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Any good challenging jrpgs?

duanth123

Arcane
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Mar 22, 2008
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This island earth
1. I don't care about story/dialogs, only pure gameplay.
2. Anything that's playable on PC (natively or via emulators).
3. The harder the better (I want something ultra hard like my dick while watching hentai)
4. Turn-based only.
5. No FF, Personas or Dark Souls...

7th Dragon
 
Joined
Apr 5, 2013
Messages
2,430
Play Digital Devil Saga 1 or 2.
Use some other person's saves for new game plus and maxed out characters.
Try to kill Demi-Fiend in DDS1 or Satan in DDS2.
 

Arthandas

Liturgist
Joined
Apr 21, 2015
Messages
1,368
Carmine is your best bet if you want a real challenge.
I can't find anything about this game, is "Carmine" the full title?
Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together. Probably one of the most challenging SRPG/JRPGs out there. Keeping everyone alive (permadeath!) is tough or even impossible on a first run.
Beaten.
If you want a real challenge then start by being consistent. Both Touhou and Elminage HAVE stories, much more than something like Wizardry I, Dungeon Master, etc. if you're "bored" by them then either you WANT a cliche story to hold your hand and distract you from all that horrible combat or you're being picky about something else you're ashamed of admitting.
You got me, here's my shameful confession: blobbers/dungeon crawlers are not jrpgs, sue me. You can't slap the jrpg tag on literally any Japanese rpg no matter the actual style and mechanics.
Regardless, seems like you should just stop being edgy and get FFVI with the Eviltype patch.
Beaten (I played/beaten all FF games except for XII, XV and the mmos, that's why I indicated no FF).
  • Phantasy Star I and II
I'm trying out Phantasy Star Generation: 1 and so far I like it. It's too early to say if it's really difficult but I've been one-shotted by a fucking crab in one of the first random battles so there's hope :)
 
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SionIV

Cipher
Patron
Joined
Aug 28, 2015
Messages
590
Final Fantasy 10 - NSGNSNCNONENNENBB

No Sphere Grid

No Summons

No Customize

No Overdrive

No Escape

No [No Encounters]

No Blitzball

You can make any game challenging, so perhaps find a JRPG that you actually enjoy, and create your own challenge?
 

Hyperion

Arcane
Joined
Jul 2, 2016
Messages
2,120
The 7th Saga.
The Last Remnant deserves another mention just because it's fan-fucking-tastic. It has tons and tons of challenge content, combat is tactical (if random at times), building characters is fun. Changing one word in the RushGame.ini makes gearing out party members from the biggest pain in the ass the game has to offer to a non-issue.
Vagrant Story has all sorts of challenges for you to chase in the form of Titles, be it Time Attack, No Magic runs, etc.
Ogre Battle March of the Black Queen is a fairly decent challenge the first time through, especially if you try a low alignment / low reputation run, since you miss out on most of the best characters. Person of Lordly Caliber was good, but not nearly as difficult.
Shining the Holy Ark isn't that easy, and combines Storyfag with Blobber pretty nicely.
 

Arthandas

Liturgist
Joined
Apr 21, 2015
Messages
1,368
Final Fantasy 10 - NSGNSNCNONENNENBB
You can make any game challenging, so perhaps find a JRPG that you actually enjoy, and create your own challenge?
I won't endure a second playthrough of that shit.

It's true you can make any game more challenging but what's the point if you need to skip most of the game's features to do that.
Vagrant Story has all sorts of challenges for you to chase in the form of Titles, be it Time Attack, No Magic runs, etc.
I completely forgot about it. I beat it like 15 years ago on psx and I still remember how I farmed damascus :) I must give it another go sooner or later.
 
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SionIV

Cipher
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Messages
590
Final Fantasy 10 - NSGNSNCNONENNENBB
You can make any game challenging, so perhaps find a JRPG that you actually enjoy, and create your own challenge?
I won't endure a second playthrough of that shit.

It's true you can make any game more challenging but what's the point if you need to skip most of the game's features to do that.

I'm not a big fan of Final Fantasy 10 myself, but it has the best gameplay in the series.
 

