Are you into JRPGs? Come tell and share

[goenn]

Well, the title says it all. Are you into JRPGs and what JRPG (in your opinion) is great? My holidays are coming up and I need something to fill in my time until Tales of Zestiria is localised. Don't be shy....

[AnnaLandin]

Oooh!

I like a whole bunch of videogames, but JRPGs are where I make my home! <3

Right now, I'm going through a sort of nostalgic re-playing of all my old favourites, and am 90% of the way through Final Fantasy 9 for the tenth time, and let me tell you, it's my favourite game ever. It's just so cozy. The music is great, the graphics have held up remarkably well for being a PS1-era 3D-game, the story is great, the character designs are varied and incredibly diverse, it's got a bunch of female (and non-binary, in the case of Quina Quen) characters who get to be active and kickass and interesting AND keep all of their clothes on... it's amazing. <3

Other games on the favourites-list include: a bunch of Tales of-games (Symphonia, Xillia, Graces, Legendia), Xenoblade Chronicles (it gets a bit clogged up with sidequests, but it's got a fun battle-system and a really grand world), Final Fantasy VI and V, etc., etc. Also Grandia II was really fun.

[getsuart]

I like JRPGs too ! I loved tales of the abyss, probably my favourite of the Tales of. I like less and less the serie right now, mostly because I... just find it boring. And it's sad, as I really want to love the Tales of serie like I loved it when I was a teenager. I liked the battle system of Xillia, but I'm not fond of the story, the caracters or the designs at all anymore :/ I don't know what happened, but I began to lose my interest since Vesperia PS3.
I'm still playing Bravely Default (I'm slow, so I'm in chapter... 3, I guess), I love the battle system, it's a really good one !

[sarahrebecca58]

I was into Grandia and Star Ocean. The stories were great, but I really loved the battle systems. My problem with Grandia as of late is, because (while still awesome) the third installment was obviously in some ways an inferior game to the first game. It's this third installment they just had to end the series with--instead of leaving it with two installments.

But it was the first Grandia that had actually first made me want to become a writer/illustrator.^^ I'm still loving the Star Ocean series. Though my taste as of yet has leaned less into fantasy and science fiction.

[goenn]

I've heard of Tales of Symphonia and Dawn of the New World! Is it worth playing the sequel? Emil kind of reminds me of Luca and I'm okay with Luca.

[goenn]

how did you get through lymle's kay in Star Ocean The Last Hope...? almost as bad as fuuka from persona 3 lmao

[AnnaLandin]

@goenn Oh god, Dawn of the New World! >.< I love Tales of Symphonia, even though it gets kind of slow and sloggy sometimes, but Dawn just did not fit me at ALL. Not only are the character-animation extremely stiff and plastic when it comes to facial expressions (seriously, Emil looks like some sort of soulless doll in the cutscenes - it's creepy), but Emil comes off as entirely too whiny and boring at the start of the game, and the fighting system is a stupid mess trying to mash up regular Tales-fighting with some sort of weirdo Pokémon-ripoff.

I lasted about seven hours before I chucked my controller and gave up in frustration. Symphonia stands really well on its own, and doesn't really need a sequel at all.

I know there's a sequel to Tale of Xillia, too, but I'm choosing not to play it because I really like how the plot of the first game ended, and would like to leave it at that.

[getsuart]

I thought I was the only one disappointed by Dawn of the new world, ahahah... Tales of Symphonia is a great game itself, it didn't need a sequel !

[goenn]

Tales of Xillia 2 is reallllly gooooooood. Prepare to cry like a lot. It expands more on the Kresnik mythology thing.

[kazukitakamura126]

My favorite JRPGs are Baten Kaitos Origins and Xenoblade Chronicles. Bother games have interesting battle systems and a story that really grabs your attention. I have also played a few Tales games, though being Symphonia, Dawn of the New World, Abyss, Graces, Xillia and Xillia 2. I ilke the characters from Graces the most especially Asbel and Sophie. Xillia has the best character designs out of all the them.

[AnnaLandin]

@getsuart Thank you - that's exactly how I feel! I was all psyched about a sequel because the first trailers looked great, and the original title (Knight of Ratatosk) sounded interesting, but then it turned out to be flatter than a pancake and so, so bad.

@goenn I'm sure ToX2 is amazing! I'm just not going to play it, because I feel Xillia didn't need a sequel. It's perfectly alright the way it is; I wanna leave the characters where they ended up in the first game. : )

[Kura]

I really love JRPGs but I hardly have time for them because comics pretty much take up all of my free time ;_;

The Tales of series I usually really like. There's certainly a few hit and miss titles for that series but overall I think it's still one of the series I look forward to a lot. Symphonia, Abyss, Veperia and Xillia are some of my favs. (Symphonia 2 was not all that great, I think the most annoying thing for me was the monster training system and the fact that when you were able to use the characters from the first game you really could not do anything with them, they were stuck at level 50 and you could not change their equipment. While Xillia 2... meh, it was fine but I just did not like it as much as the first one) Hearts I still need to find time to play, have not gotten very far in it yet to have a verdict on how much I like that game.

