Random thoughts on whatever JRPG you're currently playing?

[TalgoTheYank99]

2 Hours into Xenosaga Episode 1. Cutscenes, cutscenes and more cutscenes... Also what the fuck KOS MOS you've done Virgil dirty.

 

[Reinhardt]

finally played SRW T while sitting without internet again. out of all modern super robot wars it's my favorite. probably because characters are mostly from old animus, without modern isekai shit and original characters are adults. played as golddigger office lady and she and her lesbian harem were pretty entertaining. liked rudi woman too, even remembered her name after 10th introduction, pity i can't recruit her in main campaign.

 

[InD_ImaginE]

finally played SRW T while sitting without internet again. out of all modern super robot wars it's my favorite. probably because characters are mostly from old animus, without modern isekai shit and original characters are adults. played as golddigger office lady and she and her lesbian harem were pretty entertaining. liked rudi woman too, even remembered her name after 10th introduction, pity i can't recruit her in main campaign.

Switch Emulator? Does it run well? I tried like 2 years ago in Ryujinx and everything is ultra laggy

 

[Reinhardt]

finally played SRW T while sitting without internet again. out of all modern super robot wars it's my favorite. probably because characters are mostly from old animus, without modern isekai shit and original characters are adults. played as golddigger office lady and she and her lesbian harem were pretty entertaining. liked rudi woman too, even remembered her name after 10th introduction, pity i can't recruit her in main campaign.

Switch Emulator? Does it run well? I tried like 2 years ago in Ryujinx and everything is ultra laggy

yuzu. zero problems.

 

[Lincolnberry]

Finished Yakuza 7: Like a Dragon.

Overall: 4/5.

I am a fan of Yakuza games in general and a big fan of dragon quest, particularly the ones with robust job systems (especially 7, uncommon though that opinion is). This game makes a number of small references that I found very endearing and are probably positively coloring my view more than most. If you like Yakuza and DQ, as I do, I can't imagine you won't like this one.

Positives:
- I am a fan of turn based in general and I like this direction for Yakuza, especially since the brawler combat was never very interesting
- Good characters and motivations (other than business chick who feels almost like DLC)


I do have a number of criticisms I hope they improve on for the next game:
- Story is less tight than other Yakuza games. Sort of all over the place. 3 was about nothing at all but this one felt like trying to do too many twists that just didn't make sense.
- Battle system needs some tweaks. You're strong incentivized to brute force/most buffs don't matter meaningfully and are risky to use as they burn a turn with low/unknown probability, especially on bosses.
- No particularly interesting jobs or upgrade paths. Pretty mundane. In addition, you're generally best off sticking with one or a small handful of jobs per character given the job scaling and limited overlap abilities between jobs.
- The game's main mini game is functionally required and pretty boring.
- Grinding isn't bad necessarily but I wish it were more diverse. You basically have to do the Battle Arena to clear the Chapter 12 bossfight, which is a gigantic difficulty spike.

I still like it, but Etrian Odyssey or even DQ7 this is not (yet). I do think there's a lot of potential here if they keep digging, though.

 

[Puukko]

Fate Samurai Remnant. I know very little about Fate so whatever fanservice flies right above my head, I don't know the vast majority of these servants. I really liked Three Hopes so this game has lofty boots to fill.

And yeah, so far it works. It's more of a limited open world structure with parts of the city being mostly free to visit. They mix it up with a strategy leylines minigame where you take control of nodes while defending your own territory, it's simple at first but they pile on the mechanics.

Combat is standard Omega Force musou fare. Light/heavy combos, stances, several gauges to fill for a big damage nut. Big skill trees. I'm about 8 hours in and so far I only have one servant which I'm hoping changes soon. The game has teased me with several rogue servants but funnily enough the ones I've actually gotten to play have all been ones with masters, and they've been the most fun so far. I can only hope I'll acquire them somehow once I beat their masters and they're not just one-offs.

