Growlanser 5 was the last game I owned for the PS2 that I hadn't finished. I remember stopping the game almost immediately after buying it at release almost 13 years ago. I couldn't remember why since I had really liked 2 and 3 and then bought 4 as soon as that was released on the PSP a few years after 5 was localized and I enjoyed that one. Well, now I remember.
Poor graphics that look like a PS1 game this late into the PS2's life, where even the painted style backgrounds are dull. Poor music. Skill system is like an idiot tried to combine FFIX and FFXs weapon and sphere grid but you are setting skills into a grid yourself where the paths you go are more random until they aren't and not highlighting a certain paths weakens the skills you've learned on it. Fetch quests/hidden events constantly have you running back to previous areas multiple times, not that there is even reason to be aware of many side quests and events without a guide. Childish story and writing style. Easy slow fighting would be unbearable without an emulator's turbo button, and even at about three times the speed it still often felt too slow with the game constantly stopping anytime a skill or spell was used along with the poor accompanying animation (which is pretty much just some lights). One of the dullest settings I've ever seen, also one of the smallest that keeps having you running back and forth between the same areas even as you get further and further into the game. Made even more ridiculous by story events like taking a boat to get someone and then being told it would be faster to walk back through about four section screens rather than go back to a town to take another ship, a hidden well exit to a base essentially takes you through half the continent based on where it comes out. Barely used characters, with two being able to join your party of five at the very end of the game and characters that kept showing up to do nothing and barely had a role in the entire game. Even the title of Growlanser is never mentioned unless you choose two of six different short epilogue scenes where they out of nowhere jokingly call you by it.
Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/1264179528709976064
Poor graphics that look like a PS1 game this late into the PS2's life, where even the painted style backgrounds are dull. Poor music. Skill system is like an idiot tried to combine FFIX and FFXs weapon and sphere grid but you are setting skills into a grid yourself where the paths you go are more random until they aren't and not highlighting a certain paths weakens the skills you've learned on it. Fetch quests/hidden events constantly have you running back to previous areas multiple times, not that there is even reason to be aware of many side quests and events without a guide. Childish story and writing style. Easy slow fighting would be unbearable without an emulator's turbo button, and even at about three times the speed it still often felt too slow with the game constantly stopping anytime a skill or spell was used along with the poor accompanying animation (which is pretty much just some lights). One of the dullest settings I've ever seen, also one of the smallest that keeps having you running back and forth between the same areas even as you get further and further into the game. Made even more ridiculous by story events like taking a boat to get someone and then being told it would be faster to walk back through about four section screens rather than go back to a town to take another ship, a hidden well exit to a base essentially takes you through half the continent based on where it comes out. Barely used characters, with two being able to join your party of five at the very end of the game and characters that kept showing up to do nothing and barely had a role in the entire game. Even the title of Growlanser is never mentioned unless you choose two of six different short epilogue scenes where they out of nowhere jokingly call you by it.
Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/1264179528709976064