General JRPG Topic

[Interdimensional Observer]

Simple enough. Because although there are many who don't get them (no issue with that), JRPGs do have their ardent fans, myself included.

Any JRPG, or Action or SRPG close enough to JRPGs aesthetically, plotwise, etc. (because FFT deserves to belong with the rest of the FF series), is open to discussion. I'm not somebody to consider Zelda RPGs, they're action-adventure for me, but I guess if you really want to you can sneak them in, or Monster Hunter, but let's not go too far in those directions.

Any facet, so simple praise for the obscure Arc Rise Fantasia's weapon system, or five paragraph breakdowns of how Motoi Sakuraba's OSTs have risen, peaked, and declined across his VG discography. If you want to argue Chrono Trigger has hardly better characters than Chrono Cross, or that stuff like Lost Sphear are actually on the same level of CT, with no offense to CT, go ahead.

You can speak of a recent game you've played/are playing (but if it's popular enough to get its own living topic here (or FE or Pokemon related), post it there, unless you intend to be comparative with other games in your discussion). Or it can be an old game you're playing right now, or a game you played long ago and just want to chat about.

If you just want a little gameplay advice for a game, like how to get past the Holoholo Bird in Baten Kaitos: Origins, go ahead. You can likewise ask if Game X is worth buying, because it's never bad to ask for tips when it comes to financial considerations.

The only rules are the standard ones of the Forest- so avoid profanity-laden tirades against FFXIII, and no double-posting pictures of Shin Megami Tensei's Mara (a very sexual joke demon to put it without graphic detail). And of course if this topic dies long enough for permadeath, no Kazings, Max Revives, Nectars, Phoenix Downs, Samarecarms or Necromas allowed- the natural course of topic lives should be respected.

 

All of this taken care of, I'll start.

Two days ago, I began Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga 2 nonstop, and while it's been several years since I beat DDS1, I'm enjoying it. A good memory means I recall the basics of the plot, although now that I think about it, DDS1 might have ended on a cliffhanger, but it didn't exactly give one too many specifics and totally separate storylines to follow up on, which is good for me. I didn't have any transfer data, so no bonus rings or stat boosts or skills or ultimate superboss or Hard Mode, but I don't mind too much, the plot, gameplay, and characters of DDS2 are likable enough I wanted to see it through regardless.

I'm presently up to what is apparently the penultimate dungeon (yeah the game is short- but with DDS1, the story is fairly lengthy), I went in some distance for karma, money, mantra grinding, then came out about to hunt the optional boss quartet, which I cannot do after I finish this dungeon I hear. I took out the first two, the second seems from what I've read to be a watered down version of the ultimate superboss, what with Charm and Mamudoon when I can only apply one shield spell, plus every other status ailment for this one. I know the basic idea of what will happening with my crew upon completion of the penultimate dungeon, but not the details of how and why it happens.

Overall, I've felt the game might move a little too fast plot-wise, it takes place over what, less than a week, maybe in just three days? But it works, owing much to DDS 1 taking care of defining the characters and dangling things left unexplained at you. It's revelation after revelation for much of DDS2, and I can say I do like the revelations. Now to speak in spoilers:

Spoiler

I loved the reveal of the original Serph, Argilla and Heat. True Serph being a talkative abusive villain and True Heat the one who has Sera's real interests in mind was fantastic. It was main hero "betrayal", albeit of an individual who isn't actually the same one. I also right away remembered the knockoff Disney castle from DDS1, the story of the Good Prince and Bad Prince is the story of the Real Serph and Heat. The "Good" Prince who in a fatal moment turns out to be evil is obviously True Serph, while the "Bad" Prince who is really good was True Heat. Argilla being a nurse brainwashed by Serph to keep Heat in check was good for evil Serph, not quite so meaningful for her. I would have liked her stronger. There is also the issue of why teenagers get to be elite medical professionals on a special project, but I can ignore that.

Cielo is only implied by an NPC, but I'm fortunate I found it out, apparently he was a talented Cyber Shaman candidate. That Sera placed him in her pre-Junkyard cyber world (which the beach scene is obviously part of given hair colors in that scene, it also makes the unrealistic hair colors a little parody of how video games include them) means they must have interacted at least some of the time, enough to leave a cherished impression.

Because I have no transfer, I can't get Heat back, and this game really made me like Heat more than I did in DDS1 once the revelations surfaced, but oh well. Roland is good too, and that initial scene with him and Gale was just wickedly tense and good!

I do like that SAHC (haven't discovered the truth of Gale yet- should be soon obviously) are AIs based on real people, and not just those people uploaded into a program like you'd expect. The virtual Junkyard move was also neat, and explains the title "Digital Devil Saga", besides being a reference to the original Megami Tensei light novels. Makes the first game feel so... hollow, illusory to realize it was just some terabytes that anyone in the Karma Society could have watched on a monitor. I don't get how SAHC left the world, or how Sera and Angel entered the world in the first place. But the emphasis on the universe being data, and virtual and real a matter of perspective when you think about it, gives me an excuse even if the plot doesn't explain this more.

As for Brahma, yes I learned of God's name, that of the final boss located in the Sun, and knew a little about God being incomprehensible to the mortal mind before starting, but not anything beyond that. I've heard some people dislike Brahma, and while I can't totally critique Brahma not having finished the game yet, I'm fine with him. I'm familiar with the concept of God being beyond mortal comprehension, and to see a game actually try this is different and I'm looking forward to seeing how it concludes this. Angel and Madame Cuvier provide some human villains to cover the comprehensible, which you need lest you're being totally avant garde with a narrative. I trust Atlus to handle this properly, since gods and religion are their forte, if not always executed well.

