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The thing that confused me the most with that game was that there are so many different evolutions for each digimon and I had no clue what was an upgrade or a sidegrade or whatever and I think some of the paths even sent you back to different base forms
Xenoblade X has perhaps my favorite open world and I loved flying around it. The OST can definitely be divisive but I personally liked it. The human models are like play doh, but that allowed them to put more focus on the open world which was the game's strength, so it was the right call in my opinion. I will entirely agree about the main story, it was a major step down compared to 1. I rank the two games about even but for very different reasons.
What's good about the open world? I'm just sprinting and auto walking through everything on the way to quest objectives. The treasures spread about give you mining/research probes and maybe some credits. The credits are 100% worthless because the shop gear is shit, and the mining/research probes gives you those special funds that are also worthless except for a quest requirement (one of the worst quests in the game btw). Then you have tyrants, 99% of which you can't kill until you're level ~40. What else is there? I'm not seeing what's so great.
Did you ever get a Skell? Because that's where most of your money and resources will go to, buying them for the whole squad. I liked the loop of clearing parts of the map to unlock them for node gathering, using those extra resources to upgrade your Skells and gear, and using that to take out stronger tyrants. The world was big and varied but that size actually made it feel like a proper world and ecosystem, and you'd need the Skells to explore it fully. I am generally not a fan of huge open worlds for the sake of open worlds, either. This game has possibly the biggest postgame that I still want to return to, as I dropped it once I had completed the main story around lvl 50, when I could spend another 100 hours getting fully optimized Skells to take out the strongest tyrants.
Xenoblade X has perhaps my favorite open world and I loved flying around it. The OST can definitely be divisive but I personally liked it. The human models are like play doh, but that allowed them to put more focus on the open world which was the game's strength, so it was the right call in my opinion. I will entirely agree about the main story, it was a major step down compared to 1. I rank the two games about even but for very different reasons.
What's good about the open world? I'm just sprinting and auto walking through everything on the way to quest objectives. The treasures spread about give you mining/research probes and maybe some credits. The credits are 100% worthless because the shop gear is shit, and the mining/research probes gives you those special funds that are also worthless except for a quest requirement (one of the worst quests in the game btw). Then you have tyrants, 99% of which you can't kill until you're level ~40. What else is there? I'm not seeing what's so great.
Did you ever get a Skell? Because that's where most of your money and resources will go to, buying them for the whole squad. I liked the loop of clearing parts of the map to unlock them for node gathering, using those extra resources to upgrade your Skells and gear, and using that to take out stronger tyrants. The world was big and varied but that size actually made it feel like a proper world and ecosystem, and you'd need the Skells to explore it fully. I am generally not a fan of huge open worlds for the sake of open worlds, either. This game has possibly the biggest postgame that I still want to return to, as I dropped it once I had completed the main story around lvl 50, when I could spend another 100 hours getting fully optimized Skells to take out the strongest tyrants.
No I haven't. I stopped after I got the 8 fetch quests to get the licenses. That one where you have to get 15k FrontierNav points in a single hand seemed too time consuming for me to bother with.
"Open-world mecha RPG" is a phrase that will never not make me hard.
Getting a Skell is the first big paradigm shift in the gameplay, the second is getting to fly. The game is really hampered by being on the wii U.
Also its too bad the coolest mechs and weapons are unobtainable until the postgame. Gating so much content behind the final boss robs me of the satisfaction of completing it. That game really needed some kind of post-game True Ending boss to justify all the extra shit they added. Its like they made all the content first but could barely figure out how to make a game out of it, so they just quit after 12 missions and left the last 30% or so of stuff for shits and giggles.
Playing multiple JRPGs at once, and switching around as I get bored/stuck or whatever.
Shin Megami Tensei (PSX)
I love the idea behind the SMT series, but have zero interest in the monster collection/summoning mechanic. Having said that, SMT so far is more like a typical blobber where it just so happens that your main character is also a summoner. Your human characters are generally more than capable of easily taking down most random encounters, so you end up just summoning monsters for boss battles. I like this formula, as you don't have to obsess over collecting monsters, and instead it seems like you can get by with combining your "main" monsters into more powerful forms as you level up.
