- Joined
- Feb 17, 2018
A list of a few super good RPG's that I consider must-plays. Feel free to add more, since I'm always looking for more good games to play.
Lots of info under the spoilers. Be warned.
- LISA series
LISA is an RPG series by Dingaling. It's the lovechild of platformers and RPG's, gameplay wise, and has a heartwrenching story and sense of humor that's all its own. Unique art and music style, full of difficult choices, and features an interesting play style in both the overworld and in battle.
There are three games in the series: LISA the First, LISA the Painful, and LISA the Joyful. The First is somewhat of an outlier in the series, as it's completely different than the other games (it's a lot like Yume Nikki). The whole series, alongside the music albums and the art collection, can be bought on steam. This excludes the prequel, LISA the First, which can be downloaded for free elsewhere.
WARNING - I would rate this series for more mature audiences, since it covers some pretty heavy themes. Proceed at your own risk.
MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD:
The game follows Brad Armstrong, a broken man who was traumatized by his abusive father and the suicide of his younger sister, Lisa. The game begins as a flashback of Brad as a child getting attacked by a gang of bullies, then getting beaten by his father and sent to his room for returning home "beat to shit."
Following this flashback, the game picks up as an older Brad in a post-apocalyptic wasteland where all the women in the world have been eradicated. He discovers a baby girl who was left out to die, the last of her kind. Brad named her Buddy and decides to raise her alongside his closest friends. A montage of Brad & co. raising this girl plays, while Brad struggles with his addictions to alcohol and a strange drug called Joy, eventually cleaning up to become a better adoptive father. However, he relapses, and after a particularly bad night, he wakes up to his house in ruins and Buddy being missing.
The goal of the game is to find Buddy before she is irreparably damaged by the degenerates who call this land home. Brad must overcome countless obstacles, including various warlords, mutated eldritch horrors who were once human, and his own traumas and addictions. Along the way, he makes a myriad of strange allies who you can mix and match to create your ideal party.
This game has a fantastic balance of comedy and serious moments. Extremely well written, with dry, cutting dialog and lots of hidden lore.
In battle, LISA is a unique take on the standard RPG battle system. Each party member has a different play style, and the player must take that into consideration to arrange the ideal team. Statuses are also extremely important, as it can completely make or break a battle. Items, such as taking Joy or throwing fire bombs, are helpful too.
Brad's play style in particular is especially notable. He relies on the player inputting various WASD commands to execute his attacks. Particular commands can execute special moves. Brad also suffers from Joy withdrawal from time to time in battle, which makes his attacks do little to no damage. It's up to the player to either give in to his addiction or let the withdrawal eventually wear off, which can take a while.
Outside of battle, LISA is a mostly exploration-based hybrid of traditional RPG's and platformers. The game operates on a 2D world which can be navigated through by climbing ropes and jumping ledges. You always have to be on your toes for traps, unexpected encounters, bottomless cliffs, and other dangers. Also, you take fall damage if you fall from too high a ledge.
LISA the First is a Yume Nikki-esque surreal horror/exploration RPG entailing the story of Brad's younger sister, Lisa. It was made as an experiment by Dingaling to get used to game development, and isn't necessarily essential to the LISA series' plotline.
To be honest, just skip right to LISA The Painful. Play LISA the First later on if you feel like it.
Here's the download link if you really want to play it:
https://rpgmaker.net/games/4412/downloads/
Here's the link to buy it on Steam:
http://store.steampowered.com/app/335670/LISA/
- MOTHER 3
MOTHER 3 is the third entry in the MOTHER/EarthBound series, and objectively the best one. My personal favorite Nintendo game of all time.
Released exclusively in Japan in 2006 for the GameBoy Advance, at the last dying breath of the console's popularity. It was never officially released in English, but a fan-translated version does exist, and can be downloaded and played on an emulator for free.
If you've ever played EarthBound, this game takes everything wrong with it and makes it fantastic. It has a similarly quirky sense of humor, a cleaner and more well-developed art style, a more intricate plotline, and is much more enjoyable from a gameplay standpoint. MOTHER 3's odd sense of humor, beautiful pixel graphics, and tearjerking ending are what make this game really shine. Also, it's a pretty long game with a really nice OST.
Seriously, go play it. It's free.
MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD!
MOTHER 3 begins in tragedy.
The main character, Lucas, must deal with the loss of his mother and his twin brother. Lucas' mother, Hinawa, was found dead in the forest with the fang of a Drago, a powerful yet usually peaceful creature, pierced through her chest after a freak forest fire. Claus, Lucas' rambunctious twin brother, goes off to avenge Hinawa and kill the Drago with a homemade knife, but never returns. During the first chapter of the game, the player controls Flint, Claus and Lucas' father, to find Claus and eventually defeat the Drago that killed half his family. Meanwhile, a strange group known as Pigmasks has been implementing subtle yet devastating changes into Lucas' hometown.
