1eyedking Why do you hate JRPGs?

[20 Eyes]

I'm convinced a large portion of the Codex automatically hates all console games because they don't own a console. Just read all the inane and completely uninformed posts in some of the Souls threads we've had. You'll see a large number of posts from dudes that obviously never played the game, and feel they're in a position where they can shit all over it and have no idea what they're talking about just because they watched a video on youtube.

Another large portion automatically hates anything that even looks like it might be anime.

Others are put off by overall awkwardness/weirdness in the story or characters from the cultural divide. Example - otherwise fine game having a silly mascot character (the pig in Valkyria Chronicles) or an awkward to watch scene (the beach part from Valkyria Chronicles, or HA HA HA from FFX).

Then there are those that just don't care for the battle systems, often grindy or linear nature, or story you'd find in your average JRPG. They usually don't post in JRPG threads or have more to say than "ANIME SHIT DO NOT PLAY :CODEXEMOTICON:".

But modern J-RPGs - hmm. Not worth a console purchase for.

Two words: Valkyria Chronicles. That game alone makes it worth getting a console.

I wouldn't say that alone, but the PS3 has enough good exclusives that are cheep now grabbing a console when it is on sale would be worth it.

That's definately true (but you can't undersell VC, since it's up there with Silent Storm and Jagged Alliance 2 in terms of tactical squad gameplay), and Japs still dominate the fuck out of everyone else in the fighting game genre, which is probably the most d genre at the moment. Which is a genre where Sony's controller is still the best choice.

I wouldn't say that, VC has a few VERY noticeable flaws (Ranking is entirely based on speed, nearly every chapter is some variation of "reach objective" with the few "kill all enemies" or "kill these enemies" chapters being piss easy, thus Scouts and the odd Lancer to kill a tank are all you will use past the half-way mark) that keep it from being on JA2's level (JA2 allows a crazy number of approaches).

As much as I enjoyed Valkyria Chronicles, it's not even close to Silent Storm let alone JA2. Valkyria Chronicles has tiny maps that are more like puzzles where you're supposed to put troop X in position Y and it's usually obvious as hell. I still loved the game, it's one of my favorite console games this gen.

 

[deuxhero]

Oh and ONE MORE THING!

It's completely impossible to make out anything about the actual mission on the deploy screen.

 

[Demnogonis Saastuttaja]

But modern J-RPGs - hmm. Not worth a console purchase for.

Two words: Valkyria Chronicles. That game alone makes it worth getting a console.

Yeah why not make a turn-based game where you can make all your actions in a turn with a single soldier, also why not make it so whenever you select a soldier everything starts shooting at him? It's like they thought standard turnbased was invented by hamburgereyes, let's make really stupid changes to it.

It's as tactical as my cock. The hardest mission involved only ever using the tank because a story element immediately kills everything else, luckily I can do all my actions with the tank.

 

[aris]

I'm convinced a large portion of the Codex automatically hates all console games because they don't own a console. Just read all the inane and completely uninformed posts in some of the Souls threads we've had. You'll see a large number of posts from dudes that obviously never played the game, and feel they're in a position where they can shit all over it and have no idea what they're talking about just because they watched a video on youtube.

 

[deuxhero]

But modern J-RPGs - hmm. Not worth a console purchase for.

Two words: Valkyria Chronicles. That game alone makes it worth getting a console.

Yeah why not make a turn-based game where you can make all your actions in a turn with a single soldier, also why not make it so whenever you select a soldier everything starts shooting at him? It's like they thought standard turnbased was invented by hamburgereyes, let's make really stupid changes to it.

It's as tactical as my cock. The hardest mission involved only ever using the tank because a story element immediately kills everything else, luckily I can do all my actions with the tank.

Everything take massive AP penalties the more you use them on a turn. At the 3rd or 4th CP you can't move didilly.