Speaking of Angel and Cuvier, well Cuvier died too soon, but she did state her ideological platform. DDS1 comes off as very dystopian for young adults, which in cinema has been very popular in the past few years, with the literary works which the movies are built on having begun years beforehand, not sure how late DDS was compared to the literary dystopian trend. DDS2 begins on a dystopian note, but Atlus overturns this with Cuvier's death and God's data satellites and turns into a story about God and Man. Even before that, Cuvier and Angel were, as Roland literally states "extreme law" and "extreme chaos", with him wanting neither. Atlus placed in its dystopia the three classic SMT alignments, but then with the events of EGG1 overthrows that with the dystopia narrative for the God one. All so very fascinating.

Speaking of gameplay, well had I played right after DDS, it'd be a bit repetitive since it's basically the same thing, but I like SMT gameplay and with the chronological distance, it isn't tedious. DDS is in a way better than regular SMT, since demon fusion can be a headache at times. The dungeon design is quite poor compared to Nocturne and DDS1, many long bland hallways, but I can get through this. I guess it stems from DDS2 releasing only six months after DDS1. The music is good, lighter and faster than DDS1's, perhaps befitting the narrative change. But why does the screen shake in some outdoor locations? A noticeable, if ultimately minor technical error.

Hope to finish this game by next Thursday at the latest, with all the superbosses I can slay, slain. I tend to slow down my play pace as I approach the end of a game though, I'm notorious for not finishing right before the final boss. I speculate I don't want the fantasy to end by finishing the game.

[Slumber]

I enjoyed DDS1. Even beat Beelzebub and got the rings that would transfer to DDS2. I couldn't get into 2 for whatever reason. 

I'm waiting for Dragon Quest XI in September. I'm gonna be reaaaaaal interested in how the PC version pans out. 

[Stroud]

DDS1 and 2 were pretty good. Sadly I played DDS2 until the last dungeon and stopped there... This is a bad habit of mine in some games.
But Serph/Sera are characters who I will truly remind in future. I also was a bit disappointed of the SMT x Fire Emblem game, how it turned out. Because I had my expectations. 
But I think no matter how I felt, the path they have gone was more profitable. 

I think this year has some solid newcomers, with DQ XI finally appearing world wide I think I have something to do.

I'm also waiting for Ys 8 with its switch release, the Steam version was disastrous. The Port was pretty bad. Glad I'm waiting for the other release. 
I can recommend Ys if you truly like action rpg's which are fast paced. There is also a game which came out on the SNES which is not known so well in North America, which was Terranigma (Tenchi Souzou). RPG gourmets will know this and it is a shame that Square-Enix does not even consider to bring it out again, even if I don't know because the studio which created the soul blazer series closed it's doors long ago.

One of the biggest rpg,s of my youth was breath of fire 3. In my opinion this game was the biggest title from its series. But like certain other J-rpgs it has gone down. I think that bof dragon quarters was not that bad how some people see it, but they had such a good direction in bof3. Which is why I do not understand that they did not enhance what they build. The dragon transformation was also the best in the third game. 

There are also j-rpgs which feel unfulfilled for me. Golden Sun and Lufia are games which you could say got axed in certain points. 
In case of Lufia it may be ok, because it has something of a mystery if you think about Alekdias (Arek) who stood above the sinistrals. But there was never a chance to fight him or get into contact with him in any game. The remake was a little bit disappointing, but not gameplay wise. There are too many cutoffs and the places are too artificial that there was missing something. 

And for Golden Sun, Alex is the same as Alekdias, a potential last enemy which you will never fight. Even worse is the tease for a next title which is unlikely to come out after all these years. It is a pity, but just tells that the game has flopped so much that there is nothing to gain for camelot. Such is the way for some rpg,s.

Another false promise btw is Valkyrie Profile : Hrist, in the DS strategy game Hrist complained that she is the only one of the 3 who has not her own game. And there was a tease that one day she will get her chance. Which is a bummer, because Hrist is my favorite after Lenneth. I know that there is a smartphone game now, but after Rise of Mana I won't play Gacha games anymore which are mend to be japan only.

Mana Series gains at least some recognition, just the "fanbase" is bugging me a bit. Because they did not care about Seiken Densetsu at all and only did know of Secret of Mana. At least many. I may be to salty about it, but I think if they had known more about the series they wouldn't have put Secret of Mana in such a bad light, which was unfair. And it is also something which reminded me that I should take reviewers and especially some known youtubers with a grain of salt. Some badmouthed the game so much that it had a bad influence on the selling. And worse they didn't even know anything about the game and complained about an unfinished product. 
My thinking is that if such titles gain more recognition, Square-Enix will see to invest more for them and maybe a new Seiken Densetsu could come to light. But this just will not happen. At least I can still hope that they make a Seiken Densetsu 3 remake.

One game I also will look at is Octopath traveler in the future for one good reason. I'm a fan of the Saga Series, which is definitely at least one inspiration for Octopath traveler, also a shame how little known it is, but I won't give the salt at the players. I have to admit that for some games Square-Enix just was not good in marketing and Saga is also a game which is hard to adapt to, because of its unique training system, which has parallels to Final Fantasy 2.
The good thing about Saga was that your team building was completely up to you. And you really have to explore the world. The best games were Romancing Saga 1-3, Saga Frontier and Saga Frontier 2. I think Saga Frontier  1-2 were the best games of the series. Especially Saga Frontier 2 was really nice in its story telling. 

