Favorite Non-Nintendo Console?

[lamedude]

If that's a Willamette/NW Celeron it belongs in the trash. They suck even at 3GHZ. Just get a P4 from fleabay.

[Garteal]

With the Final Fantasy games up to IX, Threads of Fate (underrated), Dragon Valor (underrated), Legend of Dragoon (underrated), Chrono Cross, Symphony of the Night, Metal Gear Solid, Legend of Mana, Parasite Eve, Saga Frontier and Valkyrie Profile, it's undoubtedly going to be the Playstation.

I've played the Playstation 2 too, but not as much as the Playstation obviously. It has great games too.

[Link_to_the_past]

Dreamcast was probably the most beautiful console i ever had, with ports of arcade games that i loved, the best graphics at the time it was released and gems like Shenmue and Skies of Arcadia (Skies had the most fun and light hearted story of any RPG i have played).

[Shonumi]

(10-21-2013, 08:58 PM)Link_to_the_past Wrote: Skies of Arcadia (Skies had the most fun and light hearted story for any RPG i have played).

I've played close to 50 RPGs now from start to finish, so I can't remember how I felt about every single one of them, but I definitely rank SoA very highly, especially in the light-hearted category. Only other RPGs that I feel the same way about are the Mario & Luigi titles, but SoA isn't as "cartoonish", not when you're saving the world with a pirate ship that shoots lasers

Kinda wish I had had a DC (my friends did, but they always owned everything) but I only know SoA through the GC port. I hear the music's better since they didn't have to use the type of compression the GC version needed. Huge Sonic fan, and I totally wanted Sonic Adventure 1 & 2, but that never happened... until I got a GC :p

[MayImilae]

....why would the GC version need compression? A GC disc is small, but it's a miniDVD with 1.5GB of capacity (Dolphin says 1.4GB, Wikipedia says 1.5GB, whatever). A Dreamcast disc is fullsized, but it's a GD-Rom: a bastardization of CD-Rom technology with a total capacity of 1.2GB.

Yep, GameCube discs have more capacity. Furthermore, the GameCube is capable of streaming audio, used in a lot of games (like all those Dreamcast ports), as well as FMVs. Porting from the Dreamcast to the GCN was CAKE. It had the storage capacity, the capabilities, and an easy architecture (compared to the PS2 anyway). It's no surprise to me that so many Dreamcast ports ended up on the GameCube.

So, I don't see any reason why the GameCube version of Skies of Arcadia would be inferior...

[Shonumi]

(10-22-2013, 06:29 AM)MaJoR Wrote: ....why would the GC version need compression? A GC disc is small, but it's a miniDVD with 1.5GB of capacity (Dolphin says 1.4GB, Wikipedia says 1.5GB, whatever). A Dreamcast disc is fullsized, but it's a GD-Rom: a bastardization of CD-Rom technology with a total capacity of 1.2GB.

Yep, GameCube discs have more capacity. Furthermore, the GameCube is capable of streaming audio, used in a lot of games (like all those Dreamcast ports), as well as FMVs. Porting from the Dreamcast to the GCN was CAKE. It had the storage capacity, the capabilities, and an easy architecture (compared to the PS2 anyway). It's no surprise to me that so many Dreamcast ports ended up on the GameCube.

So, I don't see any reason why the GameCube version of Skies of Arcadia would be inferior...

This sounds like this is the first time you've heard about SoA:L's audio (no pun intended). SoA on the DC was 2 Disks (~2.4GB altogether) but the GC is one disc at ~1.5GB. Something's gotta give, and the most obvious data would be music, probably followed by textures (don't think they touched them, thankfully). You can listen to the DC and GC versions and hear the difference.

[MayImilae]

Oh... I didn't know it was two discs. Why didn't they use two discs on the GameCube? Cheap buggers.

[xemnas]

I wonder that too. The DC version has 2 discs. I can't think of the reason to use 1 disc in GC version and compress the music. I'd like to replace the music in GC version with the music in DC version but it seems that it's not simple.

By the way, my favorite is PS2.

[KOS-MOS]

For me the most beautiful story has FF X. I cried a lot at the end. I played a lot of PS and PS2 RPGs.