What JRPG are you playing right now?

[SupersonicHypertonic]

FWIW, I had the exact same problems as you with the ending, but XB 2 completely rectified that.

The rest of your issues, I got nothing, but I agree.
Sadly, I feel like the Quest system is even *worse* in 2, to say nothing of the gacha and generally trash character designs, but overall my experience with it was positive.
Enjoy!

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It's good to hear XC2 tries to address the ending but I'm not so sure how much it can do because XC1 was such a sucker punch.

Yeah I've heard a lot of discussion about how XC2 is the most controversial of the 3 in many ways from characters to unnecessarily complicated battle system. If quests are still shit that doesn't make me want to explore and talk to everyone because I don't to spend my time fetching or hunting, some variety would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Zemoco]

Finished Persona 3 Reload this morning, and I do take back what I said at the start. It's a very good remake that really does change up Tartarus for the better, as well as give more focus and nuance to the villains which were pretty underbaked in the original. The lighting was much too bright compared to the moody, edgy, 2000s ish feel of the original. It was purposefully done due to the subject material the game was dealing with, and why P4 (for the mid game at least was more vibrant) and although not to diminish the work fo the designers, you can tell that in terms of budget they weren't bringing their A game. I still think people should play the original FES first (Though with an fast forward button and full party control mod) but they did update P3 in a pretty good way.

Unsure of what to play next. Was considering Dragon Quest 6 but was thinking of giving something in a new series a try. Something short though since I want to be done with it by the time Thousand Year Door is out. Runnerups are Fire Emblem Path of Radiance, Radiant Historia, or Labyrinth of Refrain: Coven of Dusk.

 

[DeadMoonKing]

It's good to hear XC2 tries to address the ending but I'm not so sure how much it can do because XC1 was such a sucker punch.

Yeah I've heard a lot of discussion about how XC2 is the most controversial of the 3 in many ways from characters to unnecessarily complicated battle system. If quests are still shit that doesn't make me want to explore and talk to everyone because I don't to spend my time fetching or hunting, some variety would be greatly appreciated.

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I literally felt the same way, but certain events in 2 recontextualize 1 in a way that made me really happy.
Honestly, the battle system was...ok? At its core, it relatively simple, it just can't help but add all these little things for min-maxers to get off on that make it seem way more confusing that it is.

There's kind of no defending the Quests here in many instances because, while they're character driven (to a point) they don't have the payoff of seeing relationship trees grow or the awesomeness of rebuilding Colony 9. I finally just did the ones I felt had a good payoff or seemed to be tied to content I dug and ignored the rest. (In contrast, I think I did *everything* in 1.)

Again, I don't regret the time I spent with the game and really came to love the overall narrative and the characters (trash designs aside), but it wasn't as immediate as it was with 1.

There's a great video that explains all that's wrong with 2, but we can save that for when you finish it! :)

 

[JaySosa]

30 hours into Tales of Arise and MY GOD is this game fun, already spent hours running around beating up monsters to raise my chain level, fighting bonus monsters and looking for those adorable owls. Everything in this game seems to be made for the player to have as much enjoyment as possible (in regards to gameplay) which is awesome.

Basically a 180 from Judgement which had soooo many absolutely head-scratching and infuriating gameplay choices that made me wonder if anyone on the development team actually played it.

 

[Reddaye]

A little over 80 hours into Persona 3 Reload and I'm nearly at the end. One final border floor boss and then the finale section at the end of the month. Since I need to grind a little to get a couple party members ready for the border floor boss, I expect to get around 85 hours or so. Not bad.

I'll likely play a little Ys Origin after Persona while I wait for my copy of Eiyuden to arrive next week.

 

[Syne]

A couple hours into Scarlet Nexus, enjoying it so far. Combat is cool and the OST is popping off. Not the biggest fan of the static cutscenes but it's not a major dealbreaker or anything. Excited to see how it goes.

30 hours into Tales of Arise and MY GOD is this game fun, already spent hours running around beating up monsters to raise my chain level, fighting bonus monsters and looking for those adorable owls. Everything in this game seems to be made for the player to have as much enjoyment as possible (in regards to gameplay) which is awesome.

Basically a 180 from Judgement which had soooo many absolutely head-scratching and infuriating gameplay choices that made me wonder if anyone on the development team actually played it.

