Sarpig pride worldwide. Sars are better than Jars!

[Mortificator]

This is an adjacent type of wargame, not really the same genre as Fire Emblem clones, but Romance of the Three Kingdoms III was one of the standouts of early Koei.

And as someone who loves pseudo-realistic mechs, the Front Mission sarpigs are garpigs. I think I've talked about this before. SRW, the bobbly head chibification and typical licensing flanderization mean I'll never touch most of the series. I did complete the OG pair on GBA and found them adequate games with some badass music.

[Sima Tuna]

This is an adjacent type of wargame, not really the same genre as Fire Emblem clones, but Romance of the Three Kingdoms III was one of the standouts of early Koei.

RoTK X is one of the unironically most beautiful games on ps2. It's like playing a painting.

[Licorice]

Question from a SRPG noob: What are generally the best SRPG games purely in terms of gameplay and gameplay alone?

On a related note, which games are the most strategic/tactical, disregarding the quality of the overall gameplay?

And does the 4th gen/snes era have any worthwhile and recommendable SRPGs besides Tactics Ogre, Fire Emblem 5 and maybe (?) Bahamut Lagoon? It seems to me that the most popular games of the genre are from the 5th gen and onward....

Depends what you mean by gameplay.

If you're after challenge, then sarpigs are a very difficult genre to squeeze enjoyable challenge out of.

Computer strategy games (like the above mentioned Koei title) generally fall victim to the inverted difficulty curve problem, where the first tenth of the game is very difficult, and the rest of the game is very easy.

Role playing games, on the other hand, generally permit substituting any challenge at all with busy work.

Sarpigs are both strategy and role playing games.

In addition to these two challenge averse design points, there's also the simulation aspect, an approach to design which adds systems for the sake of modeling some property of the domain with no regard to how they will affect the *game*, if there is any game of which to speak at this point.

Finally, there's RNG, which is meant to make players "think on their feet" but, more often than not, the only effect it has is to either make the game very easy when the player gets good rolls, or mathematically impossible even with a perfect risk mitigating strategy when the player gets bad rolls.

So, for challenge, the best sarpigs proceed in non-repeatable stages with a limited experience pool, have low player uncontrollable outcome variance, and don't have a laundry list of game trivializing actions, builds, items etc.

Good luck finding much that matches the description. More often, you'll find something half way there and then salvage it through house rules.

If on the other hand you're after sandbox gameplay, then the genre is a lot more accommodating. Most sarpig players play sarpigs as sandboxes and low challenge power fantasies, and most of the big names in the genre e.g. Final Fantasy Tactics and Tactics Ogre fit that mold instead.

BTW, Langrisser 2 on the Mega Drive (but not Der Langrisser on the Super Famicom) is a good challenge oriented 4th generation sarpig.

[Steven]

Question from a SRPG noob: What are generally the best SRPG games purely in terms of gameplay and gameplay alone?

On a related note, which games are the most strategic/tactical, disregarding the quality of the overall gameplay?

Rather than tell you what you should play (which is Devil Survivor, of course), I'll tell you what to avoid: Disgaea.

[dummy]

This is an adjacent type of wargame, not really the same genre as Fire Emblem clones, but Romance of the Three Kingdoms III was one of the standouts of early Koei.

RoTK X is one of the unironically most beautiful games on ps2. It's like playing a painting.

The ps2 version actually heavily lowers the resolution/quality of the "paintings", making them look very pixilated and video gamey and less like a painting.

That pic you posted is also most certainly from the PC version. I'm sure of it for two reasons: 1-the quality of the image is pretty decent and 2-the ps2 version is the only version of ROTK X that was officially translated, and that guy's name is spelled "Dong Zhuo" (there's a G at the end of the Don and an H in between the Z and U ot Zuo)(also, "uler" instead of ruler) that pic is from the fantranslation of the PUK edition ("power up kit", think of it as a complete edition or GOTY edition that adds more characters and scenarios and some new mechanics to the game) of the PC version of ROTK 10. The pre-11 games look different between the PC versions and the home console versions (sometimes even the menu layout is different, such as in 7, 8 and 9); ROTK 11 and onward are the only games that look the same on both PC and home consoles.

Personally I find all of Koei's strategy games to be pretty awful in terms of gameplay (RotK, Nobunaga, Gemfire/Royal Blood, Aerobiz, Death or Liberty, etc) they're extremely (and i really mean extremely) stat-based, stats are literally the only thing that truly determine whether someone wins a battle or not, and in order to raise the stats of your city or military forces or hire officers with good stats or whatever you have to do a lot of repetitive tasks over and over and over and again. They're like the TBS/grand strategy equivalent of Musou/Warriors games, (which are made by Omega Force, one of the companies that Koei owns) that is, they're very shallow and repetitive, and much like Musou, you have to abuse the systems of the game in order to have any chance at beating certain challenges.

Granted I haven't played Dynasty Tactics and the Kessen games, and those miiiiiight be good....or they might be bad, who knows. I heard Kessen 3 isn't really a strategy game but more of a "Dynasty Warriors with a posse".

[dummy]

Question from a SRPG noob: What are generally the best SRPG games purely in terms of gameplay and gameplay alone?

So, for challenge, the best sarpigs proceed in non-repeatable stages with a limited experience pool, have low player uncontrollable outcome variance, and don't have a laundry list of game trivializing actions, builds, items etc.

So, what would be an example of one of those sarpigs that proceed in non-repeatable stages with limited experience pool and etc and etc?

By the way, you used the word "sandbox" at some point. Have you ever heard of these games?

Telepath Tactics

Voidspire Tactics

Tenderfoot Tactics

Horizon's Gate

If anyone has ever played any of those....how are they? And how sandboxy are they?

And as someone who loves pseudo-realistic mechs, the Front Mission sarpigs are garpigs.

What's a "Garpig/GRPG"?

Question from a SRPG noob: What are generally the best SRPG games purely in terms of gameplay and gameplay alone?

On a related note, which games are the most strategic/tactical, disregarding the quality of the overall gameplay?

Rather than tell you what you should play (which is Devil Survivor, of course), I'll tell you what to avoid: Disgaea.

I don't know man, I heard that you can pick up and throw your own allies in the Disgaea games? And that you create human towers by making each character stand on top of each other? That sounds very cool.

As it is, the games I'm very interested in trying out right now are:

Super Robot Wars: Masou Kishin: Lord of Elemental
SRW: Original Generation 1+2
Vandal Hearts 1
Front Mission 1, 2, 3 and 5
Devil Survivor 1 and 2
Tear Ring Saga: Berwick Saga: Lazberia chronicle ps2
Brigandine ps1
Bahamut Lagoon snes

[Sima Tuna]

Super Robot Taisen: Original Generation 1 and 2 are worth playing. They're fun. Really, you should just go download a big ol' roms folder with every GBA strategy game and play them all. The GBA was a good console for sarpigs and you can tweak the emulator to overcome issues like slowdown that were present in the original versions.

[Steven]

PS5 Unicorn Overlord demo is quite excellent so far, as expected. A week ago or so I rather hesitantly preordered that huge and very expensive Japanese limited edition version with the card game that I will certainly never play, but I think I'll keep it instead of changing to the regular version. It's sold out now for all systems at all online stores, too. I wonder how much people will pay for the North American LE on ebay in five years, but I have a feeling the answer will be "a lot and way too much".

I'll try the Switch demo in a little while. It doesn't seem like the kind of thing the Switch would or should struggle with, but...

Question from a SRPG noob: What are generally the best SRPG games purely in terms of gameplay and gameplay alone?

On a related note, which games are the most strategic/tactical, disregarding the quality of the overall gameplay?

Rather than tell you what you should play (which is Devil Survivor, of course), I'll tell you what to avoid: Disgaea.

I don't know man, I heard that you can pick up and throw your own allies in the Disgaea games? And that you create human towers by making each character stand on top of each other? That sounds very cool.

If you are looking for games with the best gameplay, avoid Disgaea. The series as a collective whole is pretty famous for having plenty of mindless grinding.

I played the first three of them about a decade ago and was quite unimpressed, so I dropped all three of them after a time, but maybe the newer ones are better. I don't remember much about the experience other than that I didn't really care for any of them.

[BryanM]

I don't know man, I heard that you can pick up and throw your own allies in the Disgaea games? And that you create human towers by making each character stand on top of each other? That sounds very cool.

They're much more like a shonen jRPG. The game part of those games is variable to how you want to approach it: if you use a large variety of characters, don't grind, don't exploit the alternative progression systems (the item world and the like are cheating), it's your basic run of the mill sarpig. Nothing special, even subpar compared to the craftsmanship of FFT, but very simple and straight-forward.

The incremental aspect is of course its long tail and what it's famous for. Like any jRPG, its postgame (or game game, if you wanna be a cheaty cheater) is in the same vein as Cookie Clicker, a game about how to make the numbers go up in the fastest, most efficient way.

(In some cosmic sense, I think it's a little bit unfair that breaking the game in FFT is somehow not seen as just as derpy as it is in Disgaea. I guess it's better at giving the player an unearned sense of being smart: "wow, if I use a weapon in BOTH hands, I can do TWICE the damage! I'm a genius!" The most busted, mindless power in that game literally being called Math. There's some game development psychology to be learned there, I guess.)



Anyway, one game I have no idea if it gets any better is Langrisser Mobile. It has its advocates, it looks like it has some complexity later on... but the early stages, they're too damn easy. Something like ArKnights shouldn't be such a rarity in the market: something that respects its players enough to have half a brain cell to rub against itself, and isn't afraid to punch the player in the face a little in the noob stages.

Games don't feel like games if there's no chance of losing. It's the difference between feeling like a tool because you just beat up a kid, and feeling like a hero because you just took down this bullshit giant drooling monster composed of all the unfairness of the world.

[Steven]

How is FFT? I've never played it and the only thing I know about it is that it exists. I don't even know what systems it's on... easy enough to solve that lack of information, of course.

I tried the Switch Unicorn Overlord demo and it looks like the only difference between it and the PS5 version is that it has loading screens on Switch that are not there on PS5. I would hope that the PS5 runs this game at higher framerates and resolutions, but I am using an old 60Hz 1920x1080 PC monitor from 11 years ago, so if it is I can't tell.

[Sima Tuna]

FFT is great. Unbalanced as all hell and possible to crack wide open about an hour out of Game Start, but still fantastic. A high watermark for the ps1, which was full of great jarpigs and sarpigs.

[Steven]

So it's only on PS1 and PSP and shitty phones... that's disappointing, but I have a PS2 and several PSPs, so that's not really a problem. It seems the PSP version is "updated" according to Wikipedia. I wonder if it removed any of the brokenness. It also says this about the PSP version:

The English version contains full voice acting during the cinematic cut scenes, whereas the Japanese version does not.

That's... unexpected.

[Sima Tuna]

The english version of fft also has a new english translation that removes a lot of the cursing and replaces dialogue with old-englishey-sounding words instead. The original ps1 localization was famously odd (moogle was translated as "mogri" among other hilarious mistakes,) but I do think the ps1 localization is more effective.

[Steven]

So it has one of those weird old-English translations... never really been sure about how I feel about those. If I ever play it I'll probably play the Japanese PSP version just because widescreen is kind of nice, unless there's a reason to choose the Japanese PS1 version instead.

[BryanM]

The PSP version has some glitchy slowdown I've heard. Technical jankness in the same vein as the FF4 Advance port. Once again, the community had to fix it ourselves, there's a patch for that. Emulation wins yet again... (Also the PSP version isn't true wide screen, it's stretched.)

While there's some cool extra stuff in the port, I kind of feel like the Playstation version is probably more memorable and is more culturally significant. You get these timeless lines like "Blame yourself or blame god" and "go home and drink your milk." The fartwaffle in the more grammatically correct but less poignant version is eh.

The GBA sequels are kind of eh. I haven't tried War of Visions, it looks too generic and something about it just rolls off the brain. Plus it's a Squeenix side game, so who knows if the designer was any good or gave a crap, or how long it'll last. All I know is it doesn't look like the original Playstation game and the characters don't look like the goofy Final Fantasy characters from back in the NES/SNES era. Generic McSwordguy doesn't cut it this day and age.

A lot of what makes FFT work is how quick and efficient everything is. You get five characters to use and the maps have a limit of 256 tiles, with the longest either axis can be is 18 tiles. Full of lovely little dioramas. I really can't undersell how important these two things are - five characters is the optimal party size, not one more or one less. For Disgaea, for Pool Radiance, for practically everything. Majin Tensei is the perfect example of the antithesis of that - hours of shuffling pawns forward through empty space. Full of nothin' happening and nothin' mattering.

[Sima Tuna]

The PSP version has some glitchy slowdown I've heard. Technical jankness in the same vein as the FF4 Advance port. Once again, the community had to fix it ourselves, there's a patch for that. Emulation wins yet again... (Also the PSP version isn't true wide screen, it's stretched.)

While there's some cool extra stuff in the port, I kind of feel like the Playstation version is probably more memorable and is more culturally significant. You get these timeless lines like "Blame yourself or blame god" and "go home and drink your milk." The fartwaffle in the more grammatically correct but less poignant version is eh.

The GBA sequels are kind of eh. I haven't tried War of Visions, it looks too generic and something about it just rolls off the brain. Plus it's a Squeenix side game, so who knows if the designer was any good or gave a crap, or how long it'll last. All I know is it doesn't look like the original Playstation game and the characters don't look like the goofy Final Fantasy characters from back in the NES/SNES era. Generic McSwordguy doesn't cut it this day and age.

A lot of what makes FFT work is how quick and efficient everything is. You get five characters to use and the maps have a limit of 256 tiles, with the longest either axis can be is 18 tiles. Full of lovely little dioramas. I really can't undersell how important these two things are - five characters is the optimal party size, not one more or one less. For Disgaea, for Pool Radiance, for practically everything. Majin Tensei is the perfect example of the antithesis of that - hours of shuffling pawns forward through empty space. Full of nothin' happening and nothin' mattering.

Yes, the PSP versions are running on minidiscs, and famously the PSP versions of FFT and Tactics Ogre have both additional load times and some slowdown. I don't know if they load faster when installed to a PSP, and you can probably remove the slowdown or load times with emulation settings on PPSSPP or your emulator of choice. I own both versions of FFT and I would take the ps1 version every time.

Valkyrie Profile Lenneth is another masterpiece of a game that was severely hampered by its psp release adding more load times, slowdown and some other issues. Still an amazing game, but go for the ps1 original instead.

With the release of One Vision as well as the Tactics Ogre remake, it seems there is no longer any reason to play either the original or psp versions of TO. So at least that game finally received a definitive edition. Tactics Ogre and FFT are the two giants of the sarpig genre for me because they are similar yet different. Classes in FFT are very fluid and it's all about skills. Classes in TO are much more rigid and determine your character's role in the fight. But I think that also makes for better game and party balance. Both provide heartfelt stories of war and loss.

[BryanM]

One thing that annoys me very slightly about these games is there isn't really much of a "role" thing going on. There might be a rock-paper-scissors thing going on, but largely there's only a few dimensions that matter. How much of a rock is this guy? How far can they move? Can they heal? It's not that much different from Disgaea or Shining Force, where the mixture of guys is more for fun and variety, but optimal play doesn't really encourage very much variety. Some units are just better.

Like how so many Fire Emblem commentators put a huge premium on movement, since so many maps have a time component on them. I heard Wyvern Knights were dominant in one of the recent games? (They're pretty damn overpowered in Majin Tensei, too..)

I namedrop ArKnights so much because it's the best game I've ever played when it came to variety in units being essential. Archetypes and characters aren't close to being equal, but they're much closer to that ideal of being like tools in a toolbox. Different maps can be much more suited for certain characters. What's a great character in one context is subpar or terrible in another. And it's all done without the lazy color supremacy thing: "red guy beats green guy, blue guy beats red guy, green guy beats blue guy"? Nah, there isn't even an elemental wheel in this game. It's all done naturally, as a consequence of threats, range, and the gimmicks enemies have that you have to understand to solve a level. Failure isn't a rare occurrence, in fact the hardest stages expect it to happen multiple times initially.

[Steven]

Also the PSP version isn't true wide screen, it's stretched.

It's pretty easy to convince me to not play games or specific versions of games sometimes. This is one of the best ways to do it. Bad audio quality is another.

BTW has anyone other than me played Banner of the Maid? I like it and consider it to be pretty good (aside from the localization, which is not great, but it's serviceable), but I never really get far before dropping it because something else of higher priority appeared. Some day I'll actually finish the game, I promise!

[Voliko]

Also the PSP version isn't true wide screen, it's stretched.

It's pretty easy to convince me to not play games or specific versions of games sometimes. This is one of the best ways to do it. Bad audio quality is another.

BTW has anyone other than me played Banner of the Maid? I like it and consider it to be pretty good (aside from the localization, which is not great, but it's serviceable), but I never really get far before dropping it because something else of higher priority appeared. Some day I'll actually finish the game, I promise!

I had played through it on the hard mode when it released. The localization/story is subpar but I thought the battles were quite good. Almost every map had some interesting things going on. It was very much an FE clone. I vastly preferred its weapon… square? over FE’s weapon triangle. The triangle has always felt too restrictive to me.

The developer’s new game “Echoes of Vision” appears to have possibly already released in China. Too bad they ditched the 2D sprites and introduced gacha elements. I was really hoping for a true successor. It’s too bad, their art is actually really nice imo.

[Sima Tuna]

I ordered Tactics Ogre Reborn. I already played a shitload of this game back on psp, but here I go again. Should be a fun time. Also planning to pick up Brigandine: Legend of Runersia and maybe go for a replay of Yggdra Union. Unicorn Overlord WILL be a purchase for me, but not on day one. I'm going to wait for the price to drop.

Hopefully Square take notice of Unicorn Overlord and give us ports of OB64 and March of the Black Queen. We probably won't, but I can hope.

[Steven]

Also the PSP version isn't true wide screen, it's stretched.

It's pretty easy to convince me to not play games or specific versions of games sometimes. This is one of the best ways to do it. Bad audio quality is another.

BTW has anyone other than me played Banner of the Maid? I like it and consider it to be pretty good (aside from the localization, which is not great, but it's serviceable), but I never really get far before dropping it because something else of higher priority appeared. Some day I'll actually finish the game, I promise!

I had played through it on the hard mode when it released. The localization/story is subpar but I thought the battles were quite good. Almost every map had some interesting things going on. It was very much an FE clone. I vastly preferred its weapon… square? over FE’s weapon triangle. The triangle has always felt too restrictive to me.

The developer’s new game “Echoes of Vision” appears to have possibly already released in China. Too bad they ditched the 2D sprites and introduced gacha elements. I was really hoping for a true successor. It’s too bad, their art is actually really nice imo.

I think Banner of the Maid is better than modern Fire Emblem as a whole even if only because it has more interesting map design and objectives compared to modern Fire Emblem putting you on a relatively featureless open field and simply having you kill all of the bad guys, although there was that one map in Three Houses (the Japanese title Fuukasetsugetsu is better BTW, and technically that is the version of the game that I have, but...) where half of the tiles are on fire, which was kind of weird. That said, I still haven't played Engage because I somehow forgot that it exists! Maybe Engage has better maps and objectives, and I hope it does.

Unicorn Overlord WILL be a purchase for me, but not on day one. I'm going to wait for the price to drop.

I am amazed that Vanillaware games are now produced in such quantities as to actually let this be possible, at least if you don't want the limited edition version, which I imagine will probably become expensive. English Vita Muramasa and Odin Sphere are now more expensive used than they were at retail. The Japanese versions are pretty cheap, though. It's not technically a Vanillaware game, but I need to go play Princess Crown. Bought it a while ago for Saturn and haven't played it yet.

[Sima Tuna]

Unicorn Overlord WILL be a purchase for me, but not on day one. I'm going to wait for the price to drop.

I am amazed that Vanillaware games are now produced in such quantities as to actually let this be possible, at least if you don't want the limited edition version, which I imagine will probably become expensive. English Vita Muramasa and Odin Sphere are now more expensive used than they were at retail. The Japanese versions are pretty cheap, though. It's not technically a Vanillaware game, but I need to go play Princess Crown. Bought it a while ago for Saturn and haven't played it yet.

Frankly, I'm not sure it will work out that way. But the digital version will hit 50% off on a sale, if nothing else. I own the vita Vanillaware titles. Bought them when they were around, what... $20 I think? Maybe 30. There was a period of time when vita games were all but valueless in the US market. I'm still hoping they'll reprint Muramasa Rebirth so I can sell my vita copy. I love Rebirth but I don't love playing on my jank-ass, partially broken PSTV. And the vita memory cards are trash. They cost a fortune (always did) and mine kept causing save file corruption. Never really felt like investing in a replacement, considering the cost... And only Vita games ever got corrupted. Since I mostly used it for ps1 and psp stuff.... Eh.

What I need to do is set up emulators and translated roms for every single sarpig ever made and then just stop buying them, period. I've purchased FFT twice now. Tactics Ogre twice. If Valkyrie Profile gets a rerelease then I'll buy that too... Again. Because I'm stupid.

[Steven]

Unicorn Overlord WILL be a purchase for me, but not on day one. I'm going to wait for the price to drop.

I am amazed that Vanillaware games are now produced in such quantities as to actually let this be possible, at least if you don't want the limited edition version, which I imagine will probably become expensive. English Vita Muramasa and Odin Sphere are now more expensive used than they were at retail. The Japanese versions are pretty cheap, though. It's not technically a Vanillaware game, but I need to go play Princess Crown. Bought it a while ago for Saturn and haven't played it yet.

Frankly, I'm not sure it will work out that way. But the digital version will hit 50% off on a sale, if nothing else.

You may want to consider the physical version, as it has been announced that the day 1 patch makes every difficulty easier. Assuming they don't add DLC (please don't add DLC... please just release a complete game for once and leave it that way), the gold master may end up being the best version of the game and the only way to play it will be to get the physical version and never patch it. No way to tell without playing the game to completion both patched and unpatched, but it's possible that it could go either way.

Launch is tomorrow, but I may preorder the physical Switch version now just in case.

[Steven]

Game get. The box is much smaller and heavier than I imagined. Version 1.00 is indeed on the Japanese physical PS5 disc. I disabled auto updates and I'm going to play it unpatched on the highest difficulty to see how it is. Hopefully there aren't any bad glitches on 1.00. I can already see that you need the patch to use your save data from the demo, but I actually didn't play the demo for very long because I knew I was going to buy the game after only about 30 minutes with the demo, so I'm not losing much progress.

[cfx]

Game get. The box is much smaller and heavier than I imagined. Version 1.00 is indeed on the Japanese physical PS5 disc. I disabled auto updates and I'm going to play it unpatched on the highest difficulty to see how it is. Hopefully there aren't any bad glitches on 1.00. I can already see that you need the patch to use your save data from the demo, but I actually didn't play the demo for very long because I knew I was going to buy the game after only about 30 minutes with the demo, so I'm not losing much progress.

Does that actually work? I don't have a PS5, but on PS4 there is no way to keep games from updating and downloading any DLC you own, other than just never connecting to the internet. There's an option in the settings to turn off auto updates for "applications" but it either doesn't work at all, or applications means something other than games. At least this is my experience, as I've tried repeatedly to stop PS4 auto updating because it tries to do multiple downloads at once which with my crappy internet just bogs down where it takes forever to download anything. I've had to install one game from disc, connect online, let it update that game, then disconnect and do the next one so it only patches one at a time.

Atlus gave the full game early to some youtubers so they could have reviews ready by release date and one or two I watched that claim to have completed the game didn't experience crashes so if you can keep it from updating you probably shouldn't have any problems with bugs. These reviews were the PS5 version. Their reviews were up before that patch was released so I assume they had to have played it unpatched.

[Steven]

It definitely does work because I am playing the game on 1.00. It will attempt to download the update every time you launch the game when connected to the internet, but the download can be cancelled and you can simply not connect to the internet if you want. I was even able to download and install the preorder DLC without the patch, which is almost certainly impossible to do on Switch and might be impossible on PS4.

[cfx]

That's definitely different than PS4 then. I am never ever connected when playing a game, but the console will download patches seemingly at random* for games installed whenever you connect. I know it's possible to cancel a download as there's a button for it, but given how it will download multiple things at once and it doesn't really tell you it's doing it, catching the downloads to cancel would be an issue..

*I read somewhere it looks at what you've started recently and will prioritize updating those games. No idea if true but the behavior does seem consistent with that.

[Sima Tuna]

I'm interested in hearing what people think of Unicorn Overlord's story... Considering that story has always been one of those unique aspects of the Ogre Battle games. Gameplay is king of course, but the Ogre games had a tone and setting which elevated their material beyond "you good guy. bad guy over there. you smash" that you get in a lot of rpgs. Even plenty of sarpigs today still have a problem with black-and-white writing. I think that's a bit odd, since war simulation should never be black and white. Part of the reason the world is still hung up on WW2 is because it was about as close to a "good vs evil" fight as we EVER get to see in real life.

Sarpigs are usually better about this than jarpigs, thanks to the influence of the 3 Kings (TO, FFT and FE) but you never know.

Vanillaware has some games that I consider well-written, such as Muramasa Rebirth (cat story especially,) and Odin Sphere Leif. I've heard good things about 13 Sentinels as well. Grimgrimoire and Dragon's Crown felt pretty fluffy though.

[cfx]

I've only played the demo so I can't give specifics, but the boss characters appear to all have stories as to why they're on the other side, and they may join you after being defeated, but in some cases (at least one in the demo) you have a choice of letting a character go, or turning them over to some authorities, or based on something I've seen from later in the game, potentially punishing them yourself.

So I don't think characters are all black and white.

That said, this game is very much gameplay over story, while 13 Sentinels was more focused on the story to the point I've seen it sometimes referred to as a visual novel with some token SRPG gameplay thrown in.

[Steven]

In reality 13 Sentinels is about as much of a visual novel as Microsoft Flight Simulator is. It's an adventure game like Maniac Mansion or whatever.

Anyway I have barely had time to do anything, including eating and especially including sleeping, but I guess the story here is best described as "it exists" and that's about it. I'll get some time to play it before I die of old age in like 50 years, I hope.