Jarpig pride worldwide (Let's talk about JRPGs)

[cave hermit]

So let's not beat about the bush here, most shmup forum people are more into JRPGs and retro gaming as a whole than shmups nowadays. Not necessarily a bad thing.

Let us discuss and mutually enjoy JRPGs, my fellow seething jarpigs!

I'm playing through Final Fantasy 6 at the moment, I reached the halfway point of the game where Kefka pushes some statues ajar and the world is significantly worse off for it. Re-recruited Sabin, Edgar, and Setzer, got another airship, now to find the rest of the party.

This is my first real attempt to play through the whole game, and I'm using the Ted Woolsey uncensored patch which is a bit closer to the Japanese script, but maintains much of Woolsey's original writing and characterizations. Recently featured in a playthrough on Vinesauce.

Judging the game from appearances alone I was expecting the character building to be very linear, but I was surprised to find that it is actually quite open with the whole esper magicite system. I'm not really bothering to min max my characters though, just trying to get a variety of magic on whatever characters I'm using.

I'm also considering getting the definitive version of Dragon Quest XI, as I played the original PC release up to the first ending (so didn't do any post game, which is really still part of the main story), but I didn't really enjoy it much. I feel like this can probably be attributed to my depression at the time, so I'm going to give it another go with the definitive version and try to play all the way through.

I might start juggling FF6 and Dragon quest XI playthroughs, but there's also the upcoming release of Bravely Default 2 to consider...

[iconoclast]

I'm playing through Nioh 2 and Dragon Quest XI now, then I'll probably play Yakuza Kiwami 2, 7, and the 3, 4, and 5 remasters throughout the year. I've been wanting to play Valkyria Chronicles 4 too. But I've got lots of shmup homework to do too...

[EmperorIng]

If you get a 2-4 PB in DOJ next stream I'll let you play some more DQ11 this weekend, sweaty...

[WelshMegalodon]

I finally played the DS port of Chrono Trigger last year. Still a classic. While Slattery's translation was excellent, there's a small part of me that wishes they had changed the name of Frog's sword back to "Grandleon" - the dialogue just doesn't flow as well with "Masamune".

[To Far Away Times]

I like JRPGs until they start getting too anime.

Super Mario RPG
Chrono Trigger
Chrono Cross
FFVI
FFVII
FFIX
Golden Sun

Once the graphics got good enough, and you could see the anime-isms that the developers intended, the games become a lot less enjoyable.

On that note, I did enjoy the FFVII remake, but that was a rare exception.

[Blinge]

Lol that’s kind of a good point.

oh christ alive, i’m trying to resume DQ11, left off in Hotti. Haiku town.
this informant with his LONDON GUVNAH accent is killing me. It’s the fakest thing i’ve ever heard, he’s either an upper class actor or a murrican, and he’s talking really slow to make sure players still understand. my ears bleed.

[Steamflogger Boss]

I mean is it a good point because the Cold Steel games are great.

My vintage jrpg clears of the last year or so

Xenogears
Suikoden
FF IX
Star Ocean the 2nd Story
Chrono Trigger
Devil Summoner: Raidou Kuzunoha vs. the Soulless Army

All of them were pretty excellent, tbh. All of them were don't put it down/play anything else until I'm done. Star Ocean 2 and FFIX final bosses weren't effing around.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Judging the game from appearances alone I was expecting the character building to be very linear, but I was surprised to find that it is actually quite open with the whole esper magicite system. I'm not really bothering to min max my characters though, just trying to get a variety of magic on whatever characters I'm using.

The World of Ruin is definitely where the game opens up and allows you to play with different character groupings freely. It loses a bit of strategy compared to other RPGs with large characters to pick from that have very specific skillsets once you have access to magic, as everyone can essentially be made to become a competent spellcaster, and if you're using them as heavy spellcasters, the main variation comes from base stats, your specialty skill, and what equipment they're restricted to. It's a great game, but Chrono Trigger does a better job of making each character feel more distinct by giving them a fixed skill/spell list instead of allowing everyone to become magical masters.

There's a lot of JRPGs I've enjoyed, including:

• SaGa/Final Fantasy Legend series (GB)
• Mother/Earthbound series (NES/SNES/GBA)
• Robotrek (SNES)
• "Tales of" series
• Star Ocean 3

I've slept on the Dragon Quest series to be quite honest; only ever played the first one. I should go through those at some point. Lately, the Tales of games are probably among my faves, probably because my tastes tend to veer towards more action rather than turn-based games, with the PS2 Japan-exclusive ones being among the best (sadly, few people will be exposed to Rebirth because no PS2 emulator works with it without hard crashing at an early cutscene, the PSP ver may work). Even the earlier, less polished ones like Phantasia are still enjoyable, but there's a definite adjustment period. Phantasia for PS1 was the first one that really felt truly polished to the extent of the now modern ones, and Tales of Eternia ended the age of pausing whenever spells get cast, allowing you to actually dodge spells.

