PS2 RPG list

[Harrison]

Hey, I had no idea that Full Metal Alchemist games existed. Are they any good?

I've played both of the Full Metal Alchemist games for over an hour each (to see what the games were like) and they are definitely worth playing if you are a fan of Full Metal Alchemist. As DC mentioned previously the combat is real-time and is very Beat 'em up based with Combos being a key feature, but it is quite easy to get to grips with and there is a lot of variety in the combat system so you don't get bored (unlike some other real-time RPG systems which end up being single button bashing combat).

The games are also quite well scripted with some nice graphics and reasonable voice acting. The stories also seemed quite fresh, although they do still contain a lot of elements from traditional RPGs.

There is also a three more games in the series called:

Fullmetal Alchemist 3: Kami wo Tsugu Shoujo (Translated as: Fullmetal Alchemist 3: God of the Forever Girl), but sadly it doesn't look an English version is likely.

Full Metal Alchemist: Dream Carnival, which is out in Japan but again has no mention of an English version.

And finally Full Metal Alchemist: Destineer, which does have a Pending Q2 US release date stated currently.

[Demon Cleaner]

Shining Force EXA has now been released.

[Harrison]

Really! Cool. Off to dow... aquire a copy now

[Demon Cleaner]

I just played Avatar: The Legend of Aang, and it plays also a bit like an RPG, more action RPG. The game is by Nick Games, from a Nickleodeon comic/anime I suppose. It has a comic style, but plays good. At Gamefaqs it's categorized as fantasy action game.

[Harrison]

I've seen that listed on a few p2p sites I use and wondered what it was. Will add it to my downloads.

[Demon Cleaner]

Just tested Shining Force EXA, looks good, but nothing special. Real time combat, anime look and voice output.

[Harrison]

I've also tried Shining Force EXA for a few hours and it's pretty good (eventually).

I did find that this game is quite different from the last Shining Force game, Neo, and the first part of the game is quite slow and unimpressive and left me quite disinterested. But if you persevere through this first part of the story until you find the item you are searching for (don't want to give the plot away) the game gets a lot more interesting and regains your interest.

One cool feature of the game is interchangeable characters. You basically play the game as two characters and can chop and change between them during combat to take advantage of their unique abilities, which is a nice feature for the real time arcade style combat in this game. You can also bring additional characters with you in your party for adventures and combat, but these additional characters are always AI controlled, so they are always just there for backup support.

The real-time combat system does take some getting use to and I found it too difficult to pull off many of the moves which ended up getting annoying. You have the ability to string together combos for charge attacks, or to trigger special attacks, but these both require very precise timing during the on-screen character animation and can become very frustrating to try and pull off as you only have slightly misjudge the timing of a button press and the character won't perform a move. The plus side of combat is that you can find yourself fighting a large number of opponents, with up to 30 on-screen at once during a fight! This gives a great sense of being in a big battle, but due to the combat control issues this can also mean that many of the fights end up having a very high difficulty level.

The game's graphics are really nicely created and colourful, with a wide variety of character and monster models populating the world. The Music and Sound Effects are also really good, but the voice acting leaves something to be be desired.

If you liked previous titles in the Shining Force series you should like this game. Also if you liked real time combat RPGs again you should like this. I do still personally prefer the last game Shining Force Neo over this one though.

If there is one thing that lets this game down it is the fiddly and difficult combat control system. And this may be a problem because I've read that the game is very long, lasting more than 50 hours.