Golden Sun: The Lost Age will forever be in my top 3 games of all time. I'm really sad at the current state of the series. That cliffhanger in Dark Dawn will forever be a cliffhanger...
I don’t know if I should play Dark Dawn. I only played the gba games and the ending was a nice conclusion for the series. Do you think I should play it or not?
@@RayWearer Definitely play it. But like I said, go in expecting a cliffhanger in the end that will probably never be solved. If anything, at least you get to see what happened to the world after the group supposedly "saved" it 30 years prior.
I discovered it this week thanks to RU-vid recommendations recommending me a video of Ein being a pervert or something like that. Got into it yesterday. Pretty fun game, I'm glad I stumbled upon it.
I have and love most of the titles on this list... I have super fond memories of the Summon Nights games. My daughter and I played both when she was around 7. The Summon Nights that are still coming out now (The last was 6) are not the same. Lunar Nights was great as was Tactics Ogre. There are so many great GBA games! Thanks for the nostalgic trip (though I still play on my GBA) 😁
My local GameStop got CIB GBA games traded in. And yes I'm picking them up. Below is the list: Lunar Legend Final Fantasy Tactics Final Fantasy V Yggdra Union Breath of Fire Breath of Fire II Shining Force Summon Night 2 Fire Emblem Sacred Stone And for good measure: Castlevania: Order of Ecclessia Great video as always.
Both Riviera and Yggdra Union are part of the Dept. Heaven series of games from Sting. The other games would be Knights in the Nightmare (DS/PSP) and Gungnir (PSP). Yggdra Union in particular had a trilogy of spin-off games (Blaze Union / Yggdra Unison / Gloria Union) for mobile which never left Japan.
Nice vid so far I’ve only finished Summon Night 1 and Onimusha Tactics I’ll try emulating the others later since I’ve already given my gba to my niece. Btw try Boktai its my fave I only played the first one that I got from a friend back in the days, its a great game.
For few extra motivation: Lufia has a monster capture mechanics. Tactics ogre Knights of Lodis is the story of Lancelot Tartaros (Leader of the Dark Knight from Let us cling together). Riviera is full of amazing secrets, worth replaying multiple times to find all the endings. Onimusha Tactics has no generic characters, each of them has a story and the game mechanic is amazing. Both Summon Knight games are epic, the fighting style is kind of like Tales series, also has a date system. Haven't played the rest of them yet, but intend to, nice video man.
Riviera actually didn't release on GBA. It was on Wonderswan before with rougher graphics and didn't get translated to English. vgperson played bits of this old version, you can see screenshots of her playthough on her site. vgperson.com/riviera/indexb.htm (though I really don't fancy the art in this older version, it explains why Ein's sprite is BLUE. And other character's, probably because they matched with the older art. Glad they revamped it haha)
I’ve played them all,according to me I’ll sort it like this 1.Golden Sun 2.Summon Night I & II 3.Lufia The ruins of lore I’m not saying the others are bad just saying these are the most addictive ones
I agree. Nice list. Out of all the handheld systems, I enjoyed the GBA the most. Simply for it's variety of RPGs on the system. Most of the ones you mentioned, I have in my collection.
Just started Summon Knight on my 350M. Never even heard of it before this vid. It looks incredible so far.....crazy I'd no idea these games existed. Appreciate the list, so far its exactly what I was looking for gem hunting!
The amount of detail added in terms of the different dialogue you can get is astounding, so much replay factor because of that, I just wish the gameplay was more refined with more things to do.
I never count Japan-only titles on videos like these, which is why I didn't include some others like Oriental Blue. I haven't played it yet but it looks actually pretty decent. I might try it some day.
Erick, I'm sorry to say that for summon night the first edition also features 4 summon beast. In addition to the witch-hat like robot and rabbit stuffed toy are also clumsy fairy and oni (japanese ogre) warrior. both summon night always features the beast from respective elements (thunder, water, wind, and fire). I'm guessing since the first game made you choose your beast with luck (choosing sentence, really?? what is this, visual novel??) you may have ended up on those two all the time.
I just finished Onimusha Tactics on the Wii U a couple of days ago. I'd always held off it even though I liked Onimusha, because everyone on the internet really talked it down. And yeah, it's easy and not that deep, but I enjoyed it for that. It was just a chill game to play, and I got sucked right into it until it was done. Some really likeable characters too.
Fab list! Summon Night looks like my kinda JRPG :) Sucks to be in the PAL region though, I don't think any of these were released over here. Thankfully some turn up on eBay every now and then at a reasonable price to import and play on my DS.
Thanks Erick! yes getting hold of them isn't too much of a problem via say ebay.com, and I can play them on the DS Lite with no region lockout, it's just amazing how many great games were not released in the PAL region which I am only now just enjoying :)
Surprised Sword of Mana hasn't made the list. I felt that that one was one of the best GBA games, I know it was a remake of Final Fantasy adventure but I feel it was really well done with the mana feel. I see it is rarely talked about so that's why I figured it was a hidden gem as well
However I disagree with you on the Summon Night Swordcraft story select spirit! You're always given the choice between 4 spirits, each typed Fire (Oni) , Water (Angel/demon/vampire) , Wind (Beast/Halfbeast) and Thunder (Mecha)! Also there's a third game of this franchise on GBA. It's only in Japanese tho'. But you can craft a bow in this one, and in battle, you can switch temporarily between the protagonist and his/her Summon creature! Cool feature!