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I really need to continue my Arise playthrough, I didn't get too far in, the last thing I remember was being in a snowy town where you get introduced to Law

 

[Nyandeyanen]

Finished Persona 3 Reload this morning, and I do take back what I said at the start. It's a very good remake that really does change up Tartarus for the better, as well as give more focus and nuance to the villains which were pretty underbaked in the original. The lighting was much too bright compared to the moody, edgy, 2000s ish feel of the original. It was purposefully done due to the subject material the game was dealing with, and why P4 (for the mid game at least was more vibrant) and although not to diminish the work fo the designers, you can tell that in terms of budget they weren't bringing their A game. I still think people should play the original FES first (Though with an fast forward button and full party control mod) but they did update P3 in a pretty good way.

Unsure of what to play next. Was considering Dragon Quest 6 but was thinking of giving something in a new series a try. Something short though since I want to be done with it by the time Thousand Year Door is out. Runnerups are Fire Emblem Path of Radiance, Radiant Historia, or Labyrinth of Refrain: Coven of Dusk.

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Is Reload noticeably easier than Portable? I gave P3P a go recently on my Vita but could not get through that initial difficulty bump in block 2. Felt like the game stonewalled me out of fusing the one thing that I needed to beat the miniboss I was on.

Labyrinth of Refrain gets my vote for what you should play next, mostly because I've been very interested in that game myself for a while but haven't gone ahead and bought it yet.

 

[JaySosa]

A couple hours into Scarlet Nexus, enjoying it so far. Combat is cool and the OST is popping off. Not the biggest fan of the static cutscenes but it's not a major dealbreaker or anything. Excited to see how it goes.


I really need to continue my Arise playthrough, I didn't get too far in, the last thing I remember was being in a snowy town where you get introduced to Law

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After that part you not only arrive in an absolutely breathtakingly beautiful 'country' but you then also can chain battles together to improve item drops raise SP and EXP bonuses and fight high level enemies, which is super addictive and makes fighting trash mobs less annoying (thankfully it's super easy to avoid them anyway) reminds me a lot of FF12, which iirc had something similar (been a looong time since I played it). I've read that it apparently drags on towards the end, but tbh which JRPGs doesn't, as long as it's not as bad as DQ11 I'm good (and I actually liked the prologue)

Oh one minor thing, which I wouldn't say annoys me, but is a bit distracting are the constant cutscenes, which are optional but obviously I don't want to miss anything. That could've been handled a bit better imho. Was the same way in Tales of Berseria iirc but way less frequent.

 

[Charismo]

Xenogears. Just started disc 2. I've never played the game before. Story wise one of the deepest ones I've experienced. Gameplay wise the game hasn't aged very well. The platforming aspects shouldn't be there imo and many of the dungeons have the same corridors again and again to the point where they cause needless headaches. I enjoy it though and wanna see how it ends. It touches topics that would be taboo by today's standards.

 

[Keiriks]

Is Reload noticeably easier than Portable? I gave P3P a go recently on my Vita but could not get through that initial difficulty bump in block 2. Felt like the game stonewalled me out of fusing the one thing that I needed to beat the miniboss I was on.

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Reload is very easy. Even without an optimal loadout you can still brute force pretty much everything but the optional superboss.

 

[Chimpzy]

Breath of Fire IV. Quite the handsome game, that I wish I could play on a real crt, but I guess crt royale will have to do.

 

[ap_2]

Dragon Warrior 7 (PSX) - It's been over a decade since I played this version of the game (the 3DS remake is good) and I felt the itch to do a class game. It's famously slow opening is even slower here - I've played about two and a half hours and I'm only halfway through the first island.

 

[Justin Bailey]

Dragon Warrior 7 (PSX) - It's been over a decade since I played this version of the game (the 3DS remake is good) and I felt the itch to do a class game. It's famously slow opening is even slower here - I've played about two and a half hours and I'm only halfway through the first island.

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Funny, I just started the 3DS version last night. First time playing it.

Just finished Super Mario RPG (Switch) and Secret of Mana Remake (Steam Deck). SMRPG was a nice little 10 hour experience. SoM Remake was actually pretty good and I didn't mind the remixed soundtrack. I listen to the original soundtrack fairly frequently so maybe that's why I didn't mind mixing it up.

 

[Nyandeyanen]

Reload is very easy. Even without an optimal loadout you can still brute force pretty much everything but the optional superboss.

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If I had a really easy time in P5R and P4G and what something slightly more engaging, what difficulty do you think would be good for P3R?

