Random thoughts on whatever JRPG you're currently playing?

[Sigourn]

Hate to break it to you but is not the platform but the genre that is annoying you.
95 percent of the genre is slow,easy and has too many random encounters and that applies to all platforms.
Nocturne is a exception and if you replay the original smt/persona games you will probably find the same flaws.(minus the difficulty)

It's possible. I think that when a game is boring, graphics and music can masquerade it very well (PSX games, for instance). I've played Kyuuyaku Megami Tensei and Shin Megami Tensei and fair enough, the encounter rate also killed those games for me. Some people may say "duh, the idea of the game is to survive the onslaught of enemies", but there came a point where my sanity was being challenged rather than my skill and demon team (which is why I never bothered with SMT2).

Sometimes I wonder if my patience has simply run too thin, but then again it's not like this is a matter of my fun being run through the ground because of the encounter rate...

 

[Beastro]

I just started it up myself, but modded the fuck out of it. Looks great, battles go by much faster (sped up animations) difficulty is actually there, characters have different stats and special traits... it's fucking awesome.

List em foo!

 

[Lyre Mors]

Sometimes I wonder if my patience has simply run too thin, but then again it's not like this is a matter of my fun being run through the ground because of the encounter rate...

I think myself and a lot of others have run into the same problem with SMT 1 & 2, but for me it's the encounter rate coupled with the insanely sluggish and unresponsive UI that really kill my playthroughs every time. I love the concept, atmosphere, general storyline, and base mechanics, but just can't get past the elements that drag it down for me. I think I've made it halfway through SMT 1 about three separate times before getting beat down by the game's unwillingness to let me play it.

 

[Viata]

Never had problem with those games, perhaps because I grew up playing them on SNES. I believe you can speed up those games in an emulator but I never had to do that so I don't know.

 

[Puukko]

I have several SNES SMTs on my radar and this is the problem I'm afraid of running into.

 

[Lyre Mors]

Never had problem with those games, perhaps because I grew up playing them on SNES. I believe you can speed up those games in an emulator but I never had to do that so I don't know.

It's interesting, because I mostly consider myself to be a patient gamer, but there's something about the actual feel of play that ends up repelling me. It's too bad because I love SMT games and most of their spin offs, with SMT 3 being one of my favorite JRPGs of all time. I'm generally against speeding up games through emulation (or in general), but might have to give it a shot someday for SMT 1 and 2 anyway.

 

[Puukko]

I played through Persona 2 EP with turbo on like 80% of the time. The encounter rate and slowness of the menus quickly got tiresome. In most other games, PS2 ones mostly, I speed it up for trivial things like backtracking and heavy menu navigation.

 

[Sigourn]

Sometimes I wonder if my patience has simply run too thin, but then again it's not like this is a matter of my fun being run through the ground because of the encounter rate...

I think myself and a lot of others have run into the same problem with SMT 1 & 2, but for me it's the encounter rate coupled with the insanely sluggish and unresponsive UI that really kill my playthroughs every time. I love the concept, atmosphere, general storyline, and base mechanics, but just can't get past the elements that drag it down for me. I think I've made it halfway through SMT 1 about three separate times before getting beat down by the game's unwillingness to let me play it.

Same, but I think I made it past half of the game. My issue is that the battle system isn't anywhere near fast or fun enough to justify the amount of random encounters thrown your way. Because there are next to no safe zones in SMT, even something as basic as "I want to gear myself up" becomes annoying as you enter towns and have to face encounter after encounter, literally three encounters after taking a single step at times. It just wasn't worth my time, as SMT isn't a game I could have beaten by playing a couple hours at a time: I would lose my cool after 20 minutes.

I remember one time I got bored and starting counting my fights. I got to at least 100 in a single session, absolute madness.

 

[ryz]

I think myself and a lot of others have run into the same problem with SMT 1 & 2, but for me it's the encounter rate coupled with the insanely sluggish and unresponsive UI that really kill my playthroughs every time. I love the concept, atmosphere, general storyline, and base mechanics, but just can't get past the elements that drag it down for me. I think I've made it halfway through SMT 1 about three separate times before getting beat down by the game's unwillingness to let me play it.

I have several SNES SMTs on my radar and this is the problem I'm afraid of running into.

I played through Persona 2 EP with turbo on like 80% of the time. The encounter rate and slowness of the menus quickly got tiresome. In most other games, PS2 ones mostly, I speed it up for trivial things like backtracking and heavy menu navigation.

Funny that you guys say that, I'm exactly at this moment playing SMT1 for the SFC (via RetroArch with Orden translation fix and the automap hack applied). I'm also liberally using fastforward, but to be honest SMT1 has aged really well, especially compared to many other SNES/NES RPGs (and even "modern" retro RPGs like Etrian Odyssey for the DS). And while the encounter rate in this game is indeed high, there's an excellent and very quick autobattle function and you can recruit demons which have the Estoma spell which removes random encounters (there's also Fuma Bells, an item which you can buy that does the same). There's still this slight delay when performing menu actions, but aside from this you'll be BLAZING throught this game with fastforward. Subsequent SMT games only get more convenient.

 

[Valky]

I played Artificial Academy 2 for the past 3 days. Overall (with mods) it is a really interesting ai interaction simulation whose ideas have some promise if they were developed to have more interactivity. The character creator has more options that I have the patience to tweak, so a lot of depth there. I would be interested in a game like this that puts more focus on improving the ai in the same style.

 

[Sigourn]

I decided to replay Final Fantasy (Restored romhack), mostly because I felt I wasn't really fair with the game, and also because some games I feel like beating, this being one of them.
I want to address some earlier criticisms I made about Final Fantasy, after 10 hours into this third playthrough.

1. The first is that the party I ran with in my second playthrough consisted of Fighter/Red Mage/Monk/Thief. I stand by what I said earlier: what is the purpose of the Monk and the Thief is beyond me, because I'm playing with a Fighter/Red Mage/Black Mage/White Mage party and the game is loads more engaging and fun.
2. The second is that, compared to my first playthrough (which actually used the same class combination), this time I'm actually filling up my spell slots and thinking through the choices I'm making. This is crucial in Final Fantasy because most of the spells are very valuable in the right conditions, with a few exceptions that IMO may as well not exist. For instance, the Darkness spell is pretty much useless compared to the other spells in its tier. In a similar vein, so far I haven't had the need to use Blindna in a fight to cure my characters. But forgetting about this for a second, casting your spells at the right time can be a life saver. Earlier I said powerful spells were often used to get rid of pesky enemies. But if pesky enemies are just that, then you may as well run away from the battles: I've never met enemies I could wipe away with a single Fira/Thundara/Blizzara spell that were actually dangerous, aside Ghouls.
   
3. The third is that that although my comments about Ghouls (and undead enemies of its kind in general) stands true, in actual practice it's pretty easy to bypass this issue if you are running a good party: simply Fira/Diara those bastards away in just one turn (or Fire/Dia them away in two).
4. I still maintain that Cure is a pointless spell since you can buy up to 99 Potions. I will add that Stona belongs in here as well single Gold Needles, even if not cheap (ten times the value of Potions) are simply far too useful compared to a spell that steals valuable casts from other, much better spells (Protect or Invisible on all party members).
5. Treasure is still garbage. I figure finding 99 Potions in a chest sounds ridiculous, but the truth is that the game would have been better by making Potions far stronger but allowing you to carry only 20 at a time, so that finding one Potion in a chest feels x5 times more rewarding.

But yeah, I'm doing better for sure. Just cleared out half of the fire dungeon's treasure on the labyrinthian first floor. Barrier Fire makes a huge diference when fighting those Horned Devils (a.k.a. R. GOYLE) that can wipe out your entire party if you are unlucky with their Fira (a.k.a. FIR2) castings. I'm thinking it would be nice to beat this game, then play and beat Final Fantasy II, and replay the PSX and GBA remakes.

 

[Sigourn]

Just Tiamat and the final dungeon to beat now. So far so good!

The game is fairly uneven in terms of difficulty. The traditional way to beat the game is to:

1. Retrieve the Crown from the Marsh Cave. The first dungeon is considering a massive filter by the playerbase because of a simple fact: unlike Wizardry, which begins in a massive dungeon, or Dragon Quest III, which has dungeons very early into the game, Final Fantasy's Marsh Cave appears after about two hours of playtime. Until then, the player has access to no other dungeons. In the Marsh Cave, you cannot save. You have no escape ropes. You have no way to heal yourself other than the Potions and Antidotes on your bag, and your White Magic spells, which are few and precious. If you have been playing the game without grinding, getting to the Marsh Cave shouldn't be too difficult. But experiencing the Marsh Cave for the first time, not knowing where to go, will be brutal on your party.
2. Defeat the Fiend at the Earth Cave and gain access to a canoe at Crescent Lake. This dungeon is much longer than the Marsh Cave, particularly because the Marsh Cave is short if you know where you are going, but in the Earth Cave even knowing where to go is not enough.
   
3. Defeat the Fiend at the Fire Cave. Here we start dealing with environmental damage, as well as some of the most annoying enemies in the game. This dungeon resembles the Marsh Cave in that the trip to the bottom is short enough if you know the way, I timed it at 3 minutes IIRC including random encounters I escaped from (and some which I didn't). Horned Devils (R. GOYLE) are a threat and Cockatrices can turn one party member to stone, but Golden Needles take care of that. Surviving the lava requires either using Potions (which I only save for healing my party before the boss) or White Magic.
4. Obtain the Levistone at the Ice Cave and gain access to the airship. This is without a doubt the most unfair dungeon I've encountered so far. Mindflayers can stunlock your party for eternity, and can also OHKO a party member with a physical attack. Dark Wizards can OHKO a party member as well. Your best bet is to simply run away from these enemies as soon as you encounter them. I ended up surviving this dungeon with only two party members left.
5. Defeat the Fiend at the Water Cave. The easiest dungeon in context. Your party should be of a high enough level by now, and the only "hazard" are pesky enemies that may Poison a party member. A walk in the park, the only inconvenience are parties of 9 Shenanigans who only exist to annoy the fuck out of you.
6. Obtain the Cube at the Waterfall Cave. Similar to the Marsh Cave in that its purpose is to obtain an item used to unlock another Fiend dungeon. No annoying enemies, similar in length to the Ice Cave but more twisty.

There are two things to be said about this:

• The first is that after you acquire the Airship, you can access an optional dungeon which lets you upgrade your characters. This is the Castle of Ordeals. It's another short dungeon, whose gimmick is that you must teleport yourself around the castle, and picking the wrong teleporter at each step has you return to the beginning. Mindflayers and Cockatrices are the only actual threats. Clay Golems pack a punch, but can be disposed of quickly enough.
• The second is that the Fire Cave can be left to the very end of this sequence I described. You read that right: the Fire Cave earns you nothing. You can be over with the Earth Cave, get the canoe, and access the Ice Cave, get the airship, access the Water Cave and afterwards obtain the Cube. And only after return to the Fire Cave. Personally I think that's a bit excessive: I managed to beat the Fiend at the Fire Cave and the optional "boss" in there without breaking a sweat after running away from every encounter on my way.

So now I'm left with only two dungeons. And I'm planning to fight the game's "hidden" Superboss to make my Final Fantasy experience complete. It makes such a big difference to have the motivation to play through the game.

 

[Falksi]

Heard a lot of things about bad things about Tales of Zestriria, but around 18 hours in and I'm really enjoying it so far.

There's enough familiarity here to ease me in, but also enough differences to keep it feeling fresh too. Combat is the usual nonsense, way too much convoluted gumph for me to pay attention to - I just button bash - but there's plenty of groovy banter & typical Tales elements to enjoy.

Pleasantly surprised so far.

 

[Sigourn]

I reach the end dungeon in Final Fantasy, and then... tedious. And grind. And tediousness. And mobs that completely destroy your party with spells (Gas Dragons), OHKO attacks and ambushes, enemy parties of 9 enemies, unskippable fights, and more. Ugh.
I'm not interested in finishing this game anymore. I'll probably just stick to the Origins remake of I&II and skip III as well, since my playthrough with that one was fairly annoying because the game forces you to switch classes to tackle different challenges, and that requires more grinding if you haven't been training certain classes beforehand.

Overall, NES JRPGs turned out to be crap, with the "high point" being Dragon Quest IV, and even then I finished it not because I couldn't get enough of the game, but because I had already put 25 hours into the game.

 

[Viata]

Funny, DQ IV is the one I dislike the most from the NES JRPS. Btw, Sigourn what NES JRPGs you played?

 

[Sigourn]

Funny, DQ IV is the one I dislike the most from the NES JRPS. Btw, Sigourn what NES JRPGs you played?

Crystalis
Faxanadu
The Magic of Scheherazade
Final Fantasy
Final Fantasy II
Final Fantasy III
Dragon Quest
Dragon Quest II
Dragon Quest III
Dragon Quest IV
Metal Max
Mother/EarthBound Beginnings
Sweet Home
Destiny of an Emperor
Fire Emblem (the original)

I can't recall if I have played anything else, but the general gist is that they are either tedious, grindy, or just plain boring. I'm inclined to say Metal Max was the best of them all, now that I remember, but I didn't play that far into the game. To me a game is the complete experience: that I enjoyed the first 15 hours of Final Fantasy doesn't take away from the fact I thought the final dungeon was every negative aspect of the game combined into one. Dragon Quest IV is the only one I actually beat, mostly because it isn't anywhere near as grind heavy/tedious as the other games I mentioned. But it did get infuriating at times, and it was pretty boring. I thought the story was massively overrated.