Hobo Elf

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Feb 17, 2009
Messages
13,998
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Platypus Planet
If you want a real challenge then start by being consistent. Both Touhou and Elminage HAVE stories, much more than something like Wizardry I, Dungeon Master, etc. if you're "bored" by them then either you WANT a cliche story to hold your hand and distract you from all that horrible combat or you're being picky about something else you're ashamed of admitting.
You got me, here's my shameful confession: blobbers/dungeon crawlers are not jrpgs, sue me. You can't slap the jrpg tag on literally any Japanese rpg no matter the actual style and mechanics.

Kill yourself and your shitty thread while you're at it you piece of shit faggot
 

Arthandas

Liturgist
Joined
Apr 21, 2015
Messages
1,368
I'm not a big fan of Final Fantasy 10 myself, but it has the best gameplay in the series.
Yes it's one of the best gameplay-wise though I like LR more if you consider it part of the main series.
 

Damned Registrations

Furry Weeaboo Nazi Nihilist
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Feb 24, 2007
Messages
14,980
FFX may have had the best skeleton of a system (proper turn based with speed granting extra turns, meaningful stats, powerful buffs/debuffs) but it's actual gameplay was garbage because summons trivialized every encounter they could be used in if you built around them (basically just give yuna all the +stat spheres) and limit breaks and sandbagging trivialized the rest.

FF5 had by far the best gameplay in the series in reality, with a lot of really thoughtful boss designs that required some actual strategy and attention to defeat. It also had the best character/party building, with a huge variety of viable combinations of classes and abilities.
 

SionIV

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FFX may have had the best skeleton of a system (proper turn based with speed granting extra turns, meaningful stats, powerful buffs/debuffs) but it's actual gameplay was garbage because summons trivialized every encounter they could be used in if you built around them (basically just give yuna all the +stat spheres) and limit breaks and sandbagging trivialized the rest.

FF5 had by far the best gameplay in the series in reality, with a lot of really thoughtful boss designs that required some actual strategy and attention to defeat. It also had the best character/party building, with a huge variety of viable combinations of classes and abilities.

You can break any Final Fantasy if you want to, Final Fantasy 10 is no more broken than the others. You first learn how awesome the combat/gameplaye is once you've completed the game without touching the sphere grid. Being able to change characrers during combat gives the game a complexity you won't find in any other Final Fantasy game.
 

Damned Registrations

Furry Weeaboo Nazi Nihilist
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FF10 is by far more broken than the others, with the possible exception of 8's turn cycling spam limit break spam, but I'd consider that a glitch. The only thing you need to do to break FF10 is realize the summons have stats based on their summoner, and that their effects aren't linear. Shiva will kill many of the bosses in the game just by using basic physical attacks. You can't do that kind of shit in the other games without getting late game stuff or grinding. Is a hasted sword mage with X-Fight broken as fuck in FF5? Sure, but you don't get that shit handed to you on a silver platter.

Also from what I recall most of the FFX challenges devolve to spamming the Mix command and grinding 20 years for the items it needs to kill things. There's not a lot of thought required when the strategy is to sandbag while your only useful character uses attacks that do the exact same damage to every single boss.
 

SionIV

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FF10 is by far more broken than the others, with the possible exception of 8's turn cycling spam limit break spam, but I'd consider that a glitch. The only thing you need to do to break FF10 is realize the summons have stats based on their summoner, and that their effects aren't linear. Shiva will kill many of the bosses in the game just by using basic physical attacks. You can't do that kind of shit in the other games without getting late game stuff or grinding. Is a hasted sword mage with X-Fight broken as fuck in FF5? Sure, but you don't get that shit handed to you on a silver platter.

Also from what I recall most of the FFX challenges devolve to spamming the Mix command and grinding 20 years for the items it needs to kill things. There's not a lot of thought required when the strategy is to sandbag while your only useful character uses attacks that do the exact same damage to every single boss.

Final Fantasy 7 and 8 are much more broken than Final Fantasy 10 ever will be.

Final Fantasy 7 - With the correct materia combination you can become immortal, and the amount of damage you can chain with mime + KotR is insane. Vincent can one shot anything with his Ultimate Weapon if you farm.

Final Fantasy 8 - The Junction system breaks the game and within the first 1 hour of the game, you can have a Junction setup that lets you kill the last boss. You're also able to drink a certain potion to make you immune to all damage, which effectively makes you immortal. Zell can one shot any boss in the game with one limit break.

