Jarpig pride worldwide (Let's talk about JRPGs)

Anything from run & guns to modern RPGs, what else do you play?
User avatar
Steamflogger Boss
Posts: 3075
Joined: Sun Jul 09, 2017 3:29 pm
Location: Eating the Rich

Re: Jarpig pride worldwide (Let's talk about JRPGs)

Post by Steamflogger Boss »

I swiped that evil Pikachu to use as a profile picture in a couple places. Pure gold.

Been playing 4 Heroes of Light.
User avatar
BryanM
Posts: 6117
Joined: Thu Feb 07, 2008 3:46 am

Re: Jarpig pride worldwide (Let's talk about JRPGs)

Post by BryanM »

It was an avatar I've used for years here back in the day, alternating with his tackle-pose sprite. The idea's stolen from the Pokéthulhu tabletop game.

Applying simple lovecrafty edits to other pokemon didn't work tho; it's like those videos of presidents arguing about video games. The idea's only great at first and then quickly loses its novelty. To make a good ROM hack would require going full Moemon original art on everything : /
User avatar
XoPachi
Posts: 1300
Joined: Thu May 03, 2012 8:01 pm

Re: Jarpig pride worldwide (Let's talk about JRPGs)

Post by XoPachi »

If there is one thing about this genre I hate, it's the obsession with excessive stipulations on certain advancements.

NGS has an equip enhancement feature. You feed fodder weapons to the desired weapon and use grinders to boost equipment to +60. Except slow down... Once you hit +40, you need to Limit Break the item before you can go further. Yes, never mind that you've been spending thousands and thousands of meseta, feeding fodder equipment, and using an additional necessary item, grinders. There's another thing we've tacked onto the process just to pad out the game. Instead of making something fun to increase player engagement, let's directly force you to tediously grind for this additional unnecessary step

So how do you limit break? Why you need Arms Refiners. How do you get Arms Refiners? You need 10 Stragments. Sorry, I meant you need 30 Stragments. Didn't want you to think we were reasonable! 10 Stragment A's, 10 Stragment B's, 10 Stragment C's. Oh and a Class Cube which you only get from leveling up after you achieve max level. All of that for one Arms Refiner. Btw you need 6 Arms Refiners, bub!

Got your Refiners! Great! Limit broken (confetti).
Now you can go back to using fodder weapons, grinders, and meseta to level it up all the way....to +50. Oh you wanted to go to +60? Well better go get the Arms Refiner II's! How do you get them? You don't! :D
Because they only drop from specifically bosses when the planets align during a blue moon on Friday 13th at 11:11pm. OR you can exchange FIFTEEN Arms Refiner 1's and 5 class cubes for a single Arms Refiner 2...........twice a week! :)
In total, you need 10 Arms Refiner II's to go from +50 to +60 (which is 150 Arms Refiner 1's) over several weeks or spend ungodly hours trying to kill bosses, wasting rare drop boosters for something that never seems to appear. And in that time you're not fucking getting anything else of real use.

Could it be worse? As long as WarFrame exists, any other kind of grind can always be worse. But this still sucks and it's annoying. So many games do shit like this because they can't come up with anything better for the players time. Fighting is fun, sure, but that only stays fun for so long when your game state is at a stand still for WEEKS. Back to back PSE Burst Forte's, 25% rare drop boosters, Fat Mag rare drop boost, Live Boost. And none of it matters. I get sick of smacking the same easy ass enemies in the only area the necessary items drop and not getting anything for it. What kind of game design IS that? Why are we *still* doing this?

