Which are the games that you really wanted to play and thought looked really cool, but somehow you never got around to/could? What games that you have heard mentioned do most catch your interest to track down and see what all the fuss is about? Have there been any games that you haven't played but have felt really strongly for some reason (screenshots/videos, soundtrack, people involved, general style, etc.) like they'd totally be your cup of tea? For this poll, let's try to leave the current generation (Wii/360/PS3 as well as DS/PSP) out of it and focus on games that have gathered some distance in time from us.

Personally, there's very few. I've been pretty thorough in tracking down stuff that has stayed in my "I should check this out someday"-folder in the back of my head, either through emulation or finding real copies. I guess the earlier entries in the Devil Summoner series (MegaTen-spinoff) should be mentioned. Both of them are Japanese-only, with no unofficial translations available so far. I especially want to try Soul Hackers, as a lot of things indicate that I'd like it a lot. I've heard a lot of people (like McCall on this forum) praise it, and the soundtrack is phenomenal. It was also developed and released during Atlus's golden age (late 1990s), and looks like it shares many similarities with Persona 2, which I consider the apex of the MegaTen series and a strong contender for the title of best RPG ever made. So yeah... I'd really like to try Soul Hackers, and I hope someone gets around to producing an English translation patch someday (or that Atlus themselves release an English version of it, but I'm guessing chances of that happening now are close to zero).

Apart from those, I guess Metroid Prime. I saw my brother play through all of it when it was first released, so technically it wouldn't really be a "new" experience, but I'd still like to go through it myself. But, since I suck at 3D action and FPS-games, I'm guessing there will be much cursing and gnashing of teeth ahead if I ever get around to it...

So, what's yours?

Xenogears and Chrono Cross were the two games that I really wanted to play, but never managed to acquire. I was so mad at Squaresoft back then for not porting those games to Europe! Those two games that everyone loved and praised!

Most Mario, Zelda, Castlevania, Mega Man - I was a poor kid and really couldn't afford to buy games, and really didn't grow with them. Part of why I think their music sucks was pretty much because of this.
Ultima Online - I heard it was one of the best things that was born in the game industry, but I was just a junior high school student without his own PC
Ultima VII - This game wasn't properly localized in Japan.
Demon's Soul - I used to be the biggest fan of From SoftWare and excited to know they finally released their first good game since KF4.

Well I still haven't played RE4. Just caught up with the Bioshocks though and I'm very glad I did.

The entire PS2 library. Maybe I'll pick one up to play Shadow of the Colossus, the Personas and the Castlevanias.

My only real gaming regret is not playing more J-RPGs before I got completely burned out on them. I've made my way through FFVI five or six times (and is the only RPG I can actually sit down and play start-to-finish), FFVII six or so times, Chrono Cross once or twice, FFVIII/IX/X a few times... and then I got burnt out. And I know it's totally my fault; not blaming the games here at all. I just wish I played through Chrono Trigger back in the day, or that I gave Xenogears more of a chance. I haven't even played Secret of Mana. I know, gaming heresy, but it's the truth. So yeah, that's what I would do. Less FF repeats and more non-FF RPG experiences.

Please do that at some point. If not, I'll just have to play it a twelfth time for you. On Professional. Wearing an eyepatch. (Don't laugh, that shit will f*ck up your peripheral vision like you wouldn't believe.)

Same here.  Got close to the end of Chrono Trigger (via a filthy emulator) but never finished and I didn't even start Secret of Mana.  Love both the soundtracks though, naturally.

Final Fantasy I, II, III, and V somehow slipped by me.  I've played and finished all the other main entries in the series.  I think the reason for skipping those four is due to them never seeing any quality re-releases, plus I'm a huge believer in "the original is best" so I'd have to play them how they were originally intended.  Eventually I plan on getting a SNES flash cart so I can play a translated FFV on real hardware.  For the first three I'll just buy and/or mod some NES so I can play English versions of them on real hardware.