- You can break Final Fantasy 7 and 8 much earlier than you can break Final Fantasy 10.
- You don't need to grind anything to break Final Fantasy 7 and 8, you need to do so to break Final Fantasy 10 unless you're using Yojimbo and then you can do the same with Selphie/Caith Sith in Final Fantasy 7/8.
- You can become Immortal in Final Fantasy 7 and 8, this isn't possible in the same way in Final Fantasy 10.
- It's possible to one shot every boss in Final Fantasy 7 and 8, this isn't possible in Final Fantasy 10.

Final Fantasy 7 and 8 are in a completely different league than Final Fantasy 10 when it comes to breaking the game. The REAL question is which of Final Fantasy 7 and 8 are more broken.
 

SCO

Arcane
In My Safe Space
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Shadorwun: Hong Kong
Honestly > 80% of that is depending on secrets or late game bullshit. The good draw points on FFVIII are literally invisible, Mime is a insane late materia you need to farm to get more than one of, etc. The real broken stuff early in FFVIII came from the 'item to item' ability and cards. Though i don't really care about this discussion
 

SionIV

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Honestly > 80% of that is depending on secrets or late game bullshit. The good draw points on FFVIII are literally invisible, Mime is a insane late materia you need to farm to get more than one of, etc. The real broken stuff early in FFVIII came from the 'item to item' ability and cards. Though i don't really care about this discussion

With the exception of Ultima, you don't need to use any draw points in Final Fantasy 8. You're able to get a junction setup from playing 1 hour cards at Garden that lets you complete the entire game with that same setup. You're able to break Final Fantasy 7 the moment you get Enemy Skills, and you pick that up early in the game. You can get Beta from the Worm outside of midgard, you can pick up Aqualung from your visit to Golden Saucer prison.

Edited : For Final Fantasy 8 you can pick up the following in Garden.

Meltdown (Best Vitality Junction)
Curaga (Good HP Junction)
Full-Life (Top 5 Spirit Junction)
Flare/Tornado/Death (STR/Magic)
Shell, Life (Elemental Defenses)
Pain, etc (Status Defenses)

You can pick up Zell/Quistis/Seifer/Diablo/Ifrit cards at the start of the game and you can refine the Zell card to get 60% strenght junction for Ifrit which lets you Junction 20/40/60% STR and with Tornado (easy to get) or Flare (harder to get) you're done for the game.

You can break both Final Fantasy 7 and 8 on the first disc, very early in the game and much sooner than you'll be able to break Final Fantasy 10. At the end of the game you can become much more powerful (invincible) in Final Fantasy 7 and 8 than you can do in Final Fantasy 10.
 
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Damned Registrations

Furry Weeaboo Nazi Nihilist
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Apparently Scion just sucks at FFX because Shiva will literally solo every boss in the game (barring the ones that autokill summons) just by spamming physicals without you ever having to stop to grind, do any sidequests, or really do anything at all besides grab whatever stat nodes you can get. Nobody gives a shit about how easy the game is after you've farmed 200 hours and scoured the internet for secrets and glitches. FFX is a joke the whole way through for anyone with enough brains to work out the non-linear stats and summon scaling.
 

SCO

Arcane
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Messages
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Shadorwun: Hong Kong
You're really moving goal posts in that FFVII section of the paragraph. From mime+KotR to aqualung...

I'll be honest, i dont remember details about these games, and i don't really remember if there is a skill to turn cards to spells on FVIII (though it probably there is since you're mentioning it). If so, it's just firming my belief that that cards are a the 'broken' system in game (which you can totally avoid or just use for fun).


This discussion is actually rather pointless since these are games where besides some optional challenges, and only at low level and without grinding, nothing really threatens you, as usual. If you want to turn late FF challenging, you need to divide xp by 4 and restrain item use or something, and then the bosses that are not puzzles will cream you (and the others if you can't figure out the puzzle and depend on power overwhelming.)
 
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SionIV

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Apparently Scion just sucks at FFX because Shiva will literally solo every boss in the game (barring the ones that autokill summons) just by spamming physicals without you ever having to stop to grind, do any sidequests, or really do anything at all besides grab whatever stat nodes you can get. Nobody gives a shit about how easy the game is after you've farmed 200 hours and scoured the internet for secrets and glitches. FFX is a joke the whole way through for anyone with enough brains to work out the non-linear stats and summon scaling.

