u/Canadyans

I had played MW1 (2019) when it came out and liked the campaign well enough and decided I would get around to playing through the two sequels and replaying the first one as well. MW1 held up quite well for me and I was pleasantly surprised by MW2, I liked the Cartel and Sicario feel to it all, it brought something unique to the campaigns.

What in god's name happened with MW3? I couldn't believe how bad it was. The sandbox missions were terrible and were so obviously a combination of a tutorial/marketing the battle royale multiplayer and just straight up laziness. There was no benefit to playing stealth in them, it was quicker and more fun to just gun fight through the whole thing which made it feel even lazier when you realize they just didn't feel like programing more characters into the missions with you like the rest of the campaigns.

The campaign story itself was jarring and weird. The missions felt so generic and uninspired. As someone who doesn't play the multiplayer and had to google it to find out - where the hell did Graves and Alex come from? Does no one stay dead in this series now? Alex had zero impact on the story too, so what was the point of bringing him back? It's like they completely forgot that the most impactful part of the original MW1 was the fact that all these cool squadmates get executed at the end and it hits really hard. They removed all of that. Sure, Soap dies at the end but okay, I was waiting for someone to die for three games, especially when Alex randomly showed up and I thought I was playing prequel missions at first.

And sorry, but Ghost sucks. I was interested to see more Gaz and Ghost in this reimagined series but he is so goofy in his dumb mask that he literally never takes off - not even at a bar with friends or at a best mate's funeral. He feels written by the kids who filled the lobbies in the original MW games. Ghost = cool because of his mask and no other personality traits apparently. Gaz gets sidelined completely after the first game and is just a tag along.

Side note: These games suffered hard without being able to cut away to playing as the Marines like the original series. Griggs was completely shelved after the first one for some reason and without seeing the Marines doing their work, you're left with just this patched together series of 'hot spot' special forces missions that are so barely and loosely connected that I didn't even know what we were doing half the time. The stakes of 'save the world from bombs and/or gas' over and over gets so old and stale. The world feels empty because outside of the stadium mission (which I did like), because you don't see anyone else.

I combed through 3 or 4 of the videos but didn't notice any that mentioned it. It's really my last question about the game aside from potential replay value.

While playing Dragon Quest 1 and 2 2DHD, I couldn’t help but constantly think about how similar they felt to Breath of Fire. The exploration and the combat in particular felt like you could drag and drop BoF 1 or 2 right onto it.

Capcom continues to show no interest in the franchise, so it occurred to me that if Square had the franchise, they could spin up remakes of 1 and 2 similar to DQ to generate new interest. I don’t think they have to be 2DHD style but I think with the success of the Final Fantasy Pixel Remasters and DQ show there is still an audience and money to be made from traditional retro turn based RPGs.

I finally got around to playing through Star Ocean: The Last Hope and I'm currently playing Integrity and Faithlessness and I absolutely love how fluid and responsiveness the combat feels in it. Blindsides in TLH were really satisfying and I miss them but I&F is firing on all cylinders, especially with the eight character combat.

So I'm wondering from those who have played it, are there other JRPG's with similar satisfying combat?