I hate jRPGs and I wanna hate-try some

[cvv]

So it has come to this.

I don't like jRPGs ok? I hate most anime. But with the current state of western RPGs it seems I'm fated either to stick with western indies or try to break through my disgust over anime and jump into the Jappy variety of my favourite genre.

Sigh. What would you recommend? Is there ANYTHING where I don't have to play as a little girl with a squeaky voice? Is there any jPRG where I can play a character like these:

Spoiler

Anything? I don't hate anime as such, just the modern pedo variety. I actually love the older anime movies from Ghibli or the early Ghost in the Shell movies. And I liked Vinland Saga too. Is there a Vinland Saga-inspired jRPG? I'd play the shit out of it.

help me kkk u my only hope

 

[Maxie]

"They're not for cucks like you. You don't get to play Japanese games, you don't deserve to. You need to EARN the right to play based Japanese games. Westerncucks like you deserve your cucked shit, and you deserve your groveling Western cuck devs. You are banished from this tribe, and we will permanently revoke your ability to play japanese games and leave you in the world of shit of the Western cucks rooting around in the dirt trying to justify why Outer Worlds women are ugly and have bad hair cuts.

You have to EARN the right to play BASED JAPANESE GAMES and we don't take refugees, no Westerncuck migrants accepted. Go wallow in your world of Western SJW bullshit forever you piece of shit."

aweigh Jul 11 2021

 

[Grunker]

Troubleshooter: Abandoned Children Review

 

[sebas]

Is there ANYTHING where I don't have to play as a little girl with a squeaky voice?

And here I am praying every day for a Sailor Moon jrpg.

Seriously though, YAKUZA: Like a dragon

 

[Necrensha]

Lost Odyssey
SMT: Strange Journey (do not get the Redux version)
Etrian Odyssey 3-4-5 lets you make a team full of adult men if you want.
Nier (the original version) lets you play as a big and old dumbass.
Yakuza 0
Breath of Fire 3 has your protagonist grow through the game until adulthood.
If you can stretch the definition: Final Fantasy 7 and Digital Devil Saga

 

[cvv]

"They're not for cucks like you. You don't get to play Japanese games, you don't deserve to. You need to EARN the right to play based Japanese games. Westerncucks like you deserve your cucked shit, and you deserve your groveling Western cuck devs. You are banished from this tribe, and we will permanently revoke your ability to play japanese games and leave you in the world of shit of the Western cucks rooting around in the dirt trying to justify why Outer Worlds women are ugly and have bad hair cuts.

You have to EARN the right to play BASED JAPANESE GAMES and we don't take refugees, no Westerncuck migrants accepted. Go wallow in your world of Western SJW bullshit forever you piece of shit."

 

[Grauken]

Is there ANYTHING where I don't have to play as a little girl with a squeaky voice?

And here I am praying every day for a Sailor Moon jrpg.

Your prayer has been answered...in like 1995

https://www.romhacking.net/translations/401/

 

[cvv]

Etrian Odyssey 3-4-5 lets you make a team full of adult men if you want.

There's only 1-2-3 on Steam, still worth?
They're full of little girls too but at least they seem to be party-based, turn-based blobbers Wiz7 style, is that right?
I guess this is gonna be my entry point then.

 

[Ash]

JRPG starter pack for gentlemen of fine taste forever and always:

90s Final Fantasy. They remain some of the best JRPG, and RPG in general around. The anime tropes and cringe are generally kept to a minimum, with maybe one title going too far. Forget what you think you know or may have heard and just play. These games deserved all the praise and legacy they got, only to be turned into the modern abominations you see today. Start with 5/6/7.

Dark Souls. High appeal factor to western RPG players for aesthetics and tone, but the core is distinctly Japanese console gaming and in the best kind of way (a real challenge the likes of which you almost don't find in cRPG).

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. Simply a must-play for any serious gamer. Little nonsense, all incline.

Don't bother playing Japanese cRPG clones (e.g modern Wizardry games), they wont match the cRPG goats. Focus on the Japanese's venerable accomplishments like the above. And from there branch out in to other genres seeking only the highest quality, the Japanese were on fucking fire in the 90s, just like the west.

 

[Necrensha]

There's only 1-2-3 on Steam, still worth?
They're full of little girls too but at least they seem to be party-based, turn-based blobbers Wiz7 style, is that right?
I guess this is gonna be my entry point then.

Yes, Wizardry style but they put more emphasis on the combat than the exploration. Just be warned that the first two games are very inferior to the rest of the saga and have some stupid design like how in Etrian 2 bosses give no exp but instead bombard you with money.

 

[Elttharion]

 

[d1r]

Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance
I will buy it for you.

 

[Abu Antar]

Are you willing to take Chinese and Korean suggestions?

When it comes to JRPGs, I'd say try the SaGa series, or the Shin Megami Tensei series.

When it comes to Korean: Try Troubleshooter. Grunker linked his review. It has some elements that you will dislike, but the gameplay is top tier.

If you are willing to give Chinese games a go, I will recommend Heluo Studio games. Bad to terrible translations, but very fun games nonetheless.

 

[cvv]

Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance
I will buy it for you.

Shin Megami Tensei series.

What's the combat like, is it turn-based? Is it challenging? Can you choose difficulty?
Also, I'm willing to accept the cringe to a certain level but not too much. Is it too much? Steam tags say "JRPG, RPG, Adventure, Demon". So it's what, the first ever dRPG? Demon RPG?

I think I'll try the Etrian Odyssey first (TB blobbers addict), Troubleshooter second (already looked at it years ago), maybe this afterwards.