I have completed Final Fantasy 10, 30+ times with just about every possible challenge, and the only way you're ever going to beat anything hard in Monster Arena with Shiva alone is if your Yuna has perfect stats and that'll take a very long time to reach, not to mention Shiva cannot solo the Dark Aeons or Penance. You should have picked Anima or Magus Sisters (RNG) instead as an example. Unless you power level like crazy (need a lot of agility) it's impossible for Shiva to solo Seymour before he banishes your Aeon.

Aoens have 3 ways to improve.

1.) You level up Yuna
2.) You kill a certain amount of monsters (there is a limit to this)
3.) You can use sources to level them up (takes forever, took over half a year to hit 255 in every stat except luck to max an Aoen with a base level Yuna, if you want to max Luck this way you'll spend years on it)

What do all of these have in common? It takes FARMING and it takes TIME. Neither of this is needed in Final Fantasy 7 or 8.

Quezlacotl lets you turn cards into Spells and abilities, you can pick up the Lionheart on Disc 1.

150-180 STR + Lion Heart Limit break at level 7-10 lets you one shot every boss in the game with the exception of Omega weapon, and you can get this within the first 5 hours of the game! If you pick Zell and have fast fingers, you could also one shot Omega Weapon.
 
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Arthandas

Dark law Meaning of Death
for Super Nintendo (its jap but eng patch out there) Super difficult jRPG. TB.

Eternal Poison
for PS2. Its sRPG with no grinding, so you can fuck yourself up pretty bad if you ignore leveling a well rounded party. TB.

Fire Emblem Series on the GBA.
Two titles out in english (another two in jap with eng patches). Quite Difficult srpg with TB combat. Similar deal with Eternal poison. Haven't played the alter ones on DS/3DS and heard some of them are shit; but the GBA ones are stellar.

7th Saga for SNES
Very tough jrpg.

SMT III Nocturne for PS2
Insanely tough if you go for one of the endings. Reasonably tough otherwise.

SMT Digital Devil Saga I and II for PS2
Decent Challenge jrpg similar to Nocturne.

Phantasy Star II (in Phantasy Star Collection for GBA. You get PS2 and PSP versions as Sega Genesis collections too IIRC)
Very Tough.

Breath of Fire I - III
Decently Challenging jrpgs.

Baten Kaitos
Card based battle system. Very Though sometimes.

ALL TB. Most are quite tough.
 

Damned Registrations

Furry Weeaboo Nazi Nihilist
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Messages
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Again, nobody gives a shit about the monster arena. It's a sidequest made specifically to force you to grind. You can't even fight those monsters without grinding to even unlock them. I'm talking about a normal playthrough never involving anything more complicated than Summon > Attack for 95% of all combat.

Also LOL at it not taking time to gather 50 rare cards or farm 20 chocobos. You're spending more time playing cards than it takes to finish all the mandatory boss battles in FFX combined.

The frame of reference we're talking about here is a blind playthrough of FFV vs the rest of the series, in which case FFV will force you to change your strategy most often. You'll find bosses that are immune to your melee spam, or kill your tankiest characters, or permanently cripple your strongest attackers even after reviving them. You'll have to think about the fights and change things up to win these battles, and most of the boss fights are like this. This happens in FFX like twice before the end of the game, with the aeon killing gimmick and a boss where you don't have yuna.
 

Arthandas

Liturgist
Joined
Apr 21, 2015
Messages
1,368
Dark law Meaning of Death
for Super Nintendo (its jap but eng patch out there) Super difficult jRPG. TB.

Eternal Poison
for PS2. Its sRPG with no grinding, so you can fuck yourself up pretty bad if you ignore leveling a well rounded party. TB.
Both look very interesting, I'll definitely check them out, thanks!

Phantasy Star II (in Phantasy Star Collection for GBA. You get PS2 and PSP versions as Sega Genesis collections too IIRC)
Very Tough.
I'm currently playing PS Generaton:1 with fan-made English patch, I think it's the "best" version.

SionIV SCO Damned Registrations

When I first played FFX I used a tool which lets you automatically set all sphere nodes to their minimum values and edit character stats. Nerfing nodes and starting with like 50% character stats really bumps up the difficulty without the need to use some self imposed challenges. Even though this also indirectly nerfs the summons they are still quite op. The game shouldn't allow storing overdrive gauges between battles.
 

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