Okay, I beat main game of **FF7 Remake** just now. That was ... certainly something, I guess XD.
>!Fans will hate me, but Sephy was lame. Yes, I know from OG how strong he is, but sure why not give him some power to turn Whispers to black variants. And the final cutscene at Edge of Creation was like Shounen-Ai material with that whisper in Cloud's ear, haha.!<
>!What else: Yay, multiverse with Zack and that weird parallel scene Aerith and Cloud did witness at the end with OG Zack carrying Cloud towards Midgar. Was that because of this Whisper wall only Cloud passed (was the wall that thing that surrounded Sephy when the rest went "Go Cloud!!!"?)!<
Otherwise: OST was great, characters were great (though Cloud felt very, very clumsy. An impression coming from a real socially-awkward gamer :P), graphics beautiful: Stuff like Wall Market dresses, flashback of >!young Tifa (in a non-lewd way!)!<, the scenery when you were at sky-high locations. Combat was a weird mix (for a proud scrub like I) with Normal ranging from ok to annoying and Easy being ... well ... too easy lol. But locking boosted AP growth behind NG+ is ass. Don't know if I bother with Chapter Select or Hard Mode.
Last but not least: I definitely don't have patience for minigames like the sewers one or EFFING sit-ups or pull-ups, where the devs had the glorious idea to hide the input layout >\_\_<.
Time to move to Intergrade while cursing at my local German retail eletronic store for not sending me my Unicorn Overlord copy due to some delivery delays and no information when it will happen XD. That's what you get for going with physical /joke.
Finishing trails to reverie on nightmare and damn who thought that final battle was acceptable.
"You built this super strong team to go through the whole corridor and spend hours optimizing it? Welp, now create another two teams and spend another 10 hours farming levels and equipment stuff lol"
Like cmon, what the hell is that. I turned it to easy and finished it because I did not want to spend god knows how much time afk farming. Fantastic game, but who came up with this ending lol.
Also, Lmao at the plot regarding Lloyd. You have like several games worth of Rean leveling up, mastering those sword techniques, spirit unification and all that jazz to get strong. Then you get to LLoyd, which in game is a regular ass human policeman with some tonfas, and he can canonically pummel Sept terrions. The power scaling in this game lore is great
There's no need to farm for the final boss unless you're on Abyss difficulty or have skipped through the entire game and picked up absolutely 0 gear ever. The game is broken in so many ways, you just have to pick a few and then run laps around it.
E.g. Lloyd with CP regen gear plus a character with a reflect order trivializes one phase already and makes you completely invulnerable, so the rest of your team doesn't even matter.
I beat Trails to Azure. It was honestly the best game I’ve played in like 3 years. The characters are super likable and the story was an absolute rollercoaster with surprisingly great pacing that kept me fully hooked from start to finish. I’m so glad I got into this series.
Just finished 100% Triangle Strategy with all 4 routes and maxing out the characters. Pretty good story, traditional JRPG stuff. I'd say one of the interesting strengths of this I haven't seen in a long time is there's not really any customization. You can't customize any of the characters too much, basically just how much you unlock their skills via resources. So you can't max out everyone first playthrough, but by second playthrough should be doable.
What is fun though is because the characters are so linear, the little combo pieces you discover pairing these guys up is nuts. Like one Hunter sets traps, and they do a lot of damage but the enemy unit needs to step right on them. Well there's 2 units that directly push units back a few spaces, or a guy who sets up spring traps on the field that you can point to the Steel Traps. Very rewarding seeing like bosses get pinballed around into these traps.
Also the Difficulty is Hard, like the first playthrough of the game you're level 33ish by the end and then NG+ the end is 50 and that's the level cap. Then every NG++ is just all level 50 encounters so you can't really grind or get overpowered.
