Jarpig pride worldwide (Let's talk about JRPGs)

[it290]

I hate JRPGS with a passion but can abide and enjoy JSRPGS, so I got started with Triangle Strategy a bit ago. It's fun, but it just had me hankering to go back and play Tactics Ogre. Which I have been, both the SFC original version and the PSP remake. I think the PSP remake wins out for me and is maybe the best in this subgenre—I'm excluding all the Fire Emblems and Langrissers and Shining Forces of the world here and just talking about the specific spawns of the Tactics Ogre saga. You're in a life or death political/genocidal battle and you can explore a variety of different classes and summon golems, gryphons and other mofos to your side. The job system is less broken than FFT and the story is more interesting and the translation better written. Great game overall and on some severely underrated hardware to boot.

[Sumez]

Man, I looked at this thread like three times yesterday super tired and was like wtf is DS? Dark Souls? Darkstalkers? Is this an acronym for a sub-genre I can't think of? God I hate myself.

I genuinely can't figure out if you're kidding

[XoPachi]

Oh. My. God.
Mercedes is a travesty of a character in a game like Odin Sphere. This boss rush is horrible with her. She's got these unique drawbacks for the sake of "balance" and she does no damage. Fighting the Technodr- I mean, Cauldron, and the fight went on for a half hour before all of my health was eventually whittled away and I have to restart the whole fight all over again.

[Sengoku Strider]

Man, I looked at this thread like three times yesterday super tired and was like wtf is DS? Dark Souls? Darkstalkers? Is this an acronym for a sub-genre I can't think of? God I hate myself.

But sorry, no hot Dark Souls recs.

This is why I usually try to refer to it by its proper canonical name, the NINTEND00DS.



Or NINTEND口口DS, in the original Japanese.

On the actual topic of recommendations:

The Dark Spire - A really cool Japanese dungeon crawler done in a 1980s Western gothic fantasy style, the look kind of reminds me of the old Fighting Fantasy books:



Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon - A remake of the first Fire Emblem, it's quite solid.

Castlevania: I haven't played the 2nd & 3rd NINTEND00DS Castlevanias, but I presume they're pretty much more of the same solid SOTN template as Dawn of Sorrow is.

Advance Wars DS - At the edge of what you might consider an rpg, but if you like the franchise you'll like this.

Dragon Quest remakes - Do what they say on the box.

Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey - Solid but tough & grindy SMT dungeon crawler. I bounced off it about halfway through, but some place it among their favourites in the series.

Radiant Historia - I've never actually played this, I just know it's one everybody raves about. It also has an improved (I think) 3DS version.

[Sima Tuna]

Shadow Dragon is very good. The 3d sprites look dumb but the game itself is pure strategy bliss. I'm one of those who place Strange Journey firmly in my "favorites" camp for SMT titles. It is probably #1 for me, just above Nocturne and Devil Survivor Overclocked.

[Steamflogger Boss]

The Dark Spire - A really cool Japanese dungeon crawler done in a 1980s Western gothic fantasy style, the look kind of reminds me of the old Fighting Fantasy books:

Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon - A remake of the first Fire Emblem, it's quite solid.

Castlevania: I haven't played the 2nd & 3rd NINTEND00DS Castlevanias, but I presume they're pretty much more of the same solid SOTN template as Dawn of Sorrow is.

Advance Wars DS - At the edge of what you might consider an rpg, but if you like the franchise you'll like this.

Dragon Quest remakes - Do what they say on the box.

Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey - Solid but tough & grindy SMT dungeon crawler. I bounced off it about halfway through, but some place it among their favourites in the series.

Radiant Historia - I've never actually played this, I just know it's one everybody raves about. It also has an improved (I think) 3DS version.

Just going in order here.

Had this one before but don't think I ever started it. Noted.

Beat it great game.

All great. I think Dawn is probably the worst one, but it's a high bar and that is still a good game. The stylus nonsense is a bit dumb there, however.

Yeah these are good, beat both DS entries.

Currently playing DQIV. I beat the original on NES a long time ago, this is a lovely remake. I'll probably play something else after before moving to DQ5. Beat 9 previously as well, which I considered good.

Couldn't get into either of the last two.

[drauch]

Man, I looked at this thread like three times yesterday super tired and was like wtf is DS? Dark Souls? Darkstalkers? Is this an acronym for a sub-genre I can't think of? God I hate myself.

I genuinely can't figure out if you're kidding

Haha, was absolutely not. I couldn't even believe myself when it clicked. Sleep deprivation rots my already flat brain.

[Gamer707b]

Still hooked on XenoGears. Honestly, I thought I was completely done with Rpgs. Having been this into one in years. Still really early into the game though. Had a party and had family over for the weekend, but I'm looking forward to getting back to it this week.

[BryanM]

Talking about obscure games: Beyond the Labyrinth for the 3ds. Makes the 7th Dragon series look like Final Fantasy.

Brought to you by the same company that put together Valkyrie Profile, Star Ocean, and not much else.

[Steamflogger Boss]

Still hooked on XenoGears. Honestly, I thought I was completely done with Rpgs. Having been this into one in years. Still really early into the game though. Had a party and had family over for the weekend, but I'm looking forward to getting back to it this week.

Yeah this one never really stopped hitting right for me. The total package really works, and the music was a standout.

Talking about obscure games: Beyond the Labyrinth for the 3ds. Makes the 7th Dragon series look like Final Fantasy.

Brought to you by the same company that put together Valkyrie Profile, Star Ocean, and not much else.

Japan only. FUCK.

[drauch]

I believe there's at least a translation for it out there.

[Sima Tuna]

Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume is worth a look if you want a DS strategy rpg. It's surprisingly high-quality. Maybe not quite as good as the original Valkyrie Profile or VP2, but still excellent. I think it reviewed somewhat poorly at the time because the game is balls-hard if you try to go for a "good" ending. In a way, the best ending is a goal you should strive towards for your 2nd or 3rd playthrough. The game's difficulty on first play is much more manageable if you go for a standard bad-but-not-game-over ending. More than the previous titles in the series, Covenant of the Plume is a tragedy, and you're meant to fully use its unique mechanics on your first playthrough.

Feather on the battlefield
Unto me your power yield!

[Blinge]

Dawn > Portrait

[Sengoku Strider]

Also, while not strictly within the confines of the rpg genre, anyone who goes through their DS lifetime without playing 999 has failed at NINTEND00DS. Easily a top 5 most memorable experience on the hardware imo.

[Steamflogger Boss]

Dropped that one but I'm not really into vns. Lacks the gameplay electrolytes or something. Phoenix Wright and Snatcher are the only ones I've really got through.

My vn homeys all loved it though.

[Sima Tuna]

I don't play visual novels for the same reason I don't play modern gaming hallway walking simulators.

[BryanM]

Normally I rejoice whenever Squeenix releases yet another bottom tier mobile game that'll be dead within two years... unfortunately there isn't anything immediately apparently disastrous about Echoes of Mana. Besides the enormous "who is this supposed to be for?" question. Maybe it's the equal of so-so licensed fare. The absolute pinnacle of what their mobile division can accomplish, but an ocean of disappointment for me. I wanna see more revolting garbage, like Final Fantasy: All The Bravest!

From game footage, I just can't get rid of the question of "why wouldn't you just play Guardian Tales... for the last seven years. Or Dungeon Fighter Online... for the past 18 years..."

I really feel like the franchise got lost to time after Seiken Densetsu 3, but I dunno. Maybe one of you guys enjoyed a game released after that?

[Sengoku Strider]

The Great Dire Wolf in Octopath's post-game is brutal. My characters are around level 70 with physical defence 700+. Cyrus is practically a god who can do 30k+ HP in damage with a fully powered spell, while Primose has evasion at 999. I've found every battle-tested weapon, obtained & mastered every class, and finished every other quest in the game except for Journey's End. But this boss just keeps stomping me out. I can be doing just fine and have all my characters way above their HP limits with Saving Grace, but in its third phase it's like it just decides to cheat, debuffs my whole squad, then with its mini-wolves unleashes like 4 full-party attacks in a row and down I go.

[TransatlanticFoe]

I was overlevelled, tried so many times to bring that thing down and honestly forgot how I finally did it - but I think it used up a lot of items. It keeps summoning adds which prevent you from exploiting its weaknesses. It gets stronger the more you break it, but if you don't break it it mauls your party. Even when you finally take out all the adds, it just gets stronger. It debuffs your party regularly. It seems massively overpowered and probably the only reliable strategy is to abuse Tressa's sidestep with whatever it is that lets you transfer the skill to the whole party - so everyone just keeps dodging the onslaught.

Grinding out completing key jobs for the true final boss was what drove me back into that area - the battle just sapped my energy to go back and have a stab at that final boss again!

[Sengoku Strider]

It seems massively overpowered and probably the only reliable strategy is to abuse Tressa's sidestep with whatever it is that lets you transfer the skill to the whole party - so everyone just keeps dodging the onslaught.

Ah, that must be the missing link, thanks. I'd been thinking that ability only transferred the runelord elemental buffs.

Grinding out completing key jobs for the true final boss was what drove me back into that area - the battle just sapped my energy to go back and have a stab at that final boss again!

My party should be high enough, except I've heard you need to use all 8 characters. I benched Alfyn pretty much as soon as his story wrapped up, so he's down at level 43 while everyone else is 60+.

Fortunately there's an accessory you can get in the post-game that gives you a 1.5x multiplier to your XP, which does stack with the warmaster extra experience support skill. So hopefully it doesn't take too long.

[TransatlanticFoe]

Yeah that was my issue with that final boss, it requires you to split into two teams of 4 (thus everyone needs to be levelled similarly) but goes completely contrary to the way players would set up their party up to that point:

Spoiler

The two teams can't be balanced - essentially it's one for maximum elemental attac/defense and one for physical. If you don't, it's basically impossible to beat the first phase because you don't have the grunt to do enough damage to its adds in order to damage the actual boss. It's not difficult to stay alive, you just need to kill all adds at once or the boss ressurrects any you did kill. And you can't damage him until they're gone. And the weaknesses change each time they're hit - unless you brought two full elemental mages to the party plus light/dark coverage, you won't be able to always do enough damage simultaneously to move the fight on

And then you have to fight like 8 bosses all over again just to have another go. Which aren't even hard at that point (they're repeats of the final boss from each character's path), it just takes a while. Not having a save point before that boss is probably the only major mistake the game makes. Okay maybe apart from how plain boring Alfyn is Not surprised you benched him, I honestly thought he was a rubbish jack of all trades - physical (but too limited for breaks), elemental (but barely does any damage with it), support (but requires so many consumables).

[Steamflogger Boss]

I don't remember specifics now but I had a lot of characters with the same skill load out. I do remember being able to heal over your max health was part of it. End game is awesome in Octopath it really made me think. From what I saw online I definitely wasn't overleveled when I did it. Did it shortly after launch.

ETA: I did die once, which was annoying but I learned from my mistakes.

[Sengoku Strider]

Alfyn definitely has some good qualities. Inquire doesn't have a chance to fail like scrutinize does, which can be very useful if Cyrus is low level. His concoctions are the only elemental attacks which can do 3 hits until the endgame. He's also pretty tanky. TBH it was probably the mullet that got him benched as much as anything.

[drauch]

Started Trails in the Sky 2 after playing through the first two months ago. Maybe I should have waited longer to start this one? Like 11 hours in or so, but not having the same I-need-more experience as before, presumably since it's all the same areas, with a lot of the same monsters. I love the interactions with all the people you meet again, which is the primary reason I like the first game a lot in the first place, but I'm afraid I'm going to lose interest. Do you start experiencing new areas later on?

[Sima Tuna]

Sky 2 is a much bigger game than the first in all respects. But I don't remember if you spend substantial time in specifically "new" areas. New dungeons maybe. Regardless, I enjoyed Sky. I still think the Sky games are the best Trails titles I have played. Although I kind of skipped Crossbell (which I've heard is the actual best) because I didn't want to mess around with fan patch emulation.

[WelshMegalodon]

After yet another failed attempt to get through Disc 1, I abandoned FFVII (again) and decided to try FFVI (again).

Gau has got to be one of the most absurdly overpowered party members in the history of the series, if not THE most overpowered.

[Blinge]

I've been thinking about which version of FF6 is the best one to play..

I've always wanted to go back and re-play it. but every time I've started it in the past 10 years I don't get past Vector.

I was gonna go with GBA/ FF6 restored mod.. just for the post-game content.
but pixel remaster will use my whole screen and I can just bask in the pretty graphics!

[Steamflogger Boss]

After yet another failed attempt to get through Disc 1, I abandoned FFVII (again) and decided to try FFVI (again).

Gau has got to be one of the most absurdly overpowered party members in the history of the series, if not THE most overpowered.

FF6 is cracked in general imo. Fun game though.

[Sengoku Strider]

Finishing FFVI in Japanese on Super Famicom is my main summer gaming goal. To this day I've never finished it.

It was too expensive for me at the time when it hit SNES, and only became more so as the years passed. Everyone said the PS1 version was bad, and the GBA version was criticized as well, which put me off those releases. I sold off my Wii pretty quickly, and was way to slow on Wii U in grabbing Wii Virtual Console titles before they shut it down. It never saw a Wii U VC release outside Japan for some reason.

But a local shop had a handful of SFC releases sitting in a back room. When I idly asked if they had any SFC stuff, expecting nothing, out it came. Since then it's been sitting here waiting patiently for its turn for like 2 years now.
===============

On the completely opposite end of things, am I crazy, or is Jaseiken Necromancer on the PC Engine kinda fun? While FF6 languished, Necromancer got an inexplicable Japanese-only release on the North American Wii U VC. The digital instructions included are kind of hilarious, giving hints that just assume the player is Japanese-fluent. Even though it's a pretty basic rpg, a fair amount of it would be fairly impenetrable without the language.

It was the first rpg ever released on the PC Engine, just 3 months after launch. The game is a darck-and-machoor Dragon Quest clone, where enemies shoot oddly satisfying gushers of blood upon defeat. It's pretty basic, and obtuse in a way rpgs could be back then, with little to no guildance as to where to go next.

But while much later games like Breath of Fire bored me to death through being so basic, Necromancer's battles are really fast paced and kind of enjoyable despite its absurd encounter ratio. It's managed to be a game that I keep feeling motivated to pick up for a while before bed.

[Steamflogger Boss]

FF6 box is actually the last thing I really want for my small-ish CIB SNES collection. Recently got a CT box to finish that off.

@sengoku strider: I remember seeing that Necromancer game during my very first foray into PC Engine. I stayed away assuming I couldn't really play it. Basic and absurd encounter ratio pretty much sums up Dragon Quest too. Speaking of the PC Engine, I did try Cosmic Fantasy 2 since it got a US release. Pretty blah, and once I lost my save data I decided it wasn't worth starting over.

These days, most of my PC Engine gaming is mahjong or sports.