul Eater or the Black Sword Rune when you've characters that can hit 1K on critical. One of the thing I liked about the Suikoden series is that amongst the nameless random whatevers you've to recruit, you can always count on your hero being ridiculously powerful (though the hero of 2 isn't nearly as strong as McDohl).</div>

<div style='font: italic bold 14pt ; text-align: center; '>Personnaly I loved the game how it was. and how long did it take you? I got all 108 stars my first time through in 43 hours</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>I think I got to Chris's chapter 3 in around 3 hours and then couldn't be bothered to play the same story 2 more times from different perspectives. Like I said, I watched most of this game instead of playing it.

In general I find if a RPG > 40 hours is to be enjoyable throughout, it either has to have a very good combat system, or it is very plot-heavy (maybe not quite Xenogears-like heavy, but certainly more than what's currently in RPG). The whole notion that RPG has to be long to be good is fundamentally flawed. I remember FF2(4j) takes like 15 hours from starting to end and there was nothing wrong with that. Battle time severely inflates today's RPG length and it should be something done away with. Pretty sure the first Suikoden was under 20 hours and Suikoden 3 did not feel like it had more to say, plot-wise, than the first one, since it's basically one game divided into 3 overlapping parts.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>I think I got to Chris's chapter 3 in around 3 hours and then couldn't be bothered to play the same story 2 more times from different perspectives. Like I said, I watched most of this game instead of playing it.

In general I find if a RPG > 40 hours is to be enjoyable throughout, it either has to have a very good combat system, or it is very plot-heavy (maybe not quite Xenogears-like heavy, but certainly more than what's currently in RPG). The whole notion that RPG has to be long to be good is fundamentally flawed. I remember FF2(4j) takes like 15 hours from starting to end and there was nothing wrong with that. Battle time severely inflates today's RPG length and it should be something done away with. Pretty sure the first Suikoden was under 20 hours and Suikoden 3 did not feel like it had more to say, plot-wise, than the first one, since it's basically one game divided into 3 overlapping parts. Random battles should be done like Suikoden 1 style. Cast Hell and everything is gone, and move on to the next battle. Even without Hell, you can destroy regular enemies with ease and it is very easy to get to the level where you can 'let go' the enemies. I seriously do not see any challenge in defeating regular enemies and I don't know why you don't just automatically win against them.</div>

<div style='font: italic bold 14pt ; text-align: center; '>but then again your a game snob</div>

<div style='font: 11pt arial; text-align: left; '>Though I would definitely be interested in playing a game that you designed.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>RPGs today are too long. Long games are boring unless the makers have a really great idea, and they rarely do. At best you can design a good battle system in lieu of actually having a good plot, but most RPGs fail to do even that. The Grandia series comes to mind as the best example. Relatively worthless plot but at least a fairly interesting and certainly painless battle system (just hug save points and blow stuff away with powerhouse moves if you ever get tired of the combat system). While how interesting a battle system is up to debate, how painless the combat system is not. For example Final Fantasy X's battle system is painless. If you don't like it you have a 100% chance to run away with Flee. If moving the sphere grid floats your boat you can fight as much as you want and if not you can just keep on run away and go from point A to point B. The problem is that games today seemed to be designed to have as painful a combat system as possible. Excessive animation time is the primary cause of most painful combat systems and it's one developers don't get. I'm pretty sure you can win a battle in Suikoden 1 (starting at the same time) before you're even close to finishing half of your first round in Suikoden 3, even if you're not using Hell. Longer random battles add nothing to the game.

Suikoden would've been fine if it was say, 10 hours to complete. Just make Hugo the default Flame Champion (he even fights the Flame Rincar in the opening Anime). I mean Geddoe already has the True Lightning Rune and it seems to make sense that Chris ought to inherit the True Water Rune from her father. Cut out the useless 3 PoVs stuff that'd get you a game at most 1/2 the size with the same story. Make regular enemies much, much weaker and that'll probably cut at least 20% of the length out. You shouldn't have to rely on casting Open Gate over and over again to clear regular enemies when your party is Luc/Sarah/Yuber but you have to because it'd take too long to fight them otherwise (well you could use your level 3/4 spells too I guess)</div>

<div style='font: 11pt arial; text-align: left; '>Random battles in RPGs do best when they force you to think about conserving your abilities items without being drawn out or necessarily life-threatening.

I'm inclined to agree with you on the length of current RPGs. Personally though I think it's mainly the temptation to make excessive use of CG/movie sequences as well as voice-acting, etc. Since today's game makers can make games look closer to movies they tend to do so, but I don't particularly care to have the game experience drawn out this way. I like a long game as long as that translates into a lot of play time. When the extra length is spent watching the characters spew tired dialogue it tends to try my patience.</div>

<div style='font: italic bold 14pt ; text-align: center; '>but when it comes to console games I have to disagree with you exept in your FFX assesment. Then again, Running away is for pussies</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Yes ideally you should have fun or at least it should be enjoyable enough for you not to want to run away every fight but most RPG I've played I'd rather never having a single random encounter if at all possible since most RPG sytems are boring unimaginative same old stuff.

