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Yeah, well, FFVII and VIII have the nostalgia factor.
But I gotta say, I recently tried replaying FF9, and you know what I realized? Active Time Battle is the biggest ripoff since paying $50 for an old Mario game which should've been priced down ages ago.
I was playing, and you know what? Completely turn based battles mean that once someone's turn is over, the next one goes right away. Active time means that if you and your enemy aren't filled up, you stand there and wait for like, ten seconds before anyone does anything. I'll replay it someday, but right now, I had no patience for it.

Also, if you like Strategy RPGs, definitely pick up one of the Disgaea games. I recommend Disgaea 1, though it might be a bit difficult to find. Disgaea 2 just came out on PSP, and although it has superior gameplay, I liked Disgaea 1's storyline better. And although I've had Disgaea 3 for a while (it's for PS3), I have yet to play it. But I warn you, that game spoils you. It's fast paced, and afterwards, you might have a difficult time playing something slower, such as FF Tactics. But the storyline is phenomenal, and the extremeness of it is awesome. I mean, the fact that you could level up to 9999 is nothing short of awesome. You could actually play the game and say, "What's his level?" "It's over 9000!" >_> But that's just me.

That's the one thing I HATED about the FF series is the "lets have each character stand there and take turns" type of gameplay. The story behind the series is great, but the gameplay bores me beyond all recognition. I mean how unrealistic is that? The boss isn't going to wait for your a** to cast a spell, which makes me appreciate games that when you get attacked by a group, the entire group actually attacks, versus what I've seen in most games that one enemy will attack you at a time. Its kinda retarded. Yet ANOTHER game mechanic they changed from in the entire RE series to give it a more difficult, but realistic feal is when you pick up an item, you actually BEND OVER and pick the thing up. And you can get attacked in the process. And when you're loading lets say the revolver...they actually LOAD 4-6 bullets and you can see they put each bullet in, again being able to get attacked in the process. I love it! It makes it more difficult, giving a more bit of a challenge and thus makes me a better player at the older games lol well technically speaking. Its little nuances like that, that make me love the game (despite story flaws) what really gets me in a game is the mechanics of it, the physics, and the gameplay.

for which system? I've played quite a few but mine mostly span over the xbox series. Knights of the Old Republic is pretty damn cool and I'm not a huge Star Wars fan so thats a lot coming from me. There's the Morrowind series, but I could never get into it despite my love for fantasy. Its something about it that's not embracing enough. Even Guild Wars is half RPG, because its an RPGMMO. You can either play with other people, or leave a major city and have a copy of the game's "world" to yourself. Its so well designed (despite its level cap which I hope they fix in GW 2). There's........um......The Legacy of Kain series, starting with Blood Omen 1 and Ending with the recent Legacy of Kain: Defiance (rumors a new one is coming out eventually). There's a few others I think I have but the names aren't coming to mind.

The funny thing about the definition of an RPG is that it just means "role playing game" and in technicality, in ANY game you are "playing" a "role" in a "game", but RPGs are more commonly associated with....games that are pretty long or fantasy based like the Final Fantasy series or Morrowind Series. Go figure. Dungeon Siege is interesting, but the first one is only good for a run through one time. After that I get bored. Never tried the 2nd one though.

Wait, do you mean you find the GAMEPLAY enjoyable on some levels?
The thing about RE0 is, the gameplay felt like a downgrade from Remake. I mean, you can say that not having the linked item boxes is more realistic... But that does not mean better. RE0's gameplay felt like a grind compared to Remake. The graphics were unbelievably amazing, but the gameplay felt a bit castrated.

But Mario at least has some variety. For example, vast difference in visuals, they go out of their way to make each different level look as unique and different as they can. And platformer puzzles are always fun. But with Dead Space, it was so monotonous. It was such stale level design with endless fetch quests with a confusing 3D map and that blue tether. You know, it's ironic that they created their HUD system specifially to keep the player emerged, but they never got me emerged in the first place. So even if the item screen was simply a Menu Resident Evil style (which I never thought huindered RE's immersion), it's impossible to get any more detached from the gameplay.

See, but the mechanics were solid. The graphics were solid. And the production was polished... Which is why it got a 9.0 on many sites... But if you only evaluate a game by that, then you're not a gamer, you're a robot. It was a game made BY robots FOR robots.

Resident Evil 4 had a different problem. It's not that the main character was detached, it's just that Leon was too much of a douchebag to identify with.

Well, the topic came up. And like I said, it was the biggest disappointment of the year for me. It's just that, if they had done a couple of things a little differently, it could've been so awesome. It just really sucks to see how much they promoted the game, how much effort they put into the things OUTSIDE the actual game... And then aside from the artistic side of it, there was nothing to Dead Space.
I'm just saying, that despite the fact that it had great production values and wasn't broken, it did NOT deserve a 9.0 rating. I'd give it a 6.5... 7 at most.
I guess I'm more lashing out at the retardedness of game critics, than the game itself. But that's nothing new, I guess.