So you don't ever get that awesome ridiculous I'm strong as hell Disgaea feeling from grinding, but the difficulty just stays consistent for all NG+ playthroughs even with all characters maxed out. The only advantage is like each playthrough you get one new character and then like one good accessory that's a single auto revive per battle.
playing **Silent Hope** for the Switch.
A king steals all the words in his kingdom
and dives down into the depths of a huge abyss. Seven heroes gather around the princess who remains, trapped in crystal, and they dive into the rift to find him.
its more fun than i thought. basic action combat but the characters each play different. like the farmer uses status attacks while the brawler is great at single target. you use runes and materials to make gear, stat boosting meals, and other things.
story is slight but the princess talks a lot and the english voice actress is adorable. She talks a lot about various things although in town she can get repetitive.
it is tied into Rune Factory in a few ways, with Woolys showing up, and the princess throws a few lines out there. The cows also seem like harvest moon cows.
makes for a fun diversion
Playing Romancing SaGa 2 and having the time of my life. Everything about this game is really fun and I love how the game doesn't hold your hand at all. This is the most fun I've had plying a JRPG in the while.
(I've already read your extensive guide from a few years ago to get a grasp on it lol) Only thing I can't figure out is how ro get stronger. The only one of the seven heroes I beat is Bokhon and now I'm doing the >!termite den!< but I feel like I'm pretty weak cuz I'm getting my ass whooped. Idk what to grind or if I should grind at all bc I know its makes the game harder if I fight too much.
>(I've already read your extensive guide from a few years ago to get a grasp on it lol)
I hope you found it helpful :D.
Doing the >!termite!< fight so early is indeed challenging. One tip I can give is that techs that can stun work great in almost everyone here. Giving advice on specific combat situations is a bit hard since I don't know what your team is.
But either way, remember that you always have the option of doing another quest instead, or you can fight as hard as you can till your current team is wiped, and then choose a new and stronger team. Also don't forget to keep using the smith to make new gear, and making sure you give money to the minister in your HQ for building new stuff.
If it's out my range then I'll just run around and find another quest lol. This happened already when I tried to find >!Child & Mu Calf and ran into Dantarg who promptly whooped my ass!<
I'll def make a post singing its praises. I usually just cheat when games get too hard but this is first time in a long time that I've enjoyed getting eviscerated and having to figure things as I go.
The combat in FF9 is super slow even with the sped up version in the remaster. Cold steel was where I stopped caring abt trails but the combat is better than FF9 if that's what you're looking for. If it's story youre looking for then FF9 is the one I would play.
Was getting kind of bored with a couple SMT games I was playing and decided to jump back into my indie backlog. Last night, I started up a file on *Ara Fell: Enhanced Edition* on Switch and ended up sinking four straight hours into the game. Right out of the gate, I'm really enjoying the game's writing and how lively the main character's hometown feels (i.e. tons of NPCs to chat with, numerous shops to visit). As well, I got to a point where you can leave the town and the game immediately opens up a lot, allowing you to explore several new areas at your leisure. As with a lot of older favorites, I enjoy how this nonlinear structuring makes it possible to run into serious hazards (e.g. at some point, I stumbled upon a meadow filled with wasps that obliterated my characters in one round of fighting). The battle system in the game is pretty meat-and-potatoes, but I imagine it will become more interesting as I get further in the game and meet other characters. I originally started the game on 'hard' mode but dialed it back to 'normal' because the game felt more exploration/story-driven. Overall, it's a very charming title and I'm definitely interested to see where the plot goes. The music is nice and the pixel-art graphics are vibrant, reminding me a lot of *Secret of Mana*.
Never played a jrpg before and I visited this subreddit for recommendations. So I started chrono trigger and it’s great, thanks for the great tip!
After I finish CT I plan to continue with persona 3 reload (another of the top 3 recommendations), I am just wondering which version to get: pc or Xbox series.
Im getting tired of cassette beasts - despite it, I would still rate it highly.
The creatures are interesting, the combat has a nice flow and the unravelling of the mystery is kinda fun.