/rant
User avatar
Steamflogger Boss
Posts: 3075
Joined: Sun Jul 09, 2017 3:29 pm
Location: Eating the Rich

Re: Jarpig pride worldwide (Let's talk about JRPGs)

Post by Steamflogger Boss »

Bravely Default. Now this is some hot murder hoboing.
User avatar
XoPachi
Posts: 1300
Joined: Thu May 03, 2012 8:01 pm

Re: Jarpig pride worldwide (Let's talk about JRPGs)

Post by XoPachi »

Oooooooooo Final Fantasy 16 looks some kind of nice.
They're serious about their combat this time. That was one robust training mode they showed off. And combo leaderboards? Tremendous!
User avatar
TransatlanticFoe
Posts: 1737
Joined: Mon Jan 24, 2011 11:06 pm
Location: UK

Re: Jarpig pride worldwide (Let's talk about JRPGs)

Post by TransatlanticFoe »

If they're going to make us spend the entire game as a guy called Clive, we better have the option to hang out in a shitty Wetherspoons all day, drinking crap beer. Or are we going to get a proper English localisation where the guy gets a more sensible name. It's Final Fantasy, at this point Vangolio would make more sense than fucking Clive.
User avatar
BIL
Posts: 18990
Joined: Thu May 10, 2007 12:39 pm
Location: COLONY

Re: Jarpig pride worldwide (Let's talk about JRPGs)

Post by BIL »

Clive is good friends with Mark from King's Field II!
User avatar
Blinge
Posts: 5369
Joined: Tue Feb 19, 2013 4:05 pm
Location: Villa Straylight

Re: Jarpig pride worldwide (Let's talk about JRPGs)

Post by Blinge »

OMG what are the lore implications i've gotta make a new video
in my quest to become vaati pineapple
Image
1cc List - Youtube - You emptylock my heart
User avatar
BIL
Posts: 18990
Joined: Thu May 10, 2007 12:39 pm
Location: COLONY

Re: Jarpig pride worldwide (Let's talk about JRPGs)

Post by BIL »

Well, basically, CLIVE stayed at MARK's place in 99minutes II Go: Samsara der Autofellatio for the N-Gage, hoping to impress his buff muscle bro - and get a bit of the ol' jailhouse salami - by taking MARK's little sister SHANIQUA to the town faire. But what CLIVE couldn't have known, was that MARK's good friend STEVE had very similar plans - AND a bag of DEVILS PARACETAMOL!

NWS
Spoiler
Image


The next day, CLIVE didn't know what - or who - hit him, but had a pretty good idea after checking STEVE's OnlyFans, and set out for revenge in Final Fantasy XVI! Image
User avatar
XoPachi
Posts: 1300
Joined: Thu May 03, 2012 8:01 pm

Re: Jarpig pride worldwide (Let's talk about JRPGs)

Post by XoPachi »

I just can't wait to rip ass in that game and see what the DMC nutcases, who I'm sure took interest yesterday, come up with. Nice eye incinerating carnage.
I get big Platinum vibes from what was shown. Some of the more exciting set pieces gave me Bayo vibes.
User avatar
Lander
Posts: 848
Joined: Tue Oct 18, 2022 11:15 pm
Location: Area 1 Mostly

Re: Jarpig pride worldwide (Let's talk about JRPGs)

Post by Lander »

Guh, I don't want to be excited for FFXVI until it's finishing locking tongues with the PS5. But it's been making all the right noises to recapture my interest after XV.

Guess I'll watch the showcase VOD and be glum. Right after I finish having a laugh at the two hours of Stream Starting In... footage tacked onto the front of the actual 27min presentation :lol:

Edit: Jesus, Yoshi P looks old as fuck now! Evidently he's been hard at work equivalent-exchanging his life force for more make-modern-FF-good powers since last time I watched a Live Letter.
User avatar
Steamflogger Boss
Posts: 3075
Joined: Sun Jul 09, 2017 3:29 pm
Location: Eating the Rich

Re: Jarpig pride worldwide (Let's talk about JRPGs)

Post by Steamflogger Boss »

Steamflogger Boss wrote:Bravely Default. Now this is some hot murder hoboing.
Was great, surprised it took me so long to get to it.
User avatar
BryanM
Posts: 6117
Joined: Thu Feb 07, 2008 3:46 am

Re: Jarpig pride worldwide (Let's talk about JRPGs)

Post by BryanM »

The jokester who added the matching Arcana feature in Persona 4 is my hated enemy now. The entire point of the feature is already pretty naughty: to futz up your pokemon list with jank instead of being a chad monster optimizer. To make you weaker.