Not sure if it's hidden but Super Robot Wars OG and OG 2 are great turn based strategy games. Also to take into account, Zone of the Enders has a turn based strategy game.
Lol I just found Ruins of Lore a few days ago cleaning my apartment. Haven't started it yet and don't even remember buying it, thanks for the info! I've just started looking for GBA RPGs to try.
The ending music was from Golden Sun. It plays in the elemental star room in the beginning of the game. One of the best games for the GBA, and I was surprised to not see it here. But to each their own.
Nice video. I had subbed a while ago after watching some of you videos, and will keep it after watching this one. Most of these games I have heard about. I knew about the Lufia series, but I don't recall ever seeing that game. I may try it. That Cima game blind sided me though. I've never herd of it, and I'm interested in trying it. Alot of Natsume and Atlus on the list. To me, Atlus is pretty well known now as it was gaining ground back them. Natsume had some interesting stuff back then, but they kinda suck now especially since the Harvest Moon games are no longer the same game series anymore.
@@ErickLandonRPG thanx, the game took awhile to beat cuz u can't fast forward the fighting animation like on the psp, also u can't just skip the text, u can only speed it up a lil when the character's talk. The animation is top notch, the music is great as well. I'm glad to have played this game, this is the first time I've seen anyone talk about this game, u did good man ;D
I think this is the first list of yours I've seen where I've played everything though I only played my cousin's copy of Demikids Dark for a copule of hours. Knight of Lodia is defintely my favorite on the list. I've always had a huge soft spot for the Ogre Battle and Tactics Ogre series and Knight of Lodis was the first birthday present my best friend ever got me. I like Yggdra Union but not as much as the other games. I think setting the game so units don't heal between battles was a mistake and I had to restart several times due to this frustrating feature. Oh And two of the games from the main Summon Night series have made it to the US rather then one. 5 for the PSP and 6 for the Vita, and I believe the PS4 version of 6 made it to the US as well.
I wonder what the hell happened to the Dept. Heaven Games after seeing Riveria and Yggdra Union on this list. As far as I know, they stopped after Gungnir.
Awesome video I've played all of these and agree they are gems. Summon night 1 has 4 summons just like the second one which also includes a demon. You said the first game only had 2 guardians beast
Yggdra union was the best for me I loved it on the gba and loved it on the psp as well. But when it comes to choosing between the two I love how the gba version has a little bit mor difficulty than the psp version :)
Dang some of my titles didn’t make the cut. No Zoids Legacy, super robot taisen, shining series, Lunar Legends, or breath of fire? This better be on the unknown list of gba games lol
Lunar, in my opinion, is not that hidden and is also a remake. Breath of Fire are also pretty popular. As for the others, they will most likely be in the unknown list :)
Erick Landon RPG thats true for both franchises. Both are definitely a must know for everyone that’s a jrpg enthusiast. Can’t wait for your next vid 👍🏼
Have you ever played any of the Black Matrix games ? (Japanese only tactical rpg's) I played some of Black Matrix A/D for dreamcast (which is an updated version of the saturn game) and it has an interesting concept of angels vs demons where angels have enslaved and imprisoned the demons who seem to be fighting for their freedom (as far as I could tell since it's Japanese only).
Same problem here; it's an amazing game but strangely hard. Most of the time I don't even know what I did wrong. I think it might be, just like in Fire Emblem, a luck factor known as the RNG (Random Number Generator). It could be we're doing nothing wrong; it's just bad luck.
Erick Landon RPG normally I’m totally against strategy guides, but I think in this case it’s more than justified to use one. I think there’s like, some specific way you have to play it to build up the right troops and get the right stuff, and it has escaped my strongest efforts so far. I really wanna see further into the game, so that’s the only way forward!
@@ryukthegodofdeath8063 I can play them on my pocket go or computer, but the super retrocade on my old tv is lagging, becasue of the music. What do you play them on?
@@jeffpom7868 I use raspberry pi 3 with retropie. It's cheap, portable and works with most of the USB and Bluetooth controllers. You can play gba, gb, gbc, nes, snes, Sega Genesis and many more.
Can anyone please help me. There is a handheld tactics JRPG. The main character is a girl who works for the church. Her attack is punching. She meets a mysterious dark ally who uses guns. His dark side is evil. Not much to go on I know.
quiero empesar a jugar un rpg estas vacaciones... no se por cual empesar queria empesar por Chrono Trigger pero me da miedo a quedar perdido por ahi a principio de este año termine Mother 3 y Earthbound :D
Out of these, never heard of Cima. Will have to hunt that one down. There's a few other good ones on GBA, such as Sword of Mana (Final Fantasy Adventure remake). Shining Soul 1 & 2 from the "Shining" series (2 is better), and Sigma Star Saga, an aRPG, shooter hybrid.
I took your advice from your comment on most unknown GBA JRPGs and watched this to find a GBA game to play. I chose Tactics Ogre. I went back and forth between that and Demikids but Tactics Ogre looks like it has a more serious story. I like funny stories too but this time I chose a serious one. Have you played the GBA version of Lufia? Is it any good?