Random thoughts on whatever JRPG you're currently playing?

[dacencora]

The battles have become a bit repetitive now.

Not sure what the thought process was at IS there. "Let's remake a NES game and change everything except the scenario\map design"? In fact, I'd argue some of the changes were a downgrade. Warp got nerfed, so the larger maps become a slog. As for the story rewrite, sometimes less is more. At least the UI is an improvement.

Yeah definitely don’t disagree. I just went through the Dead Man’s Mire map, and that was different from the other maps, I’ll admit, haha, but it was not a good map. I’ve heard good things about Fates: Conquest’s map design, but I haven’t played any of the other 3DS FEs yet.

 

[Thac0]

I wish I had more time to play JRPGs currently, I am just playing a bit of Final Fantasy Legend 2 (SaGa 2) on the side.
At first I thought it was an all around improvement to an already good game, but the furher I get I get a few mixed feelings about the game.
The biggest change is that characters get automatically ressurected to 1 hp after battle. In order to balance this enemies do a lot more damage (a lot of them have spell like attacks that ignore defense and do 1/3rd of your health) and there are more of them in general. The problem is that this, coupled with the fact that you spark your stats very rarely, makes combat overall quite unrewarding. Add a high flee rate on top, and I flee from 90% of fights, and just fight those where I can oneshot the entire enemy team with two thunder spells and get tons of cash as they are in 10x stacks. The bosses are also very easy, like in the first game, so this strategy is complete smooth sailing.
Also the structure of the last game was a bunch of normal rpg worlds with shops and dungeons and all connected by one megadungeon which you can traverse between them. That made backtracking a bit annoying, but cutting the entire mega dungeon and making it just a fancy staircase is a definite step down aswell.
Maybe this will pick up more as I get closer to the endgame, but currently I must say that despite countless improvements to everything the game is only as good as the first game, due to some deeper laying flaws.

 

[jungl]

played through wizardry labyrinth of lost souls. Very boring dungeons. Game is unbalanced as can be. I was lucky and found 2 murasama swords with very little grinding with just one guy wielding it they do more damage then the whole party combined. Absolutely HEEMED everything with the blade and didn't bother with the post game dungeon.

Be warned the game has poor game mechanics. HP you get per level is tied to races and classes HP is the most important stat in the game. After I beat the game my gnome only had 300 something hp compared to my 1000 something dwarf fighter. Gnome race has high intelligence and piety but magic is useless compared to melee especially post game where enemies have bloated hp. So ideally you want to never create a gnome in the first place unless you want to spend many more hours grinding for nothing. All the stats in the game are pretty much useless other then agility and HP.

 

[Thorakitai]

I'm currently playing Brandish 1 after finishing it's sequel on the SNES and boy I'm loving this dungeon crawler for it's fair but difficult challenges like searching for hidden doors and traps, figuring out the difficult puzzles and the battle system is quite varied (you can use swords and magic and both are quite effective).

Even it's weird control system (You can move forwards and walk backwards, but once you make a clockwise or counterclockwise turn the whole map will change perspective as you will see what that side looks like from his point of view. ) didn't detract from the experience although I can see why many don't like the game.

 

[Malamert]

Finished Resonance of Fate. Absolute blast from start to finish.
The gameplay's an absolute joy. Didn't get tired of it at all and it took me about 112 hours to finish. Character levels are based on their weapon skills, so you can quickly get a few levels by switching to weapons they're not that proficient with. Combat is sort of semi realtime. Whenever your characters move and attack, so do the enemies. Good stuff. Just wish there were more weapon types, but ah well.
Visuals are simply superb. Great locations, splendid character designs and a breath taking world.
Soundtrack is 118 tracks or so. That's a lot. It's grand and it never gets old.
The story's presented in a neat way. It really works to captivate and keep you interested in what's going on. Also having three intro cinematics is pretty impressive.