On a technical level the game is mediocre at best. It's on the PS4 and Switch but even then the game looks rough, even when considering anime styled games can get away with making up for it with the artstyle. I haven't had any bugs or technical issues but I don't think the game runs well enough for how it looks.

Now, good visual flair is my weakness and on that front the game delivers, some of those servant specials get really elaborate. This series really just is Naruto powerlevel ninja wizard battles with historical figures, except they're hot babes now. Except when they're traps. There has been not one, not two, but three male characters I thought to be girls at first, two of them even having female VAs. What is it with this series?

 

[Kuruwin]

Fate then

Fate Now

 

[Reinhardt]

Fate Samurai Remnant. I know very little about Fate so whatever fanservice flies right above my head, I don't know the vast majority of these servants.

i only know half of them despite playing fgo for years. in chapter 3 right now.
don't really like seiba replacement. from all servants i had to play so far immortal roach cu is da best boy.

 

[True Ukrainian]

Finished Yakuza 7: Like a Dragon.

Overall: 4/5.

I am a fan of Yakuza games in general and a big fan of dragon quest, particularly the ones with robust job systems (especially 7, uncommon though that opinion is). This game makes a number of small references that I found very endearing and are probably positively coloring my view more than most. If you like Yakuza and DQ, as I do, I can't imagine you won't like this one.

Positives:
- I am a fan of turn based in general and I like this direction for Yakuza, especially since the brawler combat was never very interesting
- Good characters and motivations (other than business chick who feels almost like DLC)


I do have a number of criticisms I hope they improve on for the next game:
- Story is less tight than other Yakuza games. Sort of all over the place. 3 was about nothing at all but this one felt like trying to do too many twists that just didn't make sense.
- Battle system needs some tweaks. You're strong incentivized to brute force/most buffs don't matter meaningfully and are risky to use as they burn a turn with low/unknown probability, especially on bosses.
- No particularly interesting jobs or upgrade paths. Pretty mundane. In addition, you're generally best off sticking with one or a small handful of jobs per character given the job scaling and limited overlap abilities between jobs.
- The game's main mini game is functionally required and pretty boring.
- Grinding isn't bad necessarily but I wish it were more diverse. You basically have to do the Battle Arena to clear the Chapter 12 bossfight, which is a gigantic difficulty spike.

I still like it, but Etrian Odyssey or even DQ7 this is not (yet). I do think there's a lot of potential here if they keep digging, though.

Grinding jobs is meant to access post game content, in particular if you want to challenge Amon in the true millennium tower. You need the cumulative small stat boosts to be able to match Amon's strength. Business chick is again meant for post game content. At high level she's as good a healer as main girl, has higher initiative and more damage.

 

[Nikanuur]

It's funny how an average action game for kids teds to be so much better in terms of raw gameplay than an average action game for grown ups.

 

[Reinhardt]

There has been not one, not two, but three male characters I thought to be girls at first

my trapometer is better calibrated. only 1 mistake out of 3 - white-haired master. other two are seiba and chinese archer, i guess?

 

[Reinhardt]

got first ending. babiloni-ya boss. technically it's still ending because credits roll.

 

[Reinhardt]

There has been not one, not two, but three male characters I thought to be girls at first

my trapometer is better calibrated. only 1 mistake out of 3 - white-haired master. other two are seiba and chinese archer, i guess?

so akshully white-haired samurai is a woman. and saber's gender is ? i.e. it's never confirmed if it's man or woman, even by developers themselves when asked. japan...
need to fix my trapometer again...

 

[Abu Antar]

I reinstalled Dragon Quest XI again. I really like the game, bought it day one, but for some reason never beat it. I hope to finish it before the end of the year.

I really hope they don't stray too much from the series formula, despite what they have said about DQXII.