That on top of that.... they designed it so that it warns you when you're doing it right, but doesn't warn you when you're fucking it up. Example: you talk to someone with a matching arcana, and the game spazzes out pissing all over itself to scream out: WARNING!! WARNING!! WARNING!! WARNING!! WARNING!! WARNING!! ..... you're playing the game correctly. Good job, you. : )

But when I finally max expression and can be friends with Nanako again, not a single peep to remind me I don't have an angel in stock. Just burned a day or two, how funny haha.

Thanks, numb nuts.

----

The pointless hallways of P4 and the backtracking through used up space in Clickpocalypse have got me thinking about dungeon design again. The short branches, one way loops, and teleporting to avoid walking over the same ground again. To create the illusion that it isn't just one giant hallway where you walk from one end to the other.

The dungeon in Crazy Taxi seems a lot more interesting, and I have a theory as to why.

See, generally these things only have two points of interest. The entrance and the exit. Rare monsters or treasure chests that give exceptional rewards being the only thing in there of value. (And I think that's one of the weaknesses in most people's procedural generators: the contents of chests are usually generic. They don't set up moments like in Final Fantasy 4 where you open up that chest and get an ungodly powerful Dark Sword upgrade.)

In Crazy Taxi, the entrance and end points of a path are always dynamic. There are points of interest within the dungeon: The Pizza Hut, the KFC, the Church, etc. Another example of how man-made environments are inherently more interesting than random wilderness.

The other fundamental problem I think is that a dungeon can be "used up" in the first place. I haven't come up with any great solutions to this, besides for incremental type content. Like being a resource spot to harvest a million flowers that are required to upgrade your stuff, or whatever.
User avatar
XoPachi
Posts: 1300
Joined: Thu May 03, 2012 8:01 pm

Re: Jarpig pride worldwide (Let's talk about JRPGs)

Post by XoPachi »

NGS showed off the creative space feature coming in June. Unfortunately, despite this being a major update, they didn't show anything else like a raid or new region but what whatever.

It's basically Halo Forge mode in PSO. I'm gonna build me one of those douchey, geometric modern houses for my character.
User avatar
BryanM
Posts: 6117
Joined: Thu Feb 07, 2008 3:46 am

Re: Jarpig pride worldwide (Let's talk about JRPGs)

Post by BryanM »

Ah, I never really consciously noticed that Final Fantasy only supports one dialogue box at a time. That's why they have this giant farcical ring of identical elders to give an exposition dump. That's a little funny.
User avatar
Sumez
Posts: 8019
Joined: Fri Feb 18, 2011 10:11 am
Location: Denmarku
Contact:

Re: Jarpig pride worldwide (Let's talk about JRPGs)

Post by Sumez »

Do you mean multiple successive ones?
User avatar
BryanM
Posts: 6117
Joined: Thu Feb 07, 2008 3:46 am

Re: Jarpig pride worldwide (Let's talk about JRPGs)

Post by BryanM »

Ye, one NPC has only one window's worth of text tied to them. I actually think it helps more than it hurts. The restriction gives the game a kind of unique personality.

I'm not a fan of huge one-sided monologues in games, and they started getting a bit irresponsible around the Ocarina of Time era.
User avatar
Sumez
Posts: 8019
Joined: Fri Feb 18, 2011 10:11 am
Location: Denmarku
Contact:

Re: Jarpig pride worldwide (Let's talk about JRPGs)

Post by Sumez »

True, it definitely gives the game more of a "video game"-ish air to it, which I'd enjoy as well, even if I'm not super fond of FF1.

Similarly when playing through all the old DQ games some years back I noticed how DQ3 was the first one to have anything even resembling an in-game "cut-scene" (ie. a character will move and talk according to a script, rather than as a direct response to a player prompt), and even then those couple of moments are extremely restricted in what they can do.