And what battle is that? The only "plot element immediately kills everything else" is when a Valkyria shows up, and both missions in question have the goal to run away from her. Plus neither can be won with the tank alone (the 1st requires destroying the radiators, which you simply don't have the AP to set up the baricade to make them attackable and clearly very much don't have the AP to shoot the radiators instead of throw a grenade into them, the other is a flag rush.

Also you can bank CP between turns.

 

[Demnogonis Saastuttaja]

Don't tell me stuff I know. They can move very slightly less the more you move them, in the end the same guy ran through the whole map killing everything while the rest of the team sits back because it costs more moving them to where the enemies are than moving the one dude. Usually you move the tank, and 1-2 other guys maybe. The rest of the team is useless chaff.

The battle where the story element runs from nowhere killing all your guys. At the beginning you may use your lancers a bit because the tank starts at impassable terrain that sure looks like a tank would have no problem just going over but whatever... Then you just use the tank because the story element doesn't instantly kill it when you select it.

I know you can bank CP. Then you can make one guy run through everything even better. What's your point?

 

[Phelot]

Another large portion automatically hates anything that even looks like it might be anime.

Others are put off by overall awkwardness/weirdness in the story or characters from the cultural divide. Example - otherwise fine game having a silly mascot character (the pig in Valkyria Chronicles) or an awkward to watch scene (the beach part from Valkyria Chronicles, or HA HA HA from FFX).

Then there are those that just don't care for the battle systems, often grindy or linear nature, or story you'd find in your average JRPG. They usually don't post in JRPG threads or have more to say than "ANIME SHIT DO NOT PLAY :CODEXEMOTICON:".

I believe I'm a combination of these three with the third probably being the biggest. I don't really care enough to comment, though. It's strange because I like a few animes, but can't get into jRPGs mostly because of how ridiculous a lot of it looks. Yeah, I know, Western games have their huge shoulder pads and retardedly complicated armor (which I happen to think is influenced from anime anyway, but whatever) and that puts me off of a lot of wRPGs too, but the anime hair, the annoying cutesy stuff UGH

But I can respect it as a genre. A lot of these games sound complicated, but I've also heard that a lot of it is just repetitive grinding which the Japanese apparently can't get enough of. I can enjoy grinding in a roguelike, but not these separate encounters that appears to be the majority of jRPGs.

 

[deuxhero]

Don't tell me stuff I know. They can move very slightly less the more you move them, in the end the same guy ran through the whole map killing everything while the rest of the team sits back because it costs more moving them to where the enemies are than moving the one dude. Usually you move the tank, and 1-2 other guys maybe. The rest of the team is useless chaff.

The battle where the story element runs from nowhere killing all your guys. At the beginning you may use your lancers a bit because the tank starts at impassable terrain that sure looks like a tank would have no problem just going over but whatever... Then you just use the tank because the story element doesn't instantly kill it when you select it.

I know you can bank CP. Then you can make one guy run through everything even better. What's your point?

Staying out of the marked range of fire is hard for you? I think you are the one that is tactical as a cock

 

[joeydohn]

Yeah, I know, Western games have their huge shoulder pads and retardedly complicated armor (which I happen to think is influenced from anime anyway, but whatever) and that puts me off of a lot of wRPGs too, but the anime hair, the annoying cutesy stuff UGH

What about early 90s Games Workshop Space Marines? I'll take annoyingly cute over hyper-masculine any day though.

 

[Phelot]

Yeah, I know, Western games have their huge shoulder pads and retardedly complicated armor (which I happen to think is influenced from anime anyway, but whatever) and that puts me off of a lot of wRPGs too, but the anime hair, the annoying cutesy stuff UGH

What about early 90s Games Workshop Space Marines? I'll take annoyingly cute over hyper-masculine any day though.

Those ridiculous things are a breed all their own. I always preferred Fantasy anyway. Scraps of prayers and skulls trump shoulder pads.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

But modern J-RPGs - hmm. Not worth a console purchase for.

Two words: Valkyria Chronicles. That game alone makes it worth getting a console.

I wouldn't say that alone, but the PS3 has enough good exclusives that are cheep now grabbing a console when it is on sale would be worth it.