On another note, I am playing the 3DS version of Dragon Quest VII. If you don't like slow paced games, you should skip. I'm two hours in, and I haven't had a single encounter yet. My party is mostly planned out, but I read that there are some changes for how spells and such work.

 

[flyingjohn]

On another note, I am playing the 3DS version of Dragon Quest VII. If you don't like slow paced games, you should skip. I'm two hours in, and I haven't had a single encounter yet. My party is mostly planned out, but I read that there are some changes for how spells and such work.

Skip it for the psx version, 7 3ds is a dumbed down version. It is still slow, but it actually has some difficulty.

 

[Abu Antar]

I'm sticking with it for the portable aspect.

PSX version is best, otherwise.

 

[Damned Registrations]

I reinstalled Dragon Quest XI again. I really like the game, bought it day one, but for some reason never beat it. I hope to finish it before the end of the year.

I really hope they don't stray too much from the series formula, despite what they have said about DQXII.

On another note, I am playing the 3DS version of Dragon Quest VII. If you don't like slow paced games, you should skip. I'm two hours in, and I haven't had a single encounter yet. My party is mostly planned out, but I read that there are some changes for how spells and such work.

I tried it out but put it down in disgust and got a refund after watching an insanely long cutscene of a dog barking at a guard that served no purpose except to pad playtime. I wish they'd go back to the more open world exploration roots the series originally had.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

Skip it for the psx version, 7 3ds is a dumbed down version. It is still slow, but it actually has some difficulty.

The psx version lets you stack classes though. There's never any challenge after the class system unlocks. At least the 3ds version limits your abilities somewhat.

 

[Lincolnberry]

Skip it for the psx version, 7 3ds is a dumbed down version. It is still slow, but it actually has some difficulty.

The psx version lets you stack classes though. There's never any challenge after the class system unlocks. At least the 3ds version limits your abilities somewhat.

This was so much fun though. Loved how you had to unlock the higher tier classes (and monster classes!) by mastering the lower ones. Admittedely overpowered to carry your skills over to new classes but what I can say, this was the game that made me a DQ fan and the class system in 7 was the top reason by far.

(as was the strange obtuseness of the beginning - 3+ hours to your first fight!? But such a reward once you figure out the temple puzzles)

 

[InD_ImaginE]

Well months after the English release, I finally got 1 victory in Traveler of Wuxia, a roguelike deckbuilder by Heluo, of Tale of Wuxia and HoToLoShu fame. Time for a mini-review I guess:

So what is it? If you are unfamiliar with the dozens of games in the genre released in the past 3 - 4 years, RL Deckbuilder is a genre where your character's action in combat is determined by what cards they draw: imagine playing mana-based CCG like Hearthstones (or MTG if HS is too zoomer for you) but where it's PvE, your health persist between combats, and you get your card semi-randomly between battles (usually you got choice of several cards, with option to remove cards/upgrade them/buy specific ones in shops). The genre exploded in popularity in 2019 when Slay the Spire (StS) was released and is especially popular in China: you will A LOT of Chinese indie dev making games in the genre. Traveler of Wuxia was released Jan 2023 and got EN translation in July 2023.

How is it different? Between all the StS clones released over the years, they usually try to have a twist in the formula. In the case of Traveler of Wuxia (ToW from here point on, I know it's the same with Tale of Wuxia but damn writing the damn name fully everytime is too much), the main differences are:

i. Combo system: inspired by the wuxia theme, moves/cards in ToW are capable of being chained together which will result in a free (0 Mana/AP) card of varying effects. E.g. chaining 2 spear attack cards will result in you getting free action dealing light damage to all enemies (by swinging your spear around from the illustration of the card). Mind you synergy has always been the point of CCG, StS clone included, but this system means cards have both soft synergies (e.g. unrelated cards that complement each other) and hard synergies (due to said combo system).

