Friday Night Jrpg thread. What jrpgs are you currently playing? If you're not currently playing any, what have you played recently? If you haven't played anything recently, feel free to share your general thoughts on games and the genre.
Been playing pic related on and off the last few days after seeing a thread talking about it. Not too far into it. Combat seems a bit stiff at times but it is a ps1 arpg, so its to be expected. The story so far being a series of vignettes is an interesting approach. It ensures you always encounter something new and that each story doesn't overstay its welcome, though some do seem to end pretty abruptly. On some level the game reminds me of SMRPG, but that might just be because of the music. So far I'm enjoying it.
Been thinking about playing Valkyria Chronicles for a while now, just can't seem to get motivated enough to actually do it. Is it as enjoyable as people claim?
Jacob Powell
Why has nobody made something like FFTA? I am sick of replaying it.
Kevin Clark
Kinda, its an interesting spin on srpg-style gameplay and I wish other devs tried their own attempts at it, but Valkyria games themselves leave a lot to be desired. The balance is all over the place and the majority of missions grade you on how quickly you capture enemy bases, so in that sense its a fancy form of capture the flag. 2 and 3 supposedly fix the balance issues the first had, but 4 goes back to being more like the first.
Xavier Morgan
Then play FFTA2.
Aaron Thompson
Playing on Inferno for my first playthrough and almost had a stroke fighting the spider boss.
I just started emulating BoF3 on PSP because I realized I never actually beat it as a kid. Apparently the desert section is way more forgiving in this version so I might actually beat it this time.
I don't necessarily disagree but a lot of people consider it an approvement over FFTA.
Joshua Rivera
Game's all over the place. You'd think it's about tactics and slowly moving up in cover, but it's really about scout rushing (and save scumming to get long distance headshots). Story starts as a refreshing story of slice-of-life meets war, but ends up being the usual trite anime trope fest.
just randomly trying out various PS2 rpgs like Ar Tonelico and Nocturne while waiting for Death End Re Quest to arrive tomorrow
Angel Johnson
Nocturne or Strange Journey
Parker Peterson
Its almost TOO lite though. I get that SaGa is an outlier series to begin with, and I don't need games to be so difficult that I get anally reamed even by normal encounters, but I found my attention drifting a lot while playing AA. It has its merits, but even FF Four Heroes of Light felt more engaging to me, and that's saying something considering how simple THAT game is.
Ian Hernandez
How's the remake?
Jaxon Howard
Can someone please recommend me a JRPG with good tactical gameplay? Like the kind of game where you regularly have to stop for a minute and have a good think about what you're doing.
I'm going to keep asking until I get a real answer.
Leo Jenkins
Just finished Hexyz Force on PSP and I'm starting Growlanser
Chase Sanchez
Why are JPRGs so gay?
Juan Hall
Jimmy and the Pulsating Mass
Josiah Barnes
What you're looking for doesn't quite exist, even the most strategic jrpg doesn't make every single encounter want to fuck you in the ass of you make a wrong move.
Vagrant Story is a joke, none of the mechanics actually work and even something so simple as stacking a single element breaks the game, let alone using counters.
Tyler Nelson
>What you're looking for doesn't quite exist why? rpgs are a sub-genre of strategy. they should be strategic. >Vagrant Story. It's a pedant's wet dream. that game is easy
Josiah Kelly
Playing Raidou 1. I really like it. The setting is fantastic, even if the combat is kinda lame.
Joseph Adams
Raidou is infuriating precisely because the combat is awful but everything else is top-tier. Apparently the sequel fixes the combat but everything else is lackluster.
There a some key gameplay changes, like having a fixed party instead of demons you can recruit. But essentially if you want more Nocturne, DDS is the place to turn to.
Henry Morris
I’m playing Wild Arms 1 and I’m pretty sick of it
I’m nearly done but FUCK PUZZLES, FUCK ELWS AND FUCK FILGAIA
Jonathan Taylor
ENGLISH WHEN
Easton Flores
You're in a JRPG thread mate
Ethan Phillips
>FUCK PUZZLES You are not gonna like the rest of the games.
