Quality JRPG crafting

[Lincolnberry]

Crafting can be cancer. But it can also be fun. To me, it works best as an incentive for exploration - recipes can be hidden or rewards for fighting tough minibosses or engaging w side content. Similarly for materials, as long as the "golden screw" material isn't too annoying to get and there isn't too much "pinata" effect for low tier materials.

Examples of a few I think did it well, but looking for other ideas. Nothing here will probably touch Subnautica, but it doesn't have to.

Dark Cloud 2
DQ8 and to lesser degree DQ11 (unsurprisingly also Level 5 for 8)
Maybe Star Ocean 3 - in this case you find the helpers to make better gear, but the randomness is annoying

Maybe you could argue for SMT? If certain rare or hard to obtain demons were locked behind some sort of similar content. You could say that about unlocking certain fusions for sure.

So, what are your recommendations?

 

[Damned Registrations]

Legend of Mana wins, hands down. The smithing system in that game is a game unto itself. There are no recipes. There are rules and interactions, all hidden from the player, and ludicrously complex under the hood. Creating the best equipment in the game can involve hundreds of steps from dozens of types of components. It's not even remotely necessary to go that far, but the fact that you can is insane. It's like having Kerbal tacked onto another game just for the sake of building a vehicle you may not even want to use.

 

[Sentinel]

Dragon Quest XI had the best crafting minigame.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

Legend of Mana wins, hands down

Pretty much, if only crafting a 99 all stats item even mattered in a game where you can win easily with the starting weapons.

 

[d1r]

Maybe you could argue for SMT? If certain rare or hard to obtain demons were locked behind some sort of similar content. You could say that about unlocking certain fusions for sure.

I agree. Fusing demons is super fun. Especially in

Spoiler

Play Shin Megami Tensei IV!

 

[Reinhardt]

atelier. crafting your dimensional bomb of dragon slaying from shit and sticks as early as possible never gets old.

 

[Vic]

the Rune Factory series has some insane crafting. many items and ingredients, and levels for each item and ingredient, and then upgrade items which also have levels (I think). so to make the best weapon you need to first grind your skill high enough and get the recipe, which in itself takes many hours, then you have to gather level 10 materials to get your level 10 sword, then you have to find the best upgrade items IIRC.

this video might explain it better

 

[Cheesedragon117]

Monster Hunter, for its blunt simplicity. It's just Item+Item=Result. You generally know exactly what you need, the game gives you more than enough clues on where to find things, and there are multiple paths to achieve certain rare items. Need an Ancient Potion but only have the Kelbi Horn? You have a choice of going to hunt a certain monster for its extract, or following another crafting path from various field items to obtain an Immunizer to craft with the horn.

There's also the inventory management aspect of only being able to carry one stack of each item in your item pouch, with strict stack size limitations (typically no more than ten of one item.) The game encourages you to work within these limitations by allowing you to carry the useless crafting ingredients alongside their finished products. Want more Mega Potions? Bring ten of them, then ten Honey, and ten regular Potions. Since Potion+Honey=Mega Potion, you now effectively have twenty Mega Potions, but only after you've used up your initial supply.

Repeat the process with the aforementioned Ancient Potions, and you can carry significantly more of an item with an even lower stack limit (only two), at the cost of taking up more and more of your item pouch slots with ingredients. There's cost/benefit decisions every step of the way. It's remarkably well-balanced.

Of course, this is only the consumable crafting aspect of Monster Hunter. Weapon and gear crafting is an entirely different story, varies in it's mechanics between games, and the typing of it would be a long process. So i'll leave it to someone else.

 

[AdamReith]

Gust games have decent crafting. Usually I can't stand it.

What they do is have random events tied to object creation so you don't mind crafting shitty useless attack item #532 since you are rolling the dice on getting something amusing out of it.

 

[Reinhardt]

wat

 

[Yuber]

Yeah my favorites are DQ8 and Star Ocean 3.
I think the Tactics Ogre one was really bad but I don't remember really anymore.