I had a rough time fighting that boss battle where you fight waves of zombie soldiers but was able to get through it after a few disastrous attempts by changing up my party composition and tactics a bit. I checked some walkthroughs afterwards to see the suggested level, and I seemed to be underleveled 3-5 levels. However, the fact that I was able to get through it at a low level just by rearranging my party a bit says a lot in the game's favor!
Final Fantasy VIII (PSX)
I never finished this back in the day, though I did get to the final area and then lost interest for some reason. It's a fun game and I like how abusable the junction system is, especially if you focus immediately on getting the abilities that refine spells from items. It's like the game was made specifically for low-level/no-level runs. I'm playing the game somewhat normally (not using any of the abilities that reduce or eliminate random encounters, or that otherwise avoid gaining EXP) but exploiting the junction system as much as I can.
I like the initial story that focuses on private military academies attempting to overthrow governments. Not so much the time compression and witch stuff that eventually becomes the focus. I remember back in the day finding Squall to be an edgy asshole, but now I feel like I would probably act the same if I was forced to hang out with such unlikable buffoons as Selfie, Rinoa, and Zell. Squall is still retarded, though, for turning down his hot teacher.
Currently playing Ogre Battle 64 and while I had a rough time at the start (due to not being aware of how alignments works and how they are connected to liberating/capturing settlements), I'm having a blast due to the level of freedom you have in customizing your units to your tastes.
Although I prefer March of the Black Queen due to having much more varied maps and having far more memorable characters.
Edit: I should just discuss March of the Black Queen as since I'm also playing it alongside the above. It's basically an RTS game on the Snes and it has tons of customization and freedom to create your own units. Not to mention the map design is very varied and natural, you really feel like you're on a long campaign across the continent.
Estopolis Denki (aka Lufia & The Fortress of Doom) (SFC)
I'm a good ways into the game now with my characters approaching level 30, so I think I must be somewhat close to the end. There's nothing fancy going on in this game and it's basically the most generic 16-bit JRPG you can find. Fixed party of four, turn-based, spells that use MP, EXP-based leveling, linear progression that follows the "town > dungeon > boss > town > [repeat]" cycle that Final Fantasy IV popularized for JRPGs for basically the entire 16-bit console generation. Yep, Estopolis doesn't fuck with the formula; it does, however, do the formula better than any 16-bit JRPG I've played outside of FFIV. Random battles are frequent but remain a challenge throughout and the game is constantly handing you combat spells that are actually useful (and enough MP to use them without a problem even outside of boss battles). It's fantastic that even 15-20 hours into the game I can cast the "silence" spell on enemy spellcasters and have it work nearly every time.
It's even got some nice towers and dungeons to explore, absolutely filled with treasure—many of it your typical Final Fantasy IV-esque trash like 20 GP or a measly healing potion even 20 hours into the game, but you still find some very nice stuff in treasure chests from time to time. The dungeons are also mazelike, which is a breath of fresh air compared to the story-based linear dungeons that filled much of Final Fantasy IV and its clones.
Graphically, the game is nothing special but it isn't offensive either. It makes good use of color without being garish and the enemy art during battle is attractive—especially the bosses. It's got a great soundtrack only let down by the battle theme which is another example of the SFC trying and failing to "rock hard" with its poor attempt at approximating a synth guitar.
Shin Megami Tensei (PSX)
Made some good progress last night. Made my alignment choice and took down the guy with whom I decided not to ally, so I guess the real SMT starts at this point. I also get a kick out of the messages you get when you save and choose to quit. One time it warned me to be careful not to be possessed by demons when I go to bed. Last night it showed a message telling me to "hurry... turn off... the power..." over and over. It made me think of the urban legend surrounding the SFC game, where it was claimed that resetting the game over and over would cause the game to bug out and show you a SPOOKY MESSAGE:
The message is "TURN IT OFF NOW TURN IT OFF NOW TURN IT OFF NOW TURN IT OFF NOW" over and over.
March of the Black Queen is one of my favorite games of all time, but unfortunately they balanced the difficulty around you NOT finding the Brunhild, and Chaos Gates so once you start unlocking the floating islands and recruiting the special characters who are WAY too powerful (Saradin, Fogel, Rauny, Yushis etc) the difficulty just totally disappears from the game, which is somewhat acceptable up until that point.