 

[Viata]

I can see why you dislike JRPG, given that every game that came after was based in those games you disliked(plus Chaos World and Lagrange Point). Chaos World, Lagrange Point, Heracles no Eiko and Radia Senki are also quite nice.

 

[Reinhardt]

Started playing Atelier Ryza. It's ok overall game, but bad Atelier game.

 

[Sigourn]

I can see why you dislike JRPG, given that every game that came after was based in those games you disliked(plus Chaos World and Lagrange Point). Chaos World, Lagrange Point, Heracles no Eiko and Radia Senki are also quite nice.

I don't really dislike JRPGs, it's just that I didn't like these particular JRPGs I've played. I used to think that JRPGs had aged nicely compared to 80s cRPGs, but this proved me wrong.

 

[Damned Registrations]

NES was a weird era, a lot of games back then were seemingly designed to extend their playtime in a manner similar to quarter munchers. Even some rpgs felt that way. Western RPGs of that period were similar, old wizardry and ultima games were grindy and slow as fuck. I enjoy the attrition strategizing aspect of those old games, but I think it's been done much better in later games (Labyrinth of Touhou probably being my favourite example, weeaboo aesthetic notwithstanding.)

 

[Ysaye]

Moving away from Nintendo and over to Sega, I have been playing Shining Force 2 and Shining in the Darkness alternate days of my holidays. Whilst I know that Shining Force 2 is an awesome game (and playing it again just reminds me of that), I am surprised at how much I like Shining in the Darkness which I have never properly given a go; it is a very simple Wizardry clone without one of the fundamentals (ie. character creation - you start with one and end up with three) and the dungeon graphics are not exactly beautiful (although the town is quite nice for the graphics of the time) but I am just finding it really kind of addictive.

Once done, I am thinking of giving Phantasy Star 2 or 3 a real go.....but also somewhat keen to revisit Phantasy Star 4. I also have Landstalker and also Sword of Vermillion that I am toying with the idea of playing....

 

[Lyre Mors]

Ysaye, check out Beyond Oasis sometime if you haven't before. Fun and unique action RPG.

 

[Silentstorm]

Started playing a RPG Maker game made in Japan called The World Is Your Weapon, i mean, i think it's RPG Maker because of the menus and sprites but whatever, it's a fun little game where the title is not a joke.

As in, just the first battle alone i could pick up a cliff and use it to whack slimes, then i go to town and find out i can pick up houses AND MY LITTLE SISTER AND USE HER AS AN CLUB!

You can literally pick up any random NPC and lots of stuff and go to town on monsters, apparently there are multiple endings and one of them comes from you picking up every single human, also, you can upgrade or repair weapons, wonder if the little sister of the main character can be upgraded, sorry, whatever is the villain of this game, i am kinda busy literally upgrading my sis to be a better club.

Shame that the translation could use a bit of work, and the gameplay as well, but again, it's fun for a while even if it's nothing too deep or amazing, makes me want a sequel though that improves on the idea set here.

 

[Tse Tse Fly]

Been seeking JRPG recommendations, asking around on forums, watching best jrpgs of all time videos on youtube, googling stuff, even buying games on steam, desperately trying to find anything I'd want to play here and now and not to drop soon afterwards, yet still I am left unsatisfied. I've tried a bunch of jrpgs, namely

Breath of Fire 4*
Eternal Poison
Wild Arms 3
Suikoden Tactics*
Jeanne D'Arc*
Spectral Souls
Growlanser Heritage of War*
Tales of Legendia*

and so far only Jeanne D'Arc for the PSP I'm finding agreeable and that only for the charming animu art and that it's been the least annoying and tedious of them all, though it appears somewhat basic in the gameplay/tactics department. I know it's unfair to judge on the quality of a jrpg having only played a couple of hours, it's just that I do not care for repeatedly wading through tons of dialogues and cut scenes only to find out the gameplay is shit/mediocre and my time was wasted. There are a few more games on my list I wanted to try out before proceeding to the obvious Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Ys etc - Lunar: Silver Star Harmony, Hexyz Force, Ragnarok Tactics and others, let's hope I will have better luck with those (though I think I'm going to return to the titles marked with * in the above list).

 

[Sentinel]

I'm replaying Final Fantasy IX for the first time. I was a bit skeptical about doing it because it was my favorite and I was kind of afraid that I wouldn't like it this time around, but I'm having a lot of fun. I love the equipment system, and it all feels like this mix of a nostalgia-ridden goodbye fairy tale. Definitely holds up and still my fav FF.