The best game you never completed...

[Penneywize]

Not even that much.. maybe 5 hours or so for a casual play through, less than half that if you use an emulator with frame skip.

FF1 for NES is probably my all-time favorite game, not even really sure why considering how slow, boring, and broken the game is lol, but I have always loved it. It has been a while but I have probably beaten it like 100 times over the years

best party: fighter/fighter/red mage/red mage, with honorable mentions going to fighter/fighter/red mage/white mage and fighter/fighter/fighter/red mage

I could play it again/post a more complete route if anyone is interested, but with FFRR it looks something like this: roast garland at level 1, pirates at level 2, lit/ice spam sharks/kyzokus/ogres/creeps etc maybe grab cardia gold and go to marsh cave around lvl 4-5. Beat wizards, house outside astos's castle and ice spam him. do all the side quest stuff, grab chests in elfland, coneria, and cardia. load up for earth cave at lvl 6-7. Save fir2 to avoid getting stunlocked by undead and that's about it.

After earth cave go to castle of ordeals by boat, grab zeus gauntlet, heal staff, ice sword, and gold bracelet and your party becomes a wrecking machine. battle counting helps tremendously at many spots but none moreso than CoO... although by no means is it necessary in a casual playthrough. You can grind a few levels off Zombie dragons and then do the same off eyes in the ice cave once your fighters have >300 hp.

The game can comfortably be completed with these parties at level 18 or thereabouts.


Anyway back on track, one game I never actually got around to beating was Zelda 2. The final dungeon on that game is absolutely ridiculous, and to clear the entire thing AND beat shadow link as intended might make it the hardest dungeon ever.. like harder than the infamous battletoads level. There is a glitchy way to beat shadow link though which makes the game much easier to complete, maybe one of these days when I have some time I'll get around to doing that.

Just to be a baus I made a Thief/Thief/Redmage/Redmage group that did pretty well. Everyone can take hits, but no one soaks up like a Fighter would. Anyway, I took a rather slow playthrough, reading the dialog and exploring etc. I didn't know the walkthrough back in '08 when I finally finished it.

As for Zelda 2 -- Another game I strongly recommend replaying. It's actually (and I'll probably get lynched for this, but...) my favourite of the entire Link series. It's got RPG elements and enough action / epicness to keep you going.

The last dungeon is truly a bitch though. I did have to use a walkthrough to get to the final boss. The flying thunder hawk is easy enough with the up-thrust, but shadow link is just unpossible. The glitch is to duck in the back corner and constantly throw strikes. He'll eventually walk into you enough to die.

[Galapogos]

As for Zelda 2 -- Another game I strongly recommend replaying. It's actually (and I'll probably get lynched for this, but...) my favourite of the entire Link series. It's got RPG elements and enough action / epicness to keep you going.

I think it's a really underrated game, I remember people talked about it like it was a disappointment after the original but I thought it was great. No way it compares to A Link to the Past or Orcarina of Time though.

[Penneywize]

Full disclosure, I've never played Ocarina of Time

[swiggidy]

Full disclosure, I've never played Ocarina of Time

I tried to play one NES Zelda but gave up fairly early. Then I tried Link to the Past when it was re-released for Game Boy Advance, but also gave up. The series never did anything for me.