History of Swick's RPG Extravaganza (part 4)

Need a refresher? - here's PART 3

Want to know what the hell I'm talking about? - here's PART 1

I was really excited when the Playstation 2 released; although the original line-up was not exactly what I was hoping for. The first RPG game I had for the console was based on the light-novels and anime Sorcerous Stabber Orphen. The game was Orphen: Scion of Sorcery. It was one of the console's launch titles. It met with mostly mediocre reviews, and frankly other than being the first RPG I had for PS2, it was kind of forgettable. Way too much sitting and talking, and too little actual battle and roleplaying involved.

My definition of role-playing games blur a little here because so much was being added to the genre, especially in the way of famous 'action' RPGs. I moved away from a lot of RPGs during this time and only occasionally bought new one for my PS1, including games like Final Fantasy Tactics and Wild Arms 2

Final Fantasy Tactics was one of those games that I didn't come to fully appreciate until I was a little older. Whenever I purchased it, the tactical aspect of the game was a little beyond me, so the game was in my opinion very hard and frustrating. Once I caught on to how tactics worked, it quickly rose to the top of my 'favorites games of all time' list, and still gets several replays from me every year. I've gone out of my way to purchase all of the sequels to the game too. My favorite part was highly-customizing my soldiers' skills and equipment. I liked to name all of my recruits after friends I had at the time :p

Of course I picked up a copy of Final Fantasy X, the tenth installment in the series, when it came out, and it was well worth the money! They are in the works of making an HD version for the latest consoles PS3 /PS4. And I really look forward to picking up a copy when it is released. This is definitely one of the stronger stories in the series. As annoyed as I was with the 'love conquers all' message that underlies the games, I am more attached to these characters than a lot of the others in the Final Fantasy series. The sequel for it, Final Fantasy X-2, wasn't very impressive in my opinion.

Apart from these, my sister M and I began playing lots of RPG Maker for the PS1 and were enamored with the idea of creating our own video-game. I don't think we ever completed any of the projects that we started on it (which were generally weird amalgamations of different RPG stories we had encountered throughout the years, plus adding our friends and family in as characters because like most kids we want to go on a big adventure, especially involving swords and sorcery) but there were several hours spent planning and designing and testing and having all around fun with it.