There was also the little problem of you being the revolutionary army marching through hostile enemy territory, but the optimal strategy is generally - liberate the nearest cities then let the enemy come to you while you pick them apart with the bonus defenses of a walled city. The sequel fixed this by keeping enemies rooted to garrisons, having a few ambushes, and units destroying bridges and so forth. Another standout is avoiding Vad, the black dude, and making sure not to kill him, even though he'll attack if you go in his path. But, the strategy took a step back since enemy group makeup is even worse than the previous game and you're never truly challenged. In-battle strategy is even more unfortunate since pedras aren't nearly as fun as tarot cards, and are unsuable in the first half of the game because your groups don't get enough turns to fill the bar up. Even that doesn't matter because all you need to do is kill the enemy leader then kill them at your leisure because they will never run back to base and recoup their losses. This makes leveling weak, low level groups a joke, and prevents your stronger units from outleveling anyone since they can get by with just killing the leader and letting the pansies take the rest of the xp. You're never at risk of overleveling (and thus getting too many low alignment units) and don't really need to make extra units the way you did in MOTBQ. Oh, and Magnus' friendship with the Prince was way too homoerotic.
And really enjoyed the game , didn't had the same dread feelings as the first one , neither the characters are as good as DESU1 but enjoyed reardless. Gameplay is better , sprite work is really freaking good and story is solid. Really good ending. Physical build is amazing and mosh the floor with the final boss.
9/10. (Characters and tone are a downgrade from DESU1)
Anguished One is my favorite character. Best boi
From what I remember, Al Saiduq was one of the few tolerable npcs, he had nice bgm too. By the way, did you play the extra campaign? Heard it's even better than the main one, though it won't acknowledge your chosen path.
When the 3DS was released I though Devil Survivor 3 would be a guaranteed hit when released, Atlus could've even played off the name: 3DS -- DS3. Alas, it wasn't meant to be. Here's hoping Digimon Survive fills in this spot, all info released so far points to it being some sort of spiritual successor.
From what I remember, Al Saiduq was one of the few tolerable npcs, he had nice bgm too. By the way, did you play the extra campaign? Heard it's even better than the main one, though it won't acknowledge your chosen path.
I'm playing right now. I kinda pissed that i could only get one demon back from my last save (Vritra) after speeding like 3 hours making 8+ demons with Repl/Anti-most but so far , it's really interresting , with sad implications and beating my ass because asides from my character (STR/AG) all my teamates are punching bags. (i want Saiduq back..). The Triagulum thing just shown up. And yeah , that's kinda shitty , in my save
Otome didn't joined me and both Yamato/Ronaldo died.
When the 3DS was released I though Devil Survivor 3 would be a guaranteed hit when released, Atlus could've even played off the name: 3DS -- DS3. Alas, it wasn't meant to be. Here's hoping Digimon Survive fills in this spot, all info released so far points to it being some sort of spiritual successor.
Man , the worst part of playing this right now is that i know that i gonna miss this sub-series badly. Best megaten games that i played so far and same about Digimon Survive. Let's hope it's actually comes out , last new was back in march..
Haven't played DQ3, but I liked Suikoden 2 more than PS4. It's worth it to play the first one if you haven't. Phantasy Star 4 is charming, but it's not a stomp-down classic in my book.
Dragon Quest III is awesome, but it has a very heavy focus on combat, exploration, and dungeon delving with little focus on story.
Suikoden II, from what I've played, is almost like the opposite of that with a heavy focus on story and mediocre (but not bad) combat and dungeon delving.
Phantasy Star IV is somewhere in between the two, but I think it's more remembered for what it's NOT (i.e. it's not a massive combat-heavy dungeon crawl like PSII or a weird experiment that feels half finished like PSIII) than for what it is (a breezy JRPG with excellent graphics and music and somewhat cool characters).
Branch A of Drakengard 3 done. There's good stuff in this, and then a bunch of 'eh' mediocrity. I love the music (gone through the OST several times) and I am definitely interested in seeing the story. I like the character bits as well and those boss introductions are really juicy, though I do wish they weren't all fought on a dragon since that aspect of the gameplay is way more janky and less polished than the melee combat. The combat is what I would describe as fine - nothing to write home about, as it is kind of a musou, but it gets the job done. Now, the game is ugly aside from the characters and I get some bad performance every now and then when emulating, so I won't be spending hours doing grindy side stuff for all the endings, but I hear the DLC episodes are good so I'll get to those after branch B I think, or thereabouts.