Julian Hall
After RS3
Jayden Ross
I have a hard limit of one JRPG open at a time. I am 70 hours into this monster. I like it and really want to beat it but it boggles my mind that the stuff in the beginning of the game was the same game.
Started FFIX. Used to think I hated the series after playing VIII on Steam a few years back but this one is solid. It doesn't try to overdo the combat with different systems and gimmicks like other FF's do. Will definitely try FFX when it releases on Xbox One next month
Anthony Edwards
I actually didn't expect to find that in the game, then again, Heizel is pretty much Sara and there's cameos up to FFII...
>Death End Re Quest good choice, just finished it a couple days ago and it's a lot of fun.
Brody Edwards
>. What jrpgs are you currently playing? I'm going to start Tales Of series next week, following the release order when possible.
Give me advices, anons.
Chase Miller
>Vagrant Story is a joke This, the game is interesting and very unique, but if you understand what to do with the game mechanics, you will broke the game way too much.
Lincoln Ortiz
>spending 3 hours before your first battle I can forgive that, but- >the whole Dharma Temple world of the past what a kick in the fucking cock
Anyways, I've got a 6 hr start into DQ11, about 3 into Chrono Cross, and about 30 hrs into IVA. Any recommendations on what i should play tonight?
Daniel Rodriguez
Here's some advice: don't bother
Alexander Green
>don't bother Why? i played almost all the more popular jrpg series, only tales of missing and some of the SMT.
Ayden Rogers
I'm a sucker for romance in JRPGs. I'm pretty sure I've played most all of them that have it.
Currently playing Xenogears for the first time, just got to the sewer dungeon. Its pretty tedious, even more so than the rest of the dungeons so far, but I've been enjoying the story and music.
Legend of Mana is fantastic OP. The gameplay is definitely its weakest link, but its easy and simple enough to just mindlessly fly past without much hindrance. Everything else about it is really unique and well done.
IX is my personal favorite FF, I hope you enjoy it user. The entire opening section is pure comfykino, especially Dali.
I gotta say Chrono Cross, I just personally love the game. It has its flaws but the music, art, and atmosphere are unparalleled.
I'm split between these four games that I started, but never finished:
Final Fantasy V Final Fantasy VIII Skies of Arcadia Valkyrie Profile
Whoever replies with dubs gets to pick what game I will finish.
Aaron Ross
Will do, I'll start up my Cross playthrough here in a few. Also the sewers is a low point, but after that the game picks up quite a bit, so tough it out user
Ethan Martin
>Whoever replies with dubs user I...
But regardless I'm gonna have to go with Skies of Arcadia on this one
Oliver Price
>Whoever replies with dubs gets to pick what game I will finish
You never planned to finish any of them, huh?
Blake Reed
playin Hyperdevotion Noire. Its moe as fuck.
Kinda enjoyable but I cringe myself with that one.
Camden Rivera
Skies of Arcadia
Aiden Flores
The fucking Heaven Corridor is driving me crazy
Isaac James
Is that game actually any good?
Michael White
Of course I meant to say double recommendations, like so: Skies of Arcadia it is then.
I actually downloaded a good few JRPGs for if I buy a Playstation Classic to hack in the near future. I'm not sure which one to focus into, though I was testplaying Threads of Fate a bit as Rue.
>tfw loved frontier 1 to death but burned myself out by grinding bio lab on every scenario
:(
Aaron Diaz
Lost odyssey
One of the better jrpgd ive played. Its pretty old school though and the item searching can be pretty autistic and tedious
Anthony Hernandez
I had contemplated downloading 2 as well, but the unique visual style and gameplay didn't save it from being one of the most obtuse and rather anti-newcomer games in the series if I remember right.
