Random thoughts on whatever JRPG you're currently playing?

[Lincolnberry]

Finished 13 Sentinels. Have never played a visual novel game (though maybe this isn't fully in that category) and wasn't sure what to think for the first few hours, but ended up being one of the more unique games I've played in a long while and still has me thinking about it several days after finishing.

Hard to discuss much without spoilers but if you're willing to play a very story-heavy game (that I thought was very enjoyable!) coupled with some solid but overall unimpressive real time/tower defense mecha combat that integrates with said story, I'd definitely encourage you to take a look. Also pretty darn good music.

For those who haven't already seen - Sakurai and Toro both have heaped a lot of praise on this one, which led me to try it in the first place.

 

[IceyD]

Yep I despise visual novels and right now I think 13 Sentinels is my GOTY.

Just interactive enough to be not be a real VN, and it gets straight to the point.

 

[Machocruz]

Jumping back into traditional JRPGs with Final Fantasy 4, PSP version. No prior experience with 4. It's fine. The story is simple but engaging, the pacing is brisk enough. Characters are full of charm and wholesomeness. 5 man parties rule, 3 man parties drool. A lot of normal enemies can take some punishment, I often find it necessary to scan for weaknesses to do appreciable damage. Solid JRPG of it's kind.

I find it hard to go back to the way battles are presented in these earlier FFs though, with characters in a vertical line on one side and enemy portraits, that are static aside from a couple of fx, on the other. Feels rather uninvolving and lifeless now. I prefer static portraits in first person, a la Wizardry and DQ. But anything where the party is near the foreground or bottom of the screen feels better, maybe due to some sense of perspective. Boss battles seem grander when they are looming over your party or you're facing them straight on. Not a deal breaker, but even a Chrono Trigger level of animation would be quite a boost to enjoyment. During the PS1 days and after, the series' battles rose to a whole other level of grandeur. But that's enough autism about that.

 

[newtmonkey]

Dragon Warrior II (NES)
I just got through the Cave to Rhone and am basically at the end of the game. I didn't do any extra leveling so far so I'm a bit underleveled (main character is level 24), but now that I am at the end game and have no use for gold, I can just make suicide runs until I complete the game since you retain any earned experience even if you die.

I completed this once back when it was first released, and have replayed it several times since then—though I always stop at Rhone because it's the first (and only) point in the game where you need to do extra leveling to survive.

I've probably got 2-3 hours of leveling to do if I want to get my party strong enough to finish the game, so I'm putting the game aside for a bit and wait for some night when I've got nothing else to do. I'll put on some old Coast to Coast AM episodes, do some mindless grinding, and hopefully will complete the game sometime by the end of the year.

 

[Maxie]

Stella Glow persists in being as snorefest-y as possible
Four chapters in, with several fights amounting to tedious repetitions of the whole round because the mobs are absurdly scared of going aggro and you have to be throwing peanuts at them at point-blank for the AI to start fighting
This tendency is doubly annoying especially in challenge maps which are designed to be besieged for hours, with no variation and no cool rewards either
Even the anime titties are middling, and the need for using Popo's Rusty Key song makes me feel the police is going to barge in soon enough
You see, in the world of Stella Glow singing is a unique ability, limited to a handful of girls every generation, dubbed 'Witches'
Our hero is an amnesiac with the power to 'tune' witches and to 'conduct' songs they can sing, ie. map-wide buffs/debuffs spanning several turns
To conduct a song however he needs to stab a girl in the chest with a dagger in an absurd fashion, accompanied with the witches gimmicky reaction
Popo, the first witch you get to tune with the least situational songs she can sing, screeches with that squeaky underage anime voice which gets a man convicted for pedophilia

 

[Shadenuat]

i am not explaining myself.

drunk artillerist waifu: *hic* SHOOT. for ze fraaans

every faction has thic thighs and only jacobins are a gay club. ....historical i guess??

https://www.oneangrygamer.net/2020/...-art-for-nintendo-switch-ps4-censored/112954/

anyway
translation is bad but whatever
missions look okayish.
I mostly play for setting and sprite grafix

I also tried Fey Tactics but some first boss with evasion and looking at 10 enemies prebuffing every turn felt like game would drag a lot. even tho I liked gameplay

 

[AdamReith]

i am not explaining myself.

drunk artillerist waifu: *hic* SHOOT. for ze fraaans

every faction has thic thighs and only jacobins are a gay club. ....historical i guess??

https://www.oneangrygamer.net/2020/...-art-for-nintendo-switch-ps4-censored/112954/

anyway
translation is bad but whatever
missions look okayish.
I mostly play for setting and sprite grafix

I also tried Fey Tactics but some first boss with evasion and looking at 10 enemies prebuffing every turn felt like game would drag a lot. even tho I liked gameplay

I'm also playing through banner of the maid right now. Censoring the cleavage in this game is a crime against humanity.