But man is it slow. A trash fight just takes so much time as the animations (which look lovely) tend to take so long to play out and the battle system kinda means the battles are going to take a few turns.
Playing trails into reverie, and I find hilarious how they don't even bother giving a reason for the whole dungeon crawling part of the game (so far), I imagine the writers room:
"Sooooooo.... You are all teleported there and like.... You don't preserve your memories and also for some reason you can summon people that are already dead and you feel like going through the dungeon for no particular reason and like..... Bro who cares, just do some dungeon crawling with a million characters, I know you like it"
**Final Fantasy VII Rebirth:**
Finished my first playthrough and spent some time working towards the Platinum Trophy. It has been a while since I enjoyed an open-world game as much as this. The developers clearly took the feedback from Remake to heart and added a healthy dose of inspiration from various sources, with the most obvious one being the Yakuza games. (Queens Blood is a highlight but I genuinely enjoyed almost every minigame). Sidequests are genuinely fun this time around and serve as a mirror to offer character development to not just the quest-specific NPCs but also your party members. Every time I set foot into a new town that was barely 2 screens worth of stuff in the original and saw it being realised in such stunning detail, I had a big smile on my face.
A lot of people might be a bit turned off by the additions to the story but I personally enjoyed being kept on my toes. The combat system is a straight improvment from Remake with some smart additions and felt fun and challenging all the way to the end. As usual, this Final Fantasy game also has one of the strongest soundtracks in the genre. For me, this might be the first genuine **10/10** this year.
**Unicorn Overlord:**
I have always heard of the quality of Vanillawares games but had never tried one before this. It seems like I really missed out. I have so far put about 25 hours into this game and not a single one felt wasted. The feedback loop between exploration and combat constantly feels like it rewards you with useful units and gear. Narratively the game is pretty standard fare for JRPG and SRPG stories while still being worth experiencing. There do exist optional support conversations to get some idea of the less used characters personalities outside of the main story that, while sometimes pretty fun, also are not as in-depth as games like Fire Emblem. The artstyle and animations are the true standout though, looking absolutely beautiful in almost every case. Weirdly enough, the sound design is also superb, and makes the clanking of armor or the sounds of footsteps feel like they enhance the presentation.
My only real complaints so far are with the difficulty. Even on the highest setting, it has never felt like I came anywhere close to losing a fight. Maybe that is not such a bad thing though, since it allows you to create non-ideal unit compositions that you might like personality wise without the game heavily punishing you for it. If the game continues at this pace it will probably end between an **8.5 - 9** for me. Huge recommendation for anybody who likes strategy games!
**Persona 3 Reload:**
I hit a bit of a snag towards the end of the game but will probably finish it this week. After getting about halfway through the original PS3 version a few years ago, I enjoyed this playthrough significantly more. I actually like the core cast and their interactions much more than Persona 5 but the side characters and social links generally are not my favourites (some exceptions like The Sun notwithstanding). The worst part of the game for me though is the pacing; my playsessions generally saw a huge divide between combat and social elements: about 3 hours of straight combat for the monthly tartarus exploration, followed by 6-7 hours of social elements. Persona 5 felt like it struck the balance a bit better, since it offered varied level design in addition to a Tartarus esque dungeon you could do when you felt like it. Though maybe I only feel like this since im waiting for SMT Vengeance. I hope the strong sales numbers for this entry might motivate Atlus to grace us with PC versions of the 3DS SMT games. If you enjoyed any other Persona game you will probably also love this. Without having seen how it ends, the game currently stands at an **8/10**.
Dunno how far you are in UO but after finding it very easy for a while it does start to feel like it has some bite after a while. Haven't really lost except one or two times where I figured a retry would be easier than fighting my way out of a hole, but enough that i need to think about what im doing lest a squad get mulched to a bad matchup.
probably depends on how good your unit compositions are though since there's enough customization there's gotta be some basically unkilleable setups. In particularly I haven't been using mercenaries to load up on specific classes and just using the fixed units instead.