John Perez
You should've downloaded it for posterity's sake if nothing else.
John Lopez
I think 2 is still worth a full playthrough at least once. If you have rpg experience it won't be hard for you, there's just a couple of bullshit scenarios because the game loves throwing a few softballs before they suckerpunch you.
The music is great, the art style still holds up to this day, the gameplay and story are presented in a way that's still yet to be replicated to this day, and I really appreciate how a lot of the game is told not only through the main life events of it's main characters, but also through offscreen implied points that the player pieces together.
2 is not bad for a newcomer given how unlike the other games it's completely linear and with (relatively) more focus on the narrative than the gameplay. There's not many games in the series suited for newcomers anyway unless you start from the GB games, SaGa's pretty esoteric and no matter which game you choose to get in, you're gonna have a crash course. Frontier 2 isn't so bad for that outside of being structured into points of no return, it's a lot more driven than the other games in the series, which people often complain about due to the lack of direction and their open ended, free roaming nature, with Frontier 2 you have none of that but at the same time the game does expect you to still pay attention to what you do and will punish you for not taking your time to make the best of what you can do in any chapter.
On the other hand, it's a very lenient game outside of the aforementioned points of no return, and a lot more polished than the first one, but it's still a very unique entry in an already unique series, so do not expect the other entries to be like it, it's very good at what it does but even in regards to the core elements of the series it's kind of an inbetween game with many strange decisions, like having smaller party size, being linear and remixing the generational gameplay from Romancing SaGa 2 into something a lot more strict. For all the rest user here makes a lot of good points, Frontier 2 has a very good narrative in all senses and a timeless presentation, coupled with an incredible soundtrack and some solid gameplay, so I suggest you to get it and play it, because like all SaGa games you'll hardly find anything like it.
It's passable, outside of the enemy counters that seem to happen at random. The ping-pong stuff reminds me of an old ass Game Boy Color game that I can't seem to recall at the moment
Jackson Morris
fair enough, anons. i'm not exactly skilled at long term ideas in JRPGs or so forth, but i'll give it a shot if i can get around to being less lazy about my massive backlog
>play through Legend of Mana on PS1 >looking forward to New Game+ >it freezes on the end credits which is one giant cutscene movie file
GOD DAMMIT FUCK THIS IS WHAT I GET FOR BUYING FROM EBAY AAAAAAHHHHHH
Carter Thomas
I finally started up Super Mario RPG the other day and I literally just got Geno added to my party. It's a pretty charming game, but Jesus Christ every battle so far has been so easy. I guess that makes sense since it's for kids.
The game is fantastic all the way through but it seldom gets hard. You don't play SMRPG for the difficulty.
Mason Smith
Demon's Souls Ni no Kuni Chrono Trigger (have to start again as the memory was deleted
Thomas Kelly
Playing Kingdom Hearts Final mix for the first time, just got Ultima Keyblade. All I have left now is Sephiroth and mystery nigga before finishing it up.
Ayden Ward
Recommend me some. I played FFX and Kiseki and Xenogears almost entirely for the romance and they're all in my personal GOAT list.
that does sound pretty similar, actually. i should probably try that game someday, derq made me want more games with battle systems like that.
Gavin Jackson
I player SMRPG for the first time on November 2017 and it was a blast. Still, the one thing it clearly lacks is some difficulty - once you get the last party member, it becomes incredibly hard to get a game over.
Playing through Tales of Vesperia on Switch. First Tales game I've put more than 30 minutes into, lots of fun so far. I'm doing the backtrack through the desert to get back to Nordepolica.
Yeah, Metal Walker is pretty fun but at sometimes hard to tell where you are going or what form combo you have is the best (since you can put in Earth, Sea, or Sky cores into your robot to change it's form) or where the hidden 4th cores are.
I beat Shining Force and started playing Phantasy Star 1. I printed out a walkthrough and tomorrow I'm gonna get comfy and get through the rest of this game.
