TURN BASED JRPG's on PC? And a question about using a controller on PC

[DarKPenguiN]

Okay, I am biting the bullet...

I think I have played every turn based blobber on the PC, nearly every turn based strategy game and I am in a gaming glut. I do not want to replay M&M 6, Wiz 7, TOEE, KOTC or anything else for the tenth time and I will probably be dead by the time Grimoire releases the super demo.

Last night I read these boards like a madman looking for new game, ended up finding a ...uh...copy of Agarest Generations and it didnt work for some reason (and I am not risking actual Jew Gold on that game until I KNOW its something I will play-)..Then I fired up TOEE again (for the hundredth time) hit the village of Hommlet and said "fuck this shit..."- Next I grabbed a PSX emulater and grabbed a few games I never had a proper chance to play (Azure Dreams, Ogre Tactics, etc...) but playing on the Keyboard just didnt feel 'right' and wasnt at all intuitive.

SOOOOOO... My first question would be. What are the recommendations for using a controller on a PC for emulated games? I have never used a controller on my PC. Do I just buy an Xbawx controller and plug it in? Do I need special software/drivers? Is there a superior controler made for the PC which would be better? ANY tips would be great since Friday I will be picking one up...

And next (more importantly) is there a list somewhere of JRPG's (turn based please...) that have either been ported or actually made to run on a PC without needing an emulator? I want games with decent turn based combat and hopefully some decent exploration nut at this point I am not too picky. No ABS system or crazy shit- I want to relax as I play and take my time thinking about my moves...I also multi-task (one reason the PSX emulater is going to be difficult to work around as it seems to 'shut down' upon alt/tab or esc and I have found no way to run it in windowed mode.

Anyhow, I would much appreciate any suggestions. I need a game NAOW!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Dickie]

For PC controllers, I prefer the XBox 360 wired controller. If you're using Windows, you just plug it in and it works like magic.

 

[DarKPenguiN]

Awesome, thanks. =)

 

[Crooked Bee]

I suggest emulating the Nintendo DS dungeon crawlers and SRPGs. It's really easy to do and there's plenty of them, and they're pretty good, from titles like Dark Spire and Etrian Odyssey to Strange Journey and Devil Survivor to numerous tactical titles.

As for PC turn-based JRPGs, well, there are plenty of Japanese doujin (i.e. indie) titles but most of them are still untranslated. My favorite one that is actually translated is Labyrinth of Touhou -- there must be a separate thread about it around here somewhere.

Then there's also The Last Remnant. I enjoyed it quite a bit, but it seems to be really divisive.

 

[Athelas]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_JRPGs_on_pc

 

[DarKPenguiN]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_JRPGs_on_pc

WOW- Not that much there, huh? I would have imagined a ton of these games being available but evidently I am badly mistaken...


Kamidori Alchemy Meister- Looks pretty interesting althoughit looks like there is quite a bit of stuff you need to do to get it to run (including messing with the internal language configs in Windows or something...) but it looks like exactly what I was looking for and if I can make it work it will be well worth it.

-Thanks alot =)

Labyrinth of Touhou also looks nice but I cannot find a copy 'floating' around atm but will be on alert.

-Concerning a DS emulater- I am actually considering hitting a Pawn Shop and just buying a DS. As you said, there seems to be a TON of turn based games ( FP blobbers even-) which I have missed out on. I could honestly see the DS being an awesome system to lay around playing in bed with the lights out- Also looks fairly easy to get the ROMS to run on the actual system which would mean that for a very nominal amount I have access to tons of TB goodness.

Thanks again guys. I very much appreciate it.

 

[Anomalous Underdog]

When you said PC JRPG that immediately reminded me of Vantage Master, it's more of a tactical kind of game though, with little story. Looks like you guys had a thread about it already last year. Just checked it out now, and I'm glad it still works even in Windows 8.

 

[ghostdog]

Sengoku Rance





/thread.

 

[Average Manatee]

Sengoku Rance

This.

 

[Amn Nom]

The Last Remnant is supposed to have a really good combat system when you get a decent length in, but I couldn't play more then a few hours though because the main character is worse then Tidus.