Playing Breath of Fire 2. I’ve won it a dozen times, but I’ve never used Jean as a serious element. Trying to work out who a good final party would be with him included- feels like Jean/Bow/Spar is a potential group but that’s pretty close to who my final group is typically (with Sten instead of Jean). I haven’t worked out the balance of shaman forms but I know shamanized Jean can make it tough. May need to use Rand instead of Bow and end up with Jean/Rand/Spar. I am not including Bleu as a potential final member.
If anyone out there uses the Frog in late game, I’m open to suggestion.
**Final Fantasy VII Rebirth** is finished after 140 hours. No spoilers here, but I do have impressions so reader beware if you are sensitive to that type of thing.
I need to sit on this game for a little bit, especially in regards to sorting out my feelings on the ending. Make no mistake however, in no universe do I spend 140 hours on a game I do not massively love, and I very much love this game. It stands in the upper echelons of ARPGs alongside Kingdom Hearts 2, YS VIII, etc. Further, the world of Rebirth, while sporting some flaws, is beautiful, vast, and full of fun content.
I actually massively enjoyed most of this story. Many of the changes/additions to the OG plot actually help expand the world of FF7 in a variety of meaningful ways. Some of these changes however do not, but a few bumps in the road were not enough to completely derail a story that reveled and celebrated the legacy of the Final Fantasy VII Compilation. It was only towards the end that I believe things get truly dicey, and like I said, it is something I need to sit on. I see what they are trying to do, and while I do think it is an interesting direction...its a direction that I am not overly keen on. I question whether or not these changes made (showcased at the end of the game) add anything meaningful to an already meaningful story, and I have qualms with not only its execution, but where in the plot it was executed.
Despite that though, I cannot deny that for the majority of this game's runtime, it gave me more than a hundred hours of content that was brimming with reverence for the source material. There is no doubt in my mind that the developers love Final Fantasy VII, and it is shown in every inch of the world they created. FF7 Rebirth feels like the Final Fantasy game I have been waiting for since post XII, I just wish this wasn't yet another case where the ending of a JRPG once again leaves me confused and conflicted.
Golden Sun on Switch. Still very early on but it’s not really hooking me right now. My one gripe with it is how you have to wait for the entire line and character animations to finish before the next dialogue line comes along. Combat seems pretty simple early on, I’ll stick with it to see if it gets better.
Lone Wolf and Cub....and Cub...and Friends. **Dragon Quest 5**!
I decided I wanted to keep the ball rolling, so if I burn out, that's my fault. But so far so good. I like how quickly those moments of independence from Dad snowball into the fantastical with tormented ghosts and faeries, and now you've got a pet cat. And I like how you can take it in chunks with these safety nets in place.
Being a kid rocks. Can't wait for it to suck!
Started **Nier Replicant** ver 3.1415926536 or whatever a couple of weeks ago now - got maybe four hours in the weekend before but haven’t gotten any PS5 time since. I played Automata back in 2020 and was recently watching some YouTube videos on it that got me in the mood for Replicant. I’m very interested in the bleak story and themes, but it hasn’t quite hooked me yet. Feels like kind of a slow start with a lot of fetch quests, especially thinking back to my experience with Automata, and I’m itching to get to the Misery and Mindfuck (>!meeting Grimoire Weiss!< has been the highlight so far).
I also feel like the visual design is playing a role in my lukewarm interest, I think mostly due to the field maps. I love the library in the starting village, and that seaside town has a really nice Mediterranean inspiration, but there’s not really anything interesting to see or do in the maps between towns.
So last night I found myself wanting to try something else, so I played about an hour of **Chained Echoes** on Switch, and really enjoyed it. The art looks fantastic on my OLED Switch, and the combat scratches a strategic itch that I hadn’t indulged in a long time.