I spent the last month doing challenge playthroughs of SaGa / Final Fantasy Legend as well as the second game without ever spending money. All equipment had to come from dungeons or enemy drops. The second game was easier; it was a pain grinding for the spellbooks needed to actually raise my magic stat, but I felt pretty powerful throughout the game. The second game also doesn't have the permadeath that the first game has in this challenge. If someone died in FFL1 and I didn't have a Revive item, I was forced to swap them at the Guild, and the last fifth of the game became extremely dangerous with me having to burn several crucial healing items I'd been saving all at once.

[Blinge]

pfft i would not consider most of the active combat yakuza games to be JRPGs, definitely not Nioh either.
... damn what a pedant.

Anyway - DQ11 I can play for half an hour, do nothing but walk around a town, craft some items in the "fun sized forge" and it leaves me with a big smile on my face.

[cave hermit]

I was thinking I would wait until I finished FF6 to start DQ XI, but either I'm running out of steam, or the game really spiked in difficulty at Kefka's tower, I have enough members to make three groups of three, my parties make a little progress into the dungeon, then a random encounter will throw some bad RNG at me (level 5 death procs on cyan, level 4 flare procs on setzer, the samurai uses a rocket launcher(?!!) on Reim and reduces the small girl to a red paste, annihilated) and I have to start over.

I'm guessing that I need to level up some of my weaker links, my best characters are at level 40 or so, Strago, Setzer and Reim are like level 35 or so, and Reim basically knows no magic. Thing is I've done most of the world of ruin quests already, although I just stumbled on a side quest for Strago. I don't think I can stomach another Final Famtasy random encounter at the moment though, something about walking 3 steps in a maze only to get ambushed by a greater Marlboro with instant death attacks and some dinosaurs that can cast lifeshaver three times in a row has worn my patience out. Might take a little break from it and start DQ XI, from what I remember that game is a lot more fair with monsters.

Having completed FF4 and 7, I get the impression one of the things that distinguishes the series from other JRPGs is the sheer number of distinct, unique monsters, and monster spells that will fuck you over in creative, inexplicable, and arbitrary ways. Tonberries slowly waddle up to you and stab you for instant death, all the while countering with an attack that deals more damage based on distance traveled or number of enemies killed, Marlboro use bad breath to inflict every status condition on you at once, various enemies cast level x death to kill you for the mistake of being at a specific level, etc. Like these are all iconic to the series, and help to define it, frustration nonwithstanding.

[WelshMegalodon]

Having completed FF4 and 7, I get the impression one of the things that distinguishes the series from other JRPGs is the sheer number of distinct, unique monsters, and monster spells that will fuck you over in creative, inexplicable, and arbitrary ways.

This holds true not only for monsters, but for your own party members as well. One of my favorite things to do in FFII and FFIII is slaughtering enemies by casting Mini and Toad on them. I think they actually can bear the status effect in later titles, but in the Famicom games it just straight-up kills them. What's more, the same spell that warps you out of dungeons can be used to send monsters to another dimension.

You can also insta-kill undead enemies by using Phoenix Downs on them. I'm not sure if this was the case in later titles, though I know it works in FFV.

FFV also has items that effectively increase your character's level by 20 for the duration of a single battle. Not only do they stack, they also affect the amount of damage done by Gil Toss, which causes Gil Toss to be absurdly OP when used with such items. (It's not surprising that they adjusted the formula to ignore level for FFVI.) If you're particularly brave, you can even use them on enemies, including bosses, to render them vulnerable to Level 5 Death.

[Blinge]

either I'm running out of steam, or the game really spiked in difficulty at Kefka's tower

I mean, it is the final dungeon of the game. Are you sure you're not going there a bit early?
Is Terra with you? Have you beaten the mage's tower?

Also lol I think Relm is the most powerful caster in the game, actually.

[Marc]

I've actually got a few I need to start. Bailed on FFV IX around a disc in back in the day, got that for Switch. Got Tales of Zestiria / Beseria (whichever is the oldest), Persona V, Ni No Kuni on PS4. I believe Person in particular needs an insane number of hours, I'm not even sure why I picked that up, except it was a tenner and why not. Last one I finished was Lost Odyssey a few years ago, back when I could play four hours a night uninterrupted.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Relm is indeed among the most powerful casters for raw damage due to her magic stat. It makes up for Sketch being buggy and generally worthless. Her equipment choices aren't bad, but Terra and Celes ultimately perform better due to unique equipment options.

If you're having trouble with Kefka's tower, try swapping equipment around whenever you switch parties; you can trade equipment even though your party's split up, so you don't have to feel forced to split all your equipment between twelve people. Kefka's tower has really nasty random encounters so it helps to make sure you're prepared with instadeath and status resistant equipment, and you can just swap and optimize so whatever party you're currently using has your best gear.

If you're feeling frustrated by the random encounters there is equipment you can find to reduce how often those trigger... Moogle Charm in particular stops all encounters though you're unlikely to find it without a guide.

[Necronopticous]

I'm also considering getting the definitive version of Dragon Quest XI, as I played the original PC release up to the first ending (so didn't do any post game, which is really still part of the main story), but I didn't really enjoy it much. I feel like this can probably be attributed to my depression at the time, so I'm going to give it another go with the definitive version and try to play all the way through.

You should absolutely play DQXI to completion. It is truly one of the best of the genre, and, in my view, the first game in many years to stand with the all-time greats like Final Fantasy VI and Chrono Trigger--my favorite JRPG since Final Fantasy IX. However, speaking from the perspective of someone who has played over 300 hours and played both DQXI and DQXI-S to 100% completion I would advise sticking with the original release unless you:

1) Absolutely can not stand the original non-orchestral soundtrack (I know some people lost their goddamned minds about this in 2018)
2) Absolutely can not stand the normal battle speed for a 100+ hour game

Every other change in DQXI-S, in my opinion, is a sidegrade at best and an experience-shattering downgrade at worst. I certainly would not call it the definitive edition of the game.

[BulletMagnet]

Every other change in DQXI-S, in my opinion, is a sidegrade at best and an experience-shattering downgrade at worst. I certainly would not call it the definitive edition of the game.

As someone who never got into the DQ series but tried the "Definitive Edition" demo on a lark and am tempted to grab it once the price drops, this caught my attention; I haven't done a huge amount of research on the changes, but off the top of my head the main items seemed to be some extra side content and quality-of-life improvements in exchange for a slight graphical downgrade. What parts would you say skew things negative, especially for someone like myself who's anything but a "purist" when it comes to the series and the genre in general?

[Necronopticous]

The two features I mentioned in my previous post are really the only "quality-of-life" additions that stand out to me enough to mention. I suppose the addition of the option to use the original Japanese VA could be a third, but hardly necessary since the localization is outstanding. The other stuff they did in this area is honestly so insignificant or arbitrary it's barely even worth discussing. Some examples:

• Now you can craft from your menu instead of at a camp which makes less sense but maybe saves a few seconds here and there and probably appeases a couple of reviewers who cited it as a loose example of how Dragon Quest XI is "too traditional."
• They removed a completely optional exploration activity where you could seek out hidden targets in nearly all of the game's outdoor locations. I suppose it wasn't anyone's favorite thing, but okay?
• You can see your party members running around with you on the field sometimes (they sort of phase in and out) which is sort of neat but I really would have preferred to be able to just switch which party member I was controlling on the field if anything...but also it really doesn't make much difference.
• Photo Mode...cool?
• The option to marry an 8-year-old or your grandfather.

Notice a theme? Most of this stuff you'd barely notice, or it's a trade off from whatever the original decision was which one player might argue is slightly better and another player might argue is slightly worse.

Now, you might be wondering why I didn't mention the addition of the 2D, or "classic" mode. After all, they went through the trouble to make the entire game, fully playable in 2D! Seems cool, right? I sure thought so. It isn't cool. It sucks. The only thing more shocking than the fact that they went to such great lengths to make an entire extra version of this humongous game is the fact that they didn't bother to actually make it any good. It does not feel like playing classic Dragon Quest; it feels like shit. Okay, but it's optional, right? Not exactly.

And herein lies the biggest problem with DQXI-S: that extra side content is not all side content--much of it has been stuffed into the experience haphazardly, seemingly by an entirely different team of individuals, with little care or concern for how it might alter the overall experience. The quality of this content is a massive cut below the original content--my wife & I kept calling it "straight-to-DVD sequel content." It's bad, and it tends to somehow show up most often when it is least welcome (major story moments that were carefully paced and structured). It's hard for me to discuss in more detail without spoiling a lot of what makes the game so great, but here's an analogy: Imagine I re-cut the original Star Wars trilogy to include bits and pieces of the Star Wars content that has come since to make an ultimate 10 hour version of it that would answer all of the questions you never had to begin with. When Han Solo first shows up, we can cut to a 15 minute re-cap of Solo: A Star Wars Story so that you can learn where he got the name Solo.

Our first 100% playthrough of Dragon Quest XI on the original PS4 release clocked in at around 160 hours. Now, I'm sure many players got there quite a bit faster than that, but the point here is that the one thing Dragon Quest XI absolutely did not need was more content. And the graphics are worse for some reason.

[Blinge]

Cool post Necron. Thanks for the info, fortunately I'm on Ps4 original version. Yeah the midi soundtrack is a bit of a shame and the battle theme is inferior to pretty much anything FF but it's not *bad*.

They removed a completely optional exploration activity where you could seek out hidden targets in nearly all of the game's outdoor locations. I suppose it wasn't anyone's favorite thing, but okay?

This sucks.. just removing something because of the slightest bit of criticism? You'll never get anywhere with that kind of creative process.

Gallopolis makes me laugh.. church shaped like a mosque.. Arabic names and architecture, Egyptian hieroglyphs on the pillars.. but the kicker is that they're called knights and look like crusaders

I picked up a sidequest to defeat a particular enemy with a particular "pep" combo attack. Oh boy, something tells me I'm not gonna enjoy that. Not that I'm making much progress, i get out of the shower/bath.. play for about half an hour, fall asleep sitting up, turn it off and go to bed.

[Sumez]

I picked up a sidequest to defeat a particular enemy with a particular "pep" combo attack. Oh boy, something tells me I'm not gonna enjoy that. Not that I'm making much progress, i get out of the shower/bath.. play for about half an hour, fall asleep sitting up, turn it off and go to bed.

All the sidequests that involve using a specific pep power are really best saved for later when you're in a situation to much easier control where and when you use certain pep powers.

Either way, the way to go about them is, fight around with the characters that need the pep, and then remove them from the party immediately when they hit that state, so they'll keep it until you switch them back in again. That's especially useful when you need them all pepped at the same time.

[Blinge]

Big. Sumez.

[Sumez]

Excuse me?

[Blinge]

big man sumez

[Sumez]

I can never tell if you're being rude. I was just trying to help.

[Steamflogger Boss]

Blinge wyd

[Blinge]

ahahaa oh man sorry. I was saying you the big man because you helped me. As in...thank you.

[Sumez]

Then I apologize

[cave hermit]

I actually already purchased and installed Dragon Quest S, and I bought the key from greenmangaming so no refund for me, but whatever, I'll still play and enjoy it. Apparently you get to see Hendrik dressed as a clown in this version, and they explain why Sylvando was carrying horse shit on his person.

So as for FF6, I have most major characters recruited, I think I'm missing Shadow, Gau, Mog, the yeti, and the mime. Off the top of my head, I think I still need to do the quest inside the giant worm, climb the mage's tower, and fight the dragons (haven't stayed a single one yet).

The mage's tower seems like absurd bullshit though, like ok, you arbitrarily can only use magic, fine, but then the first enemies you run into have intrinsic reflect that can't be dispelled! And they constantly cast graviga, break, and periodically banish your whole party to the shadow realm, killing them instantly! I guess I'm going to have to break out FF4 strategies and cast reflect on my party to bounce spells off of them to penetrate the enemy reflect. Also apparently reraise is a hard requirement since the end boss casts ultima on death.

[Sumez]

The mage's tower seems like absurd bullshit though, like ok, you arbitrarily can only use magic, fine, but then the first enemies you run into have intrinsic reflect that can't be dispelled! And they constantly cast graviga, break, and periodically banish your whole party to the shadow realm, killing them instantly! I guess I'm going to have to break out FF4 strategies and cast reflect on my party to bounce spells off of them to penetrate the enemy reflect. Also apparently reraise is a hard requirement since the end boss casts ultima on death.

I've always used moogle charm for this particular part of the game.

[Necronopticous]

I actually already purchased and installed Dragon Quest S, and I bought the key from greenmangaming so no refund for me, but whatever, I'll still play and enjoy it.

Oh for sure...to be clear, it is not my stance that DQXI-S ruined the game or anything, just that I disagree with it being called the "definitive" or "best" version. It has some upsides and some downsides. Dragon Quest XI is one of the best JRPGs ever created no matter which version you play.

[BulletMagnet]

@Necro - Thanks for the reply. I've always been semi-tempted to give the DQ series an honest go, but tend to prefer JRPGs that mess with the formula at least a little bit rather than wholeheartedly embracing the "comfort food" label; the last one I tried was 8 (supposedly one of the best), I got to the first boss, got killed, wondered to myself afterwards what I could have done differently to win, the only answer I could come up with was "grind more", and that was that. I think the single thing that tempts me most about 11 is that it finally ditches random encounters...think it's worth trying out for a jaded sort like myself?