Started Phantasy Star II Improvement (mod) this weekend. Adds faster walk, option for a 2x money+exp, bugfixes, script cleanup, and seemingly minor character rebalancing. I've just reached the town of Zema.
The game is a stunning achievement aesthetically. I particularly love the music and how it transitions. The colourful graphics on the world map gives me nostalgia I think to Commander Keen and the shareware Apogee pc platformers. This version makes the game blazingly fast and a very different experience to how the original felt (didn't get far in og though).
I played the mod initially without the 2x money+exp. Problems that arose were: level of grind in tandem with repetitive mash attack combat, lack of money to buy ceramic knives/gear, and the Blaster enemies in Nido (stupid ;D). For these reasons I restarted with the doubled version. Both have tradeoffs. Now I'm flying through the game. The extra money was the perfect amount for the early game upgrades (though amassing quite a bit now). Unfortunately, the extra levelling has made all monsters up to Zema feel pretty trivial. Normally this would turn me off the game completely. However, I've gained some momentum and feel a desire to return to it and progress. Another benefit of the faster levelling is that it helped me get Amy up to speed quickly. NPCs in this game join at low levels I think.
On reflection I think an option for 1.5 mst and no experience difference or 1.5 exp gain might be worth testing in terms of adding a bit more fear in the mazes and challenge to managing my tp. At the moment I just smash everything with Rudo, Nei and Rolf before Blasters can even attack! Hoping that the next area will return to more of a semblance of challenge. And I hope that I'll be needing to use actual techniques in combat, using Deban with Shir from what I've researched could be good, and the Fire Staff item for Amy now casts Gifoi.
Started Phantasy Star II Improvement (mod) this weekend. Adds faster walk, option for a 2x money+exp, bugfixes, script cleanup, and seemingly minor character rebalancing. I've just reached the town of Zema.
The game is a stunning achievement aesthetically. I particularly love the music and how it transitions. The colourful graphics on the world map gives me nostalgia I think to Commander Keen and the shareware Apogee pc platformers. This version makes the game blazingly fast and a very different experience to how the original felt (didn't get far in og though).
I played the mod initially without the 2x money+exp. Problems that arose were: level of grind in tandem with repetitive mash attack combat, lack of money to buy ceramic knives/gear, and the Blaster enemies in Nido (stupid ;D). For these reasons I restarted with the doubled version. Both have tradeoffs. Now I'm flying through the game. The extra money was the perfect amount for the early game upgrades (though amassing quite a bit now). Unfortunately, the extra levelling has made all monsters up to Zema feel pretty trivial. Normally this would turn me off the game completely. However, I've gained some momentum and feel a desire to return to it and progress. Another benefit of the faster levelling is that it helped me get Amy up to speed quickly. NPCs in this game join at low levels I think.
On reflection I think an option for 1.5 mst and no experience difference or 1.5 exp gain might be worth testing in terms of adding a bit more fear in the mazes and challenge to managing my tp. At the moment I just smash everything with Rudo, Nei and Rolf before Blasters can even attack! Hoping that the next area will return to more of a semblance of challenge. And I hope that I'll be needing to use actual techniques in combat, using Deban with Shir from what I've researched could be good, and the Fire Staff item for Amy now casts Gifoi.
Funny timing, I just started PS4 with the Purgatory mod this week and I've had a rather different experience. It's an old mod, likewise with an alternate 2x version, and I did the same thing where I initially started with the base version until switching to the 2x one which is far more reasonable at this difficulty level.
In short, normal battles are brutal, with regular enemies in a new dungeons often being able to easily one shot party members by more than 1.5x their HP. It's honestly a bit excessive, and the game seems to expect a fair amount of grinding too. I have found the difficulty to shoehorn me into a situation where I either grind, or skip all battles, nothing inbetween. Macros along with emulator turbo (which is honestly way too fast on this emulator, making the game run at what I guess is about 10x speed) make grinding a breeze though, and you absolutely will want to use save states or you'll go mad getting wiped by random encounters before you have a chance to act. On the flipside, levels do matter, and the grinding I did from lvl 13 to ~18 allowed me to handle sandworms that were previously impossible.
Bosses are more reasonable, usually taking me a few attempts. Right now I am going back to grind a bit in preparation for my first real fight against Zio as two of his party wide attacks in a row is a tad too much to handle.