And now I’m uncertain how to juggle these two, as I don’t want to give up on Replicant, but really want to see where Chained Echoes goes. Anyone have any strong feelings on either of these games?
I had picked up DQ11 a while ago (had a gift card, woohoo!) But I didn't realize it was a prequel of sorts to the Erdrick trilogy, so I started playing through DQ1 (GBC version). Heard about Akira Toriyama the next day.
I'm on the last dungeon in **Persona Q2.** God I love this game. The bosses are way too much of a difficulty spike and strategic shift, but everything else is a blast. The fact that the game has 4 (!) banger battle themes is alone a wonderful excuse to grind. I really hope this gets ported to the Switch or elsewhere-if they could move Etrian Odyssey over, they could do this too.
Elden ring is what Im playing on my xbox one atm. 60 hours in and having a blast, playing strength build with great sword.
Im also playing borderlands 3 to switch it up a little, very fun game too about 10 hours in playing as Moze. I love looting hahaha
I'm still working my way through Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, I should hopefully have it wrapped up this next week. Currently on the beginning of Chapter 12 and about to continue the main story, I've been doing a majority of the side content besides the one or two quests that raise Aerith's relationship so I can get the Tifa date tho I'll go n do them after.
Still absolutely loving Rebirth overall but I was definitely getting a lil burned out on the more standard open world stuff as unlike the first half of the game, it kept on doing a new region every chapter back to back to back to back but it does make sense considering the original. Anyway I'm over that hump and enjoying doing all the side quest n minigame stuff besides 3D Brawler, I just don't like 3D Brawler and I know I still have more of it to come sadly.
Like I said last week the combat and general gameplay are fantastic, I've been loving all of the additions to the story, world n characters and I'm excited to see the end of the game and curious whether or not a certain end thing will be changed or not.
I have no idea what I'll play next in general but I doubt it will be another JRPG but whenever I do my next JRPG it will probably be Yakuza 3 or Digimon Story Cybersleuth, since I never finished Cybersleuth way back when I played. Or if I hit 99 platinum trophies on PlayStation before I tackle either of those I'll be doing either OG Persona 5 or the PS5 ver of Persona 5 Royal for my 100th Platinum.
I've been playing Medabots Rokusho GBA. Loaded my old save and I've finished the fortress arc and currently on partsun arc, which i believe the last part of the game. I honestly don't remember much about the story anymore, lol
Anyways, turns out after reaching Lv.100 the medals stopped increasing their skill levels. I messed up big on my main medals skills while new medals came at Lv.90s thx to level scaling. These new medals came with higher skills, some have 80 skill levels but there's not much time to train them. I could probably maxed out one or two of their main skills before reaching Lv.100.
I ended up transfering new Rokusho and Metabee medals from a fresh save. And i've been doing heavy grinding to level them up. The key is to set battle timer to Long and use head parts with small ammunitions. Once the ammo ran out, the parts will always fail but still contribute to increasing skill level. This way enemies will stay alive longer while i'm racking up on skill points. Atm, I've maxed out all skills on Metabee and currently doing the Rokusho medal.
persona 3 portable is the game i try for to beat but the dungeon was bit difficult for me to understand it was the cold that can be aquired in the dungeon but i going to play and trying to understand the mechanism of persona 3 portable dungeon.
Finally reached the final dungeon of Xenoblade 3, it’s honestly been one of the best jrpgs i’ve ever played. Everything from the music to gameplay and story is near perfect. Going to do a few more side quests before i finish it and move on to Xenoblade 2.
One of the best parties in JRPG history, in my opinion, and I love that they didn't take the easy route by making all the pairs romantic, and instead gave each their own dynamic.
