Random thoughts on whatever JRPG you're currently playing?

[Cat Dude]

I cried like a bitch after finishing Undertale

 

[4249]

Bought Legrand Legacy on Steam since it was for under 2€ and the comparisons to PSX era JRPG's intrigued me. After a few hours seems fun enough. The hand-drawn backgrounds clash a bit with the sharper 3d-models, but it looks pretty nice so far. There's a bit of jank in the visuals here and there but it's serviceable for an indie title. In combat you need to exploit weaknesses and hit the QTEs in order to survive and there's at least some character development in way of assigning stat points on level up to unlock abilities etc. The dialogue and story so far seem retarded, but that has not been too much of an issue with JRPG's for me. Not sure if the limited inventory will turn into an annoyance since there seem to be a fuckload of crafting materials dropping all the time. For some reason they have a completely different inventory UI for what you're carrying and your storage in towns, which seems pretty random.

 

[Dramart]

I cried like a bitch after finishing Undertale

You're a bitch

 

[newtmonkey]

I've been playing:

Breath of Fire (SFC)
I enjoyed this game for the first few hours, but now it's getting tedious. It suffers from having very few enemy types (tons of recolors) and truly mindless combat where you are never in any danger even if you just auto-battle through every single battle, except for boss battles (where you are only in danger if you stupidly forget to heal or something). Like a lot of 16-bit console RPGs, it apes the "Town > Dungeon > Boss > REPEAT" cycle set by Final Fantasy IV. The only thing it does to diverge from the formula is some optional treasure hunting as you unlock new exploration abilities; unfortunately, these treasures are often powerful pieces of equipment that make the trash combat even more mindless. The overworld in this game is terrible. It's slow and annoying to navigate, and you are constantly interrupted by the above-mentioned mindless battles. It seems like you get into a battle on average every 6-7 steps, which is absolutely insane.

I'll finish it because I want to complete the whole series (up to IV anyway) as II and III in particular are held up as some of the best console RPGs of all time.

Lunar: Silver Star Story (Mega-CD)
This is more like it! It's your typical linear 16-bit console RPG and so far doesn't diverge from the lame "Town > Dungeon > Boss > REPEAT" cycle that infested the 16-bit consoles, but at least they try to give you some compelling reason to go from location to location, other than "this is the tower next to this town, now go to the tower next to that town" seen in Breath of Fire. The combat is somewhat challenging and interesting, while support spells really seem to make a difference. Exploration is a joy because of how quickly you move around, even though combat occurs quite often.

Legend of Dragoon (PSX)
I skipped this back in the day because it seemed like a soulless FFVII clone. Although it is definitely a clone, it's actually quite good with very difficult battles (in the Japanese version; monster stats were roughly halved in the US version!) in which using the attack items you normally would just ignore in any other game can really give you an advantage. The second boss encounter had me going through my inventory and using anything and everything just to scrape by with a victory only a couple of rounds away from defeat. Graphics are a mixed bag; the prerendered backgrounds compare very well with the best in the PSX Final Fantasy series with animated water and light, but the fully polygonal battle scenes look pretty bad with low res textures and plenty of trademark PSX texture warping.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

II and III in particular are held up as some of the best console RPGs of all time.

Not sure I've ever heard that about BOF 2, and for some reason I intensely disliked BOF 3. BOF 4 was pretty good though.

 

[Nifft Batuff]

but the fully polygonal battle scenes look pretty bad with low res textures and plenty of trademark PSX texture warping.

You can try to activate texture upscaling (however not always the correction improves the general aspect of the game, it depends on the game/scaling algorithm and it is mostly a subjective compromise) and the texture perspective correction (this in general is an improvement, if the emulator has this feature).

 

[newtmonkey]

Nifft Batuff
Unfortunately(?) I am playing on actual hardware, so no texture upscaling or perspective correction for me.
The low res textures don't bother me so much on actual hardware played on a CRT or through a nice upscaler, but the PSX really suffers from texture warping.

 

[Dishonoredbr]

Who designed the bosses from SMT Strange journey?

Serious, get that guy fired. Who thought give aoe status effecg + aoe insta death spell for a boss? Ouroboros aint hard, just bullshit.
This game can't be anymore than 7/10 just because how badly desgined boss are. I thought Asura was just misstep and wouldnt happen again. I was wrong.
Also the combat is not even close to be as good as SMT4 or 4A.

Edit: I just defeated Ouroboros after 5 tries. I legit never want to play this game again because of it.