Also some of the viewpoints are redundant. For example C1 makes H1 pointless or vice versa. It's like no duh there is a conspiracy going on. There's absolutely no reason why you have to play the game again in the other perspective just so that you know for sure there's a conspiracy. Luc's perspective pretty much covers the whole game and there's no reason why you couldn't have a similar perspective for the good guys.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>But name a RPG where you can actually get worn down by random battles so that your ability to fight the boss is largely compromised. I can't think of a single one. Even on games where you can't just heal to full before a boss, you will never fight at a significant disadvantage. The closest thing that comes to this is if you've to fight multiple bosses back to back.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt ; text-align: left; '>Heh, think about FFVII's colliseum. What if RPGs were like that? Some kinda penalty after every battle, you can name it battle fatige and call it realism. :)</div>

<div style='font: 11pt arial; text-align: left; '>Actually I can think of one: BoF5. I have yet to beat it because of this fact, actually.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt arial; text-align: left; '>I borrowed it from my friend and he demanded that I beat it in 5 days, so I tried to breeze through it. My party at the end was physically incapable of beating Jecht. I had to have him show me the end with his party.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt arial; text-align: left; '>I borrowed it from my friend and he demanded that I beat it in 5 days, so I tried to breeze through it. My party at the end was physically incapable of beating Jecht. I had to have him show me the end with his party.</div>

<div style='font: italic bold 14pt ; text-align: center; '>meh. Once again. I'll listen to you when it comes to PC online stuff but when it comes to a console yer just a snob</div>

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>Did you do anything else those five days?</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>FFX wasn't that long. Get some double HP items and healing waters if you're having problem with Jecht.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Final Fantasy 8, Xenogears, and Skies of Arcadia. Final Fantasy 8's battle system definetly had flaws, but I loved it all the same just because I know all the loop holes now to get around the flaws, there are different ways other than fighting to power yourself up as well. Skies of Arcadia Legends, you get in the battle use Aika's special move, hit start (to avoid the special move sequence), the battles over in about 4-6 seconds total because her moves generally kill everything on the screen if they are weak. Xenogears was very plot heavy, but it had a fairly decent battle system (even though the combo system was pointless in all but one or two battles), but what made it most interesting was the exploration (similar to Skies of Arcadia actually).

Mostly I get bored of RPG's after about 15-20 hours anyways, that is why I like older ones, Final Fantasy III, Chrono Trigger, and others from that time period were all about that length. It takes me a long time to play games though, a 15-20 hour long RPG will still take me about 1-2 months.</div>

<div style='font: bold 10pt ; text-align: left; '>Then I stumbled upon the Magus Sisters.... I went back and made Jecht cry like a little girl with them, hence ruining the final encounters completely. My one friend had his party so beefed up that they could hit for 10K+ yadda yadda per attack, but Im simply not willing to invest that much time in the game.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light", "Century Gothic"; text-align: left; '>The Cactar cheat helps, too.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt arial; text-align: left; '>Class...kinda : )</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Even Anima can hit him for 99999. As long as you can knock out the Pagodas (Holy on Yuna works well) so he can't dispel Armor Break the fight is easy.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>That's possibly one of the reasons that the game is among my favourites of all time. Then of course there is Earthbound which I think has the absolute best system available for encounters in an RPG, as well as healing.

In Earthbound you have a limit to the amount of items you can carry per character, this includes everything, essential items, armour, treasure you find, etc... Of course there is a storage center which you can visit in your home town to store any items you might not need, but will want in the future, and if you are far away from your Home town you can call them up and have a delivery guy pick up stuff, or drop it off for you. But either way, unless you are leveling up to ridiculous levels, this game is going to be difficult. Sure you can use the heal items and heal magic on the way, but the only issue there is that you will need most of your magic for offensive spells, effect spells, etc... Or you will die. Offensive spells are in most cases more beneficial to spend your magic points on than healing spells (often when you reach final battles, magic points are fairly used depending on how well you planned out your journey).

The encounter system in Earthbound is also unique, it is similar to Lunar where the enemies are just running around on the map, you walk up to them or they catch up to you and it begins a battle. Earthbound is the same, only they will actually avoid you and attempt to retreat if you are too much more powerful than they are, and if you do chase them and begin a battle with them, the fight will be automatically won without actually even going to the battle screen.</div>

<div style='font: bold 9pt ; text-align: left; '>He got most of the HP-limit items and attack-limit items so most of his characters hit for 99999 every time and had that much in HP. It was ridiculous.</div>

<div style='font: italic bold 14pt ; text-align: center; '>That is one of the reasons I loved that game. along with the ludicrous concepts that it somehow pulled off.</div>

<div style='font: bold 10pt ; text-align: left; '>You see, I didnt have the HP-limit and damage limit breaking items, so that wouldn't work. And Anima didnt even hit for 9999 when I cast it.</div>