Luke Gonzalez
Probably before the translation. The old one was pretty much a dry mostly-machine translation that Nichi claimed was not machine at all, and the other user's pic for the sentence seems a bit too dry compared to yours. Plus you're probably playing post-updates so it makes sense.
Colton Watson
Grandia 2 Tales of Destiny 2 JP Tales of Hearts FF9 Shadow Hearts Xenosaga 3
Then you have the ones with multiple waifus or only small hints at a relationship like Persona, RF, .Hack/GU, and some tales of games.
Any JRPGs with online co-op like the Souls series?
Lincoln Jones
DQIX, but I'm pretty sure online is dead now.
Samuel Price
Continuing my binge of Legend of Heroes. Playing Ao no Kiseki now and it's been a ride so far. I regret playing Trails of Cold Steel first, it basically just gives away all the major plot points and I should've known better, but whatever, I'm enjoying the journey.
SMT4 imo (and to an extent any SMT that uses the press turn system, even P5) all feel pretty quick. SMT4 genuinely feels like an action game at times with how fast everything flies by. Haven't played Suikoden 2 though, so I can't compare.
It's perfectly fine for a fan localization. At worst it's a little stiff and dry at times since it sticks to translation accuracy so you get a lot of "it can't be helped" and "thank you for your hard work" and other phrases super common phrases in Japanese but out of place in English, but no complaints otherwise. Pic-related kinda made me chuckle though.
>always try to get into Legend of Mana >can never for the life of me finish a playthrough even if I enjoy the game Also just finished Cyber Sleuth, but gonna take a break for a bit before playing Hacker's Memory.
If you're an Xbot and have no experience with the genre, Blue Dragon is probably a better entry to it.
Sebastian Gonzalez
The Last Remnant would've been a better choice, only the 360 version of the game was busted so there's no reason playing that one and the Steam version is still delisted.
Benjamin Barnes
Not that guy but I have it on steam hehe
William Watson
Dusted off my Vita recently and have been playing both Ys 8 and Digimon: Cyber Sleuth. I keep forgetting this handheld can pack a punch when the developers know how to do so.
Brody Rogers
I like it so much
Most of the fun comes from a "make your own fun" sort of the way. Since pretty much all the difficulty is opt in and I'm not even sure it's humanly possible to beat a big boss devil den after max chaining into it.
Anyways on subsequent playthroughs, establishing towers, and changing the unique enemies that you can only get from unlocking it, is where the fun is. Because of how inflexible the stats are, there's not TOOO much freedom. At least not until you get into hardcore gear crafting. Or so I'm told anyways.
At any rate, I liked it a lot. They learned from their problems with Legend of Legacy. More music by Hamauzu is always appreciated as well
Juggling between Live a Live and SMRPG First one got recommended to me by a friend, cannot get enough of it though the grinding in the final chapter's getting kinda annoying
Zachary Ortiz
>Made me kill Escad in cold blood despite him literally being 100% in the right and trying to stop this shit from getting out of control >Matilda pretty much saying she's going to let the world be destroyed because of "muh friends freedum" > Decides to die to rapidly ageing but wont just live with Irwin in fairy land and stop this as well as him destroying the world because of "muh freedum" >most likely will have to murder Irwin to stop him from ending the world Why was Escad painted out to be the bad guy in this situation again? Did both options but stuck with Daena because she makes my dick hard despite all of this, is this what its like to be a waifufag?
It was pretty fun back in the day where there wasn't anything better to compare it to.
But I hear ya.
Nicholas Wilson
I love SF2 so goddamn much. The music in this game was what inspired by music in pretty much everything.
Owen Bennett
Escad is "bad" because he doesn't trust Irwin out of hatred for demons, not out of rational evidence, which you do find. And yes, that makes you a waifufag.
Nathan Cook
Escad is supposed to be bad because he refuses to compromise or accept Matilda's decisions. Matilda makes absolutely no sense and did literally everything wrong. Irwins entire purpose is to act out his nature but has no clue what he's doing.
