CryptRat
Arcane
- Joined
- Sep 10, 2014
- Messages
- 3,572
I could dig the forum but it may be fun this way.
There aren't so many relevant JRPGs from this era so I think I can share an exhaustive list with my opinion about the ones I remember having played.
The very good ones :
- Tales of Vesperia : Combat is stupid but decent because you have a lot of skills to try throughout the game. Everything else is at least good, the dungeons are good, the cast (the villains, your characters, and more) is globally very good, the world is big and when you visit a location after a while there's generally new side stuff. Probably the most polished JRPG of the era on par with Dark Souls in my opinion.
- Resonance of fate : Mostly a dungeon crawler. Very good one-shot combat if a little repetitive, the characters you play are somewhat cool, the story is good as long as it's serious, but character developpement is a little limited (what's there is fun, though).
- Demon's souls, Dark souls : good dungeon crawling with good RT combat (which is rare)
The good ones :
- Blue dragon : Class system and classic turn-based combat (good point), exploration is correct, the game looks great, the story has some good parts but many dialogs and the villain suck.
- Lost odyssey : First, the short stories to read are great. Kaïm and Satie (the two main playable characters) are decent even if far worse than in the stories to read, the rest of the cast is far worse. The combat system and character developement are good but not great. The story is not very good. The exploration is also a little weak (backtacking is meh compared with Tales of Vesperia and even compared with Blue Dragon).
- Valkyria chronicles : the only SRPG I have played unless I miss something. I like many things in the game, the presentation and the graphisms especially, which are sometimes disputed ; the story and dialogs aren't good, and the score based on the time is annoying : it's hard to choose between no caring and feeling that you don't play the game well or caring and feeling that...you don't play the game well either.
- Eternal sonata : Good combat system ; the story sometimes switches between different parties. The game sometimes looks very good. However the characters and story are a little too much on the cute part and the game is a little short.
The decent ones :
- Ni No Kuni : I love the story but side quests suffer from quantity over quality, the non-combat spell system is unfortunately very limited (it could have been great). About the combat, it's average Real Time with AI-controlled companions, which I don't like. The exploration isn't good because of many little things (too linear, side bosses who appear only after accepting a quest).
- Nier : Very good companions, the story is generally decent with some brillant moments, the humour is a success here ; alternative gameplay parts are good too ; some bosses battles are cool. However the side quests suck, the combat mostly suck. Having to replay a part of the game several times is annoying.
- Enchanted arms : The monster collection part is well done (I managed to get all of them, which was cool), the character are not charismatic at all for some reason, everything else (combat, exploration, story, dialogs, humour) is correct but never brillant. Game is finally a little dull.
The mediocre ones :
- Star ocean 4 : the last hope : Combat is vaguely fun and not completely stupid due to the point systems, the main story is OK and there's some side stuff, the insectoid monsters and the bosses are generally very cool designed ; unfortunately there's also an unbearable MMO-side quest system about finding 20 bear skins, etc...and the dialogs between you characters are often ridiculously annoying, which impede you from enjoying the story.
- Infinite undiscovery : the annoying characters ruin the dark story, combat is stupid real time with a AI companions, the game is short.
The "I didn't bother to finish" (could be renamed "I briefly tried”) ones :
- The Witch and the Hundred Knights : Funny trash story ; its Hack&Slash gameplay looks fun at least in theory but I never get into it. I think it's not a game for me and people who like Hack&Slashs should maybe give it a try (I died several times).
- Wizardry : Labyrinth of Lost Souls : I was cooled down by the low number of races (and classes)
- The Guided Fate Paradox : the gameplay, at least at the beginning, is not good enough to get past the look of the game and the stupidity of the setting (it's annoying stupidity, not funny absurdity like in Makai Kingdom or The Witch and the Hundred Knights)
So what other JRPGs on PS3/360 should at least be tried?
Just in case, the ones I intended to play, feel free to take this into account or not :
- Natural Doctrine
- Tales of Xillia & ToX 2 (I read that only the second one is good, but I'll probably still play both)
- Dark Souls 2 (waiting for the “ultimate edition” to be at low price on one of the consoles)
- Dragon's Dogma : I didn't really intend to play this one but the opinions here are very positive, unfortunately I only own the original version, not Dark Arisen, and I heard it is very inferior
- FF13, I briefly tried it but I have better FFs to play first, especially War of The Lions.
- Tokyo Jungle
- Disgaea D2, but I still have to finish the first Disgaea
There aren't so many relevant JRPGs from this era so I think I can share an exhaustive list with my opinion about the ones I remember having played.
