Random thoughts on whatever JRPG you're currently playing?

[Modron]

You want more of a storyline from a Dragon Quest game? Play 6 and then 7.

 

[AdamReith]

I'm a few scenarios into Der Langrisser. Really loving it, battles feel so much more meaty than Fire Emblem due to the commander/soldier system. Mass move also solved by having the soldiers auto follow the commander.

One thing I am really enjoying about it is how it weaves the story points into the battles. They really make an impact on how you compose your forces and it has that feel of unpredictability but hasn't completely fucked me over (yet).

Really recommend it as a SNES SRPG that is one hundred percent playable today, I turned off the music but it seemed decent too.

 

[Puukko]

A dozen or so hours into Shadow Hearts Covenant, it took a while to click but what I found is a very enjoyable PS2 JRPG. The foundation is a solid turn based JRPG but it does quite a few unique things to make it stand apart. First, all combat (and some non-combat, like shopping) actions use the wheel to determine success. Optimally, you'll want to hit all red areas, but missing any hit areas will result in a weaker or failed attack/combo. Each character has a different wheel with adjustable number of hit areas, the speed of the pointer, size of different areas etc, which means relying on muscle memory only gets you so far. Each character has unique abilities as well as ways to upgrade them. The MC has demons forms for each element, the lieutenant girl learns rapier techniques from parts of Wagner's operas, the old puppeteer can get dresses for his marionette to learn new spells, the wolf learns abilities from dueling other wolves (which seem to be a common pet in the alternate WWI era), the bodybuilder superhero oscillates between different forms (story reason yet to be explained) and the fortune reading girl can buff (or debuff) the party with Tarot and use perfumes which don't seem terribly useful in random battles, but bosses might be a different story. The random battle rate is vastly lower than say, PS2 SMTs, and the enemies range from the usual undead to rather obscure mythological creatures and bastard versions of common animals. Goetia demons are in a prominent role as the sources of magic that you can equip.

The story is okay so far, you're being hunted by a secret society and I know Rasputin will be involved later. I read the game being described as "dark" but I don't think that's quite accurate - perhaps in comparison to more animu JRPGs but the game is rather goofy if anything. Sure the MC is a half demon or something and his soul is a called Graveyard but at least so far it hasn't really dealt in any serious matters. I don't know what to think about the MC, his design is odd and outside the part where he is inhabited by demons, he mostly seems to goof around.

I read about the game being described as easy and while it is far from the most difficult JRPG I've played, I wouldn't quite call it easy. I do wish the bosses were a bit harder but random battles can get hairy as enemies can deal 30-40% of a character's HP in one turn - get unlucky and have 3 of them gang up on one dude with less than full health and they can get killed quite easily. I've still got enough reason to keep building my party so I'm happy enough.

 

[Falksi]

A dozen or so hours into Shadow Hearts Covenant, it took a while to click but what I found is a very enjoyable PS2 JRPG. The foundation is a solid turn based JRPG but it does quite a few unique things to make it stand apart. First, all combat (and some non-combat, like shopping) actions use the wheel to determine success. Optimally, you'll want to hit all red areas, but missing any hit areas will result in a weaker or failed attack/combo. Each character has a different wheel with adjustable number of hit areas, the speed of the pointer, size of different areas etc, which means relying on muscle memory only gets you so far. Each character has unique abilities as well as ways to upgrade them. The MC has demons forms for each element, the lieutenant girl learns rapier techniques from parts of Wagner's operas, the old puppeteer can get dresses for his marionette to learn new spells, the wolf learns abilities from dueling other wolves (which seem to be a common pet in the alternate WWI era), the bodybuilder superhero oscillates between different forms (story reason yet to be explained) and the fortune reading girl can buff (or debuff) the party with Tarot and use perfumes which don't seem terribly useful in random battles, but bosses might be a different story. The random battle rate is vastly lower than say, PS2 SMTs, and the enemies range from the usual undead to rather obscure mythological creatures and bastard versions of common animals. Goetia demons are in a prominent role as the sources of magic that you can equip.

The story is okay so far, you're being hunted by a secret society and I know Rasputin will be involved later. I read the game being described as "dark" but I don't think that's quite accurate - perhaps in comparison to more animu JRPGs but the game is rather goofy if anything. Sure the MC is a half demon or something and his soul is a called Graveyard but at least so far it hasn't really dealt in any serious matters. I don't know what to think about the MC, his design is odd and outside the part where he is inhabited by demons, he mostly seems to goof around.

I read about the game being described as easy and while it is far from the most difficult JRPG I've played, I wouldn't quite call it easy. I do wish the bosses were a bit harder but random battles can get hairy as enemies can deal 30-40% of a character's HP in one turn - get unlucky and have 3 of them gang up on one dude with less than full health and they can get killed quite easily. I've still got enough reason to keep building my party so I'm happy enough.