ii. 2 Characters: besides controlling the protagonist, the game will let you choose 1 between 3 potential waifus as a partner: each of the 3 waifus has unique decks (and thus unique multiple builds) and unique mechanics of their own. During combat they have their own health pool, AP pool, discard pool and so on, basically a full, 2nd character you control. This combined with 3 Classes (and each of those classes has multiple builds too, mind you) resulted in a rather fun and robust experience as certain MC builds might work better/worse with each waifus build.

iii. Story mode: it's light but it's there. The game is structured in a way where you have 3 Chapters of Story (each consisting of 3 stages as per genre convention) where in each one your MC will be paired to one of the waifus. Finishing them opens the "true roguelike" mode where you are free to choose which waifus you want and where you can fight any enemies from the previous 3 chapters (even some new ones) which ends with a final unique final boss. The game is basically a stealth sequel of HTLS: the kid of our HTLS protagonist finds dad's isekai/transmigration book and is now starting his own adventure.

Is it good? In the end of the day roguelike deckbuild is a hit or miss for people. Some people really like it (I know I do) but others really hate it. Within the genre itself, I consider ToW to actually be good! A lot of pitfalls StS clone often has is that in the process of making it more approachable, they usually make cards generic/reduce the importance of synergy which results in bland and boring game. ToW on the other hand embraced it fully and tried to fix StS' "have a built deck by stage mid stage 2 or die" by means of other tools, namely reducing the card RNG factor. The hard synergy i mentioned above also makes for a nice guiding direction for players on what to get/not to get. On the other hand the true roguelike mode has it so that if you don't have a working deck by mid Stage 3, you will be fucked still (basically smoother difficulty and RNG curve vs StS).

Deck builds of all 6 classes (3MC, 3 waifus) are distinct from each other and play differently enough to have runs feeling fresh (within context of the game of course, in actual much like CCG in general it borrows from one another with twist here and there). The current problem I have with the decks themselves is in the final boss. The final boss requires taking 100 damage in a turn otherwise, he will fully heal any damage taken that turn. Maybe I am not good enough in the genre but this actively punishes you from using some builds for the characters. And then the fact that the final boss also "cheat", in a game of combo, synergy, and free action, the boss will instantly override your turn per 10 cards played. Once again punishing certain builds of certain classes from what I see (or I might not be good enough I guess). Other bosses are fun in general, once again having different mechanics and way to defeat.

Music reused some tracks of HTLS while having a few unique tracks that I actually like and I am disappointed not being able to find them on YouTube. Story is pretty light but it's there. You will also find cameos from HTLS characters.

Overall I recommend the game if you like the genre (StS clone). Traveler of Wuxia is a fun, well-made StS clone with high degree of replayability due to having 2 characters that can be built differently within one run. Card arts, music, the small things are pretty supportive with big minus of reusing HTLS assets.

 

[Yaksha]

Not exactly a jrpg but i couldn't think of a better place to talk about it.
So drakengard...
The closest thing to this game that i have experienced is hotline miami 2.
The same sense of exhaustion and depravity, the only difference being that this game just takes it to higher level.
Rambling aside i advise anyone who is remotely interested to at least play few the first few hours of the game, lps just don't do it justice.

The story start with caim, a crazed and dying guts wanna be who finds a dragon on the verge of death, and inorder to secure a victory and stay alive , makes a pact with said dragon , becoming a mute in the process, that's when the game starts.
One of the things that i liked the most about the game, was how it handled branching routes.
You have to beat certain missions under somewhat strict time limits or find certain things in the map in order to unlock other missions which change the order and sequence of the story, and by the virtue of these little changes , you unlock different endings.
Upon this adventure of yours you come into contact with a cast of upstanding characters such as
Caim : the child killer
arioch : the child eater
Leonard : the pedophile
And finally seere the 1000 year old child in the making
I just wish that there was more to the story and the characters, considering the awful gameplay this speaks volumes of how interesting the atmosphere and the story is.