Escad was 100% in the right but he's also now 100% dead.
Juan Phillips
>Irwins entire purpose is to act out his nature but has no clue what he's doing. Literally the scorpion and the frog.
Parker Morales
Yeah literally the scorpion and the frog. Frankly he's not wrong either. If Matilda wasn't such an idiot he wouldn't have stolen all of her magic
Logan Ramirez
Phantasy Star 2 Go knock yourself out m8
Isaiah Evans
I'm going to have to hack my vita eventually. At some point it's going to no longer be possible to download games I own onto that thing if they drop PSN support. I feel like that's coming.
Hudson Bailey
Even Daena is starting to get tired of Matilda's stupidity. I instantly regret not siding with Escad but at the same time I don't want to fucking kill her in order to do so.
>but it took me a long time to realize I had to pray.
How? Did the unique Pray option showing up for the final fight not clue you in?
Jason Morales
Are the Ogre Battle games all worth playing?
Jaxson Long
I remember making a 2 handed axe back in the day that had something like 600-700 attack, could literally one shot end game bosses.
Oliver Mitchell
Yes, though there is only two if I remember correctly. Only played the one on the N64.
Jose Hughes
The game is practically telling me I made the wrong choice. Fuck Matilda, I cant even feel good siding with Escad because that means I still have to deal with this stupid bitches mess.
Everyone dies anyways. You can only save Daena in the end.
Joseph Moore
Escad has the best conclusion to this story. If you ever play it again in the far far future, you'll get a kick out of it.
James Ramirez
3 if not counting the remakes ogre battle 64, ogre tactics and that one ogre game for the gameboy advance
Chase Jackson
There are no wrong choices, the game is meant to be replayed to follow other storylines.
Julian Stewart
Ogre Battle really isn't my thing, but it's worth a playthrough for sure. The SNES/PS1, March of the Black Queen, is good. I never played the N64 game.
There is also a game in the same universe but with slightly different styled play called Tactics Ogre, which I really enjoyed if you like the setting but want something more FFT and less RTS.
Chase Sanchez
What? Pray is available in every battle smartass
Xavier Smith
Well Tactics and Battle play differently, I just see Tactics as its own Ogre series.
Good to know, it does look very fucking cool! I haven't enjoyed a good rpg maker game since Lisa. But I really haven't checked any sites like rpgmaker.net in a while.
Actually if you have any recommendations of other Rpgmaker games please let me know.
Christian Rodriguez
Replaying Wild Arms 1, 2, then 3. I don't have 4 or 5, sadly.
I'm not saying it's a bad game, i'm just saying that when it comes to puzzles, especially platforming puzzles, Alundra is suffering.
You know, on top of the rest of the heart suffering.
Asher Smith
Escad lives as long as you finish that arc with him in your team. Else he gets fucking brutally murdered
I liked it a lot but I wouldn't rate it that high. Relatively though it had less to do and less romance, I liked the gameboy version more for that entire super dungeon. Though for all my dungeon crawling rouge-lite needs I'd still play chocobo's dungeon 2. But this game was my chilldhood to be sure.
Pic related on the other hand was my childhood antithesis.
I heard 4 sucked but 5 was good. What's wrong with them?
David Ward
I remember when I played it like 18 years when I was young I would become extremely depressed when ever the ravens would start showing up.
... And then we got Alundra two.
Carter Baker
It turns up the anime factor to 11 and it really turns some people off.
Aiden Cooper
I played it on the GBA and it was fun for a bit but I wasn't really hooked. maybe the PSX version is better, idk
Easton Flores
4's decent in gameplay and bad in, plot, characters, and story, especially coming off of 3. 5 has pretty good and fun gameplay. Well. Relatively anyways. It's alright. I liked it. However, the story is bad. Really really bad. Really really really really really fucking bad. Dean Stark is an idiot. It's also bar none my least favorite performance by Yuri Lowenthal and one of my least favorite performances period by professional voice actors. There's a ton of idiot ball in the plot as well. And you're likely going to have a point where you disconnect and never connect in the story ever again even with SPOILER: the time shenanigans that encompass the big plot twist You get Golem/Robot thing so that's pretty sick nasty
It's stupid. Well. I mean XF turns the anime up to 11 and has characters that are walking tropes and that games just fine.