That's it. I just wanted to let a bit steam of on the topic. 

 

[JSND Alter Dragon Boner]

I love JRPG because of how the game's pace is set, making it easy to play on the go with doing something else

 

Lately i've been mostly playing EO5 though. On my 3rd run of the game right now plans to make Tier list for the game for lulz and i think i've used most class in the game so far, only missing some. Thankfully the remaining ones seems to have ok enough synergy

 

ALSO 4 DAYS AGO STRANGE JOURNEY!

definitely gonna see if i could pick it up in a week or so next time i get an opportunity to go to a game store

Edited May 18, 2018 by JSND Alter Dragon Boner

[Emeraldfox]

I've been playing The Alliance Alive since last Saturday and I love it(rightfully so, been waiting for it since it was announced for Japan). Unfortunatley that meant I put EO5, The Legend of Legacy and Ever Oasis on hold.

 

Also I want to plug Eternal Sonata because it's great and y'all should play it if you can.

[Armagon]

In the middle of still playing Xenoblade 2 because that game has a ton of content, not counting the Expansion Pass stuff (which i just bought) and also playing through Trails in the Sky the 3rd, i am also playing through two Tales games, those being Tales of Phantasia and Tales of the Abyss. My experience with Tales is a strange one. I've seen most of the anime adaptations (mainly the Symphonia, Abyss, and Zestriria animes) and i enjoyed them a lot, especially the characters. However, now i've actually tried playing the games and, for some reason, i'm just not having the motivation to finish either Phantasia or Abyss.....but i will because they aren't bad games. My main issue is the combat, specifically, the 2D method that Phantasia and Abyss use. I actually played one hour of Zestiria at a friend's house and that game uses a 3D combat system. I had way more fun in the one hour of Zestiria than i did in the 5-7-ish hours i played of Phantasia and Abyss, which i guess means that i find the 3D battle system to be much more enjoyable. My biggest gripe with Phantasia though is that whenever a character uses magic, you have to wait for the magic animation to play out before anyone (you and enemies) can move again and in an action RPG, that just breaks the flow.

Characters though, those are good. Characters are the Tales' series strongest point imo.

[Soledai]

Mara doesn't even qualify as a joke, let alone a good one... Though, we can just chalk it up to small things amusing small minds. Also I'll make one sentence of Motoi Sakuraba: WAS good(or at least listenable), IS terrible.

6 minutes ago, Stroud said:

Another false promise btw is Valkyrie Profile : Hrist, in the DS strategy game Hrist complained that she is the only one of the 3 who has not her own game. And there was a tease that one day she will get her chance. Which is a bummer, because Hrist is my favorite after Lenneth. I know that there is a smartphone game now, but after Rise of Mana I won't play Gacha games anymore which are mend to be japan only.

And even if you were going to play it, I would try to talk you out of it. That game is heavily, blatantly, geared stupidly towards P2W and it's not even trying to be remotely subtle about at all. F2Pers have a hard time getting things done in that game, as I understand it.

Also the plot is around Lenneth anyhow. So does this mean that Hrist is the Asagi(Makai/Disgaea series) of the Valkyrie Profile series, minus being annoying as hell?

 

6 minutes ago, Armagon said:

2D method that Phantasia and Abyss use

Uh... I mean, I know it's been a few years since I played Abyss, but.......... Something seems a little off about that.

[Dark Holy Elf]

I went through a period from the late 90's to the late 00's where RPGs (JRPGs if you insist; I come from a time where we just called 'em RPGs) were my absolute favourite genre. So many games I could gush about.

I'm not really so into them these days; too many seem to focus on either exploration or weird pandery dating elements, neither of which I care for at all. If we don't consider Fire Emblem or Undertale JRPGs, then I haven't played one I've really liked since... mm. Bravely Default was pretty cool certainly, though not flawless. I love FF5 (speaking of which: four job fiesta coming up soon~) so cribbing off of it tends to put a game in a good place for me.

I've played two so far this year: Cosmic Star Heroine and I Am Setsuna. Both pretty decent for what they are, and both games knew not to overstay their welcome. CSH had very fun gameplay though the system was probably too slanted towards the player, but the writing was forgettable. I Am Setsuna had some neat story/character ideas, though not always well-executed, and a solid re-imagining of the Chrono Trigger battle system, though with some nagging polish flaws and too easy.

[Dark Holy Elf]

1 minute ago, Soledai said:

Uh... I mean, I know it's been a few years since I played Abyss, but.......... Something seems a little off about that.

It's... complicated. Abyss used the 2D system of Symphonia but pasted a weird 3D "free run" mechanic into it where you could temporarily run around on a 3D plane (and also get out of pretty much any trouble). The system was part of what put me off of Tales for a while. I've heard praise for some newer ones (particularly... Zestria? I can't keep the names straight) but haven't been willing to give the series a chance since since I keep hearing that all the games are really long and I don't like that.

[Stroud]

6 minutes ago, Soledai said:

And even if you were going to play it, I would try to talk you out of it. That game is heavily, blatantly, geared stupidly towards P2W and it's not even trying to be remotely subtle about at all. F2Pers have a hard time getting things done in that game, as I understand it.

Also the plot is around Lenneth anyhow. So does this mean that Hrist is the Asagi(Makai/Disgaea series) of the Valkyrie Profile series, minus being annoying as hell?

