So, after a long hiatus I started playing Disgaea 2 again, deciding the first thing I ought do is reincarnate my heroes back to level one and grind them back to where they were, and distressingly (to me anyway), I managed to re-earn a few months worth of off and on playtime leveling within about an afternoon.

It kinda got me thinking about the gap in difficulty between playing Tales of Phantasia all the way through on an emulated, fan patched version and getting the final legit edition on the GBA. It’s still the same game, the encounters seemed just as strong and frequent, but overall it seemed like my second time around was breezing by, and it hit me- the first time I tried Tales of Phantasia, I plain did not know how to play RPG’s.

Now that’s not to say I didn’t understand the premise of them, or the basic point and click battle setups they mostly all use. I just lacked the mindset, the crucial element of focus, determination, and complete fucking boredom needed to progress in most of them. Back then, my answer to a tough dungeon was to pack lots and lots of items and all the best gear. Now I realize it’s a lot easier to trot back and forth killing the same monster over and over until the party mage/healer/cripple can one-shot one of the grunts in the area with a swing of a jewel encrusted crutch.

I own a lot of RPG’s. Or at least DVD-encoded time sinks and portable cartridge based diversions, and I gotta say, portable really makes the most of the format. I can’t think of too many times I’d been in the middle of a KoF marathon or something and had the sudden urge to slow any sense of action to a crawl and pop in Disgaea. However, that ARE many times I’d been stuck on a bus, or at work, and wished for that very thing (so I could actually ENJOY) the story segments when I settle in for the evening at home rather than detour another four hours until i can handle the next onslaught of over powered monsters, followed by a downright dickish boss encounter.

Now comes the thing that gets me about the genre, and probably the only thing approaching a point I have here. Older RPGs just have better pacing. I’m sure that’s blasphemy to someone out there, but with all the re-released classics I plain didn’t have the attention span for before, I never have to break flow for some ungodly amount of time to break even with enemies. Sure I might pick a few extra battles to make things easier or if I hit a real impasse, but here’s the thing- If you have to do that, you kill the ‘adventure’ that’s the point of the damn thing. In FFIV, even though I knew the game doesn’t actually penalize you for it, I was kind of hesitant to stay at an inn between grinds because something in the back of my head kept nagging me that Rosa might actually bite it if I dicked around too much- contrasted with the endgame of FFVII when I found myself staying at an inn seven times to see if Meteor really would GOOSH the planet in a week and being disappointed when it didn’t. Or returning to Tales of Phantasia- God, does that game get easier when you actually USE formations and your real-time controlled hero wisely. (Also Klarth/Claus makes a deceptively good front guard man with that big ass book of his.) It kinda makes me want to give Dragon Warrior another run through.

I kind of miss the set in stone hero cast of old. Sure there’s not much CUSTOMIZATION! to be had in the likes of Chrono Trigger, but you had to work with/around your characters strengths and weaknesses. Many modern RPGs do still give the core cast unique skills in addition to Job System skills and stuff like that, but it seems to take a back seat to sprawling, esoteric growth trees, formulas and multiclassing the bejesus out of them and faceless ‘created’ drones.

Yet for some reason, I still play fucking Disgaea. Maybe it’s because the numbers warfare is exaggerated to the point of self parody. I favor my core cast members, though I know several friends who use only scratch built characters- or just one really crazy powerful one. You can name them and that’s about it. Sometimes I leave fighters with purposely inferior (but flashy) arms just so I can tell them apart easier. You’d think they could chuck in some kind of dress up option or something like nearly every cheap sprite based MMO out there.

Stuff I Like To See In RPG’s

• Limited Godly Upgrades- Like how on each playthrough of Chrono Trigger, you normally could only earn one item from the Prism Shell per playthrough. You’d have to loop through several times to get Prism gear for everyone, rather than being allowed/made (usually the latter) to farm for hours for some enemies that might possibly maybe drop the materials.
• Practical Architecture- Look, all I’m saying is a bathroom or two here and there isn’t that hard to make. Also, Crono lives with his mom in a house that seems to only have one bedroom. With a rather small bed.
• Gear that changes your character’s appearance. Becoming more common in polygonal form, but jarringly absent from sprite based games like The World Ends With You, which is based on fashion.
• Buckles and zippers that seem to hold something on or shut.
• Stahn Aileron hair on at least one party member.
• Goofy Recurring Miniboss Squads. Love them. Not being sarcastic.
• A bad-ass two fisted healer.