Landon Gutierrez
Gonna blitz through this shit but if I get to keep Daena as a party member then Matilda's stupidity is forgiven and everything will have been worth it. Fuck bros, does this does make me both a waifufag and a furfag?
Finally getting around to Dragon Quest XI, I hope it's as good as I've heard
Carter Johnson
Is Metal Max Xeno good? It looks pretty interesting
Jackson Reed
You should get the succubus pet
Ethan Jenkins
I'm pretty sure with the game as it is, the only females that DON'T make you a furfag are the jumis. And they're a smaller amount of the characters available.
Anthony Rodriguez
Black Pearl best girl
Angel Richardson
It was pretty alright. Not the Metal Max you're going to be expecting but not a terrible game. It's pretty crazy easy outside of one notable fight for almost the entirety of the game.
Then you get to the last boss and the fight will be over extremely quickly one way or the other. Which is cool. It's designed to be played multiple times. With each loop in Hunter mode (which unlocks after completion) giving SOME new marks, tanks, and armaments each time.
Oh and all of the on foot dungeons are easily the worst in the series. Not an exaggeration. They're fucking awful. And you pretty much have to go through them. Which itself is so bad that it's hard to recommend the game to people who like the series. But it's either this or no more localized games so grit your teeth and jump in.
I always get the succubus pet. I make her replace my kid dragon. Young me always used kid dragon, succubus, and goblin. Just so I could have 3 field slots taken when I bring out my shitpushing golem.
Thomas Long
I've really enjoyed it so far, but I haven't played a DQ game since 7 was released on the ps1
Eli Morgan
It's alright. It's dragon quest alright. I plan on playing it when I'm in the mood for a more traditional RPG that I can just play through.
Jose Gonzalez
this thread reminds me of early /jrpg/ bros.... i miss it
Best two games right here though. Those and BOFIII
Jace Watson
I've never played a Dragon Quest game but I'm enjoying it so far
Christopher Adams
>i miss it All I have to do is remember the final days of /jrpg/ to stop missing it. Just goes to show that it really DOES only take one bad apple to ruin the bunch
Oliver Cook
That is why I said early, but man that shit got wild at the end. If you like 11 you could always check out 8 as well.
Joseph Watson
Judging from the ending cut-scene I'm guess Irwin got pissed off realizing he died for a moron and rejected Matilda's stupid ass despite the fact that their stuck in hell and now I can indulge myself in Daena any time I want. Everything actually did turn out well in the end.
He's stuck in hell with a literal idiot. I'd be mad too
Jose Jones
I liked it, I never played any of the other games in the series though so I can't compare it to them. The only annoying part was the huge difficulty spike at the last boss. I had to do a lot of grinding and scavenging for parts to upgrade my tanks to able to kill it.
>be undoubtedly fighting for the right course of action >still get dumpstered because your opposition was furbait cocktease Escad literally didnt have a chance
I've played this one too many times. Usually stop playing as soon as I beat the game, but it's a pretty fun ride until then. I do wish that the music had some variation, it gets tedious listening to the same thing over and over again after awhile.
The problem with being right is having people who know and won't choose you anyways
Nolan Price
Wild ARMS is one of my favorite series, let's be friends. 4 is mediocre but 5has lots of great things going for it, it just isn't a classic like 1 or 3, ALTER code F is great too.
Adam Fisher
I'm playing Valkyrie Profile Covenant of the Plume but I never ever see anyone mention it in DS threads (Like ever) so knowing my luck it sucks.