 

[Dishonoredbr]

Dragon's Dogma Dark Arisen finally clicked to me and what beast of a game. It's stupidly fun even if the mechanic are barely explained and the story so far is whatever. At least the whole plot with the Duke and Aelinore seems interesting. Also Aelinore is hella cute

The combat is just amazing. All classes are hella fun to play and Magick system of this game is just too good. It's quite slow but when it hits, it hurts and feels good. I still a low level character, level 32 (Strider rank 9, Rank 3 Ranger and Rank 7 Sorcerer going into Magick Archer) but game is huge , a shit ton of content and this is first game that Exploration is fun to me. I actually have fun just running around the map to find enemies to kill and loot to get.

On top of that , i didn't expected to have actual choices and timed quests. This feel like the Ultimate mix of JRPG and WRPG.

 

[Puukko]

Finish the cycle of eternal return...

 

[Ghulgothas]

With guidance from local experts, I'm starting to put some effort into playing some proper JRPGS for the first time. Starting with Final Fantasy I, the PSP version in particular. I don't know the exact differences between the version types, but the spritework was enough for me.

It's fun, absolutely. The ease-of-access and low buy-in needed for actual gameplay is refreshing after so many micro-heavy WRPGs I've played. Though I wonder if that'll stick with the later FF Games as they start getting bigger and bigger. And speaking of later games, I've noticed a distinction in both FF and other franchises between games with set party members that come-and-go and games with modular parties of class-specific hirelings. The later I like more, and that seems to be what FF Tactics is all about. Which (along with Dragon Quest 3) I'm the most intrigued by.

 

[Puukko]

How did they go from those sprites and UI to the abominations that are the PC ports?

 

[flyingjohn]

How did they go from those sprites and UI to the abominations that are the PC ports?

-Too much work
-Too expensive
-Communism/corporatism
-Ceo's kid takes over
-Outsourcing to trannies

Pick your poison.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

At least the whole plot with the Duke and Aelinore seems interesting.

Not to mention Feste:

 

[newtmonkey]

Breath of Fire II (SFC)
I picked this back up again after several months of not playing it. I had previously got "stuck" in a difficult dungeon where regular enemies were routinely taking off 25-50% of my HP with a single attack and I thought I would need to grind up some levels (for the first time in the game)... but I did some exploring and it turned out that I had missed a shop on a random island selling some good equipment upgrades. After a quick shopping trip, I cleared the dungeon/boss and now I think I am close to the end of the game.

I'll post more when I complete it, but I've been pretty impressed with this. Not bad for a 16-bit JRPG—a definite improvement over typical stuff like BOF1 and Estpolis Denki aka Lufia.

Yomi wo Saku Hana (Switch)
I guess this will be getting released under the bizarre title of "Undernauts: Labyrinth of Yomi" on PC later this year. It has a bit of a Metroidvania thing going where beating a boss gives you access to "dungeon building" tools to "expand" ("unlock" is maybe a better word) the dungeon. This means you'll be backtracking after defeating each boss to unlock new parts of the dungeons by installing doors, ladders, or bridges on predefined squares. I like it, and it fits into the setting/theme of the game nicely.

One of the most attractive aspects of the game is its atmosphere. It has sort of a 1970s Japanese cyberpunk/splatterpunk feel, which I felt was a HUGE improvement over the settings in previous Experience games. I'm only 10 or so hours in, but there is a refreshing lack of anime tropes. Character artwork is also quite nice, though many of the monsters feel completely out of place. I gotta mention the awesome music that plays while exploring, which is a driving death march with a synth sax playing the main melody. It just fits the game perfectly.

 

[Sreggin Etah I]

Beat Dragon Quest 3 for the first time, the game that got me into JRPGs back in 2016, back then i did rage quit at the Baramos boss fight because i thought i had to grind a lot to stand a chance against him and i hated grinding back then. 2 year later i played the game again and beat Baramos only to rage quit again because:

Spoiler

he is not the final boss and there are more 15 hours of gameplay to go.