 

[Keiriks]

If I had a really easy time in P5R and P4G and what something slightly more engaging, what difficulty do you think would be good for P3R?

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Merciless.

 

[Zemoco]

Is Reload noticeably easier than Portable? I gave P3P a go recently on my Vita but could not get through that initial difficulty bump in block 2. Felt like the game stonewalled me out of fusing the one thing that I needed to beat the miniboss I was on.

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I found Portable a cakewalk when I played it on the hardest difficulty. Reload I played on Merciless, and it's still pretty easy (although early game you can be wiped if you mess up too often). But if I recall on the easiest difficulty in Reload you can't die (As in as soon as you do you get all your health back) so there's that.

Refrain looks neat but seems a bit long to be beaten before Paper mario. Probably play it after.

 

[Jisgsaw]

Going through OG FF7 for the first time in... 20 years I think? Rebirth got me in the mood. Thank god for the true wait mode mod (New Threat is nice too).

Should be finished with it this weekend or early next week at the latest, not sure for my next jRPG, kinda can't decide between Eiyuden, Unicorn Overlord and Octopath 2... But I'll be busy with Manor Lord anyway, so I still have some time to decide.

 

[SupersonicHypertonic]

30 hours into Tales of Arise and MY GOD is this game fun, already spent hours running around beating up monsters to raise my chain level, fighting bonus monsters and looking for those adorable owls. Everything in this game seems to be made for the player to have as much enjoyment as possible (in regards to gameplay) which is awesome.

Basically a 180 from Judgement which had soooo many absolutely head-scratching and infuriating gameplay choices that made me wonder if anyone on the development team actually played it.

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The first half of the game is awesome. The engrossing characters, the beautiful worlds, the fantastic combat. It's easily the best Tales game for that play time.

However about the halfway point (you'll know when you get there after a certain boss fight) you'll lose much of the magic and wonder because the rest of the game plot loses any sense of progress and urgency. You go from a bad of heroes liberating the down trodden to go here fight monster, go there fight monster, rinse and repeat. It culminates near the end with a massive ass pull that diminishes almost everything that happened in the entire game like the plot and background lore.

 

[ImpendingFoil]

I'm still slowly going through Rebirth but that has been derailed a bit by Sea of Thieves, Dave the Diver, and Fallout New Vegas.

 

[Scar]

The first half of the game is awesome. The engrossing characters, the beautiful worlds, the fantastic combat. It's easily the best Tales game IMO for that time.

However about the halfway point (you'll know when you get there after a certain boss fight) you'll lose much of the magic and wonder because the rest of the game plot loses any sense of progress and urgency. You go from a bad of heroes liberating the down trodden to go here fight monster, go there fight monster. It culminates near the end with a massive ass pull that IMO diminishes almost everything that happened before.

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This.

Tales of Arise starts off fantastic, and like SHT mentioned, there is a huge dip in the game's performance mid way through. I was so engaged initially, but that 2nd half was a struggle. Not only was the story really bad, but the monsters started to become annoying HP sponges that took way longer than needed to beat. Even the Tales skits, which are some of my favorite world building aspects of the series, started to get spammed to the point I skipped them.

I never skip Tales skits! But they send you one after another, and they aren't written clever, don't provide anything worthwhile except repeating story beats you JUST went over, and/or aren't fun or interesting in the slightest.

I wish it ended better, but it ends up being a very pretty game that almost nailed it, but had a lot of issues after a certain point that made me drag myself to the finish line rather than enjoy the ride.

 

[ap_2]

Dragon Warrior 7 (PSX) - It's been over a decade since I played this version of the game (the 3DS remake is good) and I felt the itch to do a class game. It's famously slow opening is even slower here - I've played about two and a half hours and I'm only halfway through the first island.

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Haha oh man I forgot how mean this game is at the start. Def an odd difficulty curve.

 

[Buckle]

Getting to the end of a generation in Romancing SaGa 2 like "this is fine, I'm FINE!" while nervously watching my LP and switching out my first person in formation every battle.

Man I wish I could switch out the emperor lol.