Still glad we can still get good SRPGs made, even if it does fall to Chinese supermen to do it.

 

[Puukko]

Surely someone has has made a mod to fix that by now? This is an outrage.

 

[abnaxus]

If historical Marie-Antoinette had tiddies this big, she would never have been guillotined

but there are cute gurls in every Chinaman game

 

[Carpincho Pampeano]

I'm currently finishing SMT IV:Apocalypse, i entered the cosmic egg, defeated Odin and saved before the Baalv fight because my 3ds was out of battery. I'm really hating the story and my "friends", Asahi behaved like a normal teenager so it's excusable but holy shit, if they are not a bunch of faggots, i've only met them for 6 days and they belive we are friends for ever.

Gameplay wise the game is very enjoyable, now you can't just stack spells that the demons are weak to, for example putting agi on Jack Frost, so i think that's great.I really want to finish this game and play another things, i'm clocking 52hs so it's a bit long even if i'm doing every challenge quest.

 

[Dishonoredbr]

I'm currently finishing SMT IV:Apocalypse, i entered the cosmic egg, defeated Odin and saved before the Baalv fight because my 3ds was out of battery. I'm really hating the story and my "friends", Asahi behaved like a normal teenager so it's excusable but holy shit, if they are not a bunch of faggots, i've only met them for 6 days and they belive we are friends for ever.

Gameplay wise the game is very enjoyable, now you can't just stack spells that the demons are weak to, for example putting agi on Jack Frost, so i think that's great.I really want to finish this game and play another things, i'm clocking 52hs so it's a bit long even if i'm doing every challenge quest.

Gameplaywise SMT4A is peak SMT, but much like Devil Survivor 2 (imo not so bad because some endings are kino) and Fire emblem Fates , they tried too hard to appeal for the waifu , shipping and social sim fans. It's almost like they tried to appeal for Persona fanbase but didn't know how to do it because SMT4 setting is the most anti-social simulator possible so had to hammer hard friendship aspect..

 

[Carpincho Pampeano]

I'm currently finishing SMT IV:Apocalypse, i entered the cosmic egg, defeated Odin and saved before the Baalv fight because my 3ds was out of battery. I'm really hating the story and my "friends", Asahi behaved like a normal teenager so it's excusable but holy shit, if they are not a bunch of faggots, i've only met them for 6 days and they belive we are friends for ever.

Gameplay wise the game is very enjoyable, now you can't just stack spells that the demons are weak to, for example putting agi on Jack Frost, so i think that's great.I really want to finish this game and play another things, i'm clocking 52hs so it's a bit long even if i'm doing every challenge quest.

Gameplaywise SMT4A is peak SMT, but much like Devil Survivor 2 (imo not so bad because some endings are kino) and Fire emblem Fates , they tried too hard to appeal for the waifu , shipping and social sim fans. It's almost like they tried to appeal for Persona fanbase but didn't know how to do it because SMT4 setting is the most anti-social simulator possible so had to hammer hard friendship aspect..

Interesting that you bring the thing about waifu fags, check out this interview https://dijehtranslations.wordpress...zuyuki-smt-iv-interview-for-dengeki-nintendo/ , they probably let the younger team members experiment a little story wise with the "girls should always be all over your dick" mentality that plagues jrpg. When you try to appeal to such two different demographics you end up appealing to no one.

I just went full anarchy route

Spoiler

choose the little assasin girl as my goddess, her instakill is a blessing in YHVH''s world were i'm finding hordes of metatron

the game became a lot harder, i have to always have a healer in boss fights because i don't have the monkey girl to heal me anymore or free turns.The final dungeon is massive, i hope it doesn't last much longer.

 

[Puukko]

The final dungeon is a fucking slog with the headche visuals and droning music.