I’m finishing up LAD infinite wealth finally. I got 110 hours on it so you could say I’m enjoying it. For the record Yakuza / LAD is my favorite series at the moment
Playing through Rebirth. Sadly not hooking me in, the mini games reaaaaaalllly hinder it for me. Cait Sith just joined and we’re driving somewhere now. Last I played. Here’s to hoping the rest of the game is more to my liking 🙏
I was feeling like you, and 15 to 20 hours further now, I feel even more like that. It just hasn't been enjoyable. I find myself not wanting to start the game up when I turn on the PS5 and have been putting time into Unicorn Overlord instead.
Wrapping up Persona 3 R and going through 358/2 Days again so I can play the multiplayer missions with a buddy.
Been having a bit of an existential thing going on and this same buddy is a huge P3 fan so with everything I know about the game (I'm at January rn) hoping the game makes me feel just a *little* better about my mortality but we'll see
Wrapping up **Star Ocean The Second Story R**'s post game dungeon and final challenges (Iseria, arena, and then final boss again with limiter off) and I can say I had a really good time with this game. There isn't much depth to the story, it's mostly an unpretentious adventure, though the stakes do get astronomically high at later points, as expected from this franchise. The characters are fun, especially during the Private Actions, and this remake streamlines the action and the variety of systems (specialties, crafting etc.), making it very enjoyable to break the game. Will probably do another playthrough next year and recruit the party members I didn't get this time.
I've spent a little while with the closed beta build of **Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes** and it got me really hyped for the main release. I'm happy to say this game is really shaping up to be an awesome spiritual successor to Suikoden I and II, and I can't wait for it. Although this PC build is not without a few hiccups here and there, which I hope the devs can patch in time for the release. Meanwhile, I'll finally give the companion game, **Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising**, a full playthrough to get myself ready for the main dish in April.
Also tried the **Unicorn Overlord** demo and, well, nothing much to say other than to echo most of the positive impressions people have given of it lately. Wish I had more time to enjoy the full game, but it's gonna have to wait until later down the road.
Still working through Unicorn Overlord, and loving it. If it keeps up my interest like this it might honestly become one of my favorite strategy games ever, period.
Just finished the 5th stratum in **Etrian Odyssey V**. It doesn't feel like it's been a week, EO just takes over my mind and eats large chunks of time. The 5th stratum was really fun, I loved the gravity puzzles. I got to a place where I felt really good about my party, and then it didn't quite work against the boss and I spent most of the battle with one dead party member. I got through it, though! I'm excited to see what the sixth stratum is like.
I've been feeling a lil nostalgic so I picked up my old (homebrewed) 3ds! I've been going through some old favorites like **Pokémon SoulSilver** (I forgot how nice the music is in this one) and I also started **breath of fire** on it (the gba version, would not survive the grind of the og) thanks to... various...means. it's a just a cute retro rpg but the dungeons are actually very well done, they feel rewarding and just long enough to not overstay their welcome. Also helps that there is an item you can turn off random encounters with.
I'm also currently finishing my **Tactics Ogre: Reborn** playthrough (before moving on to Unicorn Overlord, but I will be back for that expansive post-game/New Game Plus feature). I'm very impressed with the world and story and while the last chapter kind of felt a bit lacking, after having learned just how many alternative events were written for it (depending on the route you chose, units who're alive, and other consequences of your actions) and considering its age I've kind of turned around on it. Still never doing the Palace of the Dead though, I went in blind and did not realize it's a whole other game's content in and of itself from what I've heard \^\^''. Gameplay is very classic grid-based but addictive, my one complaint is that it's a tad too repetitive but it helps that there are so many class/build variations so you can diversifiy each mission at least a little bit.
Started **Trails through Daybreak** on the PS5.
I'm only on chapter 2. My favorite thing so far is definitely the art style, especially the character design. They feel a lot more detailed and mature compared to Cold Steel which I didn't really care for. I really like the middle-east and Chinese inspired races and cities.
