PSP Backlog Quest and Other Resolutions

Joshua Carpenter

I'll be keeping track of my PSP Backlog Quest and other 2018 Resolutions here. Feel free to toss any PSP suggestions in.

[introduction]

Phillip Willis

I love the article. I'm right there with ya and agree with much of it...including putting games aside that I play, but do not grab me. Regardless, I need to work hard on my backlog this year. My personal goal is to knock out Dragon Quest 7, Romancing Saga 2, and DQ8, which are HUGE. I also want to KO Fire Emblem revelations or whatever its called. In between this, I was thinking that my PSP needs some love. It has some really awesome RPGs on it. Ironically, I've spent the most time playing PS1 classics on it such as FF7-9. I am with you regarding just doing some games until you are

If you need help with old school computer RPGs, just let me know. There are so many! Wizardry 8 is one of my all time favorites that mixes the old school, tile based, first person perspective dungeon crawlers with free form, new ideas and deeper, tactical combat. It was Sir Tech's swan song and they went out with a bang. Speaking of Wizardry games, the PSP received some Wiz love with Class of Heroes. Don't let the cute looks fool you, CoH is a true Wiz sequel with every bit of the old school difficulty built in. The depth of the class, item, relationship systems cannot be understated... and as a Wiz game, you better believe the difficulty is there. Because of this, most reviewers gave it a lower score, but those who came prepared for battle (and mentally prepared for the old school gaming approach it brought) fared better with it. Our very own 7th Circle gave it a 4/5.

You mentioned Divinity, and boy...those games are HUGE. (Well, to be fair, so are Wiz games). If you have not done those tactical, deep RPGs in a while, you could always warm yourself up with something like Shadowrun Returns, or Mercenaries Saga on 3DS (Coming soon to Switch). You're right in that games like Baldur's Gate *can* be intimidating. The older D&D rules can be a bit much for new players, but do not allow that to dissuade you from playing the more story centric classics (you can safely skip more combat focused games such as Icewind Dale). Most of these games have difficulty sliders which can basically make that easier if you so desire. And, hey, I can explain any D&D rules you need help with

Regardless, as you knock these out, we should get you on more RPGBacktracks to discuss your journey!

Ombres

That funny, you talk about it always seem to take longer than everyone else to finish a game, I feel exactly the same, I look it up and check the time to beat a game, I tell myself nice I will be able to beat it in no time, when I get to that average, I am still far from the end.

I guess I read every dialog, I try to find everything that I can on the way, I am an explorer, try to see and do everything a game have to offer the first time, because I know I won’t play it again, even if I know I won’t complete 100% of the game, I try to get as close as possible before getting to the end.

Joshua Carpenter

JCServant wrote: »

Regardless, I need to work hard on my backlog this year. My personal goal is to knock out Dragon Quest 7, Romancing Saga 2, and DQ8, which are HUGE.

Yeah, I've also got DQ 7&8 remakes on the 3DS to get around to at some point. Actually, I kind of decided to focus on PSP because I invested in a new battery last year after the old one stopped informing me when it was going to die (I could live with the shortened battery life, but having it shut down out of the blue and loosing progress was a no-go) and I figure it is a good idea to play through some games while the ole girl is still kicking.

If I get around to the old school PC RPGs, I'll be hitting you up for advice. It was at the bottom of the list because it's likely of those to happen

JCServant wrote: »

Regardless, as you knock these out, we should get you on more RPGBacktracks to discuss your journey!

Sounds good to me. That's part of the reason Grand Knights History is on there, in case the portable Vanillaware episode happens, it could be a import addendum. I'm going to have to find out how much of that game was even playable single player; as I recall it was mostly a multiplayer experience. There was a group working on an English patch + hacking it to make the game more single player friendly, but who knows where that went.

Ombres wrote: »

That funny, you talk about it always seem to take longer than everyone else to finish a game, I feel exactly the same, I look it up and check the time to beat a game, I tell myself nice I will be able to beat it in no time, when I get to that average, I am still far from the end.

I guess I read every dialog, I try to find everything that I can on the way, I am an explorer, try to see and do everything a game have to offer the first time, because I know I won’t play it again, even if I know I won’t complete 100% of the game, I try to get as close as possible before getting to the end.

Yeah, this sounds familiar. Oh it's only supposed to take 40 hours to beat *checks walkthrough at 40 hours* and I'm only halfway though. I know that I'm unlikely to ever be a fast player, I'm just trying to ask myself occasionally if I'm having fun and if the answer is no, stop doing whatever it is I'm doing.

Phillip Willis

You know, I'm always on the high end, as well. I have found out, over the years, that many people actually do not pay attention to some, or all of the text in these RPGs. Or, they read it so fast, they retain very little. Also, you might think that checking every pot, nook, dead end hallway, etc would be an automatic given in these games (I mean, ONE of those could hold the Holy Avenger Sword!), but I guess some people just want to get through the thing and skip as much of that as possible. Go figure!

Joshua Carpenter

So I've made a bit of progress, but not in the way that I was intending. I started off with playing Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions and bounced off of that HARD. That game and I do not get along. Maybe I'll try one of the fan patched versions at some point once the sour taste has finally left my mouth. Anyway, I moved on to Sakura Taisen and I'm in love with this game. It's a bit clunky bouncing back and forth between the PSP and a tablet that has the English translation I'm using, but that game is just so charming. The characters are great, the artwork is outstanding, and the production values blow away what the modern VN-RPG hybrid have. It's such a shame that this series has gotten so little attention in the west and that Sega has left it sitting fallow for darn near a decade. It's reminding me how much I loved So Long My Love on the Wii and I know I'm going to have to fight the urge to replay that once I'm done.