Seems that I don't miss anything. I stay true to being F2P, I think that square-enix is generally focused on P2W in Gacha games. D= But maybe there is a game from them that is different. I don't know.

Yeah, now that I think of it Hrist turns out to be like Asagi. But it's true in Disgaea she is one of my least favorite characters, its like they forcing her in. They have many cool characters but she is not D=.

[Von Ithipathachai]

2 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

DDS is in a way better than regular SMT, since demon fusion can be a headache at times.

Awwwww.  See, I kind of feel the opposite way.  Demon fusion is one of my favorite aspects of MegaTen and one of the main reasons I enjoy it in the first place, so the Digital Devil Saga games have been very low-priority for me.  I even like to make my own spreadsheets to help me do fusion because it makes me feel more connected to the game.

Prior to being a MegaTen fan, I was trying to get into Final Fantasy, having beaten FF1, 4, and 6 (I was not versed in emulators yet, which is why I skipped around).  The last Final Fantasy game I played was 7, and while I like its gameplay more than I did 6's, I had bought a bad copy of the game that kept crashing on the unskippable date scene.  I ended up playing up to that point from the beginning twice in the hope that doing the scene with a different person would make it work.  But it didn't, and so I got quite burned out on Final Fantasy.  It was at that point that I picked up Shin Megami Tensei IV, and I haven't looked back since.

Among my other favorite RPGs are EarthBound and EarthBound Beginnings, although I actually don't like Mother 3 that much.  Lagrange Point for the NES is also a game I had fun with.

[Armagon]

27 minutes ago, Soledai said:

Uh... I mean, I know it's been a few years since I played Abyss, but.......... Something seems a little off about that.

As Dark Holy Elf mentioned, Abyss is more along the lines of 2.5D. You can run on a 3D plane when switching enemies. But yeah, the 2D battle system feels restrictive to me, which is why i haven't enjoyed Phantasia and Abyss as much as i thought i would, gameplay-wise.

__

In other news, Hyperdimension Neptuna is coming to the Switch. I've been interested in the series for a while so now i'll finally have a chance to play them. I do remember watching the anime and enjoying it. Speaking of animes, a few months ago, i watched the Xenosaga Episode 1, as i have no way of playing the games at the moment. A Xenosaga Trilogy remaster would be nice, Namco. And Square Enix, a Xenogears remaster is very much needed though the small pessimistic side of me is afraid they'll just make a shitty mobile remake like they did with Chrono Trigger.

[Soledai]

31 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

It's... complicated. Abyss used the 2D system of Symphonia but pasted a weird 3D "free run" mechanic into it where you could temporarily run around on a 3D plane (and also get out of pretty much any trouble). The system was part of what put me off of Tales for a while. I've heard praise for some newer ones (particularly... Zestria? I can't keep the names straight) but haven't been willing to give the series a chance since since I keep hearing that all the games are really long and I don't like that.

Oh I know, I just never thought of it as 2D, because of free run. Also, you might be thinking of Berseria, because I don't actually recall hearing anything good about Zesty, except from those people who just... like everything. I can't personally comment on Zesty though, since I dropped off Tales since whatever was before Xillia. I'm strictly an old school Tales boy, just gimme Destiny Director's Cut and I'm good.

25 minutes ago, Stroud said:

Seems that I don't miss anything. I stay true to being F2P, I think that square-enix is generally focused on P2W in Gacha games. D= But maybe there is a game from them that is different. I don't know.

Yeah, now that I think of it Hrist turns out to be like Asagi. But it's true in Disgaea she is one of my least favorite characters, its like they forcing her in. They have many cool characters but she is not D=.

Dissidia Opera Omnia is quite F2P friendly, strictly SE speaking.

If it counts, Asagi did get her own game, sadly, it's mobage gacha nonsense... bright side is that it's quite F2P friendly as well.

7 minutes ago, Armagon said:

As Dark Holy Elf mentioned, Abyss is more along the lines of 2.5D. You can run on a 3D plane when switching enemies. But yeah, the 2D battle system feels restrictive to me, which is why i haven't enjoyed Phantasia and Abyss as much as i thought i would, gameplay-wise.

Well, tbf we're taking about a game that's recent-ish and two games that are... not so recent, so the combat is gonna feel like night and day. Also you can hold a button and run around freely, it's not just switching enemies, just in case you were unawares.

[Dark Holy Elf]

1 hour ago, Soledai said:

Also, you might be thinking of Berseria, because I don't actually recall hearing anything good about Zesty

Yep, you're right, it's Berseria. As a non-player of most of the series it's difficult to keep the names straight!

[Interdimensional Observer]

2 hours ago, Von Ithipathachai said:

Awwwww.  See, I kind of feel the opposite way.  Demon fusion is one of my favorite aspects of MegaTen and one of the main reasons I enjoy it in the first place, so the Digital Devil Saga games have been very low-priority for me. 

I can get this. I think it depends on the game for me. I started with the Devil Survivors and SMTIV, both of which have very free and flexible inheritance systems. I can easily have good demons with all the elemental attacks, healing, and support coverage I want- I completed the compendiums in these three games. Though even here I do fret a bit about what I'm going to fuse into what, making sure I'm not wasting my precious trained demons. Nocturne was largely fine as well, and I liked Sacrifice Fusions, but I did use the wiki to check the skills every demon learns upon leveling, since leveling is a slow process for demons in Nocturne.

