Ash
Arcane
- Joined
- Oct 16, 2015
- Messages
- 6,549
I should also note I'm not a combatfag, I'm a gameplayfag. Combat is important but I have broader expectations.
Uhm, not to be sarcastic, but aren't most JRPG's all about combat and story? So if you're neither, you problaby won't find anything that you like?
In my OP I link to a post listing JRPGs I find to be acceptable to awesome. Examples:
Golden Sun 1 & 2: the gameplay is decent overall. Combat is rather average, but the level design with frequent puzzle design is excellent. Exploration in 2 is ramped up. RPG systems and resource management are unfortunately not that involved, but there's enough to personalize and strategize with, and some battles require good strategy. Some mini games also spice things up in interesting, worthwhile ways.
Final Fantasy....lets go with 8 this time: Combat is kinda lame, ruined by the weird ass broken RPG systems, however said RPG systems are still interesting; there's a fair amount of complexity between GF junctioning, magic junctioning, ability junctioning, GF learning progression paths etc. The card game is awesome. Level design like most 90s-era Final Fantasies is good as far as JRPGs go, with frequent puzzle elements (e.g Tomb of the Unknown King), unique challenges (e.g player-defined timer to find Ifrit) and secrets to find. Exploration is often rewarding. 90s era Final Fantasy games are legitimately notable to this gameplayfag, even if the combat is often lame (I recommend the respective hardtype mods for each game).
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night: platforming, combat, RPG systems, exploration, secrets, blah blah, I need not explain why this is a gameplayfag game, even if terribly balanced (again I recommend the hardtype mod).
Then of course there's say FFT, it is for the most part like you say just combat (+strategy in build choices ofc) and story. Luckily the combat is pretty good otherwise I would not like it. Generally I like a little more going on than just combat but I don't mind if it's ALL combat if it is executed spectacularly well, which is of course very rare.
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