I think it's really interesting how much the games can do for world building without the aid of scripted sequences, and I'd love to see new "retro styled" RPGs trying to go for the same thing.
User avatar
BryanM
Posts: 6117
Joined: Thu Feb 07, 2008 3:46 am

Re: Jarpig pride worldwide (Let's talk about JRPGs)

Post by BryanM »

The evolution of the NES Dragon Quest engine over the years was really neat. It's amusing how the NPCs in the early games avoid leaving or entering the party status menu when it comes up onto the screen until 4. (It's like garlic to them!) All these little things that were put off for later, proportionally to how much of a pain in the ass they are.

And little is as much as a pain in the ass with only a little return, as the skit. They take a buttload of time to implement for things you only see once in a game. Even in later games they like to do the bare minimum possible to avoid having to animate things: in Persona 3 it's terribly obvious. And even Persona 4 likes to have zany things happen offscreen if at all possible. I was quite impressed in the watermelon scene where they made little animation loops for it. (Kanji keeps salt in his pocket apparently? Video games are a magical place.)

I do think skits aren't very suited for the Dragon Quest formula, either. It's a very simple setup right: you're a gang of murder hobos who drift from town to town to clear out their local dungeon. The framing devices around these get threadbare and tiresome over time, blending together into vaguely remembered tropes at best. You're there to bust the dungeon, everything else just gets in the way. These NPCs you'll never see again are speedbumps.

That Game Center DX game, Guadia Quest, really did make me realize how much fun these simple retro games can be without all the complexity and baggage every new game in the genre feels obligated in bringing along. Its equipment balance was wonk, you only had three fixed characters, but it was still a little fun. (That game inspired me and the Zeboyd Games guy, but they're closers and I'm not..)

Sometimes I feel like I should give more of them a chance, there's gotta be lots of cool free games like for the Pico8 or something.

... I really only just now learned about the Pico8 and I think it's super super cute. Reminds me of making games on my calculator back in the day, or design mockups for the 2600 or Gameboy Color..
User avatar
ryu
Posts: 1879
Joined: Mon May 31, 2010 6:43 pm
Contact:

Re: Jarpig pride worldwide (Let's talk about JRPGs)

Post by ryu »

That Game Center DX game, Guadia Quest, really did make me realize how much fun these simple retro games can be without all the complexity and baggage every new game in the genre feels obligated in bringing along.
Everything about that game was cookie-cutter shallow. And yet you're right. One of the most fun RPGs to have seen a console release in recent years. It's almost absurd.
blog - scores - collection
Don't worry about it. You can travel from the Milky Way to Andromeda and back 1500 times before the sun explodes.
User avatar
BryanM
Posts: 6117
Joined: Thu Feb 07, 2008 3:46 am

Re: Jarpig pride worldwide (Let's talk about JRPGs)

Post by BryanM »

I know, right? And all it was is a new reskinned version of Dragon Warrior 2. It's not that it's good, it's that we haven't played a reskinned NES Dragon Quest in a loooooong time. Variety is foundational to entertainment, you can't just eat steak and ice cream all the time.

I tried this Ghostbusters fangame yesterday and was immediately disappointed it wasn't a top-down adventure/shooter like New Ghostbusters 2, that it was a simple little thing you might see on the 2600........ and I blinked and an hour had passed.
User avatar
ryu
Posts: 1879
Joined: Mon May 31, 2010 6:43 pm
Contact:

Re: Jarpig pride worldwide (Let's talk about JRPGs)

Post by ryu »

BryanM wrote:I tried this Ghostbusters fangame yesterday and was immediately disappointed it wasn't a top-down adventure/shooter like New Ghostbusters 2, that it was a simple little thing you might see on the 2600........ and I blinked and an hour had passed.
Classic RPGs are still a few cuts above netgames like that one, but I see your point. It's easy to find oneself lost in a game and feel comfortable when it requires little thought and planning.
blog - scores - collection
Don't worry about it. You can travel from the Milky Way to Andromeda and back 1500 times before the sun explodes.
User avatar
Sengoku Strider
Posts: 2206
Joined: Wed Aug 05, 2020 6:21 am

Re: Jarpig pride worldwide (Let's talk about JRPGs)

Post by Sengoku Strider »

I finished the first Legend of Heroes game on PCE. Yep, that's a lighthearted 8-bit DQ clone. It certainly did run smoother than the Saturn release, which is a straight port of the choppy-ass PC-98 version. I enjoyed the game for pretty much the exact reason you guys were talking about, it's a comfort food rpg. If you want to walk around in a green field and grind monsters, it'll give you exactly that.