By the fourth chapter of the game, the player finally takes control of Lucas again, who has aged quite a bit since the beginning of the game. He, along with a few friends, embark on a quest to save the world from the Pigmask forces, who have been corrupting and modernizing the world and biologically engineering the local wildlife into monsters called Chimeras.
Lucas utilizes his psychic powers to pull "Dragon Needles," odd needles that jut out of the ground that sealed an ancient dragon that lives underneath the Nowhere Islands in a permanent slumber. If all the needles are pulled, the dragon will awake and will obey the wishes of he who pulled the needles. However, someone else with an impure heart is also pulling the needles, and Lucas must rush to pull them before this mysterious person does.
MOTHER 3 is a pretty standard RPG from a gameplay perspective, with a few exceptions.
First of all, if the player attacks to the beat of the music, you can score extra hits. The biggest combo you can get is 16 hits. Second of all, your HP doesn't immediately deplete, it gradually runs out when you take damage, which gives you some time to act before you die if you take a lethal hit. Other than that, it's pretty straightforward.
Also, you can run, which is a luxury that the previous two MOTHER games didn't offer.
MOTHER 1 and 2, known in North America as EarthBound Beginnings and EarthBound respectively, are cult classic RPG's and the prequels to MOTHER 3. However, very few plot points carry over between the games, so knowledge of these games is not at all necessary to enjoy MOTHER 3.
Should you play them? Uh, if you want. I don't personally like them, but knock yourself out if you want to give them a try. EarthBound in particular is pretty well-liked, so feel free to check it out if it piques your interest. Both games can be downloaded on the Wii U and 3DS Virtual Console for around $10, or you can just emulate them if you're cheap.
An original copy of EarthBound for the SNES is super expensive, and an original English copy of EarthBound Beginnings for the NES doesn't exist (it was only released in Japan at first), so don't waste your time buying an original copy.
You're on your own for finding an emulator, but here's a link to a ROM:
https://www.royalroms.com/roms/mother-3-eng-translation-11
(Let me know if this ROM doesn't work. I can find another one if you need me to.)
- OFF
OFF is a pretty weird game, if I'm gonna be honest.
It was developed by French artist Mortis Ghost in 2008, and was translated into English in 2011. It's a relatively traditional RPG from a strictly gameplay-only perspective, but the story, music and art style is just about as unorthodox as it gets. It's laden with puzzles, and delves more and more into the surreal horror genre as the story progresses. It can be downloaded for free.
I wouldn't give it a mature rating, but some content can be disturbing. So, uh, watch out, I guess.
OFF has a relatively simple storyline at first glance. You play as a being known as The Batter, a humanoid clad in baseball garb and tasked with one simple, righteous goal: to purify the world, baseball bat in tow. Once The Batter has slain the guardian of each corrupt zone, he views it as Pure, and moves on to the next.
The characters in the game have all accepted that they live within a video game, and outwardly state it at any given opportunity. The dialog is extremely well executed, and each character is memorable in his own way.
OFF is a pretty standard RPG from a gameplay perspective. It follows the same battle system any RPG maker game, with some slight changes; instead of being strictly turn-based, each character must "charge up" to attack. You have to wait roughly 5 seconds per action per character. Thankfully, this timer stacks, so you don't have to wait a super long time. This timing system is pretty cool in my opinion, since it keeps you on your toes.
Also, there's so many puzzles. Don't be ashamed for going to a walkthrough for some of them. It's totally understandable.
You can download OFF here:
https://forum.starmen.net/forum/Fan/Games/OFF-by-Mortis-Ghost/page/3#post1907821
- Other games worth checking out:
Wadanohara and the Great Blue Sea: A cutesy ocean-themed RPG that delves into surreal horror. Really cute style, but not my favorite game out there. Contains mature content. You can download it here: http://vgperson.com/games/wadanohara.htm
Super Mario sidegames/spinoffs: These games are surprisingly good, especially if you're a Nintendo fan. My personal favorites are: Paper Mario TTYD, Mario&Luigi - Superstar Saga (the remake is good too), and Mario&Luigi - Bowser's Inside Story. Super Paper Mario is good too, but it's more of a platformer than a true RPG.
Pokémon Mystery Dungeon series: More surprisingly good Nintendo RPG's. These Pokémon-themed dungeon-crawler games have an unexpectedly moving story and fun gameplay, so they're definitely worth checking out, even if you aren't a Pokémon fan.
Be warned: Only the first two games are good. PMD Red/Blue Rescue Team and PMD Explorers of Time/Darkness/Sky are the only entries in the series worth playing.