 

[Viata]

Funny, I plan to finish Strange Journey again given how much I love this game.

 

[jungl]

been playing star ocean first departure on the ppsspp. Game is way too easy. I dont even fight battles in the game anymore in the game. Simply use the emulators speed up feature and have the AI win by itself.

Im sure back in the day the skill system would of been really cool experiencing it on the original snes title. Same how I'm sure back in the day trails of mana visuals would of been really charming on the snes. Sadly these old games charm is not present in today. Trials of mana is extremely basic simple game as is start ocean first departure.

Legend of mana is way better game then trails of mana and is the peak of mana games. I'm going be pissed if square enix gives it a remake without triple AAA production values. If they can't make it dragon quest 12 unreal engine graphic quality then keep it in the original art style with upscaled visuals or simply don't remake/remaster it.

 

[Viata]

You know you can play both games on SNES without any problem, right?

 

[Hyperion]

Legend of Mana was excellent indeed. Classic Kawazu bringing SaGa elements in and making the game kick tons of ass. Shame the female protag looks more butch than the male protag though.

 

[Viata]

They intended to make LoM completely 3D, but didn't work for what they wanted and went with that gorgeous art. I only hope the remake, if they make it, doesn't go full 3D.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

Legend of Mana has the most batshit crafting system I have ever seen. https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/ps/256525-legend-of-mana/faqs/10806

The problem with the game is none of the systems matter. You can probably finish it with the starting bronze sword or whatever. The combat has zero challenge. Both SNES mana games and the gameboy one were harder. Everything is staggered by any weapon so if you figure out the button timing to infinite combo you win the game. Stats and levels do not matter at all. Special moves are just gravy. Don't get me started on how pointless magic, golem crafting, and monster taming all are. Even the post-game hard mode barely makes a difference.

Nice music though.

 

[Hyperion]

There are 2 different hard modes, Nightmare and No Future. One is base level +30, the other makes the whole game level 99. The Mana series has never been entirely about difficulty, but Legend of Mana will absolutrly decimate you on higher difficulties if you don't get the perfect rhythm to attacking for those perma stunlocks on HP sponges.

Besides, the fun in Mana's mostly 1-button combat doesn't come from the difficulty, but in creating that perfect character with an effective 99 in all stats, immunity to most, if not all status ailments, and huge resists to all elements.

 

[Reality]

Trying Lost Kingdoms 2 -- It's a very clunky "card based" game. I think I could forgive all the bad stuff about the game (hitboxes, bare bones story, etc) if it weren't for one thing.

The game has basically no charather progression - Sure there are tons of evolution trees for the cards and you can pokeball new monsters.... But this is pointless 99% of the time - The best Card throughout the entire game are the 4 Lizardmen you start with.

The main reason for this is Mana Cost efficency, but also the dumb charather skill system - This game has a "level up stats on use" system for Fire/Water/Grass/Earth, and leveling 1 up will give negative experience to all others. --- The upshot is that using "high tier" cards will usually cause you to inflict tons of Self-Damage which further promotes low-tier cheapo spam.

 

[newtmonkey]

Breath of Fire (SFC)
Finally finished this slog of a game.

The typical complaint about this game, even among BoF fans, seems to be that the game is a glorified dungeon crawl that requires massive grinding to advance with little story for reward. The game is indeed poor, though not for the reasons given.

It has some of the worst dialog I've ever encountered in a video game, literally "MWAH HAHA I'M EVIL" level stuff. I WISH it had "little story."

As for difficulty, the game is ridiculously easy and I was overpowered at the end of the game without any time spent grinding. I checked some walkthroughs afterward and was surprised to find that I was 5-6 levels below the recommendations at every point.

So, no, it doesn't require massive grinding to advance. No, the grind you actually face is the constant trash combat that seems to occur every 6-7 steps without fail. There's got to be a grand total of a dozen monster sprites in this game, each with 4-5 recolors (but the same abilities). There is not a single encounter in Breath of Fire, including the bosses, that requires anything other than "attack and then heal when HP are low." Hell, 99% of the game can be beat using the auto-battle command, which simply has every character attack. This is true even for the end bosses, which are so weak compared to the final dragon transformation that they only risk you face is falling asleep and having your game overheat and lock up.