Ogre Battle and Tactics Ogre - love the music and loved FFT but never played these, really want to (on SNES)!
Eternal Darkness
Resident Evil 0 - tried but couldn't make it, didn't feel like true RE, will try again eventually
The entire Suikoden series - love a lot of the music, never played the games
EarthBound
ALL OF THE YS GAMES! - I so fail for this one, they look like they'd be a blast, only one I got far on is Ys VI
Super Contra
NIGHTS Into Dreams
Shining Force series
Enemy Zero - never had a Saturn and I've played all the other main Kenji Eno / Warp games
Land Stalker
Castlevania Rondo of Blood - played on emulator but I want the real hardware experience
The first Grandia - loved II and XTREME so I have to love this one also
Breath of Fire V Dragon Quarter - got far here, but gave up due to difficulty and because other games came along

There are probably more but those came to mind first.  I'm pretty happy with the amount of good games I've played on the PS1, PS2, Dreamcast, and Genesis.  I slacked a bit on the Saturn and some of the older Nintendo consoles it seems.

Nothing whatsoever.

I take my gaming SERIOUSLY, so anything that seems worth playing I will try to pick up and play as soon as I can.

I still have a backlog the size of my anus (huge) but I don't count that as "passed by".

Nothing passes ME by!

Probably tons. Still, I should probably note that I don't consider anything on the current gen consoles I don't have (DS, PS3, 360 and Wii) as passed over because I'm simply not in the market for those games. (Hey, self-disillusions are important!) When they are obsolete I will be.

Anyway, a big one would be Silent Hill. I think this was mainly due to playing RE2 way too much; hell, I didn't even want to play RE3 or even had a clue when it came out because of that. There were also a tons of other games out there at the time (the PS1 library is probably my favorite with the SNES close behind) but I do need to pick up the second one at some point

There are a few other series I need to catch up on. Working on Syphon Filter and I'm considering a cube for the Metroid Prime series and Tales of Symphonia despite being burned out on J-RPGs.

As for games that are on hand that need to be played:

Breath of Fire V: Dragon Quarter (heard lots of bad things, but should try it for myself)
Burnout Revenge
Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII
Dissidia Final Fantasy
God of War / God of War II (watching someone play the whole game is kind of off-putting)
God of War: Chains of Olympus
Illusion of Gaia
Mega Man Powered Up
The Misadventures of Tron Bonne (had this for five years and still haven't played it)
Parasite Eve II
Resident Evil 4 (see God of War above)
Star Ocean: First Departure
Syphon Filter: The Omega Strain, Dark Mirror, Logan's Shadow
Twisted Metal Black / Twisted Metal: Head-On
Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth
Xenosaga Episode III: Also Sprach Zarathustra

That isn't too bad, I honestly thought the list would be much longer....

Xenogears... *shudder*  I hated that game.  However, if they were to put it up on the US PSN store I'd probably give it another go.

I respect what Xenogears tried to accomplish more than what it actually did accomplish. I also respect people that can admit that it isn't a perfect game. It may have more fanboys than FFVII, something that is no small feat.

I remember Gamepro gave the game a 1.5 or a 2.5 out of 5 in fun factor. Sounds about right to me.

I bought a Gamecube several years ago just to play Twilight Princess and Wind Waker. I've played less than a half dozen games on it, but if I ever get any more, I'd like to check out Tales of Symphonia and Skies of Arcadia Legends.

Also passed on Dark Cloud 2, even though I loved the first one. I've just been more into action games these days.

I didn't get a PSX until 2000. A lot of stuff between the time the PSX was first released, up until 2000.

Two games that come to mind are:

-Heart of Darkness
-Jumping Flash (the first)

If only I could remember the rest...they were quite a few.

Mostly though, stuff on the NES, and even some stuff on the SNES.

Never played River City Ransom until I got virtual console; my parents probably steered us (my older brother and I) away from that one back when we were kids, possibly cognizant of the gang violence themes held there within. Or not. Who knows?