That's definately true (but you can't undersell VC, since it's up there with Silent Storm and Jagged Alliance 2 in terms of tactical squad gameplay), and Japs still dominate the fuck out of everyone else in the fighting game genre, which is probably the most d genre at the moment. Which is a genre where Sony's controller is still the best choice.

I wouldn't say that, VC has a few VERY noticeable flaws (Ranking is entirely based on speed, nearly every chapter is some variation of "reach objective" with the few "kill all enemies" or "kill these enemies" chapters being piss easy, thus Scouts and the odd Lancer to kill a tank are all you will use past the half-way mark) that keep it from being on JA2's level (JA2 allows a crazy number of approaches).

As much as I enjoyed Valkyria Chronicles, it's not even close to Silent Storm let alone JA2. Valkyria Chronicles has tiny maps that are more like puzzles where you're supposed to put troop X in position Y and it's usually obvious as hell. I still loved the game, it's one of my favorite console games this gen.

I'd say it's rather that the actual mechanics at work are equal and occasionally better, and puts up more of a steady challenge (JA2 is awesome, but the challenge generally drops drastically around capturing 2 mines and fortifying them, as that's the point where you have generally good skills and equipment from thereafter assuming you played properly, in S2 it spikes up momentarily when you face PKs for the first time and some collateral damage maps). It also bears mention that all "missions" (technically they aren't missions per se, battlezones or something would be a more accurate term) in JA2 are "kill all enemies" (with the exception of "kill Deidranna" condition in the end) and/or "reach map edge for transit," the difference being largely in that it's completely no-strings-attached after the part where you enter the map. A good way to illustrate this would be to imagine a VC level as an obstacle course, a JA2 level as a largely open field with objects of various use in it, and an S2 level as something like a JA2 level but with more vertical element.

I'd say VC has a tad better rock-paper-scissors element to squad outfitting due to drastic differences in AP and battlefield roles, with JA2 characters being largely totally malleable and often interchangeable (beyond hating each others guts) and S2 classes having mostly special advantages instead of radical differences (beyond Medic and Engineering being able to make actual use of the high-end items, and Sniper being OP as fuck).

For all three I've found numerous times that there's a "winning generic combo" for battles, in VC it's Alicia + Darcsen Engineer + Largo + Rosie + Shocktrooper of choice as the core, a simple assault/battle rifle killer-team + medic is overwhelmingly superior most of the time in JA2 (in S2 it's a bit more components, with 1-2 snipers + machine guns + grenade tossers + medic being the key to victory most of the time), though in JA2 it's a lot of fun just spending lots of money on crazy loadouts for the capital assault (last time I had an entire secondary team with only mortars for maximum lulz of random bombardment). The hardest mission in S2 is actually when you assault the factory and any civilian casualties are instant failure, since it's the one time stray bullets and environmental damage are actively working against you.

I also think the bonuses given for fast performance is a good thing, it adds to the challenge element. Though on the other hand, it's a lot of fun to just fuck around in JA2. But I'd argue that the puzzle/blitz approach does elevate VC to the club of JA2 and S2 in terms of gameplay. It definately has much better storyfag elements though, that there's no doubt of.


PS: JA2 is still the best game of all time in terms of gameplay.

Don't tell me stuff I know. They can move very slightly less the more you move them, in the end the same guy ran through the whole map killing everything while the rest of the team sits back because it costs more moving them to where the enemies are than moving the one dude. Usually you move the tank, and 1-2 other guys maybe. The rest of the team is useless chaff.

The battle where the story element runs from nowhere killing all your guys. At the beginning you may use your lancers a bit because the tank starts at impassable terrain that sure looks like a tank would have no problem just going over but whatever... Then you just use the tank because the story element doesn't instantly kill it when you select it.

I know you can bank CP. Then you can make one guy run through everything even better. What's your point?