Otherwise, this is typical SNES/SFC RPG 101. You go to a town, upgrade your equipment, get sent to the nearby tower, kill the boss, then repeat this cycle a dozen times or so. The only thing breaking it up is that you gain exploration abilities that you can use to open locked doors that were inaccessible earlier in the game. This is the part I most enjoyed about the game. Also enjoyable were the dungeons, which were thankfully not your typical SNES/SFC RPG linear dungeons littered with treasure chests containing potions and 5 GP. Instead, you often find significant equipment upgrades in out of the way places in dungeons, rewarding exploration.

Not as enjoyable: how much the game loves to waste your time. Traversing the world is a major pain even after you get your warp spell, and it's only during the last 10% of the game where you finally get a means of transportation that allows you to avoid combat. The game is also full of detestable fetch quests wasting your time. Several times I sat there muttering "are you serious..." as the game asked me to deliver some gizmo to a guy in a town across the world, only for that guy to tell me then to then deliver a doohickey to another guy back in the first town. Why waste my time like this??? It's not like it's a challenge of wit to warp to a town and talk to a guy.

I'm glad I finished it, but I am rethinking my plan to go through this whole series now. I'll probably skip BoF2 and go straight to BoF3, and then consider going back to BoF2 when I'm in the mood for a SFC RPG.

 

[Viata]

Was not BoF Capcom's first rpg? Can't remember now. It's a good game to play a one of your first jrpg, otherwise, you can see that even among SNES one, BoF is quite weak. BoF 3, however, is really great and I do recommend it. My favorite is 5, but apparently a lot of people hate it. heh

 

[Cromwell]

I'm glad I finished it, but I am rethinking my plan to go through this whole series now. I'll probably skip BoF2 and go straight to BoF3, and then consider going back to BoF2 when I'm in the mood for a SFC RPG.

BoF2 also had a rather bad translation but there is a fan retranslation for it. I didnt play it so I cant say if that makes it good but if you play the game you better do it with the fanpatch. I dont remember much about it but it also is rather grindy / a lot of trashfights.

 

[Hyperion]

Dragon transformations are one-off spells that use all of the hero's MP in a single-cast, so they're less broken, certain areas have higher combat rates than others as depicted by the speed of some dancing monster in the menu screen, half of the characters suck donkey dick, the translation is an atrocity, the beginning of the game has loads of backtracking with no means of fast travel.

Yeah...I'd say BoF2 is a straight downgrade from the first in every way. I enjoyed BoF1 as a kid, but it's not something I would go back and play again. It had its time and place, but when you're older and expect more of a game it's not going to hold up. Also, nice job falling into the noobtrap of using Agni. Nigga sucks, and just does 999 every turn. Rudra does 640 and you can still use the rest of your party. Karn transformed into Puka does nearly guaranteed 999 with his roll attack, and like 700 with the breath. And Bleu can do about 500+ with her best spells. So those agonizingly long boss fights coulda been shortened.

I will say, I genuinely enjoyed the 'second wind' mechanic of some of the bosses, since it obviously changed strength and attack patterns based on the message you get from each boss. Most notable was the Gremlin in the Stone Golem. Dude injects steroids in his ass, and the fight completely changes. Shame it only matters on a first playthrough when you're going blind.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

My favorite is 5, but apparently a lot of people hate it.

BOF 5 was interesting for what it was trying to do, and has tacticool combat. It's just not what people expected.

 

[jungl]

The thing with legend of mana the crafting and added mechanics despite being pointless were still awesome compared to simplicity of the previous 2 snes titles. The art and music were also great. The game had lot more pros then cons. If they do remake it they should focus on making the combat bit tougher then again I do like the whole chill nature of the game so idk.

Playing metal max 3. Its a fun game basically like dragon quest but little more fun. I like how sometimes it gives you the illusion you playing a CRPG like wasteland/fallout/atom rpg with the factions, exploration and customization. The random encounter rate is terrible though. Can't imagine playing it without fast forward feature of the DS emulator. Playing it on a real DS with its battery life on a ordinary week day would make me go insane with the encounter after encounter it would be a stressful slog then a enjoyable experience.

 

[IceyD]

Never seen the anime but Fairy Tale ain't bad so far. It's basically just a generic Gust game that happens to feature Fairy Tale characters lol.

Also happy national boob day:

Spoiler

 

[4249]

Oh, is it an RPG? I just automatically assumed it's some dynasty warriors clone like the One Piece games.

 

[mushaden]

Suikoden 2 -

Spoiler

I am very glad I killed Luca Blight and I hope I never have to suffer through his anime tropey dialogue again. I literally just killed him so please, no spoilers. I've already had both Suikoden games spoiled in some form