Even though I've got a lot of experience with SaGa I'm struggling a bit with building a party. That generation I had my Emperor as a heavy infantry which I kind of regret since none of my other characters could tank any damage. Next generation I picked a light infantry Empress and built my team much better, except my mage who was water/light and had nothing but heal moves and the very low damage Light Ball. Magic almost always annoys me in SaGa. I'm starting to unlock so many different "classes" in my territories that I'm not sure the best party composition to go for at any time. Also that empress only got to play one tiny scenario before her generation ended, whereas the previous one did several. Don't really understand the criteria for time moving on because like an hour after making a team I'm having to make a new team. Also annoyed that I was given the option to make a university, didn't have the money, then ran into the scenario ending and the next generation they were like "wanna expand our grove?" Fuck no I don't care about that tree, I want a university because it sounds a lot more useful! Oh well.

Fun game. Has the annoying RS1/MS habit of being like "hmm how many encounters should I put in this room? 30? Yeah let's put 30 in here." and the mobile controls kind of suck which exacerbates the issue sometimes. Once I fell into a trap with like a dozen enemies and had someone get low LP in like the first fight. I just wanted to restart the game but ran into encounter after encounter without being able to access the freaking menu -.- By the time I was done I said fuck it I'm continuing (I think the character was my mage in the screenshot above lol).

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God, I love RS2 so much.

Almost done with the series now and its easily my favorite. Its bonkers how innovative it was at the time but hardly anyone else in the JRPG space if any followed them at the time with the super interesting stuff like the open world, healing after battle, etc.

 

[DoctorPlayer MD]

Just finished 6 of the 8 Octopath Traveler 2 stories, now heading for Castti's final chapter, and then Hikari's.

 

[secretanchitman]

Rebirth. I have almost 100 hours into it and done every side quest except the final one - about to enter chapter 13.

Game is incredible (easily my GOTY) and I really can't wait for part 3!

 

[Jakenbakin]

God, I love RS2 so much.

Almost done with the series now and its easily my favorite. Its bonkers how innovative it was at the time but hardly anyone else in the JRPG space if any followed them at the time with the super interesting stuff like the open world, healing after battle, etc.

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It's probably in my top 3 or 4 despite the criticisms I have. The concept of generational inheritance is really cool and in general I prefer it to the usual method of giving you lots of different protagonists. The busy work every generation is kind of a pain though. I wish we could have seen a Romancing SaGa 2 Minstrel Song now haha. The ideas it had for the time it came out were nuts, and there's so much richness in the choices and paths you can take and the ways you can build your team.

I just started the last Emperor which surprised me. I guess I wasn't keeping up with counting how many of the 7 I had beaten and thought I was about halfway through when I shifted into the end game. I googled it and guess after you beat 5 of them it goes into end game. Sadly it's been a bit too long of a game for me to want to replay and see the differences in playthroughs (though I guess NG+ might make it a breeze). There's a bunch of regions I haven't even visited though so there's clearly a lot left. Battle system isn't the most engaging for me, I feel like I'm either doing a lot of busy work to build my schools of magic and weapon proficiencies, or spamming moves that attack all enemies to just mow through the encounters. Surprisingly I don't think I've died to any of the 7 except for the horse man one, but this mother fucker was the bane of my existence and by far the biggest barrier I ran into in the game:

Spoiler: Picture

Damn thing could stun and paralyze 2 people every single turn, deal massive damage, and still heal 1000 HP every turn. I looked online for strategies and just saw a bunch of "use *various things I don't have*" and thought I was fucked for a while, but after like 20 tries I RNGed my way through his awful move list lol. Looking into the mechanics behind the game I think I even won in a way I didn't understand - he didn't use Regen in this fight, and I think it might have been because I changed the "environment" by having my lizard guy cast fire every turn, which kept him from transforming it to a water environment in which he can heal? I'm not really sure. It was followed immediately by another 7 fight that went down no problem, for a hilarious contrast.

 

[IsaacVarion]

I'll finish Chrono Trigger in the next 3 to 5 hours I believe.

What should I necessarily play after it from the list below?

Chrono Cross
Dragon quest V (ds or ps2?)
Dragon Quest VIII (3DS would it be good? It's the only one I have)
Radiant historia
Chained Echoes
Shin Megami Tensei IV Apocalypse

Any suggestion is much appreciated!

 

[Vaenyr]

If ARPGs count then Ys: Origin. Played I & II last year and really loved them, so I decided to play Origin before continuing with the other numbered titles. Still on my first playthrough with Yunica and according to the Goddess statue list for teleporting I'm probably around 60 to 70% done.

It doesn't have the bump system and the art style is different, but somehow the sprites on 3D environments is super charming and works much better than I'd have thought. The pace is blistering, the music great, and the combat rather simple yet still enjoyable.

