The Epic genre means the extremely long quest game that takes a million and three hours to play through. I love them, they are among my favorite types. The problem with them, and this is how you can generally differentiate them from action genre or other games is that you need to spend a lot of time level grinding to ensure that your characters all get powerful enough by the end of the game.
Another way to determine the Epic genre is you generally get a party of characters instead of just one. In the Suikoden Series games, you get 60!
These ones are in the Fantasy Genre, which is a bulk of the type of Epic games available for Playstation 2.
Game 30] Dragon's Age Origins - This PC game is among the best I've ever played. Based on reviews this is the general feeling. The characters are all complex, the storyline is fantastic, there are great twists and your decisions make a difference in how the story unfolds. Very nice. You control a whole party but there are lots of people to pick up through the game to add to your group. You run around with 4 at a time, and there is a lot to do. You are trying to convince different races to honor an ancient treaty to come and help you fight off The Blight, a race of demons that are invading the land. But to convince each race to join your army, you have to go through hell and back in each instance. Well, if you didn't, it wouldn't be much of a game, now, would it? Honestly, its fantastic.
Checkmark - There are a billion side quests, and the main quests in each territory. You can also do some level grinding, but not as much because there aren't a lot of random encounters in this game.
Where Am I? - I am about 50 percent through this game. I get through a lot of the initial stuff in each land but constantly have issues with extremely powerful bosses and/or assaults by lots of enemies at once. What is nice is the ability to back out of every territory and go do something else. So you can essentially complete stages of each area, and as you gain in power, go back and forth advancing where you can. I like this feature of the game. There are only a few areas I've found where once you enter, you can't leave until you complete the area. The game is so well designed though, that when I've encountered those areas, I was indeed powerful enough to complete them. So it hasn't been an issue.
Game 31] Dragon Quest 8 - This game, for the Playstation 2, is entertaining, hilarious at times, well-written, and an overall good time. You have four characters in the game, as you help a king transformed into a hideous monster by an evil jester-mage dude. You run around the world trying to catch up to this super powerful, evil jester who commits attrocities wherever he goes for some darker purpose which is slowly being unraveled as the storyline progresses.
Checkmarks - Mission based, with a few side quests, but mostly you follow Mr. Evil Jester's tracks and try and catch up to him. I will definitely be getting Level Grind checkmarks as the game progresses, from time to time, and there are a billion random encounters on the road and in the dungeons. Sometimes to an annoying extent. Fortunately while outside you can teleport around with magic.
Where Am I? - I am off the first continent, have a magic boat, and have tracked Mr. Evil Jester guy (he has a name, I can't remember it. What? I'm playing 47 games!) to the second continent, where I'm starting the missions there. Looks like a big dungeon coming up next. Whether this means I am halfway through the game or not, I have no idea. We'll see. This game appears long and huge, and since its so entertaining, that's good by me.
Game 32] Final Fantasy 12 - You knew there had to be a Final Fantasy on this list right? I actually have 10, played through to near the end, and found out I was too wimpy to continue. Bah! So I have that game in reserve and will re-start it later. So far, I am finding 12 to be excellent fun and I am taking the time to level grind.
Checkmark - Final Fantasy is one of the series where Level Grind is absolutely necessary. There areas in the game that you can return to that are just populated with random beasts and you can wipe them out and rack up experience points. It's necessary, but boring. I also get checkmarks for completing story missons, naturally.
Where Am I - Relatively early, but no longer at the beginning of the game, I am deep into the rich plot line, and am in the second land available to adventure in.
Game 33] Suikoden 3 - This was the other game, along with Final Fantasy 10 that I went through the entire game, which is awesome, only to learn I hadn't leveled up enough. The Suikoden series is going to take awhile, because you need to collect the 108 Stars of Destiny. These are characters that you build an army with, and about 60 of them can be put in your adventuring party of 4-6 characters depending which Suikoden you are playing. You have to level up ALL of them to have a chance at the end. I was too impatient to do this, and paid the price. This time around, I will be doing tons of level grinding with all of the characters.
Checkmark - This game is broken into chapters. In each chapter there are quests and side quests, so all of these can be used to gain checkmarks, as can the chapter end place. Level Grinding is very important as already noted, and checkmarks will be given for that as well.
Where Am I - Highly disgusted, that's where. I am starting this game over, from scratch, from the beginning. First off, I didn't find all 108 characters and got impatient to see the end of the game. My bad. This time, I'll work to get all 108 Stars, and make sure all of the playable ones are high level by the game's end. But yes, I am at the very start of the game.
Game 34] Suikoden 4 - What? Another Suikoden? Yep. This game has nothing to do with Suikoden 3, completely different characters, different time frame, different plot aspects, etc. etc. Once again, I will need to find all 108 Stars, and level grind, and all that.
Checkmark - Story progression missions, side quests, and level grinding are all available in this game as checkmarks.
Where Am I? - Near the start of the game, this Suikoden has a lot of naval aspects to it. So I'm going back and forth between two islands right now tediously completing chores and whacking low level sea monsters as I increase in level.
Game 35] Suikoden 5 - Haha. Yes. I AM playing Suikoden 3-5 simultaneously. Because I'm crazy, that's why. Another pack of 108 Stars of Destiny for me to find. Woo hoo.
Checkmark - Story progression missions, side quests, and level grinding are all available in this game as checkmarks.
Where Am I? - At the point where it looks like the main story will finally begin. A lot of setup as a tournament for the hand of the princess of the land, who happens be your character's little sister, is about to take place. We'll see what occurs in it, and how it royally screws everything up and starts the big story in earnest.
That's it for the Epic Fantasy games, at least until I get my hands on the next Suikoden hahaha.
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