70°

Rethinking the JRPG protagonist

It's been more than a decade now, but I'm pretty sure my favorite JRPG protagonist is Lenneth Valkyrie of Valkyrie Profile.

Lenneth stands out to me not just as a strong leading lady, but as a professional. She spends much of the game recruiting the world's most fearsome warriors, and she's not afraid to condemn those she doesn't like to the Nordic version of hell. Not even a love interest -- the comparatively wimpy Lucian -- is enough to dull her edge.

Godmars2904409d ago

The sad frustrating thing is that the current JRPG protagonist is a preadolescent fashion model who's on a Pokemon-type journey of self-discovery which happens to also involve saving the world.

Indigo1234409d ago (Edited 4409d ago )

Damn I was really hoping this column would end because its nothing more than one sensationalized and generalized piece of dribble than ever

"In the succeeding years since the original Valkyrie Profile, I've mostly been disappointed by the leading men and women of JRPGs."

And Ive been happy with them. disgaea has had my favorite casts ever

"From Final Fantasy XIII's Lightning to Valkyrie Profile: Silmeria's Alicia, relatively empty archetypes have become the order of the day. It's no wonder critics are so consistently down on the genre."

Ok so you list 2 characters out of a billion and then you generalize falsely...........

Most real rpg fans love japanese rpgs..........
"From what I've seen, the average JRPG hero tends to be a weird loner. "

you dont play them. Thats why, you pretend you do, but you generalize...................

is mario a loner? is any dq main character a longer?

A comment that I really liked

"I really don't think this article should be restricted to JRPG's but really should just include all games in general. "

"Personally, one of my favorite, more recent, JRPG protagonists is Yuri Lowell from Tales of Vesperia. "

"I actually like Lightning quite a bit. "

catfrog4408d ago (Edited 4408d ago )

not sure why hes picking out jrpgs, character development is a difficult thing to do, especially with video games as the medium. not to mention that investing money into something like character development is a very risky move: its been shown that the majority of gamers only want to shoot things

170°

PlayStation 1 Classics Forgotten for One Reason or Another

The original PlayStation library has dozens of classics long since forgotten - TechStomper unearths five of these gems which have been lost to time for one reason or another.

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techstomper.com
BlackCountryBob25d ago

Disruptor PS1, a pre Goldeneye console FPS from 1996 (with Command and Conquer type FMV cutscenes) and the first game by a pre Spyro Insomniac Studios directed by Mark Cerny. A good game for its time, and pre Bioshock use of telekinesis type powers. A game sadly almost completely lost to time

PrimeVinister25d ago

I have never even heard of it, so that must be a deep cut. Sounds really interesting and I might dig it out :-)

PrimeVinister25d ago

@Cacabunga A classic, no doubt. But, fondly remembered by many.

Cacabunga25d ago

First one was so good but second one on another level!!!
Still hoping to see a next gen version..

PrimeVinister25d ago

@Cacabunga Yeah, I preferred II for the real-timier combat. I would love to see both remade or remastered.

on_line_forever25d ago

We need to bring back the golden era of ps1 & ps2 .
We need to see quality games developed with alot of passion to make gamers satisfied .
We need to benefit from new AI technology to bring something new to games something like " nemesis systems " that used in shadow of morder and upgrade it to next level

PrimeVinister24d ago

The economics of games has changed a lot since the PS1 and PS2. As much as I would love a return to those days, it's not not at all likely.

190°

10 PlayStation 1 Hidden Gems

With so many games on the PS1, here's a list of underrated classics for you to try out! The games that you should play at least once!

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altarofgaming.com
gurp304d ago

played them all when they came out, they are great games

DarXyde303d ago

I feel slighted by that. With the exception of Air Combat... I've also played all of these games and beaten them (except Fear Effect).

Not all at launch, of course. I don't really remember if I got any that early on.

SimpleSlave304d ago

Terrible list. While a lot of these are legit gems they're also well known.

GhostScholar304d ago

Tail Concerto sold 150,000 copies world wide ……I’d say it’s pretty unknown

SimpleSlave304d ago

"A lot of these" = Not ALL of them...

Air Combat - Ace Combat 1
Fear Effect - The sequel is more of a hidden gem
Vagrant Story - Probably the best looking PS1 game of all time and constantly brought up
Dino Crisis - Constantly asked to be remade. Especially now that Capcom is on a Remake warpath
Persona 2 - Seriously?
Parasite Eve 1 - The sequel is more of a hidden gem
Soul Blade - Only the Soulfreakingcalibur prequel

Are in no way shape or form "hidden gems". Great games for sure but hardly hidden. Some of these are prequels to highly famous or regarded series and the others are constantly being talked about and petition for sequels/remakes to be made.

Here's 10 from my list of hidden gems:
The Divide: Enemy Within
In Cold Blood
Echo Night
Loony Tunes: Sheep Raider
Blaster Master: Blasting Again
MDK
Rising Zen: The Samurai Gunman
Vanark
Silhouette Mirage
G-Police 1 & 2

Extra:
Policenauts - Because reasons...

And there are many more.

DarXyde303d ago

MDK!

I loved MDK! I had it for Dreamcast. Clever use of face buttons in place of an absent second analog stick.

Great list, by the way, mate.

GhostScholar303d ago

Also you can name drop persona 2 but it wasn’t til 3 that the series took off. Persona 2 peaked at #60 in Japan where it’s most popular.

gold_drake304d ago

ahhhh parasite eve, koudelka, persona 1 and dino crisis.

good games :)

Number1TailzFan304d ago

I liked the style of the original Oddworld games, Alien Trilogy was a little underrated as well IMO.. Basically a lot like Doom but with aliens. There were a lot of great games on the PS1 though.

LiViNgLeGaCY304d ago

Here's my top ten hidden gems.

Silhouette Mirage, Threads of Fate, Koudelka, Misadventures of Tron Bonne, Tail Concerto, Blasto, Silent Bomber, T.R.A.G, Trap Gunner, and Tiny Tank.

All great hidden gems that I 100% recommend.

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110°

PlayStation 1 Emulator "Duckstation" Can Now Employ GGPO/Rollback Netcode

DuckStation emulator for PlayStation 1 can now employ rollback netcode, letting you play games like Tekken online with 6 frames of rollback.