Finally, now in 2021 i am back to beat this game for once and for all. Fantastic game, the class change, the party creation, the huge amount of equipment to loot, the fast pace, the Pachisi minigame, the sprite art, the music, the open world(kinda), everything is great ! the game is also surprisingly dark. Even if you don't like JRPGs you're going to like this one. I did had to grind a bit to beat this motherfucker:

Spoiler

But it didn't take too long and it was worth, i am more patient now than back then. Also, i wrote notes this time like i did with DQ I and DQ V. back then i couldn't find the six orbs without a guide, but with notes i could find them all, i also found some of the best equipments in the game. thanks to notes, i can write where all the locked doors are to backtrack later once i got the keys, and all the places that does not appear on the map. Dragon Quest is the only JRPG i write notes when i play it.

This series is great.

 

[Sreggin Etah I]

Also, for anyone wanting to play Dragon Quest 1 > 2 > 3 in order. Dragon quest 1 and 2 just got a new english translation that fixes the gamebreaking bugs, i avoided playing the SNES version of 1 and 2 because of the bugs, but with this new translation:

https://www.romhacking.net/translations/6127/

now you can play all the three games in order on SNES.

 

[newtmonkey]

Breath of Fire II (SFC)

Finished! A massive improvement over the dull BOF1 in every way.

My biggest problems with BOF1 were:

1. Too easy: You can safely auto combat through much of the game
2. Too simple: Dungeons and towns are all very similar without any interesting gimmicks
3. Too annoying: Constant random battles against easy enemies and no "safe" means of overworld transportation until the very end of the game ruined the one thing I liked about BOF1—exploring the world for high powered gear

BOF2 improves on all of this. It maintains a decent level of challenge for most of the game, but in a fair way that rewards careful use of battle formations, spells, abilities, and consumables. The dungeons and towns are far more complex and interesting than in BOF1, with some interesting gimmicks and scenarios keeping things fresh. Finally, you get access to overworld transportation that heavily reduces or outright eliminates random encounters fairly early into the game, making it a lot easier to backtrack and find treasures.

I really enjoyed the final dungeon, which is massive and full of awesome treasure. The encounter rate is through the roof here, and I was getting into fights every 3-5 steps. I found that running from battle hardly ever works, so the better option is to use smoke bombs (or the rare Holy Scarf) to reduce the encounter rate. The second to last boss was brutal, and I really had to eke out every advantage possible including using common healing items. The last boss was comparatively easy.

Although it's a clear improvement over BOF1, there were still some annoying things that could have been improved. The random encounter rate is still way too high, but you can use a cheap consumable to reduce the rate somewhat if it really gets annoying. More annoyingly, I found that debuffing spells were completely useless as they hardly ever work on bosses—you are much better off buffing your own characters instead, which reduces the effectiveness of some of the spellcaster characters.

Other than that, I really enjoyed playing through this one. It's balanced quite well as I was able to complete it without having to stop to grind EXP or GP at all.

 

[Thac0]

Breath of Fire II (SFC)

Finished! A massive improvement over the dull BOF1 in every way.

Very cool! You make me want to check it out, since I had the exact same problems with BoF 1 as you. Would you say it is worth soldiering through BoF 1 first to get more out of BoF 2? I don'T even know where exactly I am in that game, but I think it was shortly after I got the ability to break walls with a minotaur (?).
Or just let BoF 1 lay as a historical oddity and grab BoF2 for a better game.

 

[newtmonkey]

Thac0
Honestly, unless you are interested in seeing how the BOF series has developed over time, I'd skip BOF1. BOF2 makes it feel like a prototype that got released by accident. BOF1 is just totally dull, it's never hard and you are doing the same thing at hour 25 that you were doing at hour 5.

If you do decide to play BOF2, there is only one "gotcha" you need to keep in mind for a smooth experience. The game at several points forces you to solo certain characters, and if you have been ignoring them you'll be in for a bad time. There's no need to artificially grind levels—I just used whatever 3 characters I wanted and swapped whatever character was of the lowest level in the 4th spot in the party to get some XP.