 

[Dishonoredbr]

Interesting that you bring the thing about waifu fags, check out this interview https://dijehtranslations.wordpress...zuyuki-smt-iv-interview-for-dengeki-nintendo/ , they probably let the younger team members experiment a little story wise with the "girls should always be all over your dick" mentality that plagues jrpg. When you try to appeal to such two different demographics you end up appealing to no one.

I didn't know it was the younger team that worked on this game. Huh Interesting. I wonder how much "everybody loves you" gonna be present in SMT5.

I just went full anarchy route

I went bonds because i didn't felt like being a dick to bunch of people that actively trying to help me even if become friends in 5 minutes is dumb.


Also i actually liked Hallejuah and Gaston, they've some devemploment thought out the game and Hallejuah is so useful.

 

[Shadenuat]

Still glad we can still get good SRPGs made, even if it does fall to Chinese supermen to do it.

Bavarian girl promoted: Pau-li-na, this french medal? Whats written on it? TRANSLATE
Old man dying: Ah... and I so wanted to last see the snow in Saint Petersburg...
Princess: Enemy defeated... fuf... when is dessert??
Musician: Fuf fuf... tired... can I get like, work, where i get money, but don't work?

if this game was translated and written better it would have been fire

also I have to replay missions on hard with 1 save cause I fail... occasionally

 

[AdamReith]

Still glad we can still get good SRPGs made, even if it does fall to Chinese supermen to do it.

Bavarian girl promoted: Pau-li-na, this french medal? Whats written on it? TRANSLATE
Old man dying: Ah... and I so wanted to last see the snow in Saint Petersburg...
Princess: Enemy defeated... fuf... when is desert??
Musician: Fuf fuf... tired... can I get like, work, where i get money, but don't work?

if this game was translated and written better it would have been fire

also I have to replay missions on hard with 1 save cause I fail... occasionally

I find the shit translation kind of charming, makes it feel like a wooden period drama kinda.

Also the bavarian girl's lines are always hilarious.

I do agree though, with some personality in the writing you could get into the characters a bit more which is kind of a big deal in a FE style SRPG.

Also I'm finding it hard as balls but I suck at games so it's not too unusual. I'm playing on hard too and always get complacent, latest fuck you was the enemy heavy cav having a skill that prevents counter attacks so they were able to gang up and kill Pauline without triggering her heal.

 

[newtmonkey]

Dragon Warrior II (NES)
Finished! I ended up completing the game at levels 32/28/24 or thereabouts, and had a blast the whole time. The game has a reputation for being difficult and requiring massive grinding, but I didn't need to grind for experience or gold until the very end—even then, I'm not sure I needed to grind anyway due to all the experience you earn in the final dungeon. The minibosses before the final boss stay dead as long as you don't power the game off, so I probably could have taken the bosses down one-by-one, returning to the save spot for HP/MP recovery in between, and made it fine. Oh well, spending an hour or so grinding a few levels was a good excuse to listen to an old episode of Coast to Coast AM!

The Hargon/Malroth battle is weird. Hargon is weak to Stopspell, but he does insane physical damage and is capable of killing off a weakened character in a single unlucky round. Then, the battle with Malroth is one of patience since he can heal himself to max whenever he wants (he did this 5 or 6 times), but actually isn't capable of doing much damage in a single round... so it's just a matter of keeping everyone healed and attacking whenever you get a chance.

---

One of the best things about this game is its structure. Once you get the boat (only a few hours into the game), the world really does open up for exploration and there are very few areas at that point that are "gated" by strong monsters. Although there are a few big dungeons to explore, a large part of the game is exploring the world to gather information and quest items—it feels like a simplified Ultima at times. One great thing about the game is that enemies are very susceptible to buffing/debuffing spells and often you have no trouble running from encounters. Because there are no "boss" encounters gating your progress, this means you can get all the way to the final area at a pretty low level. It's too bad that the 16-bit JRPGs (specifically Final Fantasy IV) went with a more linear and repetitive Town > Dungeon > Boss structure, as I definitely prefer the more nonlinear and exploration-focused approach of this game.