Running through with just one character is highly inefficient even with Scouts. Lancers, Snipers and Shocktroopers become essentially immobile after second use, the tanks even more so. When it's a question of speed, you need to use multiple people in different locations. Often you'll need to use 3-4 or more people (+ tank almost always) to get to the objectives at maximum efficiency. You also have to make use of withdrawal and redeployment in order to move troops ahead effectively. There's also a notable risk in soloing ahead carelessly, as an isolated troop can easily become perma-killed. You should also remember that your troops also fire at all activated enemy troops they see, same as the enemy does to you.

There's also the matter of Master enemies that require flanking for effective kills.

A far more effective multi-use of CP is for a good sniper to thin out enemy resistance so fast troops to advance quicker.

Also, if the story element kills all your guys except the tank you just suck at positioning and using your infantry.

EDIT:

Oh and ONE MORE THING!

It's completely impossible to make out anything about the actual mission on the deploy screen.

I'd say it's a universal thing really. IF a deployment map tells you something of value, it's just trying to fool you with lies. Or the game is popamole.

 

[Damned Registrations]

I think the grinding complaint gets overblown a lot. While those games do exist, most of them are from the earliest games, when the contemporary western games were every bit as bad (You want a grind? Try Ultima 3.)

Generally people just confuse the option of grinding with the necessity to do so. You're not meant to hit the fucking level cap in a jrpg. It's just obscenely high because there's really no reason not to set it obscenely high. Why the fuck would the devs care whether they set the level cap to 39 or 99 when the game is probably over at level 35?

If anything, my gripe with jrpgs would be the opposite: the majority don't have any challenge. You can breeze through most FF games, running from half the fights just to save time and still have so much GP and XP you beat all the bosses without using items on your first attempt.

But nobody plays the majority of games anyways. You play the good stuff and leave the rest alone. I could care less about the FF series but you'll have to pry Chrono Trigger, Saga Frontier, and Valkyrie Profile among others from my cold, dead hands.

 

[Demnogonis Saastuttaja]

Staying out of the marked range of fire is hard for you? I think you are the one that is tactical as a cock

I don't know what you mean. When that instakill thing runs in, she runs right into my guys, so selecting them kills them. It's not hard to only select the tank, though.

Running through with just one character is highly inefficient even with Scouts. Lancers, Snipers and Shocktroopers become essentially immobile after second use, the tanks even more so. When it's a question of speed, you need to use multiple people in different locations. Often you'll need to use 3-4 or more people (+ tank almost always) to get to the objectives at maximum efficiency. You also have to make use of withdrawal and redeployment in order to move troops ahead effectively. There's also a notable risk in soloing ahead carelessly, as an isolated troop can easily become perma-killed. You should also remember that your troops also fire at all activated enemy troops they see, same as the enemy does to you.

Dunno, seems to work just fine the way I do it. It just bothers me how you never have any need to use but a few guys in a battle, while the rest just sit back and do nothing. I didn't expect something like that from a game that essentially is about bold war 2.

There's also the matter of Master enemies that require flanking for effective kills.

'k, what are those? I stopped playing after the really annoying forest mission.

A far more effective multi-use of CP is for a good sniper to thin out enemy resistance so fast troops to advance quicker.

The sniper never kills anything in one shot unlike the stormtrooper or the tank, and they only can fire thrice. Snipers suck and I never use them.

Also, if the story element kills all your guys except the tank you just suck at positioning and using your infantry.

Like I said it runs right out of nowhere middle of my guys, and since you have to use all your CP on a few guys to get things done, as always, there's no positioning. You can't move them, especially after they're in range, then you just kill them faster if you select them. Doesn't matter though, it's not like one unit is so different from another that I'd reload for their deaths.

I just don't like the entire CP system and would have better liked traditional turn based.

P.S. the story sucks too

 

[Demnogonis Saastuttaja]

I think the grinding complaint gets overblown a lot. While those games do exist, most of them are from the earliest games, when the contemporary western games were every bit as bad (You want a grind? Try Ultima 3.)