And with a Roland-and-Korg's-finest-turn-of-the-decade-early-digital-synth-sounds jazz-rock fusion soundtrack that sounds like a circa 1988 Thomas Dolby album being played over the sound system of a Japanese supermarket, combined with the music that you usually hear being played over the sound system of a Japanese supermarket that's being played over the sound system of a Japanese supermarket. Which is a lot of what I come to PC Engine CD games for, really. These soundtracks kill it with that chip-accented mallsoft + citypop through copious quality (for 1992, so still wonderfully low bit rate) Japanese digital reverb (no, not like you Super Famicom) vibe.

With the turbo on the controller, you can blaze through all the battles (there's also a sorta programmable auto battle option). The only problem was when enemies would drop things when I had a full inventory, the game defaults to asking what you want to drop. If you're holding down turbo, you can end up dropping major items without even seeing it happen, it goes by so fast. I certainly did.

I had defended Working Designs earlier when playing Lunar, but here they fucked with almost everything for the North American release. To the point where I had to use a FAQ from the Super Famicom version because the Turbo Duo one kept deviating from the Japanese plot and changed the names of nearly everything and everyone in the game.

But I can kind of understand why some of those changes happened. In the Japanese version your hero prince is betrothed to a kawaii anime princess from a desert kingdom...with an active slave economy. Aside from lecturing one random minor town NPC, you do literally nothing to interfere with this trade (aside from rescuing one character), despite the fact that you literally just saved the kingdom next door that all these slave girls were taken from, and you just saw their friends & loved ones suffering. It's fucking weird given the light tone of the rest of the game.

The other thing that really stood out was how little there was in terms of cinematics, as this was the lead rpg for the Super CD-ROM format. All those promo images in ads and reviews were from the pre-title screen opening or the ending. That's it. There are standard dialogue skits, but they're almost never animated or even physically acted out by the sprites, just text boxes. Seemingly the only thing they used the Super CD format for was the voice. Bosses always have a voice actor, and major plot points are...often acted out. There are weird exceptions, like when the game describes - in text - the sound of a female character's voice as she coaxes - in text - information out of a pirate.

I had a good enough time with it that I can certainly see getting the PCE sequel down the road. But I'll finish up other stuff on my shelf first. Like Exile...
User avatar
ryu
Posts: 1879
Joined: Mon May 31, 2010 6:43 pm
Contact:

Re: Jarpig pride worldwide (Let's talk about JRPGs)

Post by ryu »

I remember when Trails in the Sky was relatively recent and received a lot of praise wherever I saw people mention the game. These days I hear about how you need to play the entire series to get the full experience. Which today spans across more than ten individual games.

Like hell am I even going to bother lol

Now I'm curious about the Dragon Slayer series though. I'll make a note in my notebook - and probably just end up forgetting about it. :?
blog - scores - collection
Don't worry about it. You can travel from the Milky Way to Andromeda and back 1500 times before the sun explodes.
User avatar
Sima Tuna
Posts: 1431
Joined: Tue Sep 21, 2021 8:26 pm

Re: Jarpig pride worldwide (Let's talk about JRPGs)

Post by Sima Tuna »

I like Trails FC even without the other games. It does kinda drop you on a massive cliffhanger for Second Chapter, but if you finish those 2 games then you can stop there safely. I know they made more games but I'm just saying, Trails FC and SC are perfectly fine as a duology.

I've heard the same is true for Zero and Azure. Those two are basically a completed duology. Sure the games have little nods to each other but you don't have to care about that.