 

[Gastrick]

newtmonkey
You had me surprised when you placed me on your ignore list but it seems I'm off it now. I remember there being a tiny bit of grinding for a shop item early on but besides that, none. That would make the game much worse if it was harder to run away, you pretty much need to run from every encounter on the Road to Rhone(could have been the wrong way to play). Especially when you encounter those dragons.
I found an obscure game similar in structure to DQII from crpgaddict's blog called "Minelvaton Saga", with the same non-gated world and focus on gathering info and quest items. He cheated to win by maxing out his character's levels and following a walkthrough so he disliked the game. A flaw though seems to be that is has Xanadu-style ARPG combat instead of team, turn-based combat. Once I play it after DQIII, I'll make a full entry in the dedicated thread.

 

[newtmonkey]

Gastrick
Sorry about the ignore, it was accidental! I'd like to read your thoughts on Minelvaton Saga when you get to it, but I suspect it's not great. Having said that, the crpgaddict tends to grind experience even when he doesn't need to, so he might have ruined the game for himself. It's my only major criticism of how he plays RPGs; when he hits a difficulty spike, he just grinds levels without even attempting to try different tactics (sometimes, he just grinds levels even before that point, just to be safe [Wizardry V]).

I personally didn't run from many encounters, even on the road to Rhone, but based on how the game is structured you are probably actually better off running from battles that are even slightly annoying and making it up in Rhone.

People say the game is unbalanced, and apparently Yuji Hori claimed that they had no time to balance the endgame, but I'm not so sure. Your characters begin getting extremely powerful each time they level up beginning around level 25 or so (depending on the character)—which is exactly the level at which you'd arrive at Rhone naturally—and the enemies in Rhone give massive experience awards considering they are no more difficult than the enemies in the Cave to Rhone. It seems to me that the game was designed specifically for you to arrive at Rhone severely underpowered and then to quickly gain power over several attempts to take on Hargon/Malroth. 30 minutes spent leveling in Rhone is probably equivalent to hours upon hours of leveling spent anywhere else. I don't think this was a last-minute adjustment; it feels natural to me that you should have a hard time until the very end, where you rapidly become more powerful.

Also, I don't think Yuji Hori had very much to do with the mechanics of DQ at all—his contribution was taking Wizardry and Ultima and simplifying the formula down in a way that works with two buttons. I think Hiroshi Miyaoka (who went on to create the awesome Metal Max series) is the unsung hero of Dragon Quest as the minute he left, the series became more linear and story-focused.

 

[Gastrick]

Gastrick
Sorry about the ignore, it was accidental!

I like your reason why.

I'd like to read your thoughts on Minelvaton Saga when you get to it, but I suspect it's not great.

Thanks

Having said that, the crpgaddict tends to grind experience even when he doesn't need to, so he might have ruined the game for himself.

Or that.

 

[newtmonkey]

I like your reason why.

Reading this forum can sometimes be an absolute test of patience, and at times I find myself ignoring a dozen shitposters in a single topic just so I can filter out the noise. I likely clicked your name by mistake when I meant to click someone else.

 

[lightbane]

Seeing how the world is going to hell, especially Europe, I decided to go back to a setting which is thankfully immune to the PC-virus: Mario games. The M&L games are surprisingly good, even though the first one's setting is a bit too weird IMO. The second one I watched a longplay, the babies are obnoxious but the whole alien evil faction was quite well-made, with some thought behind them. Despite how traditional/sane Japanese are, lots of regions in Mario world are governed by women. Thankfully they're actually good at their job, unlike others.
The Bowser Inside story is supposedly very well-liked, and I'll check it myself soon with my aging DS.

 

[Twizman]

It's so nice to read a similar perspective to how I felt playing DWII. Thanks for sharing newt. Wonder what other jrpgs in that non-linear style exist.

 

[Shadenuat]

Also I'm finding it hard as balls but I suck at games so it's not too unusual

I exploited the fuck out of birdgirl moment she got double tap. But yes this game can be a bit balls especially with "...and then THE WINGED HUSSARS ARRIVED******@@@" 3-4-5 and then after turn 2 repeat and turn 3 repeat what the fuck

overall, from gorgeous costumes to sprites, reasonably ok missions and even C&C Banner of the Maid is a lot more worth than they ask you for it.

 

[d1r]

Busin 0: Wizardry Alternate Neo

One day, the world will be able to play the best Wizardry game out there ...

One day...

in a far far future...

Spoiler