Generally people just confuse the option of grinding with the necessity to do so. You're not meant to hit the fucking level cap in a jrpg. It's just obscenely high because there's really no reason not to set it obscenely high. Why the fuck would the devs care whether they set the level cap to 39 or 99 when the game is probably over at level 35?

I think people mean that they have forced grinding, that is, the vast amount of random encounters and pointless fighting with effortless, samey enemies. Like how Dragon Age is super grindy, zombie/orc horde every corner. The option to grind to power in a game isn't usually considered bad.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Well, most jrpgs I've played let you run away from enemies you aren't interested in fighting. I eventually realized that these games seemed so long for me when I was younger because I felt like I was supposed to fight every random piece of shit encounter that crossed my way, which obviously would get me sick of the game after a while.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Staying out of the marked range of fire is hard for you? I think you are the one that is tactical as a cock

I don't know what you mean. When that instakill thing runs in, she runs right into my guys, so selecting them kills them. It's not hard to only select the tank, though.

Running through with just one character is highly inefficient even with Scouts. Lancers, Snipers and Shocktroopers become essentially immobile after second use, the tanks even more so. When it's a question of speed, you need to use multiple people in different locations. Often you'll need to use 3-4 or more people (+ tank almost always) to get to the objectives at maximum efficiency. You also have to make use of withdrawal and redeployment in order to move troops ahead effectively. There's also a notable risk in soloing ahead carelessly, as an isolated troop can easily become perma-killed. You should also remember that your troops also fire at all activated enemy troops they see, same as the enemy does to you.

Dunno, seems to work just fine the way I do it. It just bothers me how you never have any need to use but a few guys in a battle, while the rest just sit back and do nothing. I didn't expect something like that from a game that essentially is about bold war 2.

There's also the matter of Master enemies that require flanking for effective kills.

'k, what are those? I stopped playing after the really annoying forest mission.

A far more effective multi-use of CP is for a good sniper to thin out enemy resistance so fast troops to advance quicker.

The sniper never kills anything in one shot unlike the stormtrooper or the tank, and they only can fire thrice. Snipers suck and I never use them.

Also, if the story element kills all your guys except the tank you just suck at positioning and using your infantry.

Like I said it runs right out of nowhere middle of my guys, and since you have to use all your CP on a few guys to get things done, as always, there's no positioning. You can't move them, especially after they're in range, then you just kill them faster if you select them. Doesn't matter though, it's not like one unit is so different from another that I'd reload for their deaths.

I just don't like the entire CP system and would have better liked traditional turn based.

P.S. the story sucks too

1. You're supposed to avoid Selvaria, it's not rocket science to survive her.

2. You'll need to cover more and more of the map as the game goes on. If you want to stay effective, you'll eventually use more and more people and less of your tank (though the tank has very opportune uses in many missions). Later on using troops in pairs is also important due to activated special abilities (the standard example is the Welkin + Alicia + Darcsen Engineer combo, which is used in hopes of activating super Welkin with 100% cannon accuracy and significant damage boost). You'll eventually often end up having to do 3-4 things at once.

3. Master enemies can be spotted by the fact they have unique names and often small variation to the coloring. They are a LOT more accurate, hard-hitting and tougher versions of their type with a massive dodge rating (essentially, they're mini-bosses), which means your two methods of fighting them are using characters with Undodgeable Shot and praying it activates, or flanking/surprise attack. Until late game flanking/surprise is exactly what you do.

4. Plain wrong, snipers are among your most important troops and WILL be your primary source of one-hit kills. They'll also be vital when enemy snipers start showing up in large numbers. And of course, you never got Maria.

5. Positioning IS important, cover will make you resist damage a lot more and will allow you to escape. Besides, you didn't think about having a sniper clear off some enemy shocktroopers to give your prospective escapee some breathing room?

