Hey which of these should i play first?

I wanna try out some rpgs that I don't really know as much about. I was thinking of starting with either the Drakengard series or the Breath of Fire series. (and please keep explanation to a minimum, I want to go into whichever as blind as possible)

they're nothing like eachother at all...

Blackthorne

Breath of fire is pretty short so try that then Drakengard.

Spoilers Drakengard isn't very fun if you're not a story fag you'll probably hate it.

oh nice
honestly all I really know about them is that they're both supposed to be rpgs and I have a habit of just assuming everything is just final fantasy

i'd play bof 2 or 3 instead of 1 btw.

My plan was to play through them all in order with either. I think it's cool to see how the games would grow. That's what I did with the Earthbound games and I don't think I'd appreciate the first two games nearly as much if I hadn't done that

if you're willing to put the time in, that makes sense.

Breath of Fire were the sort of "budget" RPGs that were present throughout the NES and SNES era, and into the PSX and beyond. They were always overshadowed by other more popular JRPGs such as the Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy series, but they were commendable in their own right.

They are all mostly by-the-numbers, but each has a little quirk that set them apart from their contemporaries. The most popular are Breath of Fire III and IV, both on the PSX. They were spectacular for their time, and while I think both have aged poorly compared to other games in their class, they are definitely worth playing. Unlike the above poster, I do think you should play the first so long as you can bear basic JRPG plot and slowness. All of the games are related to one another, although only vaguely, and you require a good working knowledge of the plot of each game in order to understand the overarching plot.

Alright, I'm pretty new to the genre (all I've beaten are the earthbound games and chrono trigger and pokemon) so I'm pretty sure I'll be able to deal with it being by-the-numbers

Actually to broaden the topic a bit does anyone have any other good recommendations on where to go from there in the genre? I found the battle systems of all the games I mentioned before very fun and I've also touched Chrono Cross and Xenoblade and found them fun as well (and even though it probably looks like it from most of those I wouldn't really call myself a storyfag that's just what I happened to start with)

Grandia and Grandia II

legend of dragoon and final fantasy tactics are fun.

Suikoden 1,2,3,5
Valkyrie Profile
Star Ocean 2
Xenogears
Shadow Hearts: Covenant
Nier

Don't play Covenant without playing SH1 first. That's just dumb.

Koudelka is optional but if you like SH 1-2 you should definitely go back to it afterwards. Keep on mind it has completely different gameplay.

>Don't play Covenant without playing SH1 first. That's just dumb.
I did, and I had no trouble understand what was going on. I still haven't finished the first one because I just didn't like it that much.

Tch, yeah, I've heard of Shadow Hearts, it's really cool.

But in all seriousness what i've played of it was fun and with all of these I plan on playing all the games in a series from the beginning

There is a VERY small chance you are going to like Drakengard. It's not a particularly well made game by any stretch of the word.

why do you say that? i thought it was pretty good desu, esp the final boss

honestly the main reason I was considering that game honestly was because I knew the Nier games were a spin-off of that series so I wanted to just try the whole thing out (but I could assume it was very different)

You think that's funny user?

Try it out
If you can stomach it then keep going
if you can't then just drop it, the ties it has to Nier are purely superficial and have little if any effect on your enjoyment of Nier.

The only thing it will enhance is the Nier gameplay since you'll be going "Man this is ten times better than Drakengard"

It does have a very dark story though by JRPG standards.

the fuck do you mean Drackengard is like 50 times better than Nier, especially the new game

I'll second this recommendation. Both of them, while feeling very different from one another, are good games. The first game does a wonderful job of making it feel like you're on an adventure. The second game improves on the combat, the characters, and has a darker tone to it than the original.

I'll probably do that then. What about Drakengard in particular makes almost everyone seem to dislike it?

It plays like a shitty, even clunkier Dynasty Warriors.

I'm sure you know by now that Drakengard is made by the same guy that did Nier and Nier: Automata. I haven't personally played it but the general consensus is that you only play it for the story.

I recently ran through BoF. If you're a fan of JRPGs and you can get into really simplistic shit, then by all means, go ahead. It's sort of dumb and the writing is pretty bad but its core gameplay is fine. It's similar to Dragon Quest II in that there's not a lot of depth and your only options during battle are attack, magic, guard, and items. Some characters get transformations but they don't add much variety. It's sort of slow and the random encounter rate is annoyingly high. It picks up about halfway through.

Just lower your expectations for both and you'll be fine.

and the new nier is suppsed to be like kingdom hearts what the fuck?

I can see why I'd apparently be saying that it's so much better

that part was funny as hell

>dragons

Drakengard has great writing and atmosphere; it's kind of a novelty, really.

BoF is a good game, but I'd go with 3. As far as RPGs go, BoF series are classics.

I'd also suggest Lunar 1-2 if you like the BoF games. Just like BoF, the Lunars are examples of extremely well executed bog standard jrpgs.

i didn't think of this earlier but lunar sssc is good

Wild Arms 1 and Suikoden1+2 along with these.
Once you're done with those try Xenogears or Chrono Cross.