Sorry, I didn't even see any of your posts. I was feeling so under the weather when I made my last few posts. It felt like someone shot me with a tranquilizer gun...
Okay, where to start? No, Dead Space doesn't have any cutscenes whatsoever. If it did, maybe it would've helped. But even in games like Silent Hill, where the character doesn't speak outside of cutscenes, sometimes you check something, like a painting or an item, and the character's throughts are simply written down.
But with Dead Space, you get none of that. There are only two other characters, who talk to you via radio while you run around. But it's always irrelevant stuff like, "Damn, what happened down here?" "Why don't you go to the power room and connect the cable." or if you get attacked, and kill the enemy and they know about it, something like, "Are you okay!? Good!"
Like I said the whole storyline is revealed through diaries, audio diaries and video diaries. But the main character IS like a robot. He doesn't react to anything, he just runs around and that's all it is. Fetch quests. Go to this room, get the battery, go back to that room, enable the power, open door, keep going, kill enemy, keep going, find locked door, go to that room, unlock door. And you constantly just follow that blue line on the ground that shows you exactly where to go. It got so stale. And the blue line is off. You can click down one of the control sticks to have it show up on the ground for like 3 seconds. Then you keep following it. And then if you get lost click it again, there's no limit so you can just keep doing it. If you don't, you can always refer to the map. But the map is like, one of those 3D maps, and it's so confusing that you pretty much HAVE to use the blue tether.

Well, the thing about the movie is... Like, it's very character heavy. And the game is opposite to that. In the movie, everyone's got a personality and it's very involving because of that. It's almost like... All the writing effort that should've been put into the cutscenes for the game, went into the movie.
The movie basically shows what happened before the game. Like, in the game, you're flying into the space station after everyone's already dead and everything's abandoned.

Never heard of Penumbra.

One, two, Freddy's coming for you.


Anyway, SaintChaos, to comment on what you said about RPGs. There are two different subcategories of RPGs. There arewestern RPGs, such as Diablo, KOTOR and Fallout. And there are Japanese RPGs, like Final Fantasy. But aside from the recent trend with games like Kingdom Hearts and FFXII, JRPGs have always had turn based combat, and that's how it should be. I mean, you don't like it, but we can't all like everything, right?
Like, I don't like first person shooters.. Or most first person games in general, but I'm not saying they shouldn't exist.

The thing is... It's a game. And games have rules. It's not always about realism. Again, Residen Evil and the item boxes. In traditional Japanese RPGs, the general rules are that combat is done in a turn based fashion and the damage you deal is calculated by some in-game algorithms that we don't have to bother counting. But it's been inspired by games like Dungeons and Dragons, where you take turns, roll the dice and calculate the damage. And it inspired games like Final Fantasy, and that's why it's always been turn based. And it works better that way, because... Imagine you have four characters. And each of those characters knows like 20 special techniques/magic spells. So then, if it was real time, you'd have a horrible time trying to manage everyone. But with turn based RPGs, you're given that amount of time to work out a strategy and decide you course of action. Tell one character to cast a spell which increases another character's attacks. Tell another to decrease the enemy's defense. Tell the character whose attack's been increased to kick the enemy's a**. If you're playing real time and have to do that kind of management, then by the time you tell one character to cast one spell, tell another to cast anothe spell, by the time you do that, the enemy's already knocked the third character out.

I mean, should all games conform to one general idea of what fighting should be like? I talked to a guy once who said, "I never liked Resident Evil because of the cameras. You HAVE to be able to see what you shoot at in games." Really? You do? I dunno, you didn't have to see what you're shooting at in RE, even though you could if you walk to a camera change. But... A game HAS to be a certain way? What kind of fascist mentality is that?
Take games like Puzzle Quest for example.. Anyone who's played Puzzle Quest will know what I'm talking about. It's got story mode much like an RPG, you travel from town to town, there's a general story arc and you have to fight monsters, level up, etc. EXCEPT, instead of having real time, or even turn based combat as we know it, you literally solve puzzles. You got a puzzle board, and depending on how you play, you do damage to the enemy, the enemy takes turn does damage to you. Now, is that realistic? No, but it's fun. And yes, it's not for everyone, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't exist.

I mean, if every game was played the same way, there'd be no genres at all. I just hate the fact that so many goot JRPGs with turn based combat ended up switching up to real time combat. It turns into a completely different game... Now, is different bad? Not necessarily... But just because there's a new way to do things, doesn't mean the old way shouldn't exist. All I ever end up seeing is, "Final Fantasy 12 had real time combat, so you know what enemy you're facing, no more random encounters. Isn't that a relief?" It's like Survival Horror. Suddenly everyone starts switching to over the shoulder. Where are the classic horror games? I'm just glad there are still games out there like Persona which still have turn based combat. It makes me feel like maybe at least SOME games will retain that kind of gameplay into the long term future. But I lost that hope for survival horror games.

My point is, just because there is a new way to do things sometimes, doesn't mean that the old way should be abandoned.

Yeah, for the most part. However, Legend of Zelda doesn't have a leveling system, but it's still classified as an RPG.