Also, battle formation is actually very important. The default formation sticks one character in front, two in the middle, and one in back. This is fine for most encounters, but for difficult areas/bosses you want to switch to the formation with three characters in the middle and one in back. It makes a huge difference (enemy attacks that take off 25-50% of your HP in position 1 will drop to 15% or so in position 2 or 3), and I think a lot of people don't even realize it's in the game. It might be why the game has a reputation as being so difficult/grindy.

I would also suggest making use of the smoke bomb item if the constant random encounters get too annoying. You'll easily make up any lost XP/gold later on.

Finally, there's lots of equipment (mostly toward mid-end game) that can be used in battle to cast spells. Any character can use these from the shared inventory, so it's worth it to keep these things in your inventory throughout the game.

 

[aweigh]

Yeah, mostly agree with newtmonkey there even though I have a soft spot for BoF 1.

As far as traditional BoF gameplay goes the series peaked with BoF 3, (probably), and BoF 2 is a great SNES game too with (in my opinion) better characters than the 3rd game and lots of memorable and amusing moments.

BoF 4 I found completely boring.

BoF 5 I found very difficult and confusing when I first played it but then I gained a very big appreciation for it and frankly it's *probably* the best-designed BoF game out of all them, it's very tightly designed and does what it does very well. I also found the premise, story and execution weirdly satisfying, and though it is very story-lite (seriously the game barely has any "story" going on beyond trying to get to the surface) I remember every single thing that happened in it and every character moment, and I especially remember the great ending.

Big fan of BoF 5 and though it won't happen if a BoF 6 ever happens I would love for it to be in that style.

 

[LJ40]

Bad news for Aweigh, BoF 6 happened and it most definitely wasn't "in that style".

 

[Puukko]

What a mess. Somehow having the story spoiled in such a humorous manner made me more interested in the game. And I am morbidly curious about X-2...

 

[GhostCow]

What a mess. Somehow having the story spoiled in such a humorous manner made me more interested in the game. And I am morbidly curious about X-2...

X-2 would have been great if it was turn based and we got someone cute as the third party member instead of the hideous dyke Paine

 

[Miner 2049er]

Bad news for Aweigh, BoF 6 happened and it most definitely wasn't "in that style".

Yeah, I was excited when I noticed there is a 6th installment. I still feel the pain when I started a youtube video making me realize, it's a real time mobile abomination. Let's hope for a 7th title, I guess.

 

[Dishonoredbr]

I just finished Dragon's Dogma Dark Arisen. I got 60h , Played as Strider > Sorcerer > Warrior > Mage > Magick Archer , level 72.

To resume my feelings about the game , Amazing gameplay and world exploration , amazing bosses. Super interesting Lore but the way the story is told is bad and some plot points are super rushed, Aelinore and Cult especialy.
The characters are fine, but i especialy liked Aelinore. For some reason , i just really enjoyed her storyline even if it's dumb as fuck. But her final mission was super cool, also she was my beloved.

Spoiler

what fuck happens to Gransys after the Dragon died.. I didn't expected Everfall to be this giant dungeon where multi-verses (aka other players worlds) exist.

Spoiler

HOLY SHIT that ending Post-Dragon. I didn't expected to become God and being to act as one, really didn't freaking expected seeing the Arisen that you play at the start/demo being God and begging you to kill him because he was so tired of the Eternal Cycle. And it was really nice ending with your character sacrificing themselve to give your pawn a soul and ending the eternal cycle..But i need to say that i totally expected that sometime soon , we would have to use God's Bane , especialy because i killed myself once with it

I'm going to give 9/10 for this game because the Gameplay and Lore towards the ending is amazing.

 

[Puukko]

Dishonoredbr I see no mention of Bitterblack Isle and that level and playtime are pretty low. Did you play it?

 

[Dishonoredbr]

Dishonoredbr I see no mention of Bitterblack Isle and that level and playtime are pretty low. Did you play it?

I started a NG+ to play Bitterblack Isle. I'm going first to finish some quests that i missed, for some reason i forgot to do Lost and Found and missed entire plot with Quina and the Witch then after that going to do Bitterblack Isle and finish the game once more to see the ending of NG+.