So far this series has impressed me quite a bit and I'm looking forward to play all the other games as well.

 

[TYRANITARR]

I'll finish Chrono Trigger in the next 3 to 5 hours I believe.

What should I necessarily play after it from the list below?

Chrono Cross
Dragon quest V (ds or ps2?)
Dragon Quest VIII (3DS would it be good? It's the only one I have)
Radiant historia
Chained Echoes
Shin Megami Tensei IV Apocalypse

Any suggestion is much appreciated!

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Every single one of those games are excellent. Close your eyes and pick one, you can't pick wrong.

 

[Faiyaz]

I'll finish Chrono Trigger in the next 3 to 5 hours I believe.

What should I necessarily play after it from the list below?

Chrono Cross
Dragon quest V (ds or ps2?)
Dragon Quest VIII (3DS would it be good? It's the only one I have)
Radiant historia
Chained Echoes
Shin Megami Tensei IV Apocalypse

Any suggestion is much appreciated!

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Dragon Quest V is the best of that lot (and the best in general).

 

[Ikarus]

FF7 Rebirth (still... taking it slowly).

 

[AGJTX]

I'll finish Chrono Trigger in the next 3 to 5 hours I believe.

What should I necessarily play after it from the list below?

Chrono Cross
Dragon quest V (ds or ps2?)
Dragon Quest VIII (3DS would it be good? It's the only one I have)
Radiant historia
Chained Echoes
Shin Megami Tensei IV Apocalypse

Any suggestion is much appreciated!

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Radiant Historia
Chained Echoes
DQ8

While I haven't played DQ 5 or SMT4, those three games I listed are fantastic games. Radiant Historia needs a Switch/PC port or a sequel honestly.

 

[ghibli99]

Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes (PS5) and Dragon Quest VIII (3DS). Honoring two legends we recently lost. ❤️

 

[Molten_]

right now: dragon warrior (the original NES game)

actually, I've been wanting to make a thread about this for a while, but I don't understand why the original dragon quest is so fun. it's just grinding: the game ... but man, seeing that number go up, the sound effects, the cute enemy sprites, the olde english dialogue ... it totally makes sense that this game was a huge deal when it came out, but I don't understand WHY it works. it's a genuinely fascinating piece of game design.

 

[Hippopuncher12]

Eiyuden Chronicle and Dragon Warrior 2 (NES)

 

[JaySosa]

The first half of the game is awesome. The engrossing characters, the beautiful worlds, the fantastic combat. It's easily the best Tales game for that play time.

However about the halfway point (you'll know when you get there after a certain boss fight) you'll lose much of the magic and wonder because the rest of the game plot loses any sense of progress and urgency. You go from a bad of heroes liberating the down trodden to go here fight monster, go there fight monster, rinse and repeat. It culminates near the end with a massive ass pull that diminishes almost everything that happened in the entire game like the plot and background lore.

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Gotcha, maybe that now that my expectations are lowered it won't bother me as much. Usually I'm good if either the story or the battle system is enjoyable, fe Grandia 3 was such a pleasant surprise, after reading pretty negative comments about it, because fighting was just so much fun. Maybe even slightly biased towards a good battle system, eg while the story was great in Lost Odyssey the encounters bored me to death and made the entire game just such a drag.

If ARPGs count then Ys: Origin. Played I & II last year and really loved them, so I decided to play Origin before continuing with the other numbered titles. Still on my first playthrough with Yunica and according to the Goddess statue list for teleporting I'm probably around 60 to 70% done.

It doesn't have the bump system and the art style is different, but somehow the sprites on 3D environments is super charming and works much better than I'd have thought. The pace is blistering, the music great, and the combat rather simple yet still enjoyable.

So far this series has impressed me quite a bit and I'm looking forward to play all the other games as well.

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Ys series is absolutely outstanding, first entry I played was Ark of Napthism (sp?) on the PS2 and since then I loved pretty much everyone of them.

Usually not a fan of having to play a game multiple times, with different characters, to get the true ending (that's why I detest Odin Sphere to this day) but Origin was so much fun I enyoed all of my playthroughs.

YS VIII, Lacromisa of Dana, on the PS4, is probably my favorite JRPGs in that gen, it's imho absolutely flawless.

 

[Kotetsu534]

FFIX. Going through it to try to get the plat (I have 8 FF Plats now - VII Remake, VII Rebirth, VII, X, X-2, XIII, XV, XVI), might as well go for another of my favourite's too). Nearing the end of disc 2 - just got to Black Mage Village.

Steiner is more silly/one-note/annoying than I'd remembered, but Zidane's great. His upbeat personality is a great vibe, although his direct and unrelenting flirtatiousness would probably be substantially softened if written today in a protagonist. Garnet's good too, I even manage to forgive her for sleeping the party. Enjoying the Tantalus chaps more than I remembered too. Music is godly. Alexandria, Lindblum, Treno are such a great trio of locations too - as good as any run in the series. Vivi's the most lovable character.

Thank god I'm playing at 4x the speed though - it feels like a normal game at this speed; god knows how I managed it originally.

 

[Son of Sparda]

Finished AI: The Sominum Files - Nirvana Initiative.

It took a bit for the story to grab me but half way through the game I found myself quite interested in the overall plot and especially the characters. Loved the narrative thing they did here, though I can see people getting frustrated by it to some extent.

Got the secret ending as well and REALLY liked that haha

Overall had a blast with it. Def recommend it. Though if anyone is picking it up on PS4/PS5, keep in mind that the DLC are account locked*, despite the PSN page for DLCs clearly states that this shouldn't be a problem.

*You can only use them on the one account you buy them on and even if you set that account as primary on your console, they aren't usable on other account on the same console.

 

[Biosnake]

Chrono Trigger

About 4-5 hours in, I can see where all the praise come from lol

 

[Zekes]

Playing through Persona 3 Reload with my partner. We're just about to get Fuuka

 

[Vaenyr]

Ys series is absolutely outstanding, first entry I played was Ark of Napthism (sp?) on the PS2 and since then I loved pretty much everyone of them.

Usually not a fan of having to play a game multiple times, with different characters, to get the true ending (that's why I detest Odin Sphere to this day) but Origin was so much fun I enyoed all of my playthroughs.

YS VIII, Lacromisa of Dana, on the PS4, is probably my favorite JRPGs in that gen, it's imho absolutely flawless.

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I tried the first game on a whim because I had heard multiple times that the OST was amazing, and they were absolutely right. The game was fun as well and made me include the entire series in my backlog lol

Agreed with games that you have to play multiple times can be annoying. Birth By Sleep for example deals with it in a good way, where you have three characters that visit the same general locations, but the maps themselves are mostly different. Ys Origin has the advantage that the highlights are the gameplay and music, so it's not as much of a drag compared to replaying story-heavy games. The pacing is pretty fast as well, so that makes it more bearable too.

 

[TYRANITARR]

I just got a Steam Deck and OH BOY!

Xenoblade X is perrrrrrrfect! I don't want a Switch port anymore, I'm happy with this! It looks amazing on the OLED screen in 1080!

Also tried out some SMT3 Nocture... I don't know if I could handle all these random battles. The encounter rate is VERY high and there doesnt seem to be any ps2 AR codes that lower the rate.

 

[Aki]

Haven't played this many Jrpgs back to back in so long, just finished Rebirth and currently playing Persona 3 and have Like a dragon straight after that. Then it's Paper Mario TTYD (does that count?). What a year this has been

 

[kakteen]

I started with FF X, I am at the very beginning. Just did the sphere grid tutorial. But that thing confuses me, I hope I will understand it better when I play more. Is it possible that I can kill progress of other characters with this? E.g. if I skill tidus towards magic eventhough he is more of a physical attack guy (not sure if he is)? I mean I can't reset it right?

 

[Worldshaker]

Haven't played this many Jrpgs back to back in so long, just finished Rebirth and currently playing Persona 3 and have Like a dragon straight after that. Then it's Paper Mario TTYD (does that count?). What a year this has been

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Add the Final Fantasy 16 DLC, and Eiyuden 100H to the list.

I can't keep up at all.

 

[exodus]

I really wish they would shorten modern RPGs.

Played through CrossCode, and it was fantastic, but everything was longer than it needed to be.

I'm slogging my way through FF VII Rebirth now and it's such a good game when it's firing on all cylinders. Love the variety and the minigames and whatnot. But the traversal and map checklist just pads out the game so much. I'm at Gongaga now and it's just exhausting. I'm at 55 hours in and I still have so much game left.

Still need to get back to DQ 11, Octopath 2, Yakuza 7 and Persona 5, and those are all so damned long.

I yearn back for the days of 20-40 hour JRPGs.

 

[HandsomeCharles]

It's good to hear XC2 tries to address the ending but I'm not so sure how much it can do because XC1 was such a sucker punch.

Yeah I've heard a lot of discussion about how XC2 is the most controversial of the 3 in many ways from characters to unnecessarily complicated battle system. If quests are still shit that doesn't make me want to explore and talk to everyone because I don't to spend my time fetching or hunting, some variety would be greatly appreciated.

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The quests in XB2 are different to XB1, its less "talk to people get quests" (Though I think this does happen occasionally...can't remember exactly) and more that you get them from a Job Board. There's also substantially fewer. There are however more "side story" quests for the blades in your party (Who are effectively side characters) which have voice acted segments and add more world building.

The problem with XB2 is that you have these things called "Field skills". They're basically things in the environment that you can't pass/interact with etc. until you have a certain "power level" - but that power level is based on which "blades" you're using, and you get the blades from a Gatcha system.

Personally, I found it to be a frustration but not a blocker. If you're more concerned with playing the main campaign and not worrying about quests too much you'll rarely have an issue with them (As all the ones that gate story progression are sufficiently low leveled that you will "naturally" be able to pass them, or with only a small bit of grinding), if you want to go the more completionism route then you'll probably end up getting a bit more annoyed with them.

The battle system in XB2 also starts off quite slow (a lot of waiting for timers), ends up getting quite complicated, but then towards the second half of the game when you have most of the mechanics figured out ends up being really satisfying and interactive.

All that said, the story in XB2 is really enjoyable, the environments are fun and some of the characters are really good. I would heartedly recommend playing it.

(And then playing the DLC (Though it can be skipped), then playing the DLC for XB1, then XB3 and then XB3 DLC - in that order)


Edit: Oh, another thing that I liked: Whenever you get experience for discovering locations, doing quests etc. (Basically anything that doesnt involve killing an enemy), it effectively goes into a "bank" and doesn't get applied immediately. This means that if you ever reach segment of the game where you feel you need to level grind, you typically dont have to. You go to a campsite and cash in some of the banked exp. This continues in XB3 too and I think its a fantastic way to prevent overleveling and pointless grinding)

 

[SmittyWerbenManJensen]

FF7 Remake Intergrade on PC. So far (on chapter 9 right now), the game is pretty incredible and has completely exceeding my expectations (due to the number of negative threads I have seen). I will probably end up liking this remake trilogy more than the OG game. It's slower paced but easier to digest and understand what is happening.

 

[Keiriks]

In the final semester in my Persona 5 Royal replay. As always, my condolences to those who only played vanilla and never got to see Akechi having an actual character arc.

This is my third time playing through P5, second for Royal, and I always end up liking it even more each time. It's like the opposite of how I feel about Persona 4, which just gets worse and worse with time.

 

[Spagward]

I just started Final Fantasy XVI after wrapping up XII and am in the forest with Cid. So far the controls seem mind bogglingly bad, like how you can make a game where melee and magic charge separately from each other and default both to the face buttons? There is some flexibility to change them but as far as I can see no true remapping feature. So far I have been flubbing a lot of inputs because I keep on trying to dodge with R2 like in Bayonetta and use skills with R1 like in Ys 7-9, so some time is still needed to adapt.
I wonder if there's any guidance you all could give on combat tech, as it seems very limited right now. One of my first instincts was to try and find a way to buffer the charged melee attack behind a magic flash but it seems that's either not possible or the charge is so slow it barely makes a difference. I realize I'm not very far in right now but so far I have a very middling impression of the game and feel like I'm just chipping away at stagger before taking potshots with the Eikon abilities.

 

[Worldshaker]

I really wish they would shorten modern RPGs.

Played through CrossCode, and it was fantastic, but everything was longer than it needed to be.

I'm slogging my way through FF VII Rebirth now and it's such a good game when it's firing on all cylinders. Love the variety and the minigames and whatnot. But the traversal and map checklist just pads out the game so much. I'm at Gongaga now and it's just exhausting. I'm at 55 hours in and I still have so much game left.

Still need to get back to DQ 11, Octopath 2, Yakuza 7 and Persona 5, and those are all so damned long.

I yearn back for the days of 20-40 hour JRPGs.

Click to shrink...

This is why the 90s and early 00s were the best time for RPGs IMO. A lot of the classic games are all less than 60 hours long to 100% and that makes them highly replayable.

Rebirth and DQ11 are the most recent examples of games that would have been even better if they were 20 hours shorter.