Certain details that i enjoyed about the story:
The fact that the harder you try, the worse things get.
How the pacts deprive a person of both something physical:
The ability to speak, sing or age etc
And of their goals:
Caim is unable of protecting his sister and his homeland.
Inuart loses sight of his own beloved.
Seere ends up killing his own sister.

Combat :
Dull , boring and rather mind numbing.
Everything you expect from a game of this kind but worse.
Two modes, an arial one and a standard muso mode.
In the arial one you ride a dragon , pretty fun , the only grievance being the bosses going full dmc mode.
Muso mode is what most of the game is though , so be prepared to constantly mash buttons and accidentally trigger magic and die from the counter magic attacks.
Different weapons have different move sets and spells .



Music:
Commonly described as an orchestra group falling from from the stage, it takes a certain kind of madman to think of making such jarring music out of timeless classic just to annoy the player.
Not gonna lie the ending theme of end b is still stuck in my head.

Still something that i kind of hated but couldn't put down, would love to see something similar.
the later games ,while pretty good in their own right , lacked the certain kind disgust and revolt that drakengard 1 evokes.

 

[newtmonkey]

Live A Live (Super Famicom)

This game has you selecting from one of seven characters, each with his own unique scenario. The scenarios themselves are quite short (ranging from 10-15 minutes at the shortest to several hours at the longest), but each has its own quirks and game mechanics. It's a refreshing approach to an RPG, because you can just pop in, complete a scenario, and then put the game down for another day.

It has a turn-based combat system, with battles taking place on a grid. Each character has a variety of moves that can be used as much as you want, each with its own special properties and range. The more powerful moves tend to take longer to do (giving enemies more opportunities to attack or even interrupt your attack!), so it's important to keep in mind exactly what each attack does. You can run from pretty much any fight at any time (other than bosses), and also get healed up to max HP in between battles... so instead of conserving resources like in most RPGs, you end up doing everything and anything you can to win each fight.

---

It's a great game, but it is of course not perfect. I was very disappointed with a couple of the scenarios (Sundown Kid the cowboy and Masaru the street fighter), and found some of the better scenarios to be too short/simple (Akira the psychic and Pogo the caveman).

I really liked the other scenarios... but especially liked the Oboromaru (ninja) scenario. You have to infiltrate a mazelike castle to assassinate its lord, and all the encounters are fixed. There are multiple ways through the castle, so it's up to you to decide whether to kill everyone like a psycho, sneak through without a single kill like a true ninja, or something in between. It's just the right length for this game, but I would love to see a full-scale RPG using this concept.

I also really liked the final scenario, where you choose one of the characters from the previous scenarios as the hero, and then are free to explore the (very tiny) world to track down the other characters and form a final party of four. Each character has his or her own unique dungeon with its own gimmick and that character's ultimate weapon at the end.

---

All in all, this game was simply wonderful, and definitely one of the best games I've played through this year. I honestly had trouble putting it down until the end. There's absolutely no need to grind at all, the stories and characters were a lot of fun, and even the lesser scenarios were at least a nice change of pace. I'd rank it up there with Square's best on the SFC.

 

[Rahdulan]

Live A Live (Super Famicom)

All in all, this game was simply wonderful, and definitely one of the best games I've played through this year. I honestly had trouble putting it down until the end. There's absolutely no need to grind at all, the stories and characters were a lot of fun, and even the lesser scenarios were at least a nice change of pace. I'd rank it up there with Square's best on the SFC.

It also has a killer soundtrack.

 

[Reinhardt]

feels gud to be big. now i want to play super robot wars again.

 

[Suicidal]

So, after over 95 hours of Strange Journey Redux I've decided to try getting the "old" ending (before tapping the alternate one).

...Only to be brutally raped multiple times by the final boss. All previous bosses were total breeze (on Normal) compared to MA. There was always some "trick" to dealing with them: either by exploiting their weakness, fusing demons strong against their attacks, or using buffs / debuffs.