Then again, they let us get Street Fighter, but that was a tournament fighter, and not "Senseless Violence." Still my parents weren't anti-violence Nazis like some of my friends' parents were. And some of my friends, their parents couldn't have cared less.

My friends also had the Contra and Double Dragon games, the first Contra, and the second Double Dragon being favorites, but never owned them myself. I remember renting Contra II, and getting my ASS kicked in it. Ninja Gaiden was also another one my friends owned, but not me; that, and Kung Fu. Come to think of it, a lot of my friends really liked games that had a martial arts theme; you'd think with that kind of influence, I would've learned martial arts back when I was young, but I've only started recently (topic for another day, or thread, I suppose!)

We were pretty limited back then to what the parents were willing to buy us for birthdays and Christmas, but really, they were still pretty generous.

When I look back, we were probably damn lucky to have received what we did, much less the NES itself, or gaming at all...

Ahh, but enough reminiscing! I bet I'm starting to sound like an old man! When I realize how long ago some things happened, it DOES make me realize my age...

I downloaded it off the Japanese PSN, even though I have the US version of the game, but I just wanted to play it in Japanese because I heard the localization was rather crappy.
Still haven't touched it though.

Like Ashley, I appreciate what the game was trying to do, but the game itself wasn't that much fun at all. I actually rather liked the combat OUTSIDE of the Gears. Too bad the latter half of the game puts such a big emphasis on Gear battles...
I actually managed to get to the Final Boss, but never beat it.

Xenogears was one of those games that just LIVED off of the plot.

I never minded the gameplay much...and only when I look back on it, do I realize it wasn't a game with much...*ahem*...gameplay.

Now, if only they'd made it into an anime, they could've saved us the trouble of dungeon crawling and pointless random battles that didn't offer much in the way of reward, but I heard that the Xenosaga anime that was made was just really poor quality.

Boss battles and Gear battles pretty much provided you all the EXP and money you needed.

I suppose the random battles gave you the opportunity to learn new Deathblows, but that was about it.

Mega Man - I always regret that I never got into the NES games. I actually remember renting Mega Man 2, only to arrive home and find that the cartridge didn't work. I did eventually get into the series with Mega Man X, but once you've gotten used to that game's mechanics it's hard to go back to the difficulty of the NES games.

Sonic - Total Nintendo fanboy here, so I never owned a Sega console. I actually picked up a copy of Sonic Mega Collection Plus a few years back, but still haven't made the time to play through even one game (except for Sonic Spinball, which I found strangely addictive).

Uggh, would it have killed them to give the Gears an easier way to regain HP? I think the most accurate description of Xenogears I've ever read was "Battle Arena with RPG minigame." Although, "Interactive Text Adventure" might also apply.

Nice

It and just about every other rpg ever released.

I'd argue that modern RPGs are made to be watched or heard rather than read.

Back on topic, all this RPG talk also made me remember how much I wanted to play the Phantasy Star series. I was all set to get the GBA collection until I found out it wouldn't have IV, which was the one I wanted to play the most.

II and IV are the only ones worth your time.

I admit I was a diehard SNES fanboy and I shunned the Genesis during its' lifetime (aside from Sonic). I didn't learn about Phantasy Star until MUCH later on. I feel if I had come across 2 or 4 back in "the day", they would have seriously hooked me. I have played much of 4 on the Genesis PS2 compilation and it was really enjoyable, but unfortunately, it fell victim to my limited attention span for RPG's.

Speaking of SNES, I totally skipped out on the Donkey Kong Country games and Yoshi's Island for reasons I don't even know. Me being a 2D platform junkie, I keep meaning to go back and play these, but...Just saving them for a rainy day I guess. I did miss Tetris Attack, but I got caught up later with Pokemon Puzzle. I still need to play Secret of Mana and finish the two SNES Lufias. And Super Punch Out made a timely appearance in my final year of college (about 8-9 years late) and helped relieve the endless wave of study and papers. I really should jack the SNES in and get cracking, shouldn't I? lol

I actually caught Xenogears when it came out (RPG's weren't as frequent on the PS1 as they became later on and it was a no-brainer purchase). Behind the endless wave of storyline, I liked that the game just had the balls to just totally destroy you. Some of those battles were freaking hard and that last level had me exiting and not coming back until I was rolling in killer equipment. Finishing it was easily one of the most rewarding feelings I've had playing an RPG. I recommend playing through it.

