Eurgh. You really have to stop doing that... Was it YOU who told me that about Shining Force... or Rage? Whoever you are. Bah. Must have been Vecna.

And, more 32-bit goodness: Suikoden I and II on PS. And 16-bit goodness: Shining Force I and II on Mega Drive. And Shining in the Darkness, the less-well-known FPS dungeon-crawler prequel to the Shining Force series.

And every other Mega Drive game, because SNES sucks. Come on, I haven't had a proper Mega Drive/SNES argument since 1994!

And, Suikoden! I own Suikoden III, and I think it and the Suikoden series are really cool, but I don't know if I would play them.

I kinda got turned away from RPGs after I beat Final Fantasy 8. 9 seemed kinda like a rehash of everything (though I still hold fond respect for its good use of nostalgia), and I definately don't want to play through Tactics. 300+ hours seems like too much time. The game is supposed to entertain me, not suck my life away.

I really lost interest in RPGs because I quit thinking of how fun they would be and I started thinking about how long they were. I've got to get over my fear of long games. Lunar and Grandia helped, but I've got to start respecting RPGs for their gameplay again, and not just their story and graphics. I ought to download one of the Genesis Phatasy Stars. They seem to have a lot of respect around this board. For the same reason I'm kinda interested in Persona: Revelations. I've got to get hooked on the gameplay again.

least, StHA was an FPS dungeon crawl.

StHA must have been a hark back to elder days then, as Shining in the Darkness was released way back in 1991 if I'm not mistaken, and Shining Force I was hailed as it's "sequel" for some time before its release.

SFI was excellent. As was SFII, which I have played about halfway through on two seperate occasions but never bothered to complete. I annoy myself greatly with my laziness.

My nostalgic yearnings lie more with the 8-bit days of yore. Maybe I'll search ebay for a working NES and a few games when I have some disposable income. Sure, there's emulation, but nothing beats having a physical copy of Blaster Master.

Damn, a Saturn emulator would be so cool... I saw a beta one a few years back, but as far as I can remember it didn't actually play games yet... Useful.

Yes, nothing beats having a physical copy of old games... I have an original Master System Phantasy Star cartridge, which is no longer really playable because the battery's run down so save games are lost... same goes for my Shining in the Darkness cart. Shames, both. Probably the same has happened by now to my PSIV cartridge too, which would be a pity because on one of my saved games I'd got Wren up to whichever level it is when the game goes mental because the programmers never considered that anyone would be so tragically sad as to get a character up to that level... :(

If you've started on IV, then you'll probably think all the others are crap... which in comparison they are. Though definitely give I a look. In fact, give them all a look.

The Sonics... 1 was a classic. 2 was a classic. 3 was comparitively crappy, as was Knuckles, though you could link them together which was just an insanely excellent idea from Sega, and should have been used for more games.
Sonic 3D Blast (called Sonic 3D: Flickies Island over here) was graphically amazing and fun to play, but you could tell (as with Sonic 3 and Knuckles) that the programmers had lost interest by the end, and were just doing any old crap including the cardinal sin of levels that were simply recoloured versions of previous levels. But, pre-rendered, perfectly smooth 3D graphics throughout, realtime 3D bonus stages, and an FMV sequence, all on Mega Drive... pretty awesome.

Sonic 3 and Sonic and Knuckles were better than most platformy games, but not up to the standards of Sonic 1 or 2. I remember I got Sonic 2 Christmas 1992, just after it was released... I was SO fucking excited about getting it... and I wasn't disappointed with it either. It's a rare game that can do that. Even PSIV didn't do that, though it did eventually.

So you didn't send me an email? Right, so "check your email" meant what, then? Was it some kind of cryptic message or something?

You could play as Tails in Sonic 2 as well. And also, Sonic Adventure 1 on Dreamcast is amazingly amazing. I loved that game until my Dreamcasts all died.

CHECK YOUR EMAIL.

Sonic 1 and 2 were indeed awesome. Sonic and Knuckles was sort of neat just for its novelty, though it was damn impossible to beat Sonic 2 with Knuckles (LOCKON TECHNOLOGY @_@) because for some stupid reason Knuckles couldn't jump as high as Sonic, thus leaving the end boss' head (his only vulnerable area) out of reach.

I probably never will now... it's one of those things that I tell myself I'll do some time, but know that I probably won't. Like reading Chaucer, or buying the next round, or getting up before 2pm on a Sunday. Still, I have no life, so there's hope yet. :)