 

[Grauken]

The Dark Spire (Nintendo DS)

Shin Megami Tensei (SNES)

Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey (Nintendo DS)

 

[cvv]

Those look great actually. I guess an emulator is the only option now?

 

[Grauken]

Those look great actually. I guess an emulator is the only option now?

yeah, but these are really easy to emulate

 

[Abu Antar]

Shin Megami Tensei is a darker monster collecting game. There are still anime elements (that's in every jrpg), but it's tolerable. You're in post-apocalyptic Japan. You do a lot of dungeon crawling in 3rd person view. You collect demons, make them stronger, and you can also fuse them for stronger demons. The combat is turn-based, and uses something called press-turn system. If you take advantage of enemy weakness, you get more moves, but the same applies to the enemy if they do it to you.

 

[Falksi]

SMT 3: Nocturne, Phantasy Star 1 and Phantasy Star 4 all have grounded roots and some similarities with CRPGs/Dungeon Crawlers. All excellent games, and a great place to start.

Yakuza 0 is badass, and basically a game where every problem you encounter you solve by beating the shit out of it.

Valkyria Chronicles has great combat, a cool story, and a fantastic World War-esq setting, highly recommended too.

Dark Souls are obviously the best place to go to for modern combat-driven JRPGs, Nioh rocks too.

 

[cvv]

Shin Megami Tensei is a darker monster collecting game.

Steam also sells SMT 3, does the 5th game render it obsolete?

Dark Souls are obviously the best place to go to for modern combat-driven JRPGs, Nioh rocks too.

Yea I've been a hardcore souls fan for the last 10 years, don't really see DS as jRPG tho as it's not anime. Just like other non-anime Japanese games like Phantom Pain, Dragon's Dogma, Nioh etc. Played and loved all of them but I don't really categorize them as jRPGs.

 

[Morgoth]

Have you tried the FFXIII trilogy? You're gonna hate them.

 

[Necrensha]

Shin Megami Tensei is a darker monster collecting game.

Steam also sells SMT 3, does the 5th game render it obsolete?

SMT5 is actually a huge homage to SMT3, from mechanics to atmosphere to the protagonist being a super boss in the late game. It won't hit the same if you play them out of order.
Gameplay wise they are very similar but 5 is going to be easier and more streamlined obviously.

 

[Abu Antar]

Shin Megami Tensei is a darker monster collecting game.

Steam also sells SMT 3, does the 5th game render it obsolete?

Dark Souls are obviously the best place to go to for modern combat-driven JRPGs, Nioh rocks too.

Yea I've been a hardcore souls fan for the last 10 years, don't really see DS as jRPG tho as it's not anime. Just like other non-anime Japanese games like Phantom Pain, Dragon's Dogma, Nioh etc. Played and loved all of them but I don't really categorize them as jRPGs.

I like both, but I prefer Nocturne. 3 is more "dungeon" based, while 5 has more open ended levels. Not open world, but big open areas.

 

[d1r]

Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance
I will buy it for you.

Shin Megami Tensei series.

What's the combat like, is it turn-based? Is it challenging? Can you choose difficulty?
Also, I'm willing to accept the cringe to a certain level but not too much. Is it too much? Steam tags say "JRPG, RPG, Adventure, Demon". So it's what, the first ever dRPG? Demon RPG?

I think I'll try the Etrian Odyssey first (TB blobbers addict), Troubleshooter second (already looked at it years ago), maybe this afterwards.

It's challenging when you play it on hard, and it's turn-based. The protagonist looks pretty faggy, but that really is the only offensive bit besides maybe a smaller story arc at the beginning of the game. Compared to other JRPG's, this game is pretty tame when it comes to being ANIMUUUUUU since it has a much more unique art style and a much darker tone.

I can also recommend Strange Journey (Redux). The best DRPG, and also the best game ever created, tbh.

 

[The people of Duckburg]

For the Etrian Odysseys, turn off all the garbage like voices, story mode and easy modes. This isn't even some elitism about playing on the highest difficulty; the remakes and later games added all that stuff and disguised the easy mode as the standard difficulty. The highest difficulty is much closer to what the games originally were like, and you can tell that it was the default as it's the baseline in the code, with easy and journalist difficulty levels multiplying or dividing those default stats. Story mode was some dumb shit they added because some people can't play an RPG without set characters. The originals still had a story, but the existence of a "story mode" gave a lot of people the impression that they had none whatsoever. The story mode isn't too awful by Japanese story standards (it's no Kingdom Hearts or the like) but the classic mode story is still better. Your non-story mode characters have no dialogue, unless you make the mistake of turning on voices, which was a deliberate decision as you're meant to come up with your own personalities. You know, that role playing stuff. I'm guessing you don't want it anyway, if you don't want to hear any squeaky anime girls.

The games have a reputation of being very hard, but it's greatly exaggerated. If you aren't an idiot they're perfectly manageable. Two pieces of advice: don't invest much in skills that only affect the regular attack command, and don't underestimate binds and status effects. A lot of people are used to games where status effects aren't worth using because bosses are immune to them, and the enemies that aren't, you could just kill. Maybe that's more of a JRPG thing, though.

Edit: Got confused. The Steam collection is just the original games with some minor touch-ups and bug fixes. The story mode etc. stuff I was talking about was from the Untold remakes on 3DS. You could play those instead if you don't mind emulating; they're generally better as long as you turn off that newfangled stuff. Not flawless, since the grimoire system added a lot of unneeded RNG, but I'd still choose them over the originals.