Unfortunately, MA can't be outsmarted - only outgunned. Let's list tactical options I've considered...

• She doesn't have any weaknesses. So using "follow-up" attacks is out of the question. And this fact strongly hints to the only sane approach to dealing with her: use only strong physical attacks, 'cuz that's the only way of getting a critical against her (which can lead to "follow-up" if you have proper sub-app).
• She can use ultra-strong elemental attacks, ultra-strong x1-x5 physical attack, deadly expel & death spells and status-changing attack which works even on demons strong against Curse. What the actual fuck?
• Buffs / debuffs are a no-go as well, 'cuz she will counter these with dekaja/dekunda skill which harms all members of your party and heals her as well. Jesus.

What makes things worse is the AI's behavior, which can be "checked" using quicksaves. 'Cuz it looks like the AI adapts to your actions AFTER you executed them (which player can't do). If you set up an anti-magical barrier, she will NEVER use an elemental attack (but Almighty one), and she uses the dekaja/dekunda skill right after your buff/debuff. It looks like the AI checks for the status of player's actions before acting itself.
So, AI always knows what you did before it acts, but you have no idea what will it do.

To sum this up... Hard fight? Sure. Complex one? Not really. Fun? IMO not at all. I mean the only sane way of dealing with her is to fuse demons with strong physical attacks and as many elemental strengths as possible (void / null / reflect). Having void curse and reflect phys is a bonus.

And that's what most of online guides suggest: grind, fuse a strong group of lev. >80 demons, get "pierce" if possible, punch her to death. So, it's the "pierce" bullshit from SMT3 all over again...

I'm gonna necromancy this post because I'm playing SJ right now for the first time and I've found a very easy and consistent way to kill MA because Labyrinth of Touhou taught to me to look for AI pattern exploits in bullshit boss fights.

She will always cast one of two non-elemental nukes if you cast a shield on your turn as long as you cast it before her action.
She has a high chance of casting a dispel all spell that also heals her if you have buffs on your party or debuffs on her. I've noticed that she always does that when the sum of your buffs + her debuffs is at 4 or 5 (for example if you have 2 stacks of debuff on her and 1 stack of buff on your party she probably won't use that spell but if you go to +2 on yourself -2 on her she will). Sometimes she will just cast that shit regardless, even if you only have 1 buff or 1 debuff stack.
Without buffs/debuffs any of her elemental attacks could 1shot my protag and also oneshot any of my demons who were weak or neutral to them.

Wat do?

Well, I noticed that her nuke spells that she uses to "punish" you for shielding always have first priority in her behavior, no matter what. If you cast a shield before her action, she WILL use one of those two spells. One of them does like 400-500 damage and debuffs agility by 1 (meaningless), the other does 200-300 damage and applies a random negative status (can be bad, cause she can pertrify the protag for an instant game over, but it's unlikely to happen).

This means, that as long as I keep spamming shields each turn, causing her to retaliate with one of those spells, I can safely buff myself to +4 and debuff her to -4, reducing the damage she does with those spells to negligible amounts, and never worry about her using a dispel.

The only problem then is the random status effects, which you can get immunity to on 3 out of 5 turns with the command spell, so there's an extremely tiny chance of them fucking up your run.

After that all that matters is that your designated shield spammer is supplied with mana so that he doesn't miss a single turn of shielding and then you're dealing with a boss that will do around 100-200 damage per turn as opposed to 800+ per turn with the elemental spells.

Doesn't work on the 2nd phase because instead of using those spells now whenever you cast a shield she will just cast an instant death spells that ignores all resistances and barriers and also heals her on a random unit (including the protag for an instant game over) but the 2nd phase is overall easier because she becomes far less trigger happy with the dispels, only using them at like +7 combined stacks to your advantage and at +3 -3 her elemental spells no longer one shot anyone.

Hope this will save some hours of grinding for people who try this game out and get stuck on this boss.