Another thing with CP is that later on you'll use it for Orders as well, which can be extremely important for success. In general there's nothing that makes the CP system worse than a traditional tb system, it's only different.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Yeah, but again, that is largely exaggerated. While there are exceptions (BoF series is pretty bad, with tanky enemies and long animations) you usually have a very viable option of running away instantly, or the battles themselves take almost no time. Or both. If a battle consists of a 5 second fight where an enemy attacks twice and then you wipe out the enemies with two spells over a total of 10 seconds... you can throw 6 in a row between say, a couple of treasure chests in a dungeon at it seems like a fairly trivial amount of combat. If I spend as much time looking at item and ability descriptions as I do in combat, I can't really consider it a grind. By comparison, FF8 or 9 takes 10 seconds just to pan around the battlefield before and after the fight, never mind all the overly convoluted attacks designed to make that ATB system seem less boring while you wait for a turn to pop up when you're playing on retard speed.

Generally speaking most jrpg combat and dungeon crawling is like this (in my experience):

Another thing I'd like to mention; when setting the encounter rate, it's obviously better from a design standpoint to set it too high and let players opt out. The reason being, while unwanted combat is annoying as fuck, unwanted pacing back and forth to get into combat if you want more gold/xp is even more annoying. There are better solutions (like giving the player control over the encounter rate through in game means such as items or abilities that increase/decrease it) but erring on the heavy side and including a 'Run' command is the simplest by far.

 

[Demnogonis Saastuttaja]

1. For the last time, she runs in out of nowhere. There's no time to avoid her.

2. 'k.

3. Ah those. Dunno, seems to me like they just might dodge sometimes but it's not an issue worth paying attention to since they still fall easily. Maybe it helps that one of the best characters has undodgeable shot.

4. Nnno, I'm going to disagree on that based on my experiences. Snipers completely suck compared to scouts and stormtroopers. Grenades, machine gun to the face and the tank are the primary killers. Snipers are little pew pew pussies that miss more often than not and still don't kill in one hit.

5. Of course cover makes you take less damage, this is a PS3 game after all. Lol. But positioning of all characters doesn't happen, because it's useless to move them all when you can spend all your points on a few. And what escapees? It's only necessary to have the CP boosting guys survive, and they can't be permakilled anyway.

The orders suck too, why not pay 2 CP for 1 sniper shot? Or pay points to retreat a character that either doesn't matter or can't die? Better use some more grenades and tank. See it's not a hard game by any means, the need for complicated tactics, possible as they may be, isn't necessary when you can just brute force your way through the missions.

The CP system makes the game a really weird, that is all. It's like what if you could just move and shoot one tank in Steel Panthers multiple times in a turn instead of moving all your army? Wouldn't that just look stupid?

 

[Demnogonis Saastuttaja]

Yeah, but again, that is largely exaggerated. While there are exceptions (BoF series is pretty bad, with tanky enemies and long animations) you usually have a very viable option of running away instantly, or the battles themselves take almost no time. Or both. If a battle consists of a 5 second fight where an enemy attacks twice and then you wipe out the enemies with two spells over a total of 10 seconds... you can throw 6 in a row between say, a couple of treasure chests in a dungeon at it seems like a fairly trivial amount of combat. If I spend as much time looking at item and ability descriptions as I do in combat, I can't really consider it a grind. By comparison, FF8 or 9 takes 10 seconds just to pan around the battlefield before and after the fight, never mind all the overly convoluted attacks designed to make that ATB system seem less boring while you wait for a turn to pop up when you're playing on retard speed.

You're right, but it seems like you're talking about older games than the FF7+ era, which didn't have all these modern era timewasting issues. Fucking FF9... what was up with that zooming around in the beginning of a fight?

By the way, actually, DAO/DA2 was grindier than most JRPG's, since you can't in any way just pass the enemies, unlike how you can just run in a standard JRPG.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Yeah, 3d was definitely not kind to the jrpg genre. Smaller, less interesting areas to explore + longer more flashy battle animations for every mundane attack. There's still some decent stuff in the PSX era, but from PS2 onwards it gets pretty scarce. SMT: Nocturne is the only one that comes to mind immediately. Though it'll be grindy as fuck if you don't have a good grasp of all the mechanics and keep making shitty teams. Valkyrie Profile 2, for example, is nothing like the first game, and has long, boring as fuck random battles that can't really be avoided or sped up. I haven't played anything for the PS3 generation as far as traditional jrpgs go so I dunno if there's anything there. Last Remnant I guess I played? Fairly grindy, not terribly interesting to play once the novelty wore off.