Disgaea series is also highly addictive for me, can't wait for 5 really looking forward to that one. The Guided Fate Paradox was also really good, even though the character designs were very much of a turn off (whenever I tried to look up anything on that game before buying it all I would get for images were pictures of girls in maid outfits) The sequel, The Awakened Fate Ultimatum I have been looking forward to for a while, and even pre-ordered, unfortunately I have yet to find time to play it.

Pokemon will always have a special place in my heart.

FF I used to really like now... not so much... but I always end up at least trying to get into the new titles just because I have so much found memories of the old ones. (Lightening Returns and Type-0 were actually not all that bad, though I have not had enough time to finish either yet ;_;)

I will always have an unhealthy addiction to Phantasy Star series.

There's a lot of older series that I loved that kinda stopped appearing over the years after a while (Wild Arms and Suikoden to name a few off the top of my head) and a heck of a lot of stand alone titles. It's come to the point where the workers at EBgames know that I really like these titles, so they always inform me when I new one is on the way or has recently been released, and one of them have been known to save a title here and there behind the counter if they get a trade in and think I don't own it yet.

[getsuart]

I never finished Symphonie 2 but yeah, the old characters are limited to level 50. Just WHY. It's such a bad, bad, bad idea. Plus I didn't like Marta either and Emil was a whiny kid when he transforms himself. One of the only things I liked was Richter's design and Tenebrae. My sister won a Tenebrae plushie at a convention quizz, I wanted it so much, ahah.

The Suikoden serie was somehting I would like to play, because it looks amazing. But the only thing I know from Suikoden is the manga from Suikoden 3. It's good for a summary, but not enough to know the real story !

Oh, does Fire Emblem count as JRPG, even if it's a tactical ? Because, you know... Fire Emblem 14 is coming in Japan really soon, and I'm excited about it. I hope the bundle in Europe will include the three paths versions.

[AnnaLandin]

@kurapikasuki I kind of gave up on FF around FF13, to be honest - which I still haven't finished, come to think of it. I've always preferred the more fantasy-styled FFs (FF9, FF6, etc.) rather than the scifi-styled ones, and they've been going more scifi in the newer games. And FF13 felt like the entire thing took place in an very long, very narrow corridor. There were no wide open areas, no sense of exploration or discovery - just an endless series of fights in claustrophobic environments.

I saw a trailer for FFXV, and couldn't find a single drop of enthusiasm about it. The environments looked drab, the character-design was same-y and boring, there are NO PLAYABLE FEMALE CHARACTERS, and then there's the fact that they drive around in a car - it's comes across as a J-pop band on the world's most boring roadtrip. :T Unless they make an FF game with more diverse character-design, or a more fantastical setting, I probably won't bother.

[goenn]

i liked suikoden for its characters - i could collect characters like they were pokemon man its great. Sadly, i only played the black sheep of the series, Suikoden IV and Suikoden Tierkries (i like both but holyshit suikoden tierkreis's main character spoke as if he was going to die if he didnt).

[Kura]

@AnnaLandin I know exactly what you mean, 13 bored the heck out of me and I hated feeling like I was spending 60+ hours just walking in a straight line. The pacing in the story is really bad too, and don't get me started in the presentation where they threw around words expecting you to have read the almanac instead of actually introducing you to concepts in the story, 13-2 was even worse for me, I couldn't finish that one, and it was me making one groaning noise after the other. Not to mention the battle system reminded me heavily of Symphonia 2, where you had to catch monsters to pokemon around with in battle, and I hated that just as much in 13-2 as I did Symphonia 2. Lightening Returns however, was actually pretty decent.

Yeaaah... not hyped for 15 in the least either, I get bored when the highlights of a trailer are 'look how pretty we made ____' also I friggen hate road trips so not sure why the heck I would want to play a game about one.

[blastryoku]

Oh! I like JRPGS!
I played the FF series but stopped after XII it had too many plot similarities with another RPG i played before that and XIII was only pretty for me, there also the disgaea series, and wild arms which i wish they would make another one but unfortunately they let it die like konami did with Suikoden.
I like a lot the Tales of series! The last one i played was Vesperia! It was pretty awesome but my fave one still is Abyss XD i played that one like 3 or 4 times and i never got tired of it, i also played Eternia, Legendia and Symphonia.
Currently i'm playing Atelier Rorona Plus, I like the micromanagement you have to do in that game and Hyperdimension Neptunia Re:Birth in steam! Looking forward to Sister Generation.

Oh! I almost forgot the Ys series with that awesome combat and soundtrack which i think it's pretty good for an action Jrpg.

[sarahrebecca58]

Does anyone remember the Arc The Lad series or Secret Of Mana? I guess my favorites were the ckassic 2D Japanese role playing games like Grandia, Secret Of Mana, Chrono Trigger of course.

[FromFinn]

Is Earthbound(Mother) consider a jrpg? Because I played the sheet out of that when I was young.

[blastryoku]

I do! I think i played the first secret of man on snes but i never finished it :/
The one i played a lot was the on on PS1, I also played chrono trigger on ps1 as with grandia.
I didn't know Arc the Lad until the ps2 and i finished the first one that came out, the second that had a more action combat i didn't like so much.