Oh snap, forgot about Phantasy Star.  I definitely missed out on those games.  There's no excuse either since I was kind of a Genesis fanboy growing up.  But then again I didn't get into RPGs, unless you count Zelda, until FFVII came along.

I'm glad I played and finished Xenogears back when it came out.  Not sure I'd be able to get through it nowadays.  Don't get me wrong, I loved it, and if anybody is thinking of playing it, they totally should.  It's gonna be rough though.  Tons of story, very high difficulty level, and from what I remember it was like a 70 hour game for me.  One of my finest gaming achievements is getting through that game.  That and Vagrant Story.  Two of the most "hardcore" Square games on the PS1 and they're both so worth getting through, especially for the story and music.

Yeah, I recall thinking the non-Gear battles to be better... in fact, it was a Gear-related platforming session (near the end of the first disc, I believe I was told) where I gave up on the game.

Oh, and to be on topic, Final Fantasy X is one game I've never played past the first save point.  I think that qualifies for this topic... there are probably a lot of games I never tried or considered that I would regret if ignorance weren't such bliss.  I'll be giving it a go eventually, I suppose.

Vagrant Story is a game that I just didn't give a fair shot either.  I definitely would get it if it were released on the PSN or remade.

If you're in Japan or Europe then it's already up on PSN.  Not really sure why the U.S. store never got it.  I'd buy the game again just to support it.  I actually popped it in my PSone last night and played from the beginning for about an hour, so damn epic.  I was even loving the battle system, which I remember giving me some trouble back when I originally played.  Then again I didn't really get far enough into it last night for it to get tough I guess.  Just gotta be good at timing those chain attacks.  The game has one of my favorite stories / scripts in gaming history too.. "Swine'll take wing 'fore the likes of us use magick, my friend."

Also, one more game to add to the list: Skies of Arcadia.  That was one I attempted to play on the Dreamcast back when it came out but it was just too painful to play for me.  Too many random battles, slow loading, and I think it rebooted my DC at one point.  I'd like to give it another shot eventually.

One of the highlights from my last trip to Mikerville was throwin' back a few beers and watching the first hour or so of Vagrant Story. That shit was ridiculous, man.

Actually, I got one that passed me by and a lot of people are going to be like "totally." I just picked up the first Shadow Hearts for $15. I grabbed it because I've seen Gamestop charge $30 used for it before.

Ha!  I totally forgot about that.  Yeah that ruled.  Nothing beats drinking beer and watching game openings with one of the coolest people you know!

Oh and to make this post relevant, I thought of another.. Fatal Frame.  With my love of horror and video games, this should have been a no brainer.  I attempted to play it but the high difficulty level didn't make this a very Kodak moment.  Will reattempt at some point!

Long-ass post coming up, high in personal, subjective opinions, but low in actual content, haha! But what are internet forums for, huh?

First off, here's a list of games mentioned in this thread so far that I highly recommend getting played by the poor souls who missed them:

Why "filthy" emulator? I don't know when you played this, but SNES has long been one of the systems that has been near-perfectly emulated and supported. I love emulation and ROM-hacking myself, the list of awesome games made available and translated through the emulation community that the game companies in their omniscient wisdom somehow decided we were not to play is a long one (Final Fantasy II, III, V, Seiken Densetsu 3, Clock Tower, Sweet Home, Persona 2: Innocent Sin, Fatal Frame 4, Mother 1 and 3, Shin Megami Tensei I and II, Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, many more). If I hadn't known about emulation or disregarded it, my experience as a gamer would have been a lot poorer than it has been, I can tell you that much.