Again, please contribute more if you have any other suggestions. These are my personal favorites, but I'm always looking for more games to play.
EDIT: A bunch of my pictures broke. Give me a minute, I'll fix them.
EDIT2: Fixed all the images. They should be working fine now.
Lots of info under the spoilers. Be warned.
- LISA series
LISA is an RPG series by Dingaling. It's the lovechild of platformers and RPG's, gameplay wise, and has a heartwrenching story and sense of humor that's all its own. Unique art and music style, full of difficult choices, and features an interesting play style in both the overworld and in battle.
There are three games in the series: LISA the First, LISA the Painful, and LISA the Joyful. The First is somewhat of an outlier in the series, as it's completely different than the other games (it's a lot like Yume Nikki). The whole series, alongside the music albums and the art collection, can be bought on steam. This excludes the prequel, LISA the First, which can be downloaded for free elsewhere.
WARNING - I would rate this series for more mature audiences, since it covers some pretty heavy themes. Proceed at your own risk.
MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD:
The game follows Brad Armstrong, a broken man who was traumatized by his abusive father and the suicide of his younger sister, Lisa. The game begins as a flashback of Brad as a child getting attacked by a gang of bullies, then getting beaten by his father and sent to his room for returning home "beat to shit."
Following this flashback, the game picks up as an older Brad in a post-apocalyptic wasteland where all the women in the world have been eradicated. He discovers a baby girl who was left out to die, the last of her kind. Brad named her Buddy and decides to raise her alongside his closest friends. A montage of Brad & co. raising this girl plays, while Brad struggles with his addictions to alcohol and a strange drug called Joy, eventually cleaning up to become a better adoptive father. However, he relapses, and after a particularly bad night, he wakes up to his house in ruins and Buddy being missing.
The goal of the game is to find Buddy before she is irreparably damaged by the degenerates who call this land home. Brad must overcome countless obstacles, including various warlords, mutated eldritch horrors who were once human, and his own traumas and addictions. Along the way, he makes a myriad of strange allies who you can mix and match to create your ideal party.
This game has a fantastic balance of comedy and serious moments. Extremely well written, with dry, cutting dialog and lots of hidden lore.
In battle, LISA is a unique take on the standard RPG battle system. Each party member has a different play style, and the player must take that into consideration to arrange the ideal team. Statuses are also extremely important, as it can completely make or break a battle. Items, such as taking Joy or throwing fire bombs, are helpful too.
Brad's play style in particular is especially notable. He relies on the player inputting various WASD commands to execute his attacks. Particular commands can execute special moves. Brad also suffers from Joy withdrawal from time to time in battle, which makes his attacks do little to no damage. It's up to the player to either give in to his addiction or let the withdrawal eventually wear off, which can take a while.
Outside of battle, LISA is a mostly exploration-based hybrid of traditional RPG's and platformers. The game operates on a 2D world which can be navigated through by climbing ropes and jumping ledges. You always have to be on your toes for traps, unexpected encounters, bottomless cliffs, and other dangers. Also, you take fall damage if you fall from too high a ledge.
LISA the First is a Yume Nikki-esque surreal horror/exploration RPG entailing the story of Brad's younger sister, Lisa. It was made as an experiment by Dingaling to get used to game development, and isn't necessarily essential to the LISA series' plotline.
To be honest, just skip right to LISA The Painful. Play LISA the First later on if you feel like it.
Here's the download link if you really want to play it:
https://rpgmaker.net/games/4412/downloads/
http://store.steampowered.com/app/335670/LISA/
MOTHER 3 is the third entry in the MOTHER/EarthBound series, and objectively the best one. My personal favorite Nintendo game of all time.
Released exclusively in Japan in 2006 for the GameBoy Advance, at the last dying breath of the console's popularity. It was never officially released in English, but a fan-translated version does exist, and can be downloaded and played on an emulator for free.
If you've ever played EarthBound, this game takes everything wrong with it and makes it fantastic. It has a similarly quirky sense of humor, a cleaner and more well-developed art style, a more intricate plotline, and is much more enjoyable from a gameplay standpoint. MOTHER 3's odd sense of humor, beautiful pixel graphics, and tearjerking ending are what make this game really shine. Also, it's a pretty long game with a really nice OST.
Seriously, go play it. It's free.
MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD!
MOTHER 3 begins in tragedy.
The main character, Lucas, must deal with the loss of his mother and his twin brother. Lucas' mother, Hinawa, was found dead in the forest with the fang of a Drago, a powerful yet usually peaceful creature, pierced through her chest after a freak forest fire. Claus, Lucas' rambunctious twin brother, goes off to avenge Hinawa and kill the Drago with a homemade knife, but never returns. During the first chapter of the game, the player controls Flint, Claus and Lucas' father, to find Claus and eventually defeat the Drago that killed half his family. Meanwhile, a strange group known as Pigmasks has been implementing subtle yet devastating changes into Lucas' hometown.