Cold Steel is similar. CS3 attempted to reboot so many aspects of the Cold Steel story and force it back into a schooldays anime format. I really didn't like CS3 at all. Felt like they kept pushing off the big story issues centering around the continent and its main characters for CS4.

So if I was going to recommend the Cold Steel games, I'd again say play CS1 and CS2. CS1 is basically a giant tutorial (the last boss is LITERALLY a fucking tutorial fight) but you kinda can't skip it because it introduces all the characters and story elements. CS2 was fantastic though. CS2 is a great game. It even has little bits of nonlinearity, in a sort of Mass Effect 2 way. There are secret bosses and extra side quests you can do because the game opens up the way it does.

CS4 I barely played because I had burned myself out on CS3 so bad by the time I finished it. I really hated CS3. The new characters didn't fucking matter for anything and I hated the framing. I'm sure CS4 is better and it sounds like it finally addresses some of the questions raised at the start of the cold steel games. But CS4 should have been the next game after CS2 in my opinion. Just remove all the empty "content" in CS3 and squash CS3 and 4 into a single game. Remove the extra characters except for Juno and stop pandering to the harem bullshit. Rean should have one canon relationship like Estelle does. Probably Alisa, although I dislike her as a character. But at least she would make sense as the pick. Most of the cringe in the Cold Steel games comes from shoving Rean's Harem in the player's face.

TL; DR if you want to play the Kiseki games, just pick 2 of them to play. Play either: FC -> SC, Zero -> Azure or CS1 -> CS2. Then decide after that if you want to play anything else. Don't worry about people who say you MUST play in x game order because they're wrong. The little winks and nods to other games don't matter. What matters is if you enjoy the gameplay and the central story of the game you are actually playing. It might have the same word count, but this isn't War and Peace. Even at its best, the stories are Pretty Fucking Anime. Not knowing who the Brights are won't ruin your Cold Steel 1-2 experience.
User avatar
Sengoku Strider
Posts: 2206
Joined: Wed Aug 05, 2020 6:21 am

Re: Jarpig pride worldwide (Let's talk about JRPGs)

Post by Sengoku Strider »

ryu wrote:I remember when Trails in the Sky was relatively recent and received a lot of praise wherever I saw people mention the game. These days I hear about how you need to play the entire series to get the full experience. Which today spans across more than ten individual games.

Like hell am I even going to bother lol

Now I'm curious about the Dragon Slayer series though. I'll make a note in my notebook - and probably just end up forgetting about it. :?
The Dragon Slayer series as a whole is worth checking out to see the early evolution of JRPGs. Each entry is almost a subgenre unto itself. It's only once it gets to the Legend of Heroes games that it becomes Dragon Questy.
User avatar
ryu
Posts: 1879
Joined: Mon May 31, 2010 6:43 pm
Contact:

Re: Jarpig pride worldwide (Let's talk about JRPGs)

Post by ryu »

TL; DR if you want to play the Kiseki games, just pick 2 of them to play. Play either: FC -> SC, Zero -> Azure or CS1 -> CS2.
Thanks for the advice, I'll note this down too.
The Dragon Slayer series as a whole is worth checking out to see the early evolution of JRPGs. Each entry is almost a subgenre unto itself. It's only once it gets to the Legend of Heroes games that it becomes Dragon Questy.
That makes the series all the more intriguing.

It's really time I stop wasting my breath on openworld fetch quest garbage. Have just been playing Xenoblade Chronicles (DE) lately. That is, over the past 2 months or so. 42 hours of playtime (not counting the 18 hours I spent on it right after release) and I'm only about halfway through at best. orz
blog - scores - collection
Don't worry about it. You can travel from the Milky Way to Andromeda and back 1500 times before the sun explodes.
User avatar
Sengoku Strider
Posts: 2206
Joined: Wed Aug 05, 2020 6:21 am

Re: Jarpig pride worldwide (Let's talk about JRPGs)

Post by Sengoku Strider »

ryu wrote:
TL; DR if you want to play the Kiseki games, just pick 2 of them to play. Play either: FC -> SC, Zero -> Azure or CS1 -> CS2.
Thanks for the advice, I'll note this down too.
The Dragon Slayer series as a whole is worth checking out to see the early evolution of JRPGs. Each entry is almost a subgenre unto itself. It's only once it gets to the Legend of Heroes games that it becomes Dragon Questy.
That makes the series all the more intriguing.
The genealogy of the series is pretty deep:
Spoiler
Image
The very first game is more of a Druaga-esque arcadey type of maze game but with long-form play, Xanadu is like a hybrid action rpg dungeon crawler, Drasle Family & Faxanadu more along the lines of Zelda-type adventure. Fortunately, they're not interconnected so you can just play what seems interesting. There were pretty good remakes of the first Dragon Slayer & Xanadu on Falcom Classics vol. 1 on Saturn.
It's really time I stop wasting my breath on openworld fetch quest garbage. Have just been playing Xenoblade Chronicles (DE) lately. That is, over the past 2 months or so. 42 hours of playtime (not counting the 18 hours I spent on it right after release) and I'm only about halfway through at best. orz
I couldn't finish this game, I've put it down partway through a dozen times. I'll stay open minded to it because of how much people have praised it over the years, maybe it'll click with me down the road, but it kind of seems like an overcomplicated mess to me.
Sengoku Strider wrote:But I'll finish up other stuff on my shelf first. Like Exile...
Wow, that didn't take long. I'd heard the game was short & easy, but man...that was short & easy. The bosses all died in 3 hits.

I thought it was a good but not great game, which is what everyone seems to say about it. The character & monster designs are great. Music pretty well done. Solid controls. Your character's sprite is huge and well animated - which surprises me, this is only a regular PCE CD-ROM, so no meaningful technical upgrades. Why didn't more PCE games have characters this large and fluid?

The problem is that whoever designed the dungeons and encounters only had a vague idea of how to implement either of those things. You walk through samey-looking halls with no real challenge. Enemies are just infinite respawns that fly at you from off screen, no meaningful patterns I can remember. And the bosses...yeah. Went down in 3 hits once I was max levelled (which is impossible to avoid by like halfway through the game because you're mobbed by infinite enemies everywhere you go).

But if I'd had access to this game when it was new, I bet I would have absolutely loved it. The story is...well, it's like 75% Assassin's Creed - Templars, Assassins, Pythagoras and all. Were people behind AC inspired by Exile? Because there's like, so much overlap. Either way, for 1991 it was pretty awesome. Standard-for-the-time anime stuff about some guy trying to become a god by obtaining a macguffin, but the fact that he's explicitly trying to unify the Islamic & Christian worlds, that it involves a number of real-world historical figures, and revolves around the building of the Temple of Solomon by Hiram Abiff, the central figure in FreeMasonry's foundational myth, would have ripped my young brain right open. I knew just enough about all that stuff from my dad for it to seem like a huge deal to see in a video game, I would have been defending this game on message boards for years.

That said, I know this was another Working Designs translation, and they removed some religious references so I don't know how much of all this made it through. Which is tough, literally all you do in this game is travel the world, visit temples and talk to monks & priests about their religions. But I don't know what was kept & what wasn't. The Japanese version seems to weirdly pick & choose when to self-edit. Like, they'll get into weird plots about manichaeism, Bacchanalia, Tachikawa-Ryū(!) and talk about Islam, but then make up fake names for obvious places ("Lanka Island" for Sri Lanka, which is silly because Lanka already means island) and people at random.

Anyway. I've heard WD messed up the sequel, but that the Japanese version's not so bad, so I'll probably check that out at some point down the line.
User avatar
ryu
Posts: 1879
Joined: Mon May 31, 2010 6:43 pm
Contact:

Re: Jarpig pride worldwide (Let's talk about JRPGs)

Post by ryu »

I couldn't finish this game, I've put it down partway through a dozen times. I'll stay open minded to it because of how much people have praised it over the years, maybe it'll click with me down the road, but it kind of seems like an overcomplicated mess to me.
The first time I played through it I just stopped doing sidequests altogether from some point on, and later forced myself through the grind on NG+ because I really liked the game otherwise. Good characters, decent story, great atmosphere and feeling of exploration. Trying to complete the game however is a test of one's patience because the stream of side quests can often feel never ending. It's like a job simulator that nobody asked for. I mean, why would anyone sane ask for this? Why is this the direction games are heading now? Games like Breath of the Wild and Elden Ring invoked these feelings for me too. There's always that point where I end up stepping back, wondering what I'm doing with my life. It's a bit better when I space playtime out and don't play for much more than an hour a day, but I'm stilll aware I could be playing games with richer gameplay or story experiences instead going through mundane tasks for hours, even if I like the accompanying atmosphere.

If you think Xenoblade 1 is a complicated mess, you better never look at the sequel. I always thought that Xenoblade was fairly simple. It's just got too much bloat, even if playing it feels a bit like meditation (which is why I can stomach this better than other open world games with huge task lists). Xenoblade 2 however I don't even want to have to remember. I just played through its story and never looked back.
blog - scores - collection
Don't worry about it. You can travel from the Milky Way to Andromeda and back 1500 times before the sun explodes.
User avatar
BryanM
Posts: 6117
Joined: Thu Feb 07, 2008 3:46 am

Re: Jarpig pride worldwide (Let's talk about JRPGs)

Post by BryanM »

Intellectually, I know it's related to Faxanadu, but hearing "Dragon Slayer" often gets me confused with Dragon Knight, which was a slightly more different kind of thing. That smug video game magazines used to tease and mock us with: "You're never getting this bwahaha."

Too many games with "Dragon" in them. Dragonview. Dragonscape. Dragon Spirit. Dragon Riders of Pern.

I get that names are tough since all the good ones were already taken by some jerk who was born earlier, god knows I know I curse other people taking the good ones all the time, but we might as well accept we all have to have overly descriptive webnovel-style titles for things now. All the simple clean names are already used up: no more Alien. No more Chers.

It'll always be the Xanadu series to me; Dragon Slayer is a relic in the same vein as Hydlide.
ryu wrote:It's like a job simulator that nobody asked for. I mean, why would anyone sane ask for this? Why is this the direction games are heading now?
We've established animations and new 3d models are expensive, and MMO fetch quests are cheap. :folds arms:

I often mention my feelings on Genshin Impact on this topic: there's nothing compelling the player to pick flowers and wall fungus at any time. There is an incentive there: they are upgrade materials for characters. But if you don't have the characters or don't want to upgrade them, you can harvest them ahead of time, just to be prepared.

So, it's one of my favorite activities in the game.

My least favorite? Following the main questline. Argh. It's like a list of chores to do. A job. That everyone experiences exactly the same. Nothing special or unique about it.

Boring. Snore.

I'd rather spend ten hours exploring how to phase inside a mountain drr-drr style, and exploring its secret hidden world created by uh, "loose" world geometry.
Spoiler
Image
Since I'm a nerd I sometimes read dev blogs. Eldergame is one by a guy who worked on Asheron's Call and is currently in charge of the hardcore retro MMO, Project Gorgon. (I always found that very adorable: "Project Gorgon" was just a throwaway codename, with the real name TBA. But since that was the name everyone knew the game by, that's the name it got stuck with..)

I believe it was he who once remarked on disposable MMO quests... everyone wants to create unique quests. But the demands of content are voracious, and that kind of thing is impossible. Just go ahead and pack the game with a million collect 15 rat turd quests.

At the time I didn't have a strong opinion on that opinion... but today I can stand tall and say: No, it doesn't always need to be that way. There's a reason the MMO genre is dead.



(Oh, and another reason filler content is used is because it's very plug and play friendly. It doesn't have to worry about lore. It doesn't have to worry about character consistency or the designer to be able to write. It doesn't require any thought or planning. All super important, especially if all that stuff would otherwise have to be run through and signed off by one person.)

(Sometimes they can be memorable though.)
Post Reply