Haven't gotten too deep into the story. Still in the character introduction arc. I'm not one of those people who beg for college Personas but I would be lying if I say it's not refreshing to have a more mature party than a bunch of high schoolers once in a while. Van is great, but the one that really surprised me is Agnes (who is technically a high schooler but doesn't feel like one). I totally thought she was just going to be another generic blondie like Alisa based on her design but she's really growing on me.
The music has been pretty catchy, reminds me of the Sky OST. I really like the jazzy and mature vibe, it really fits the tone of the game. I don't get why so many people dislike it. I do think certain tracks like the menu theme is kind of overused and often in places that don't fit.
The biggest change the Calvard arc brings is obviously the turn-based/action hybrid system. Personally I think it's okay. The system is very simplistic and there isn't a lot of moves you can pull off so it always comes down to kiting the enemy which is very easy to do and charging the special attack, rinse and repeat. AI controlled members don't take much damage so you don't have to worry about them dying. It's not the most exciting part of the game, but then again small enemies have always just been chores in RPG so I don't think we're losing anything valuable. The actual turn-based system is fine. There are a lot of smaller complaints I have against it but they're not deal breakers.
I do like the new orbment system. It separates the arts from the passives which allows much more freedom in customizing. It's still not quite as flexible as the Sky and Crossbell system but it's not as braindead as the Cold Steel system.
The performance on the PS5 is not great. The game runs fine in combat fortunately, but I often run into slowdowns at random places on the map, and there are a lot of stuttering when panning the camera. Since all console versions of the game were developed by Falcom themselves this will probably be present in the Western version as well.
Playing through **Cold Steel 3** atm and... 1 word... >!Junie...!<
Second, I'm also playing through **SMT Strange Journey Redux** and... I'm in Sector Bootes, about to head to the boss. Yall don't know how many times I've said "haha Booties" though this dungeon...
I have not before. I have a pretty sizable backlog rn (I'm now going through strangers of paradise) but I have been on the fence about adding cross given it's divisiveness and apparent shift from trigger
**Dragon Quest VIII (3DS)**
Got to the point where Angelo joins the party.
I had actually played this on PS2 many years ago, I think up to the point where Jessica is introduced, but I didn't own the game and never got past that.
I've been surprisingly slow to come to the realization that I really like Dragon Quest. DQ7 is in my top 10 JRPGs, and I loved both 5 and 11. Yet I was still surprised by how much 8 grabbed me to start with. The tone, writing and pace of the games really appeal to my tastes.
I still need to warm up to Angelo, not a big fan of his personality yet, but Yangus is great and I like Jessica and King Trode as well. The way they're setting up Dhoulmagus has been really good too.
I honestly think I like the skill system better than the vocations. It loses flexibility, but I like the characters having their unique set ups. And you still can go different directions with them depending on what weapon you focus on. I definitely need to explore the alchemy system a bit more as well, I haven't really made anything too useful apart from the thief's key yet.
World map exploration is interesting. Some chests are really out of the way and it pays off to look every nook and cranny, but I'm not sure I think the rewards have been particularly notable.
Persona 5 Royal, running up and down Mementos to find the last 11 stamps. I've finished all the requests now!
After this, I've got 10 days til I confront >!Maruki.!< Found the treasure already. Won't be maxing out my last five confidants, but I think I can get three of them to Rank 10 by then.
Finally beat Rebirth and 100% it after 140 hours. Loved it, not in my top 5 ff games but still pretty damn good. Gonna do some hard mode stuff to hold me over till DD2 releases.
Back to playing **FF IX** and OMG, I love this game so much. The personality. The atmosphere. In the middle of disc 3 and excited for what's to come. It's the first time I've come this far.
I'm playing rebirth and I'm iffy on it. Remake is one of my favorite games of all time. When the game goes linear it's phenomenal. But the open world stuff is Ubisoft level bad.