Based on that, I am not sure if I'd recommend the mod, but I don't think I'll drop it even if I might take breaks. There's lots of mods for this game now, including two relocalizations released just this year (at least according to Romhacking dates) as well as a general improvement mod, so those might be worth checking out first. I will say the translation in this is certainly a bit iffy, with characters appearing pretty simplistic. It's a rather generic premise, but I really like the presentation and music.
I also found Purgatory way too far into kaizo brutal difficulty. Feel like Phantasy Star IV has good potential for a rebalanced challenge mod in future.
Had a delightful time journeying from Zema to Piata last night. The overworld enemies are hitting and taking hits much better. Jury is out on 2x exp for me now, could be right. 2x money is so helpful with so many expensive gear available in Piata. The mod creator informs me that the doubled exp+money is based on the official sliders from the Phantasy Star Complete Collection on ps2 (x1, x2, x4).
Couple of things I forgot to mention that the mod adds. Nei seems buffed from the original in that she can equip more gear, and has improved tech acquisition (as do Shir and Amy). For example, I found the item ElastcVest in the Roron dungeon that significantly boosts Nei's defense, and I like her in the 2 slot in front of soft-ish Rolf.
I'm having a delightful time playing through this simple, fun classic. :D Highly recommended. One other thing I forgot to praise is how satisfying and evocative the sound effects are. For example, the menacing buzz of the Blasters, ding of levelling-up, and cutting noise on melee attacks. The animation is similarly superb, battles are fast and seamless ala Phantasy Star IV - though the command option ui would later be improved.
Coincidentally, I just finished Phantasy Star 1. It was alright. The visuals are really great for an 8-bit title, and the smooth scrolling first-person dungeons must've been hella impressive back in the day. Music is also catchy. The plot is a basic revenge story but works alright (except for the giant space flea from nowhere final boss, a trend that plagues like every jRPG ever) and the sci-fantasy setting is neat. I dug the exploration and clue gathering aspects, talking to everyone, figuring out where to go next and which items I need to proceed. The dungeon layouts are unfortunately pretty basic and less interesting compared to PC blobbers, and by the end I admit I have resorted to online maps as wandering around them wasn't very interesting (and since by that point I had all the best gear, and an item that could allow me to escape from battles indefinitely, it didn't turn out to be much of a cheat but saved me a lot of time). The combat is also really basic, mostly spamming melee attacks and healing occasionally (since spell points are scarce, offensive spells are best saved for boss fights), and the random encounter rate is... random, sometimes you can move a dozen steps without encountering anything, and then run into fights three steps in a row. The latter cases were super annoying.
I am playing MOON : remix rpg, which is confusingly not an rpg in itself, but an adventure game made by talented ex Square people. It parodises and subverts many of the elements of the classical 8 to 16 bit JRPGs. It's absolutly delightfull, as someone who usually can't into adventure games the JRPG similarity was enough to get me completely hooked. It is incredibly charming and the best adventure game I ever played. Shame that Love-De-Lic disbanded after drowning with the Dreamcast. I would highly recommend it to anyone who loves those old early Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy titles and does not completely hate adventure games with a burning passion. It also has enough rpg elements, with a level up system which proves very fundamental to the gameplay.
finished Golden Sun: The lost age, 48 hours of gameplay. I enjoyed a lot more than i thought i would. The first Golden sun was a bit meh, but this one is legit. Very non-linear for a JRPG, full of secrets, fun puzzles and a simple but fun crafting system. Lots of exploration on a ship, gave me Dragon Quest 3 vibes, can be confusing on where to go/do though.
Almost everything about this game is good to great, even the story while not mind blowing, still has a bit of originality with the "perspective switch" twist and grey morality. My only complaint is that while the bosses are challenging, the random encounters are piss easy. There's a hard mode but only if you have already beaten the game, i recommend downloading a rom hack if you want more challenge.
Anyway, this game is legit, i recommend it, especially if you want a non-linear JRPG.
Recently I missed playing my original DS, so I decided to play a JRPG on it. Of all things I chose to start playing Rune Factory, the Harvest Moon + dungeon crawling hybrid. I haven't decided if it's good yet or not. I'm growing dank radishes, beating monsters into becoming farm slaves, and trying to impregnate multiple waifus. So I guess that's a good start.