 

[eric__s]

PS2 was actually the best era of JRPGs and the best JRPGs are the ones JRPG people hate the most.

 

[Bruma Hobo]

Is there a JRPG for simulationfags? Or a JRPG with an open world to explore? Or maybe non-combat RPG mechanics? Or interesting gameworld and NPC interaction?

I'm genuinely interested.

 

[Cassidy]

Because when you add the J to the RPG, the implication is obvious, specially nowadays: Kawaii Desu ^_^, grindan, almost literal linearity, forced cutscenes, lack of challenge and tons of filler.

And there are games like the first Uncharted Waters, but I think that considering the stigma associated with the JRPG label, gems like those don't deserve to be classified as JRPGs. Nowadays though I'm sure the West does games labelled as RPGs that, except for the lack of obvious* anime, are more full of the bad elements in JRPGs(IE: Story Mode) than the stereotypical Final Fantasies themselves.

*The implicit anime influences as in ridiculous fanservice, bromances, mai Waifu etc however became practically standard thanks to Bioware.

 

[eric__s]

The SaGa games are all about large, open worlds to explore with pretty much no story. The best SaGa game is Romancing SaGa: Minstrel Song on the PS2, which has a super cool time system where events open up and close depending on how much time has passed. Time passes based on how many enemies you've fought, so it's a system that discourages grinding (or even fighting at all in some cases!). It's also got a very cool battle system where characters regenerate AP every turn and then use moves that cost differing amounts of AP, so it requires a lot more strategy and thought than most other JRPGs. Other SaGa games worth checking out are SaGa Frontier 1 and 2 for the original Playstation, Legend of Mana for the Playstation, which was designed by the same guy who made all the SaGa games, Akitoshi Kawazu, and is pretty much the same except it's an action RPG. Last Remnant for the PC was also made by this guy and has a huge world to explore, but it's got a ton of other problems and you shouldn't bother with it unless you really like the weird, impenetrable SaGa mechanics and want more of them.

Also there's Metal Max the PS2. I think there are several of them and they're all open, post-apocalyptic worlds with no story and lots of side quests. They're pretty weird and interesting, but not as good or focused as the SaGa games.

If you're interested in simulation, check out Romance of the Three Kingdoms 10 for the PS2. It's a strategy RPG where you play as one of several hundred characters from the Chinese Three Kingdoms era of history in around 200 AD. You can join armies and talk to other characters and perform quests and move around; it's not very complex once you figure it out, but it's very open and interesting until you do.

 

[Damned Registrations]

SaGa Frontier would probably be your best bet for those things. Not so much for non combat RPG mechanics or simulation, but the world is pretty open, depending on the character (some have much more railroaded storylines than others) and some of the (mostly recruitable) NPC interactions are interesting. For example, there is a rather timid character of the mystic race that can be recruited- provided you have a mystic in your party to ask her to do so. However, if you have a particular mystic in your party (a mute) she will think she has offended him and flee in terror instead.

The game is filled with little secrets and sidequests you can take on (which is my favourite aspect of jrpgs), and each of the 7 main characters you choose from has some unique interactions with certain parts of the game.

There are plenty of jrpgs that have a fairly open world at some point; generally after you acquire some sort of flying vehicle a ton of little sidequests and side areas open up in most decent ones. Some have more content than others in this regard. But SaGa Frontier is the only one I know of that has the potential to be that open from the very start. You can pick Lute and try collect any of the runes or tarot right off the bat if you want, and they're all totally optional. Each character has some areas unique to their storyline, but I'd say about half the content in the game if not more is open to every single character, and all that shit is totally optional.