The very good ones :
- Tales of Vesperia : Combat is stupid but decent because you have a lot of skills to try throughout the game. Everything else is at least good, the dungeons are good, the cast (the villains, your characters, and more) is globally very good, the world is big and when you visit a location after a while there's generally new side stuff. Probably the most polished JRPG of the era on par with Dark Souls in my opinion.
- Resonance of fate : Mostly a dungeon crawler. Very good one-shot combat if a little repetitive, the characters you play are somewhat cool, the story is good as long as it's serious, but character developpement is a little limited (what's there is fun, though).
- Demon's souls, Dark souls : good dungeon crawling with good RT combat (which is rare)
The good ones :
- Blue dragon : Class system and classic turn-based combat (good point), exploration is correct, the game looks great, the story has some good parts but many dialogs and the villain suck.
- Lost odyssey : First, the short stories to read are great. Kaïm and Satie (the two main playable characters) are decent even if far worse than in the stories to read, the rest of the cast is far worse. The combat system and character developement are good but not great. The story is not very good. The exploration is also a little weak (backtacking is meh compared with Tales of Vesperia and even compared with Blue Dragon).
- Valkyria chronicles : the only SRPG I have played unless I miss something. I like many things in the game, the presentation and the graphisms especially, which are sometimes disputed ; the story and dialogs aren't good, and the score based on the time is annoying : it's hard to choose between no caring and feeling that you don't play the game well or caring and feeling that...you don't play the game well either.
- Eternal sonata : Good combat system ; the story sometimes switches between different parties. The game sometimes looks very good. However the characters and story are a little too much on the cute part and the game is a little short.
The decent ones :
- Ni No Kuni : I love the story but side quests suffer from quantity over quality, the non-combat spell system is unfortunately very limited (it could have been great). About the combat, it's average Real Time with AI-controlled companions, which I don't like. The exploration isn't good because of many little things (too linear, side bosses who appear only after accepting a quest).
- Nier : Very good companions, the story is generally decent with some brillant moments, the humour is a success here ; alternative gameplay parts are good too ; some bosses battles are cool. However the side quests suck, the combat mostly suck. Having to replay a part of the game several times is annoying.
- Enchanted arms : The monster collection part is well done (I managed to get all of them, which was cool), the character are not charismatic at all for some reason, everything else (combat, exploration, story, dialogs, humour) is correct but never brillant. Game is finally a little dull.
The mediocre ones :
- Star ocean 4 : the last hope : Combat is vaguely fun and not completely stupid due to the point systems, the main story is OK and there's some side stuff, the insectoid monsters and the bosses are generally very cool designed ; unfortunately there's also an unbearable MMO-side quest system about finding 20 bear skins, etc...and the dialogs between you characters are often ridiculously annoying, which impede you from enjoying the story.
- Infinite undiscovery : the annoying characters ruin the dark story, combat is stupid real time with a AI companions, the game is short.
The "I didn't bother to finish" (could be renamed "I briefly tried”) ones :
- The Witch and the Hundred Knights : Funny trash story ; its Hack&Slash gameplay looks fun at least in theory but I never get into it. I think it's not a game for me and people who like Hack&Slashs should maybe give it a try (I died several times).
- Wizardry : Labyrinth of Lost Souls : I was cooled down by the low number of races (and classes)
- The Guided Fate Paradox : the gameplay, at least at the beginning, is not good enough to get past the look of the game and the stupidity of the setting (it's annoying stupidity, not funny absurdity like in Makai Kingdom or The Witch and the Hundred Knights)
So what other JRPGs on PS3/360 should at least be tried?
Just in case, the ones I intended to play, feel free to take this into account or not :
- Natural Doctrine
- Tales of Xillia & ToX 2 (I read that only the second one is good, but I'll probably still play both)
- Dark Souls 2 (waiting for the “ultimate edition” to be at low price on one of the consoles)
- Dragon's Dogma : I didn't really intend to play this one but the opinions here are very positive, unfortunately I only own the original version, not Dark Arisen, and I heard it is very inferior
- FF13, I briefly tried it but I have better FFs to play first, especially War of The Lions.
- Tokyo Jungle
- Disgaea D2, but I still have to finish the first Disgaea
of the bunch. They're basically C&C games with a timer ticking down until the game ends. They aren't aimless, but they do lack a traditional Big Bad Evil. In Meruru the goal is to restore your Kingdom back into its former glory by restoring the town, attracting people to come back and live in it etc.. The biggest turnoff for me was how easy the games combat is, but I guess that isn't the focus of the games anyway. The crafting was pretty good though, if you can get into that kind of stuff. The Mana Khemia games for the PS2, made by the same devs, are muuuuuch better games, though. The Atelier games feel like stripped down versions of Mana Khemia as they lack the dungeon crawling and challenging combat that Mana Khemia provides.