Do yourself a favour and skip the PS2 Castlevanias, they're pretty mediocre overall and will only serve to lower your esteem of the series as a whole. Exchange "the Castlevanias" for "the Silent Hills" and you'll be all set.

That's what people tend to say. I disagree about II, I'm a huge fan of the original Phantasy Star series (played through them all several times back when they were originally released), yet I still think PSII is very overrated. I guess it was favoured by the fact that it came out at the right time (it was basically the first 16-bit RPG, right?). For nostalgic reasons, I actually prefer III over II, even though everyone calls it the "black sheep" of the series (hey, what's wrong with black sheep?). It had the same weaknesses as II (very little actual plot, at points unbearably hard oldsk00l fights and dungeons, sparse graphic style, etc.), but at least it tried to innovate a lot more than II did, resulting in what I thought was a genuinely more rewarding (albeit flawed) overall package. I think PSI was better than II as well, it had a lot more personality to it's characters, locations, plot, etc.. PSI was a great game, unquestionably the best 8-bit RPG ever made, and it wasn't even on the NES! (FF3 is pretty close behind it, though). I'll freely admit though that II has the hands-down best soundtrack in the series.

With IV, on the other hand, there can be no disagreement: easily the best game wearing the Phantasy Star name, and more than able to stand on it's own when compared with the classic RPGs of the late SNES era (in my opinion, it actually trumps the lot of them, even FF6).

You know, I really hate to say this, as I'm a huge fan of everything Shadow Hearts in this world, but the last time I played the first game, I was (to my immense surprise and displeasure) amazed at how aged and dated I felt it to be. The soundtrack and general atmosphere is still the best in the series, but in many ways, the game just felt slow and cumbersome to play, and the interaction between the characters felt like a mash-up of 1990s JRPG clichés that somehow survived into the new century. Its still a good game, worth checking out if you haven't already, but the second one is definitely the height of the series in just about every department except the soundtrack. So if you haven't played Shadow Heats II yet, that's the one I recommend. Stay the hell away from the third game, though: they completely butchered the series in that one. Its like a freaking parody.

I dunno.  While the third was definitely without any doubt the weakest in the series I still thought it was better than a good 75%+ of the the RPGs out there.

Good man! Especially since I've seen brand new, factory-sealed (supposedly) copies of Shadow Hearts on Amazon.com for $60 USD and up!

The very first Shadow Hearts will always be a fond memory for me; still didn't keep me for selling it off, though! Hey, I cut quite a profit, and replaying a game is never as good as the first time around...but damn, out of all the PS2 crap I've played, the original Shadow Hearts rather softened the buyer's remorse I had over getting a PS2.

LOL, how does that contradict anything I wrote? I agree Shadow Hearts 3 is better than 75% of the RPGs out there, but I still think it sucks. I'd say about 90% (being generous here) of the genre does.

The original Shadow Hearts was already incredibly aged and dated when it was released.
Wasn't it originally supposed to be a PSX game? Because it shows.

I loved atmosphere is absolutely amazing, yes, but the game itself is really rather cumbersome.

I've always held that the one sole thing that's wrong with Shadow Hearts Covenant is that you need to play the prequel to be able to fully appreciate it.

And yeah, I don't know what went wrong with 3...

The only part of it that felt decidedly dated when it was released was the voice acting, in my opinion. There wasn't much of it in the game, only during some of the CG cutscenes, but Holy Mother of God, was it atrocious! It even left Resident Evil 1 and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night in the dust, gasping for breath. The classic defining moment of crappy early Shadow Hearts voice acting is, of course, the Sea Mother's tale. Shlooop! Splaaat! Screeee! Oooooooh!. A blast from the past (begins at about 1:50 in the video):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cl6Zo2dFqyc

Seriously, I DARE ANYONE to show me worse video game voice acting than that. If you have something worse in memory, you HAVE to share it with the rest of us!

People have said that Chaos Wars do have a damn bad dub. At least people tend to bring that in the table when talking about dubs (which most of the time are fine, especially if jap side has squeaky girls screaming, f--- those).