SJ has been the biggest pain, since getting perfect-ish demons isn't easy owing to strict inheritance rules, (although that isn't a bad concept, killing perfection), and once I use a D-Source, which makes fusion more flexible, the likelihood of getting another is very low, so they're practically a finite resource. I'm afraid I'll run out of them eventually, but I guess I could just password it if I was that desperate. I've been using a 3-element Vodynik since Bootes and I'm in Eridanus- that's Demon Co-Ops for you! Compendium? Macca makes the world go round, and me cautious about who I spend it on.

I can enjoy fusion, half the time it's fun, the other half it's maddening. I don't like doing super-intensive fusion all the time, I mostly stick to some crutches that'll last me a while, and sometimes the crutches take time to make.

Since you've obtained Soul Hackers, I can only imagine the fun you'll have with the Zoma.

 

2 hours ago, JSND Alter Dragon Boner said:

Lately i've been mostly playing EO5 though. On my 3rd run of the game right now plans to make Tier list for the game for lulz and i think i've used most class in the game so far, only missing some. Thankfully the remaining ones seems to have ok enough synergy

3 runs? Wow. I've plans for two runs when I get the game, the second using the 5 classes I won't be using on the first. But first, gotta finish EO2U. And then maybe do a "Mature Ladies" team- Dark Hunter, War Magus, Highlander, Alchemist, Medic, all using the portraits that look like grown women, this is only EO where I think this is possible. But a run of EO takes a good deal of time, and I'm not sure if I'm willing to devote it.

EOX should be just as fun for you with 19, enough for just short of four different teams. I'm already thinking of, with thoughts of Sonic Adventure 2 in my mind, doing a Hero Team on one run, and Dark Team on another. I was also thinking on how the Hero's new afterimages ability use an empty party slot in battle, which means I shouldn't run one on the same team as a shadow clone Ninja.

Hero Team would be something like: Hero, Protector, Farmer (working the land has long been lauded as honorable pursuit), Sovereign, Medic. Overly defensive....

Dark Team would be something like: Ninja, Nightseeker, Harbinger, War Magus, and I guess.... well the old man Shogun has that glowing red demonic eyes variant. Seems balanced. 

 

2 hours ago, Armagon said:

My biggest gripe with Phantasia though is that whenever a character uses magic, you have to wait for the magic animation to play out before anyone (you and enemies) can move again and in an action RPG, that just breaks the flow.

Phantasia was the first Tales, on the SNES of all things, handicaps on the system is expectable, if tedious and abusable (I have locked and bossed have locked me using magic). I wouldn't call it the best Tales though, and the GBA port is the only official English version, but darned it is slow. Even when Tales transitioned to 3D, a spell queue remained, at least initially, you won't see more than two advanced spells on the field at any time in Abyss, it was only one in Symphonia, any spells being cast that fall into the highly technical category at delayed until the animations of current ones are over/near over.

 

2 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

I've heard praise for some newer ones (particularly... Zestria? I can't keep the names straight) but haven't been willing to give the series a chance since since I keep hearing that all the games are really long and I don't like that.

Zestria, and both Xillias, are generally considered poor games. Berseria is the latest good one, Graces also gets a lot of praise, but only for the battle system, the plot is painfully safe friendship magic. Symphonia on the other hand gets a lot of plot praise (as does Abyss), but hasn't aged quite so well in gameplay. Vesperia seems to rank highly as well, but whose idea was it to not bring the PS3 release out of Japan?

Length is an issue, I count 28 places I could count as "dungeons" in ToS (some of which have intensive puzzles), which leaves out visits to various towns, lots of plot chatter and skits, walking over the world map, and sidequests (some easily missable sans guide- a signature of the franchise). Child me had the time for this, the time to do this multiple times, but nowadays, it's too much. Graces I don't think was too long, though the child arc at the start is dragged out a little.

 

2 hours ago, Emeraldfox said:

Also I want to plug Eternal Sonata because it's great and y'all should play it if you can.

I enjoyed it, the battle system too a little too long to fully unlock itself, as in "optionally after defeating the second to last boss", and the plot was a little too much Allegretto and little kids and not enough Chopin. Not to mention what I find to be one of the most infamous scenes in gaming

Spoiler

Claves's death. That is so drawn out, way more than it has to be. But it's so bad, it's good. Thank goodness it wasn't Viola who needlessly suffered.

But otherwise, the game looked nice and generally played well, somewhere between full action and classic turn-based. Musically it was good, and I liked the Chopin bits, the ending, partly because of the music, made me want to cry. Need to find a file to start an Encore mode run with (which has the gameplay full unlocked from the start), since I lost mine.

[Dark Holy Elf]

15 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Length is an issue, I count 28 places I could count as "dungeons" in ToS (some of which have intensive puzzles), which leaves out visits to various towns, lots of plot chatter and skits, walking over the world map, and sidequests (some easily missable sans guide- a signature of the franchise). Child me had the time for this, the time to do this multiple times, but nowadays, it's too much.

Yep, I've only played Symphonia/Abyss (and only finished the latter). By the time I got to the Tales games I was in my 20's and already didn't really appreciate their brand of padding/dragging. Though to be honest, I really didn't like those games much on gameplay either. Plot... mm, I won't comment on Symphonia. Abyss had two characters I really liked (Luke and Tear) but the overarching plot had way too many wallbanger moments and was way too dragged out.

[Armagon]

22 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Phantasia was the first Tales, on the SNES of all things, handicaps on the system is expectable, if tedious and abusable (I have locked and bossed have locked me using magic).