By the fourth chapter of the game, the player finally takes control of Lucas again, who has aged quite a bit since the beginning of the game. He, along with a few friends, embark on a quest to save the world from the Pigmask forces, who have been corrupting and modernizing the world and biologically engineering the local wildlife into monsters called Chimeras.
Lucas utilizes his psychic powers to pull "Dragon Needles," odd needles that jut out of the ground that sealed an ancient dragon that lives underneath the Nowhere Islands in a permanent slumber. If all the needles are pulled, the dragon will awake and will obey the wishes of he who pulled the needles. However, someone else with an impure heart is also pulling the needles, and Lucas must rush to pull them before this mysterious person does.
MOTHER 3 is a pretty standard RPG from a gameplay perspective, with a few exceptions.
First of all, if the player attacks to the beat of the music, you can score extra hits. The biggest combo you can get is 16 hits. Second of all, your HP doesn't immediately deplete, it gradually runs out when you take damage, which gives you some time to act before you die if you take a lethal hit. Other than that, it's pretty straightforward.
Also, you can run, which is a luxury that the previous two MOTHER games didn't offer.
MOTHER 1 and 2, known in North America as EarthBound Beginnings and EarthBound respectively, are cult classic RPG's and the prequels to MOTHER 3. However, very few plot points carry over between the games, so knowledge of these games is not at all necessary to enjoy MOTHER 3.
Should you play them? Uh, if you want. I don't personally like them, but knock yourself out if you want to give them a try. EarthBound in particular is pretty well-liked, so feel free to check it out if it piques your interest. Both games can be downloaded on the Wii U and 3DS Virtual Console for around $10, or you can just emulate them if you're cheap.
An original copy of EarthBound for the SNES is super expensive, and an original English copy of EarthBound Beginnings for the NES doesn't exist (it was only released in Japan at first), so don't waste your time buying an original copy.
https://www.royalroms.com/roms/mother-3-eng-translation-11
(Let me know if this ROM doesn't work. I can find another one if you need me to.)
OFF is a pretty weird game, if I'm gonna be honest.
It was developed by French artist Mortis Ghost in 2008, and was translated into English in 2011. It's a relatively traditional RPG from a strictly gameplay-only perspective, but the story, music and art style is just about as unorthodox as it gets. It's laden with puzzles, and delves more and more into the surreal horror genre as the story progresses. It can be downloaded for free.
I wouldn't give it a mature rating, but some content can be disturbing. So, uh, watch out, I guess.
OFF has a relatively simple storyline at first glance. You play as a being known as The Batter, a humanoid clad in baseball garb and tasked with one simple, righteous goal: to purify the world, baseball bat in tow. Once The Batter has slain the guardian of each corrupt zone, he views it as Pure, and moves on to the next.
The characters in the game have all accepted that they live within a video game, and outwardly state it at any given opportunity. The dialog is extremely well executed, and each character is memorable in his own way.
OFF is a pretty standard RPG from a gameplay perspective. It follows the same battle system any RPG maker game, with some slight changes; instead of being strictly turn-based, each character must "charge up" to attack. You have to wait roughly 5 seconds per action per character. Thankfully, this timer stacks, so you don't have to wait a super long time. This timing system is pretty cool in my opinion, since it keeps you on your toes.
Also, there's so many puzzles. Don't be ashamed for going to a walkthrough for some of them. It's totally understandable.
https://forum.starmen.net/forum/Fan/Games/OFF-by-Mortis-Ghost/page/3#post1907821
Wadanohara and the Great Blue Sea: A cutesy ocean-themed RPG that delves into surreal horror. Really cute style, but not my favorite game out there. Contains mature content. You can download it here: http://vgperson.com/games/wadanohara.htm
Super Mario sidegames/spinoffs: These games are surprisingly good, especially if you're a Nintendo fan. My personal favorites are: Paper Mario TTYD, Mario&Luigi - Superstar Saga (the remake is good too), and Mario&Luigi - Bowser's Inside Story. Super Paper Mario is good too, but it's more of a platformer than a true RPG.
Pokémon Mystery Dungeon series: More surprisingly good Nintendo RPG's. These Pokémon-themed dungeon-crawler games have an unexpectedly moving story and fun gameplay, so they're definitely worth checking out, even if you aren't a Pokémon fan.
Be warned: Only the first two games are good. PMD Red/Blue Rescue Team and PMD Explorers of Time/Darkness/Sky are the only entries in the series worth playing.
EDIT: A bunch of my pictures broke. Give me a minute, I'll fix them.
EDIT2: Fixed all the images. They should be working fine now.
Last edited:
