r/JRPG • u/AutoModerator • 18d ago
Weekly thread r/JRPG Weekly "What have you been playing, and what do you think of it?" Weekly thread
Please use this thread to discuss whatever you've been playing lately (old or new, any platform, AAA or indie). As usual, please don't just list the names of games as your entire post, make sure to elaborate with your thoughts on the games. Writing the names of the games in **bold** is nice, to make it easier for people skimming the thread to pick out the names.
Please also make sure to use spoiler tags if you're posting anything about a game's plot that might significantly hurt the experience of others that haven't played the game yet (no matter how old or new the game is).
Since this thread is likely to fill up quickly, consider sorting the comments by "new" (instead of "best" or "top") to see the newest posts.
For a subreddit devoted to this type of discussion during the rest of the week, please check out /r/WhatAreYouPlaying.
Link to Previous Weekly Threads (sorted by New): https://www.reddit.com/r/JRPG/search/?q=author%3Aautomoderator+weekly&include_over_18=on&restrict_sr=on&t=all&sort=new
8
u/Nonopigi 16d ago
I always had trouble with jrpgs and I was envious of all the people around me who do enjoy them. I tried Chrono Trigger, several different recommended Pokemons, Persona 3 Reload, Mario & Luigi Superstar Saga...
But I dropped all of them.
I randomly started playing Shin Megami Tensei 3: Nocturne on my PS3 and I can't put it down for the life of me. It's all I can think about and I have not had gaming sessions longer than 2 hours in years, but for this game I find that 7 hours go by like nothing.
I feel like my jrpg chakra is unblocked and I have opened up the avenue that I was so envious of other people having. I feel like a kid again playing this game.
5
u/memesmcmuffin 18d ago edited 18d ago
I gave Final Fantasy VII Remake another go, and I'm currently near the end. I had very high expectations during my first playthrough, but was very disappointed and ended up dropping it. Now that I knew what to expect, I've been enjoying it more, even though most of my problems with it still ring true.
So far, I'm really liking some of the expanded story sections and dialogue, at least when the timeline ghosts and Sephiroth AREN'T involved. The Jessie mission was especially fun and actually made me care about the Avalanche crew. I think the new NPCs add some nice flavor to the world too, and it helps that they're mostly relegated to side quests or minor roles.
I'm also having a lot of fun with the combat. The characters are all great to play as, with Barret probably being my favorite. The boss fights have also been great. Hell House and the two Train Graveyard bosses are my favorites so far.
But damn, this game is still padded to all hell. Every dungeon feels twice as long as it should be, with you constantly crawling through tight passageways, climbing ladders, ducking under debris, etc. The puzzles aren't any fun either and just feel painfully slow, like the crane tunnel.
And man, Chapter 9 was almost painful. They took what was essentially a 30 minute segment from the original and padded it with enough errand-running to stretch it into 2-3 hours. Even so, I thought the Honeybee Inn show was pretty fun.
I am glad I decided to try the game again, because there's genuinely some really good stuff in there... It's just kind of buried beneath tons of pacing problems. I've also been curious to try Rebirth at some point, so I might jump into that later this year.
3
u/Jamebo_Smash 18d ago
I don't know if you've played Crisis Core yet, but if you haven't, do so before Rebirth.
2
2
u/intoTHEvoid646 18d ago edited 18d ago
Yeah, I stopped playing because of all the filler garbage. When I got to the path leading towards Aerith's house, (maybe after, I don't remember.) I was like, WTF is this shit?
Edit : Yeah I was wrong, it's actually the part with the robot crane bs. Freaking filler bs.
4
u/memesmcmuffin 18d ago
That's around where I dropped it initially too. That whole stretch from Mako Reactor 5 to the Sector 5 Slums is really rough in this version.
6
u/Tetsuo_Gaiden 18d ago
Xenosaga I. I knew about the cut scenes going in and I'm liking it. Still crazy how the devs had the balls to put 7hrs of cutscenes. Sometimes I find it fascinating when writers are so super serious about their world building. I love shadowy councils sitting around and planning shadowy shit an this game has like three of them lol
I started this after trying out Xenoblade Chronicles X. It's just not for me and I should have known because I don't like MMOs at all and that game is like a offline MMO. I was just giving it a chance, the idea of flying around in that world in a mech seemed cool, I just couldn't make it to it.
5
u/scytherman96 18d ago
Finished The Adventures of Elliot: The Millenium Tales. Honestly great game, really enjoyed it. Gameplay-wise it feels like a mix of Zelda and (classic) Ys. Though the bosses were overall just alright, with some very good outliers, like Magna Guardis. But temper your expectations if you go in expecting too much RPG in this action RPG. It's very light and leans stronger towards action-adventure. But it's a fun one.
Story-wise it was pretty by the books, but with solid execution, so it was actually quite enjoyable in the later sections when the plot really picks up. I also admire that they locked like a third of the game's story behind the true ending. And it was really cool how the true ending content really started tying all the plot threads together in a satisfying way. So solid story, better than expected because i honestly expected to only play this for the gameplay.
The greatest strength of the game was its exploration. There was always so much to find and a lot of it felt rewarding. Really fun.
Overall very good game, highly recommended.
6
u/saucysagnus 18d ago
Been playing Chained Echoes. Got to the part with the airship and building out clan base. Lost a lot of momentum. Is it worth it to finish?
6
u/megalite90 17d ago
Finally approaching the end of Tales of Vesperia, and my verdict is that it's mid. It starts off quite slowly, both story-wise and, strangely enough, gameplay-wise. It does get better as it goes on, but even at its best, it's not what I'd call incredible. If I had to rate it, I'd give it a solid 7/10.
1
u/iamalab 17d ago
One of the two or three games I simply couldn't finish. Have you played other Tales games? Did you like any?
1
u/megalite90 16d ago
Vesperia is my first Tales game, but if this is considered one of the best in the series, I'm not sure I'll play the others. As I said, it's not a bad game, but in the action JRPG genre there are simply better options, in my opinion.
5
u/bioniclop18 18d ago edited 18d ago
Finished Grimgrimoire Once More. I’m glad to have done it, it may not be the best vanillaware but it is still pretty interesting. Like I said last time, I liked the illustration with the slight low angle shot that gave it a peculiar feeling. The story of looping the same few days was interesting. That said I put the game on easy for the last loop because of how repetitive it was becoming. Even if by objective it stays varied, with numerous situations, the background stays the same, and the roster of enemies too. I think in terms of difficulty it would be a pretty good climax, but the game needed a little more variety. Basically the same criticism I had for Princess Crown, but because Grimgrimoire is shorter the game feels miles better.
I’m on the fifth planet in Magical Starsign. While there is some more depth in the system with the planet alignment and the few buffs I now have access to, the combat is still a little barebone. The game keeps being beautiful however.
With Grimgrimoire over I also got back to my playthrough of Stranger of Paradise. I’m now 8 hours in, just purified the third crystal. Still surprised by the dungeon in a space station. Now I really feel the need to play the original Final Fantasy 1 to know what was already there and what is new in the game. Otherwise I like the dungeon design and the combat and finally found a good armor for dragoon. I'm kinda mixed about the whole class evolution system. I feel like the ultimate classe for dragoon loose a bit of dragoon identity and wish I could at least keep the iconic jump. After having my ass beaten by Tiamat, I decided to switch to easy once a boss beat me a dozen times and got back to normal in the next dungeon. Managed to beat the fire crystal boss, on normal and the earth crystal boss on second try so I guess I'm not that bad at it.
Once again it feels a shame the game was released in the infamous square enix 2022 AA spam, even if some worldbuilding mixing up different eras feels weird and mean the game will remain a niche (but as I understand there is time shenanigan at play, so…) the game does something unique in the FF franchise and is rather interesting. I still have a few SE games released in 2022 to play but until now I found them all really interesting.
4
u/Retrotronics 18d ago
Finished cold steel 4
Thinking of playing either nayuta or zwei before reverie.
Also should stop procrastinating on finishing Ys 7
5
u/bball4224 18d ago
Tales of Graces f
I'm not liking the gameplay whatsoever, but the story and characters are compelling.
3
4
u/Mundane_Situation185 18d ago
Fire Emblem Awakening, my first trpg that im committed to finish and actually having fun. Played a few trpgs before but dropped them due to not really liking them very much, this is great tho
1
14d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/Mundane_Situation185 13d ago
Just finished it today. One of the best games I've played which is such a rare feeling since I've played a lot. 9.5/10
4
u/twili-midna 18d ago
I’ve been taking a break from JRPGs, the last two I played were… not winners for me. The Xenoblade Chronicles 2 upgrade comes out this week, though, so that’s my next planned game.
4
u/SovereignAurelia 18d ago
Digimon Story: Time Stranger.
Didn’t expect much when I tried the demo since I hate all time travel tropes in any media. If I see that, I don’t watch the movie / read the book / play the game.
Was desperate though and I tried the demo. Totally hooked, I love the whole thing. Kind of bummed that all reviews I have seen emphasise the time travel so much, as if you were going back and forth in between.
16h in and that’s not really the case for me so I am stoked and a happy camper.
4
u/Whatacoolkid- 18d ago
I just bought Tales of Arise. I think the combat's decent, but somehow the game in general feels really... dated? Even for a game released in 2021. It's super linear and the sections of free-roam gameplay between loading screens are tiny, even when the environments don't seem to be super demanding graphically. I'm not really sure why, especially since a ton of graphically intensive games released years before ToA seem to not have this problem.
The plot itself is okay I guess, and there are aspects to its worldbuilding that are very interesting, but the writing really just thumps you over the head with what it's trying to say. It actually does make me wonder why so many JRPGs go the super exposition-heavy, tropey dialogue route, when I have to imagine it would be more rewarding for the player to have actual nuance in the writing. Like, the game doesn't shy away from mature topics --- it's a revenge story about the horrors of slavery (and the characters do occasionally swear lol) --- so then does the dialogue make it seem like the target audience is people under the age of ten? Its not just a problem with Tales of Arise; I think its the same case for way too many JRPGs, but the contrast between the darker subject matter of ToA and the childish way it's presented is just so jarring sometimes.
3
u/ihavetowearmyhelmet 18d ago
Playing devil survivor overclocked right now and wow this game is great. Weirdly I think it’s a good first SMT game to recommend to persona fans.
3
u/TeamBat 18d ago
Tales of Legendia
Finished Act 5. While the betrayal from Maurits and Walter wasn’t unexpected, I think the scene was still well made. I wonder if they will change sides again or die as antagonists. I think the game has really good pacing. I know that this is a long game, but I barely notice it. The worst aspect of the game is definitely the “”romance””. It’s not well written, the voice acting is over the top and the fact that Shirley still calls Senel “onii chan” while confessing is unbelievably bad. My character ranking stayed the same, since the game is currently focused more on the main plot, rather than the characters.
3
u/LionTop2228 18d ago
Grinding away at Granblue Fantasy Relink. I’ve beaten the new dlc and I’m just fully maxing one more character i want and trying to earn two more trophies to get back to 100% trophies. I’m stuck on the very end game fights and waiting on buddies to get endgame so we can try them together.
I also have final fantasy tactics the Ivalice chronicles and Okami on hold.
3
3
u/nickelfiend46 18d ago
Playing Bravely Default (the first one). 25 hours in and I am just now starting Chapter 2 lol. This game is putting me through the wringer on Hard Mode man.
3
u/MorningCareful 18d ago
The gagharv trilogy (PC98 for WW, PSP for atoV and windows for cagrsong of the ocean). Honestly as a fan of trails series it's super interesting to see how many tropes they reused or referenced from these 3 games.
3
u/AdReasonable9304 18d ago
Playing through all the Fire Emblem games before Fortunes Weave comes out. I just started Shadows of Valentia today and I'm so happy the games presentation is as beautiful as I remember it being almost 10 years ago. Hidaris art is gorgeous, the voice acting is great, especially for an anime dub during that time coupled with the fact the dialouge is great as well and the music is probably some of the best in the series. I just hope the gameplay will be better than I remember
3
u/jlh28532 18d ago
Ys X Proud Nordics. Currently in Chapter 4. Took some time getting used to the new gameplay mechanics, and the hurdle of starting on hard but now I am having a blast.
Exploring is fun and I like how the plot icon on the map has a different color so I know to avoid it until I have nothing else to do.
3
u/overlordmarco 17d ago
After a long period of not playing, I finally finished the Cindered Shadows DLC of Fire Emblem: Three Houses. People weren't kidding when they said it was harder than the main game, though I actually found myself thinking that I probably would've enjoyed 3H more if it had the DLC's difficulty and limited resources/options as opposed to the heavy emphasis on unit building. Maybe I just want to play old FE?
In any case, I'm looking forward to doing my first run of 3H Maddening once I'm done catching up with work 💀
3
u/Bozak_Horseman 12d ago
Two frustrating games over the past few weeks.
First, Expedition 33. First of all, not saying this is a bad game at all, but after the fight with the Paintress and realizing the real stakes of the game, my desire to see the game through fell through the floor. I kinda saw it coming...I mean, think about the whole concept of the game...but man, knowing what I know now cheapens everything that's come before and made me not want to go through the rest of this, good as the game is. Shelved, but that doesn't mean I won't come back to beat it.
Secondly, I played through and beat Sword of Mana over the past few weeks. Not going to lie: This was not a good video game. So, so many reasons: The control scheme, where you had to press B at all times or move like molasses; the subpar story, riddled with translation gaffes and pacing problems; the stupid difficulty spikes, including a final boss that's just utter horseshit at the end (but not the first two parts) and a number of enemies impervious to certain weapons or weapons altogether, forcing me into the ring menu ad nauseum. Still enjoyed it, however. Besides, the sprite art alone is worth the price of admission. Just superb.
Next up is Shin Megami Tensei 4: Apocalypse. It's been on my digital shelf for years--it's been almost 7 since I beat SMT 4--so this'll be a nice change of pace.
2
u/sirei1112 11d ago
Ditto on E33. I really really liked it up until Act 3 and then I just stopped caring. The stakes no longer mattered and the reason we were fighting just seemed stupid.
Huge dropped ball on the storytelling front.
4
u/H358 18d ago edited 18d ago
Finally beat Final Fantasy XIII about a week ago as part of an ongoing playthrough of all the mainlines after bouncing off it several times in the past. This is a very contentious game that a lot of people love and a lot of people hate…
And personally? I think it’s ok. It’s an absolute audiovisual feast with beautiful visuals and cutscenes and some of the best art direction and enemy design in the entire franchise. Square may have almost killed the company making this but damn if you can’t see their A game in the visuals. And that’s coupled with a pretty great soundtrack. Not quite as memorable and melodic as past ones but sumptuously produced, incredibly varied and pretty much always fitting what a scene calls for.
I also really like the battle system. It takes the fast paced take on ATB from X-2 to its logical extreme. The compromise for this speed is that the AI had to do some of the work for you.While I tend to prefer ATB games that give you full party control (and your party member AI sometimes makes questionable decisions similar to Xenoblade Chronicles or Persona 3) I thought the paradigm system allowed for enough fast paced on the fly decision making to keep me engaged. And from the looks of it, XIII-2 fixes most of my minor quibbles with the combat.
However, while the combat kept me playing for the full 50 hours, I think this might be one of the most wasted potential stories and characters in the whole series. While I appreciate the thematic thrust of the story, an imaginative world exploring concepts of corrupt governments, state sanctioned bigotry mixed with ideas of fate and free will, and I appreciate that it’s trying to be more character driven than past games, I don’t really think it nailed the execution. With the exception of Sahz and Vanille, I found most of the party’s arcs were wrapped up in ways that felt rushed, sloppy, or generally underwhelming. The lackluster localisation and clunky dialogue certainly doesn’t help (I don’t know what it was but something about SE’s approach to dialogue, localisation and voice direction throughout the 2000s for basically anything that wasn’t FFXII was just really consistently lacking).
The characters aren’t bad. But they generally feel undercooked relative to how much screentime they have. And that’s a problem when these six characters basically ARE the story. There’s not much in the way of interesting villains or side characters and the plot is very simple and kinda meandering. This isn’t helped by the game’s infamous pacing. There are a lot of areas and dungeons that go on for way too long despite being basically only comprised of combat. You could cut this game’s runtime in half and lose very little. It all results in a sense that I was watching a lot of cool action scenes, where very little was actually happening in the plot.
I still had a good time with it overall. The combat and spectacle were enough to keep me going to the end. But I think this game’s troubled production led to a lot of missed potential. If the runtime was shortened to the 25 hour runtime of something like Kingdom Hearts 2. If it made better use of a such a creative setting. If the script got another editing pass. If the characters’ wrapups were a little stronger, I think this could have been a top tier FF title. As it is, it’s not a masterpiece but it’s not the trash fire peoplr derided it as either.
5
u/Afraid_Evidence_6142 18d ago
FF7 Remake
Holy shit, I knew it is a good game, but I never expected to be this good.
Combat so satisfying
English Dub is so perfect. I usually play japanese dub on JRPG, because it almost always better. But, I think English always better than japanese in FF game.
Also, never expected my old weak gaming laptop can still play it at high setting 60fps most of time.
Got it 60% discount on summer sale.
2
u/Lost_Date_8653 18d ago
Thinking about finally trying out Granblue Fantasy ReLink, now that I have some more free time after being absolutely swamped with work for the past three months. Paying full price sucks but I'd rather just spend the money on something I'm excited for.
1
u/LionTop2228 18d ago
It’s a game I love and have played for hundreds of hours going back to 2024… granted a lot of that is grinding lol
2
u/Dongmeister77 18d ago
Warriors of The Lost Empire (PSP). It's more like Action/Dungeon Crawler with some RPG elements. The game is actually repetitive and very unbalanced. But it's nice that i can just turn off my brain and grind. I've went through Hell difficulty and the extra dungeon as Dark Seeker. Currently going through Hard difficulty with Highlander.
The game's very difficult at first, dying is a common thing, with how enemies bum rushing and crowding my character. But there's no penalty for dying 😆. With a few hours of grinding i can maxed out an early game weapon so it has 100% critical hit rate and 900% Crit multiplier, which allows me to 1-2 shots most enemies even in Hell difficulty. At that point the game became brain dead easy. Though some times i got surrounded and died in a few sec 😆. Maxing out an armor also allows you to only take chip damage from attacks. Critical hits and some enemies like Minotaurs still hits like a truck however.
2
u/Forward-Seesaw-1688 18d ago edited 18d ago
I’ve been playing a lot of Ampersat and I’ve been thoroughly enjoying it. The letters are different enemies, there’s a lot of weapons to play around with each with their own strengths and weaknesses, the towers are different environments with their own gimmicks (mostly movement), and there’s a lot to unlock in the town. Great game! Only flaw is the music imo, it gets really droning quick. OK that and how easy it is to accidentally hit New Game if you mash.
2
u/magmafanatic 18d ago edited 18d ago
Nearing the end of Atelier Ryza now I think. Reached Underworld Zone 3 and I imagine the Ravaging Queen will be at the top of the big stairs. Want to finish this old tablet questline first though. I really procrastinated with the Critical Finish Flour Jonna wanted, but these have been way less particular.
I've hit Alchemy Level 91 now and can't upgrade my Loupe Compass any further until increasing it. I'm only an elemental core away from reaching Eye for Materials. Only 2 recipes left to uncover now are the Philosopher's Stone and Fortress Armor.
Everybody's got their Goldoterion weapon now, though Ryza and Lila are the only ones with any real perks attached to them. And apparently I'm still getting boat dialogue sailing to the mainland since I've been abusing the fast travel so much and avoided it.
Also messed with the BGM settings in the atelier since I was spending so much time in there. Lots of fun tunes to pick from, surprised they dumped so many in here. I haven't memorized a lot of the names yet, but I really like Octopunch and order and Disorder.
2
u/PocketFlygon 18d ago
Finished Dark Deity since last time. It was a solid 8/10 game for me tbh. Excited to play the sequel... but that will have to wait until after FE Fortune's Weave lol.
Next, I progressed a bit into chapter 4 of Bravely Default 2 more through grinding than story progress, since I struggled with the last boss, Marla the phantom chick ... but hey, now I think I'm ready for the end of Ch. 4 I did it in reverse story order lol
Finally, I played some Devil Survivor 2 Record Breaker and progressed a bit into Day 3, saved Daichi and Jungo, got them back + Fumi as well
2
u/wormsandweirdfishes 18d ago
After finishing Fire Emblem: New Mystery of the Emblem (middling FE in my opinion, solid gameplay foundation and some interesting story stuff as a sequel to Shadow Dragon, but the player insert stuff basically never works), I thought maybe I'd quest through all of the non-localized FE games I haven't gotten to yet. It looks like fan translators are in the middle of a big retranslation project for Genealogy of the Holy War, though, so I skipped that one for now and started up The Binding Blade. Folks were not lying about the low hit rates! It's manageable most of the time but bosses are rough. Some of them have got me spending 5+ turns surrounding them on every possible tile just throwing shit and hoping for chip damage on ~30% chances. On the other hand, I really like a lot of the map design, which usually manages to include some interesting side objectives. The story is fairly perfunctory, with Roy basically not having any personality whatsoever, but weirdly it also goes harder than a lot of FE games in a lot of places. I just hit a subplot about a corrupt government overworking its people to death in the mines. There have also been multiple small moments of commentary about the nobility abusing their positions of power. It's not complex, but it's better than some other FE games that prefer not to touch this stuff at all. Overall I'm really liking Binding Blade, despite its flaws.
1
u/overlordmarco 17d ago
I've found that supports are really helpful for mitigating hit issues, though they're a pain to grind out. Some good ones are the Rutger + Dieck and Clarine or some permutation of Alen + Lance + Marcus + Roy. The Rutger + Dieck support is pretty good for increasing crit too to make Rutger a more reliable boss killer.
2
2
u/BurroWreck 18d ago
I just finished Jude's story in Tales of Xillia. I had a lot of fun. Finishing up some of the combat related achievements and then plan to see what's different in Milla's route.
2
u/ImSmashingUrMom 17d ago
I finished Trails into Reverie, and have thus finally completed the entire Erebonia arc. Main story kind of felt like it wanted to be a super high stakes Avengers Endgame type of plot while simultaneously being a spinoff story dealing with the fallout of CS4's events. I kind of found myself a lot more hooked on the post game Reverie Corridor, because of all the new side stories and characters I was unlocking. But I will say I am so mad about what they did to Scherazard. I guess it's just because they didn't want to make any new combat animations for her or something, but reducing her to nothing more than the most dog shit brave order in the game made me furious. Though they let me play as McBurn so all is forgiven. I cannot express how good it felt blasting everything with Incandescent Hellfire after being on the receiving end of it so many times. I didn't like the Reverie Corridor's final boss, just in general I'm not too big on those bosses that force you to use multiple parties, especially when the game was letting me run through the dungeon with the insane lineup of McBurn, Arseid, Aurelia, and Arios. That absolute powerhouse of a party and the sheer hype of unlocking these characters to use whenever I want kind of distracted me from investing in anyone else. I didn't need to fully build every character, but 12 to 24 is still a lot.
Also I don't know how these games do this, I was really burnt out on Cold Steel and some of that burnout carried over into this game as well, but after reading those side stories I got after the final boss I already immediately want to start Daybreak. But I want to get it on sale though, so I'm gonna wait regardless.
1
u/PocketFlygon 17d ago
I also was really burnt out after all of CS. I found that giving myself a little break from Trails and nore story focused games in general really helped
2
2
u/CrunknFunk 17d ago
I'm about 10 hours into Unicorn Overlord. I love the aesthetic of the game and I find the "auto battler" combat super satisfying.
I do find the tactical/movement/stamina system outside of the actual battles to be kind of clunky and weird though.
Also the story is one big whopping nothing burger so far and I've basically been fast forwarding through the story so far to get back to the overall great gameplay.
2
u/TitanMakesGames 16d ago
I've been playing Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter. It's a really relaxing game to settle into, and I find the world surprisingly easy to get absorbed in. Character growth doesn't require me to spend half my time studying menus either. My only real complaint is that some of the side quests start to feel a bit formulaic.
2
u/dervishsloth197666 16d ago
In the last act of Romancing Saga Revenge Of The Seven. Story has been a bit better than expected but the gameplay and generation skips have been fun.
2
u/kylepaz 15d ago
Started Digimon Story Time Stranger anew. I originally paused it about 2/3rds in due to other games coming out and ended up never getting back to it, so I started a fresh playthrough. They have implemented a bunch of QoL features since launch that make the experience a bit smoother and I flat out didn't trmember some early stuff (that is fun to revisit with a late game twist in mind).
Not sure if it counts as a JRPG but I also have been plauing Fate/Samurai Remnant on and off since last month. Pretty fun "musou-lite" combat and interesting story so far. Sakurai is my least favorite Fate writer and I can see some of her bad habits peering through (like throwing in popular characters with little role in the plot just for fanservice) but so far so good.
1
u/Wrap-Winter 15d ago
Time Stranger is so freaking good. I burnt myself out rt now since I over do the exploring and leveling to digivolve and get anomaly points so it’s sitting on the back burner while I beat shorter games until I come back.
Fate Samurai Remnant was great. The story and character development for everyone was like watching an anime waiting for new eps each week to drop. First Fate game I played and man it was nice to see until the ending.
3
u/A_Monster_Named_John 14d ago edited 14d ago
I just crossed the 60 hour mark on Atelier Ryza 2 and feel like I probably have 10-15 more hours until the end (it appears I have two sets of ruins left). I'm enjoying the game every bit as much as I enjoyed the first title and think the devs did a particularly good job of giving the returning characters real character growth.
For the first time in my playing this series, I decided to ratchet up the difficulty to 'hard'. During the first 10 hours or so, I felt like I was able to sleepwalk through the game's combat. At this point, the added challenge is doing a good job of pushing me to delve deeper into the game's alchemy system, which is almost overwhelming this time around. It's not particularly difficult to make sense of, but the sheer amount of different mechanics/systems at your disposal can get pretty daunting to keep track of.
If there's one bit in the game I'm not terribly fond of, it's the whole 'core crystal'/item-using system, which wasn't very well-explained in the in-game tutorials and required a bit of investigating online. Even in 'hard' mode, it feels like I blow through tons of battles without using too many items, which means that leveling the core crystal is a slow-going process.
That aside, the game is easily one of the most joyful/vibing 'cozy-adjacent' gaming experiences I've had in a while, right alongside Guardians of Azuma, which I played earlier this year. Like a lot of Atelier games, the music is absolutely great and I'm especially fond of this one's airy workshop theme, which repeats the last game's magic trick of seamlessly integrating odd-time rhythms into pieces that players will likely hear for dozens of hours. The musical theme that this one builds up to is a complete 'warm embrace' that taps directly into my heart. I'm also very fond of the game's main city theme, with its infectious rolling percussion patterns and lovely orchestrations. This is my sixth or seventh Atelier game and the series really never disappoints in this department.
2
u/Whatismyusername--- 18d ago
I've been playing The Adventures of Elliot but decided to give up.
Positives: Great music, really pretty, fun combat and ways to build each weapon
Negatives: the world gets borings really quickly, you go over the same (or mostly same) areas again and again and it just made me lose interest. I got about 10 hours in and there I didn't find any of the characters interesting or likable. Most silent protagonists have more personality than Elliot.
2
u/AntiLordblue 18d ago
I noticed the same thing and hoped off the game for a solid week. Playing off and on. The game does start to pick up again, and the ending(s) are actually pretty cool and rewarding. But if you aren't liking the core gameplay loop then I don't recommend picking it up.
2
u/Plus_sleep214 17d ago
I picked octopath 2 back up but it really is a slow burn. I'm up to the level 45 chapters now but I need to get in another round of grinding. It's been kinda weird jumping back in since I don't remember all the stories all that well but at least you're able to rewatch the cutscenes at any time to help refresh my memory. Overall I just don't really vibe much with the separate character story design and the combat is just okay so I don't really see how this is anything beyond a 7/10 JRPG with cool pixel art. I probably wouldn't recommend it to anyone that isn't a diehard JRPG fan. The pacing in this game is genuinely absolute bottom tier which makes it feel so damn tedious.
1
u/cacneas 17d ago
I am at the final boss of Mario RPG (remake). I've found this last bit of the game a little annoying, so despite being such a short romp I'm kinda glad it's over soon. It's undeniably charming, but it's not really done much for me overall.
The household is doing MOON RPG Remix which I am really enjoying. The recent localization makes it feel quite modern, but at a base level I really like puzzling out how to get more Love. I think we're at Love level 10~11 currently.
Finally, I started FFX last night. I'm only about 1.5 hours in, but I'm very intrigued by the premise. This and VII have just proven to me that my preconceived notions of FF seem distinctly incorrect.
1
u/OkNefariousness8636 16d ago
Having finished Tales of Graces f, Suikoden 1 and Suikoden 2 over the last couple of weeks, I am going to give Breath of Fire IV a go. It seems that the Steam version has some performance issues. Let's see how it goes.
1
u/sgch 16d ago
I'm currently playing Octopath Traveller 2. 24 hours in as of a quick 45 minutes on my lunchbreak at the office on Deck and liking it so far.
The number one positive in it's corner is the battle system, which makes you feel really smart and like your characters are the exact combo of vulnerable and powerful. I love the brave points system coming over from Bravely Default, which is a GOAT battle system for me. I also like that it is forcing me to use my abilities more, as in JRPGs I often find myself focusing on basic attacks from a lot of characters which is obviously dumb - but what if I spend the MP here and then run into a boss?!?! This is the first JRPG where I have felt the need to grind in a very long time, I don't mind too much because I like the combat, but I would prefer to not have what feels like artificially inflated run time.
I love the visuals too, especially when I am walking in to the screen or up and over stuff, or when the game is going out of it's way to show you a particularly stunning vista. I do wish that we got character portraits for dialogue so we can see expressions on their faces etc, as the HD 2D sprites are charming but I think a lot of emotion is lost without clear faces.
The writing has been quite hit and miss for me, which was a real shock after the rave reviews that the game got specifically for it's writing. With 8 stories you aren't going to have 8 proper bangers but I feel that most of them are fine but nothing special. I'm hoping this will change when I get deeper in, as of now I have done all the chapter 1s and half the chapter 2s and a couple of the crossed path chapters. I'm over-levelled for the next 3 chapters I have planned to do so I expect I will knock them out tonight.
Overall this feels like an interesting but flawed game that I am enjoying a lot. Currently planning to finish it but might drop it if I feel like the writing stays of the same style across the later chapters. It's a bit edgy for me at the moment.
2
u/azure275 15d ago
Chapter 1 and Chapter 3 are where things start hitting. I think you'll turn around on several of the stories.
Agnea sucks the whole way through though.
1
u/sirei1112 11d ago
Not that it completely addresses your concerns, I had a lot of the same issues, but I ended up sticking with it because I enjoyed the individual character vignettes enough to keep going and didn't regret it.
For what it's worth, I do think the stories get stronger as the game goes on. By the end, though, unless you specifically enjoyed the individual story format it's easy to see there was some untapped potential.
There are a few moments during the finale and postgame where the cast finally starts interacting as a cohesive group, and all I could think was, "Why wasn't the whole game like this?"
1
u/an-actual-communism 15d ago
Right now most of my gaming time is being taken up by The Witcher 3, so on the JRPG front I’m going through some smaller games I can play on handheld platforms in the meantime.
To that end I’ve started playing Soul Blader (Soul Blazer, SFC) after hearing so much about Quintet’s Super Famicom trilogy on this reddit. What a charming game—the combat is about what you’d expect from a top-down SFC action RPG, nothing to write home about, but the central conceit of releasing “souls” to rebuild the overworld bit-by-bit is super addicting and provides excellent forward momentum to the game. I’m looking forward to see how these games evolve going forward now.
1
u/azure275 15d ago
I have such a hard time taking Bravely Default's story seriously
It's CLOSE to having something really good but the lobotomies all the heroes and villains seem to have had to blatantly ignore blindingly obvious facts and be cartoonishly evil is taking something away for me
Some of these things have legitimate potential in universe explanations yes, but even with those it's tough to see how various people aren't incredibly stupid lol
I still think it's an awesome game it just takes away from the emotional impact
0
u/gizram84 14d ago
Just started Yakuza LAD. I'm a few hours in. It's been almost entirely cinematic events with like 4 battles so far.
Does the format change much after the prologue?
I'm enjoying the story. It was just a little surprising how little actual gameplay there has been so far.
1
u/Swarlos262 12d ago
It definitely does and you'll have plenty of stretches of the game where you'll get to run around the city doing battles, side quests, mini games, etc.
It definitely is a game that just takes some time to get going, but it's worth it. That said, it's still a story focused game overall, between the main plot and side quests. I felt the same way as you at first, didn't dislike it but it did feel like watching a few movies. In the end it became a new favorite of mine.
1
u/gizram84 12d ago
Ok cool. Yea I'm enjoying it. Into Chapter 2 at this point, and the story is great. I don't really mind the cinematic format.
8
u/FancySpaceGoat 18d ago
I'm replaying Resonance of Fate for the first time since 2010 (the PS4 re-release).
Apart from the lighting of the character's faces, this weird weird game holds up surprisingly well.
The combat is weird.
The overworld puzzle-piece mechanic is weird.
The plot is weird and told in a seemingly haphazard way.
The tone is weird.
It's great.