I'm aware of the SNES and GBA versions but the one i'm playing is actually the PS1 version thanks to a fan-translation patch. Which, i hear is the best version. Unless there's a remake i'm missing. It's still a decent game but it's the magic animations that are my biggest issue.

Also the fact that i reached a point in Moria Mine where the game doesn't tell me that i have to backtrack to a village in God knows where and then go to the cave past it to find the Sorcerer's Ring so you can shoot a switch to progress through the mine. I literally would not have known what to do without a guide but at least it's not Xenogears Anima Dungeon 2, that was probably the worst part of that game.

That reminds me, why are the Skits in the PS1 version of Phantasia voiced but not the Skits in Abyss? My biggest criticism of Abyss is not that the Skits aren't voice acted but because the text during them moves......so.........slow. Even if you set message speed to 0 (0 is the fastest option while 9 is the slowest....it's one of those games), the text during Skits still moves slower than the tectonic plates.

___

I'm curious as to any possible pet peeves within the genre that people have. For me, it's when they don't give you a map/mini-map in dungeons. Negative bonus points if it's a game with random encounters. I like knowing where i'm going and running into dead ends with random encounters is not fun. It's why, out of the three games in the Trails in the Sky trilogy, 3rd is my favorite since you actually have a mini-map for most of the game (though that's due to the structure of the game. I hear Cold Steel finally adds mini-maps in dungeons for real).

Edited May 19, 2018 by Armagon

[Slumber]

3 minutes ago, Armagon said:

I'm curious as to any possible pet peeves within the genre that people have. For me, it's when they don't give you a map/mini-map in dungeons. Negative bonus points if it's a game with random encounters. I like knowing where i'm going and running into dead ends with random encounters is not fun. It's why, out of the three games in the Trails in the Sky trilogy, 3rd is my favorite since you actually have a mini-map for most of the game (though that's due to the structure of the game. I hear Cold Steel finally adds mini-maps in dungeons for real).

Pet peeve #1 is bad characters. The story could suck, the voice acting can be bad, and even some questionable game design is all somewhat acceptable(Though a combination of those things can sink any game) as long as the characters I'm following for dozens of hours are worth caring about. 

Final Fantasy X and XIII are two of my least favorite games in the franchise simply because of how loathsome I find a large portion of the casts in those games. I couldn't bring myself to really like the improvements to the traditional turn-based combat X brought, and I couldn't like the... hmm, I'm drawing a blank on anything good XIII did, but the characters, first and foremost, are my biggest complaint with XIII. Something about the way Motomu Toriyama directs his game is just awful, and it hits the characters of his games the hardest. 

While we're on the subject of ToS, part of the reason I can't get into it is because of how much I hate the "idiot shonen protagonist" archetype, and the game immediately tosses a bunch of other character cliches I hate at you. 

[Armagon]

14 minutes ago, Slumber said:

Pet peeve #1 is bad characters. The story could suck, the voice acting can be bad, and even some questionable game design is all somewhat acceptable(Though a combination of those things can sink any game) as long as the characters I'm following for dozens of hours are worth caring about. 

Honestly, same. Characters are probably the most important aspect of a JRPG imo and while i have yet to play a JRPG where i don't care about the majority of the characters (apart from where it doesn't matter like in Pokemon, more on that later), it's something i have encountered in a few movies, books and anime and it makes me drop them. It's also why i don't completely hate the writing in FE Fates because there's at least several characters i can care about.

Reason i brought up Pokemon is because i feel that for that series, story and characters are a bonus. Even though Platinum actually added plot to the series, i don't think anyone plays the series for story. Maybe for the characters but for me, the Pokemon themselves are more important.

Then you have games like 7th Dragon III: Code VFD and early Final Fantasy where most of the characters are NPC and the party you control is built from the ground up by you. So in games like that, character quality doesn't matter imo.

[Reality]

I mean I've made it clear recently that I've gotten deeply into Western RPGs, and a big part of it is an appreciation for gameplay and mechanics > story.

There are 3 really offensive JRPGs to me. All 3 of them are good as individual games, but as series, I think they cause severe damage to their genre.

Dragon Quest/ Warrior

In the beggining, there was Wizardry.  Dragon Warrior is a really tremendous game, but one of the most obvious things in the Western>Japanese traditions is the way stats and level ups are handled - In a normal D&D derived setup, The only "Hard" stat that improves on level up is HP,  and most of the benefits of level ups are to "soft" stats, such as Thaco or spell slots. Stat-gating, if it appears at all, is done through equipment rather than charather level. Dragon Warrior (and in ripple effect, almost every RPG) put Hard Stats (attack, defense, speed,etc) into the level up system.

Perhaps this does makes low-level gameplay quicker. But the cost of it is obvious in a huge variety of ways - the level grind, threshold based gameplay, the way some gamess seesaw between either having impossible difficulty if underleveled or trivial difficulty if On-level or over with no middle ground: All due to stats being moved from core to an attainable resource. Obvously, both good and bad results. But I do think that accepting this as "baseline" without reflection is dangerous - many younger RPG players probbably don't even consider that "Hard" stats wouldn't be affected by  level up. The extent of this has even long ago filtered back into Western RPGs (4E D&D and 5E D&D sometimes being called "gamelike" not even being the tip of the iceberg)   - I like Dragon Quest  3, 8, and 9 well enough (6 and 7's fanbase I understand but I think the length of the game helps you forget the painfully slow start ... 3 hours before the first combat with slimes lol) 

Final Fantasy 5 -

Final Fantasy started out with deeper roots in D&D systems than DQ, and the first game even had a kind of spell slot system. Really though, FF 1-4 do not bother me as such, as I can see them as a continuaton of the Dragon Warrior trend(and 4 is quite fun in its own right). My main gripe with Final Fantasy is how it developed from 5 onwards. I largely regard FF5 as being the major player in a paradigm shift across the majority of Japanese RPGs. 

FE5 heralds a new kind balancing curve for JRPGs by bringing major class customization into the "norm" rather than the "exception" for major RPGs (I know about DW3, Saga, etc) However, this comes at a steep price - there can be no "wrong" option and a second imperative seems to have gone out at the same time - All players must be able to see all content, regardless of their ability.

FF5, 6, 7, 8, 9 are all, (some more infamously than others) very easy games casually, and filled to the brim with broken combinations, etc. All of them have battle systems which are really interesting on paper, and even in practice before your resources get too out of control, but in practice, you don't actually need to explore any of the battle systems to any real degree, because the enemies simply aren't worth it. As beloved as Kefka and Sephiroth are as charathers, as boss fights they almost laughable. (I honestly think Safer Sephiroth was intentionally given enough HP to use Meteor once and die 2 turns against an expected casual party) Kefka's world of ruin is great, but as it telegraphs where the point of no return is, it's almost impossible not to collect your old party members and inadverdtendly pick up chainsaw, or the heavy duty magic for Sprite form , or a number of other things . 7,8,9 really don't need much explanation.  But the real tragedy is the kind of chain impact this haves on other RPGs of the time period (and obviously many Sqaure Enix ones among them). This kind of "deep" class/combat system appears again in again, but almost no RPG dared to risk making "Any" party unusable, so the. . A particularly bad offender results in a game like Chrono Cross, with it's field color and spell slot system being fascinating, but almost irreleavnt casually since you can just use Fierce attacks constantly (with eagle eye at the most) through all  of the game with no problem, and mid-lategame even further encourages you with autocrit weapons like the mastermune and einhander... 

This mechanic depth>encounter/difficulty depth paradigm still has fun (and great) games, but I feel that it was a bit toxic for it to happen in what many people associate with "main" RPGs, as it reeks of "light RPG". At best, the games are only broken with combinations (at which point they become puzzle-box RPGs) but at worst, paricularly in class-changing games, the anyone is viable hing inadverdetly also lets in the most boring, least engaging gameplay - The 3 physical beaters+1 healer "Mash X to win party". In a way, the low difficulty betrrays the mechanical depth of many RPGs from the mid 4th generation to 6th generation SNES/PS1/PS2/GCN - when the simpllest solution works... the potential and beatuy don't really matter anymore.

Fire Emblem -

It would be more naturally to expect YS here as, Falcom/Nihon is the other traditional RPG giant in Japan. However, I find that Nihon's games were open about presenting themselves as "light crpgs" perhaps partly because they were originally for home computers and thus had to face off against imported "hard" rpgs. This was not the case with Dragon Warrior / Final Fantasy on console, as stated earlier, which is why they marketed themselves the way they did.

From Kaga's day, Fire Emblem was in a weird position, especially early on. It actually evolved more heavily out of famicom wars than the proto-srpgs (langrisser/warsong, etc) did, hence giving the subgenre the name T(actical)RPG in Japan as opposed to the SRPG more commonly used by English speakers. However, in  developing this swcond parallel tradition (and eventually displacing the first), Fire Emblem opened itself up to unfavorable comparisions right away... The most pressing of all of these, is relative unit fragility between the player and enemy. It goes without saying for most of the franchise, that the problem of the enemy outnumbering the player and not having to deal with resources, was addressed by making the few units the player has... have a lot more potential than enemy units. In theory, the large numbers of weak enemy units would balance out with the fewer player units. But in practice.... it kind of robbed Fire Emblem of lots of growth potential, in the ability to create specific map challenges, etc. Historically, the SFAC FE game's were more open to this kind of criticism than the FAM games... I'm mostly refering to the Hiroyuki Takahashi's famous criticism of Fire Emblem (The Shining Force lead developor)  Shining Force developed from the earlier SRPG tradition, abd is an SRPG without permadeath, and therefore it is free to have generic enemies with semi-meaty stats, and fairly difficult boss battles. While I do not think SF1 has ideal balancing or anything, compared to FE3 and FE4, it's a bit noticable how primitive encounters are in the latter...  

I also feel (and this is an observation more unique to me) that FAM FE1 's release 4 and 6 years after Pool of Radiance and Rebelstar (Julian Gropp's early game that would evolve into XCOM) is kind of daming of it's simplicity - Not it's decision to simplifly mechanics (Pool of Radiance indeed would be more interesting with ust it's battle engine  than the dungeon crawling part) There was a market and artstici need for a game that did that... But FE1 other (less emphasized) influence, led to the thoughtless adoption of a level up system, and the result was that besides the beneficial simplication of mechanics/interface, the combat and encounter design was also simplified. 

 Fire Emblem's growth is also comical compared to the other two -  While the state of Pool of Radiance, Rebelstar, and Fire Emblem in 1988 can rightly be said to not really mattter, the much quicker evolution of the former cannot be blown off so easily. I think Timestamping a couple periods is illustrative-

(1999-2002) - FE6(2002), XCOM (1995), and Temple of Elemental Evil(2003)  - 

(2012-2015 )-  FE13(2012), Firaxis XCOM(2012), and Divinity:  OS(2014).

(I could go closer to SSI derived RPGs in Temple of Evil's place, but it's not really going to make FE6 look like a larger evolution, especially as FE4 and FE5 actually hamered out most of what it retained other than support conversations and some minor things...)

In 2001 - Ai and map improvements were basically non-existent, and the mechanical changes to combat math in the modern doubling formula, and things like support conversations and  rescue command are not really enough to say that the sub-genre represented by FE has moed foward. Meanwhile, the Pool of Radiance type of RPG and the Rebelstar type of strategy game have already left hard grids behind (not to mention dozens of other things). 

In 2013 - FE - Support conversations have been re-balanced to grow faster, and thus the hit/avoid buffs they bring actually factor into normal gameplay instead of being a grind only feature. Skill System. The Maps in FE11-13 on Normal Mode have not moved forward whatsoever. FE11-12's higher modes show off the promise of simplicity, simply by eshewing the usual combat design due to the forged and stat capped enemies, while FE13's L+ has gone into a direction that makes it into a kind of puzzlebox metagame where unit placements is less important than pre-preparation and getting skills and reclasses needed on a few units. Both require considerably more player effor than what has come before, but... this is quite a small step for the genre rather than an evolution. Meanwhile Firaxis's XCOM and Divinity:OS... well the scope of the change they bring to their respective sub-genres is kind of hard to understate. 

 

 

 

[Soledai]

A pet peeve is probably bad characters as well. I don't mind a "bad" story, in some cases.

Also, I don't mind not having a mini-map, mostly due from being from that era of gaming where we didn't have that too often. But in that case, unless it's intentional to not have that area mapped out, I could do with a hotkey or a shortcut button to opening up a map... and well, anything else.

Another pet peeve, one of my bigger ones, games in this day and age that don't have a soft-reset feature, and no button mapping. Especially when it's a series that typically has it(whichever), then there's that one game that just doesn't and it's just so jarring.

EDIT: Got a little broad there with that second one, tee hee.

Edited May 19, 2018 by Soledai

[Harvey]

Currently playing Grandia 2 on Steam. Not exactly sure if its a remaster because its just a port but so far, the game is fun. 

I'm having a bit of an issue on understanding some of its mechanics such as how to unlock certain moves, what the IP stat does and how the spell elements work. I guess through time, all that can be answered.

 

[Slumber]

1 hour ago, Armagon said:

Then you have games like 7th Dragon III: Code VFD and early Final Fantasy where most of the characters are NPC and the party you control is built from the ground up by you. So in games like that, character quality doesn't matter imo.

Yeah, there are definitely ways to get around having bad characters, like simply not having static main characters. If a game can carry itself well enough, it can pull that off really well. Dragon Quest 3 is one of my favorites in the series, and it's all generated NPCs. Unlike Dragon Quest 7 and 8, which have characters I really like, Dragon Quest 3 manages to sit alongside them as my 3 favorite games in the series, simply because Dragon Quest 3 excels at something that in general makes the DQ games stand out from other JRPGs. It's probably the best at feeling like a grand adventure.

Which, for people who haven't played and don't really know what Dragon Quest is about, I think is worth going over.

Dragon Quest is generally a lot more open and less structured than most other JRPG franchises. Whereas a lot of other JRPG franchises tend to be very rigidly structured "Point A to Point B" kind of stuff with a ton of side quests and stuff, Dragon Quest kind of obscures this a bit. There's still point A to point B stuff, especially in more recent DQ games, but it's never shoved in your face quite as much as something like a Final Fantasy. Dragon Quest is more of a "We have to stop this evil jester! He went east. Figure the rest for yourself." kind of game. It leaves a lot for you to figure out for yourself, and not in an annoying way. Most of the time you'll just just be off killing monsters, following the road without a real lead to be had, and you'll see a town and sometimes suddenly you stumble onto the plot. Or maybe you explore a cave and you just randomly find a key item to a quest that you haven't even started yet.

It's a very unique feel that I don't many modern JRPGs capture quite so much.

Edited May 19, 2018 by Slumber

[DragonFlames]

1 hour ago, Armagon said:

Then you have games like 7th Dragon III: Code VFD and early Final Fantasy where most of the characters are NPC and the party you control is built from the ground up by you. So in games like that, character quality doesn't matter imo.

Though in the case of the former, character quality isn't an issue. They're all pretty well written and fleshed out, in my humble, meaningless opinion at least. I can't really speak on behalf of the latter since I've never even played the older Final Fantasies.

I've been meaning to try Alliance Alive for quite some time now - I've played the Demo and loved it -, but at the moment, Strange Journey Redux and Radiant Historia hog my attention, the latter especially. Even if battles can get incredibly tedious and repetitive, the story and characters are interesting enough to make up for it.

Speaking of Strange Journey, I'm not sure what to feel about the standard battle theme yet. It seems a little dull, almost. The fact that the game plays like Etrian Odyssey is a nice surprise; I was fully expecting to have a style similar to SMTIV and SMTIV: Apocalypse.
These are just my first impressions, though. I'm only one hour in as of writing this.

[Slumber]

2 minutes ago, DragonFlames said:

Though in the case of the former, character quality isn't an issue. They're all pretty well written and fleshed out, in my humble, meaningless opinion at least. I can't really speak on behalf of the latter since I've never even played the older Final Fantasies.

FF4 is where they really started focusing on character/plot writing. And FF4's cast is pretty solid as a real "first attempt"(Not gonna count FF2 here).