Also check out RPGmaker game lists, most of the games on there are shitty, but you should be able to find a few gems in there.

 

[Anomalous Underdog]

The Last Remnant is supposed to have a really good combat system when you get a decent length in, but I couldn't play more then a few hours though because the main character is worse then Tidus.

Obligatory:

 

[Average Manatee]

TLR skill system in a nutshell:

-Imagine Oblivion's horrible level-scaled enemies that get absurdly strong if you don't level "correctly"
-Now imagine that we have the same level-by-use skill system. Except that the game doesn't let you choose which skills to use. You only give vague "attack, attack harder, physical attack, magic attack, defend" directives.
-Now imagine that you need to make balanced groups of characters at once. When you tell them to do a physical attack, maybe your healer does his physical attack and your warrior does jack shit. Because lolrandom.
-Now imagine that you don't even have control over which directives appear. They are chosen randomly too. So you might not even have the option to heal or attack at a given moment, and have to settle for a shitty action that doesn't do what you want with who you want.

It's dumb beyond comprehension.

Also other than bosses (which are literally decided on a turn by turn basis by what directives the game thinks should be available) the game is an easy dumb grind against wimpy enemies.

 

[Suicidal]

Average Manatee summed it up nicely.

TLR is basically random number generator: the game. It wasn't a bad game and I definitely enjoyed it a lot more than Dragon Age, et. al. and I can see that they wanted to experiment a bit with the combat system but the result turned out messy.

Actually beating the game (the main story) is not that hard. I wasn't aware of most of the hidden mechanics it has when playing and didn't encounter many problems. The only really infuriating enemy that I remember was that old guy boss whose attacks instantly killed any of my squad members and who kept casting a buff on himself that let him attack 5 times per engagement (5 being the number of units in a squad) but with the abundance of healing and resurrection items and spells fights like these just turned into long routines of casting revive and slowly chipping away at the boss's lifebar.

However if you want to do all the optional shit then you need to know all this crap and build your party correctly from the very start of the game or else most of the optional bosses just become unwinnable.

Also the characters sucked dick but it's kind of expected from a JRPG. The setting was pretty nice, though.

 

[pakoito]

A jrpg with a good combat system, meaningful grind and no storyline that's not Disgaea? I tried Yggdra Union and the system is good but it drags a lot, same as Fire Emblem or Tactics Ogre.

By the way, the Android DS emulator runs everything right off the bat, including stuff that flashcarts can't like Pokemon Conquest.

 

[TigerKnee]

I've heard that you should actually build specialized groups in TLR. The less "different things" your unit can do, the more often you can get commands you actually want.

Moving on, have you tried the Codex's critically acclaimed award-winning Strategy RPG - Sengoku Rance?

 

[pakoito]

First one on my backlog despite the quirky W7 installation, what's to try after/instead of that one?

 

[Average Manatee]

I've heard that you should actually build specialized groups in TLR. The less "different things" your unit can do, the more often you can get commands you actually want.

You should, but every team needs self healing of some kind (relying on teams to heal each other is pretty much suicide and cuts half your damage out). Also about 3/4ths of all characters are some kind of hybrid.

Another annoying thing is that all character but the main have hidden restrictions on what they can learn and weapons they can use. Been using too many magic skills on X, who initially started as a physical/magic hybrid? Too bad, their magical skill development is gimped, you were supposed to use them as a physical. Tough luck.

Thankfully the PC version lets you disable skills from showing up entirely. All you lose by leveling up the wrong skill type is that you are set back a bit and enemies are level-scaled further. From what I've heard on the XBox version you could literally gimp a character into permanent uselessness, learning a weak skill that would be used in place of a strong skill on another character. Special abilities draw from a common pool of in-battle magic that the whole team shares, so a weak character using magic to use shitty worse-than-autoattack skill will prevent actually good characters from using their good skills.

 

[SCO]

Try gungnir

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_JRPGs_on_pc

Naruto Shippuden is a JRPG?

I was curious about this game since it emerged on Steam, but it seems it's just a fighter. Or is there also exploration and RPGeeye stuff in it?

LPs look nice so far.

Has anybody finished it?

Asking "Ask me about anime" Vaarna_Aarne for professional advice.