The difficulty dips when you move continent, but even then it's still fun coz of the systems you mention.

You may understand a bit more about the "dark" claim once you've gone through the whole game & finished it.

 

[Silentstorm]

Not really a JRPG, but Virgo VS The Zodiac is based on the Mario RPG games, has an anime art style and is heavily inspired by series like Sailor Moon so i think it kinda fits here?

Anyways, the main thing about this game is that you play as the villain going around destroying various democratic places and some citizens along the way so that you may rule over everything at the end and it feels like some impact is lost because the setting isn't a nice place.

Oh, don't get me wrong, the main character is evil, even the nicest character who believes everyone can redeem themselves calls the main character the epitome of evil and in the past she is seen disregarding personally killing 76 civilians just because they didn't fit her ideals and thus they are heretics worthy of a purge but...holy crap, the places she goes to really aren't all that great with horrible conditions for everyone living there or there are some fucked up sides if you look hard enough, like the candy country just happening to have an underground forest with skulls that are filled with "heretics" including one band whose crime was being mediocre yet still thinking they could play in a holy festival, oh and who can forget the fact that the goddess in charge of everything dictates things like everyone must make a statue of her before they are 22 years old and there are ritualistic sacrifices.

You know, it just seems like being a villain trying to change things by force loses quite a bit of impact when the world is fucked up enough you can actually kinda understand the villain, even the most heroic character partners up for a while with the main character since the world is so fucked up, it's less you going around conquering a world and beating heroes and more beating other villains who just happen to have good PR managers.

 

[jungl]

Been playing bug fables game. Its the only decent 2019 rpg I played. Best combat fag game this year.

 

[Nutmeg]

I'm a few scenarios into Der Langrisser. Really loving it, battles feel so much more meaty than Fire Emblem due to the commander/soldier system. Mass move also solved by having the soldiers auto follow the commander.

One thing I am really enjoying about it is how it weaves the story points into the battles. They really make an impact on how you compose your forces and it has that feel of unpredictability but hasn't completely fucked me over (yet).

Really recommend it as a SNES SRPG that is one hundred percent playable today, I turned off the music but it seemed decent too.

Langrisser 2 on the mega drive is better unless you're a huge storyfag.

 

[ebPD8PePfC]

Is the story good in Langrisser 2 or should I skip it and focus on the combat?

 

[AdamReith]

I'm a few scenarios into Der Langrisser. Really loving it, battles feel so much more meaty than Fire Emblem due to the commander/soldier system. Mass move also solved by having the soldiers auto follow the commander.

One thing I am really enjoying about it is how it weaves the story points into the battles. They really make an impact on how you compose your forces and it has that feel of unpredictability but hasn't completely fucked me over (yet).

Really recommend it as a SNES SRPG that is one hundred percent playable today, I turned off the music but it seemed decent too.

Langrisser 2 on the mega drive is better unless you're a huge storyfag.

Interesting, that's a sequel to Der Langrisser? Looking forward to getting to it so.

 

[flyingjohn]

I'm a few scenarios into Der Langrisser. Really loving it, battles feel so much more meaty than Fire Emblem due to the commander/soldier system. Mass move also solved by having the soldiers auto follow the commander.

One thing I am really enjoying about it is how it weaves the story points into the battles. They really make an impact on how you compose your forces and it has that feel of unpredictability but hasn't completely fucked me over (yet).

Really recommend it as a SNES SRPG that is one hundred percent playable today, I turned off the music but it seemed decent too.

Langrisser 2 on the mega drive is better unless you're a huge storyfag.

Interesting, that's a sequel to Der Langrisser? Looking forward to getting to it so.

Der langrisser is just a name for the snes version of langrisser 2.
Langrisser 2 on the genesis is harder and has some balance differences while having no story paths.

Edit:Best versions of the langrisser games in terms of ai and difficulty are the pc and sega versions of the games.

 

[Puukko]

Some Shadow Hearts screenshots.

https://rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/screenshot-thread.72409/page-1031#post-6465073

 

[Sigourn]

So... that's Dragon Quest IV done and over with.

4.5/10

With so many random encounters, with the complete inability to tell your party members what you want them to do beyond the most useful "don't use spells" (as the other commands are a total gamble), and the lackluster story, I can't give it much more. I had to fast forward my way through the last hours of the game because my patience ran extremely thin.

Pictured: fast-forward button carrying me away from this awful game.

 

[Lyre Mors]

Some Shadow Hearts screenshots.

Hey, you're emulating that right? How are you managing to do it without half the screen going black when the Judgement Ring appears during combat?

 

[Puukko]

Some Shadow Hearts screenshots.

Hey, you're emulating that right? How are you managing to do it without half the screen going black when the Judgement Ring appears during combat?

I'm not, that issue hasn't been fixed.

 

[Lyre Mors]

I'm not, that issue hasn't been fixed.

Annoys me too much to deal with. There is another option, and that is running in Software mode. But you would just have to run it at it's native resolution with no other graphical enhancements. That might be how I (re)play it next. It's not that bad if you sit back from your monitor a bit.

 

[abnaxus]

Playing Shadow Hearts 2 before 1 is ideal, actually.

If you play it after 1, the entire game feels pointless considering its ending. The game should've ended with Rasputin beaten, too many dev brainfarts after that.

 

[Puukko]

Playing Shadow Hearts 2 before 1 is ideal, actually.

If you play it after 1, the entire game feels pointless considering its ending. The game should've ended with Rasputin beaten, too many dev brainfarts after that.

How about Koudelka? Saw a review and it seemed interesting.

 

[Puukko]

Second disc of SHC and the game seems to have turned into Metal Gear Solid, complete with warships and freak special squads.

 

[Lyre Mors]

How about Koudelka? Saw a review and it seemed interesting

Worth a playthrough at some point, despite being flawed in many ways. It's very unique, has an excellent tone and atmosphere, and is short enough to not get annoying. I'd say it'd be worth playing before Shadow Hearts 1 (which is my favorite in the series, btw) just to see the origins of some characters and the birth of the series concept.

 

[Hobo Elf]

Koudelka kicks ass.

 

[Sigourn]

I took Final Fantasy III for a six-hour spin, and I had to drop it. One thing I've noticed just now is that ever since I played Skyrim in 2014, I hardly ever went back to JRPGs with random encounters since then. Fallout 3, New Vegas, Morrowind, PS:T, Wasteland 2, Gothic, Fallout, Fallout, Arcanum, Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, The Witcher, Deus Ex, Dark Souls, etc.: all of them have visible encounters.

But it's not just about "random encounters". I've played Nocturne, and that game kept the tension going. It made battles fun and engaging, compared to the NES Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy titles I've played. It's not that these games are brainless, but that they are simply too slow. Too many random encounters + battles that don't really take a lot of thought + no actual feeling of being rewarded = no sense of fun. I'm giving SNES JRPGs a try next, because with DQ1+DQ2+DQ3+DQ4+FF1+FF2+FF3 + Maagic of Scheherazade+Faxanadu I've decided these NES RPGs are simply not for me. I'm guessing it doesn't help this year I played Resident Evil, which was a good example of a game that is fun throughout the experience, instead of feeling like I'm waiting for the next fun thing to happen in a sea of boredom.

 

[Damned Registrations]

I'd avoid Breath of Fire 1 and 2 then; they've got some neat aspects but they've got a pretty nasty encounter rate, especially in certain dungeons. Lufia 2 has not just visible encounters in dungeons, but turn based movement there and enemies have predictable movement patterns. There's an optional roguelike dungeon in the game where it's actually pretty necessary to avoid a lot of the nastier enemies to make it to the end, though I doubt you'll see that bit of the game unless it really hooks you.

 

[Puukko]

Shadow Hearts has a very reasonable encounter rate, I want to say at least half if not a third of what DDS had. I am a bit scared of returning to SMT after this... I am generally critical of P5 but that game handled encounters well. I do wonder if they'll stick to random encounters with the same old rates in SMTV.

 

[Hobo Elf]

SMT4 and Apocalypse had roaming enemies so I hope they continue with that in SMT5.

 

[flyingjohn]

I took Final Fantasy III for a six-hour spin, and I had to drop it. One thing I've noticed just now is that ever since I played Skyrim in 2014, I hardly ever went back to JRPGs with random encounters since then. Fallout 3, New Vegas, Morrowind, PS:T, Wasteland 2, Gothic, Fallout, Fallout, Arcanum, Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, The Witcher, Deus Ex, Dark Souls, etc.: all of them have visible encounters.

But it's not just about "random encounters". I've played Nocturne, and that game kept the tension going. It made battles fun and engaging, compared to the NES Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy titles I've played. It's not that these games are brainless, but that they are simply too slow. Too many random encounters + battles that don't really take a lot of thought + no actual feeling of being rewarded = no sense of fun. I'm giving SNES JRPGs a try next, because with DQ1+DQ2+DQ3+DQ4+FF1+FF2+FF3 + Maagic of Scheherazade+Faxanadu I've decided these NES RPGs are simply not for me. I'm guessing it doesn't help this year I played Resident Evil, which was a good example of a game that is fun throughout the experience, instead of feeling like I'm waiting for the next fun thing to happen in a sea of boredom.

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)