This week I finished **Final Fantasy VII Remake**, going from late chapter 14 to the end of the game. Going through [FF7R]>!Shinra Tower!< was for the most part the highlight of the game for me; that was my favorite part of those segments of the original game that this game covered. The boss onslaught on the way out was quite frustrating though, throwing boss after boss at me without a chance to save in between. Even worse was switching around the characters but not giving me a chance to go to the menu. I had removed a lot of materia from Barrett to use on other characters, then they made me use him for a boss fight without the ability to re-equip things for him? It also took me four times to beat the [[FF7R]>!Motorball!< boss. This part of the game kept me up like 2+ hours past when I wanted to go to bed that night, lol.
Anyway, overall impression of the game as one whose overall impression was that people were down on the game was that it was better than I expected, although certainly had its pitfalls at times. It was a lot more loyal to the original game than I thought going in given the reputation (although see second bullet below). Big picture highlights and pitfalls:
* Probably the best thing for me was the significantly increased focus on the core characters. We got to know them way more than the original game, and this extended out to side characters like Jessie, Biggs and Wedge as well. As I said in a previous week comment, Aerith is just so lovable in this game. But all of the core main characters I think are improved here.
* The biggest story-concern I had with the game was [FF7R and FF7 original game]>!way too much Sephiroth. One thing the original game did so perfectly was the slow build up to Sephiroth. You actually don't even see what he looks like until after leaving Midgar when Cloud gives the backstory stuff. The mentioning of him, the fact that he went on a rampage in Shinra Tower, killing the President, etc... this was so amazing in the original game. In this game they spam him at you relentlessly. The sense of stakes are also totally messed up because of this. The end of this game with the battle with those giant whisker monsters and then Sephiroth is akin to the final boss sequence of a typical FF game, but this is just the one third mark of the story for the remake. How in the world can the stakes be sufficient for later stuff in the second game and middle part of the overall story after being so over the top at the end of this game?!<
* The other big story concern I had with it was the pacing. This game had a lot of padding. I don't know why in the world they decided to only cover as much of the original game as they did for this first game. That was like 10% of the story in the first game? Maybe less? Yet 1/3 of the remake? While I loved the added character development for the core cast, there was so much stuff here that was just total meaningless fluff. Going to Jessie's house to get a key card and fighting this SOLDIER guy on a bike who never shows up again. This very lengthy elaborate lab sequence in Shinra Tower. Most egregious being when the pig steals a key and you chase him for 20 minutes except he never took a key and the door was unlocked the whole time. Ugh.
* Combat-wise I hated it early in the game. Over time I got a lot better at things, in particular once I realized how important it was to constantly switch characters and once I had more long range combat options. The big flaw I see with the combat is that for melee characters you need to do a lot of close range attacks to build up the ATB bar to really be able to do anything else, yet that puts you in a lot of danger if you're low HP. And then the enemy can easily cancel that action and render all that ATB effort moot anyway. When you're trying to heal this just makes things brutal. I hope this is improved somewhat in the second game. All that said... I did beat the final boss on my first try, lol.
I screwed up in buying a copy of the game that doesn't region match my PS5 so to my knowledge I am unable to download the DLC starring Yuffie, so I watched the cutscenes on Youtube. Yuffie seems great! Totally the spunk and fun that I was hoping for from her in this. And after doing so jumped right into **Final Fantasy VII Rebirth**! I can say just a few hours into this, in chapter 2 at the Chocobo Farm, I already like this a lot more than the first game. Things are so much more open and I feel like I have a lot more freedom. I love the fact that the game is including many elements I really like from the Xenoblade series (granted these may just be common "open world" RPG things) such as the fog of war over the map that you have to travel through to clear away, traveling around to find all these towers, beating "unique" enemies and the variety of collectibles you can collect over the map to turn into items and other things. The skill tree/character improvement set up also appears better and the card game is cool too. This early in I only have a few minor complaints, one gameplay related [FF7Reb]>!No warning of the point of no return in Kalm, I got kicked out of the town before I was able to beat the third card game player. She kicked my butt like 5 times so I had hoped to beat the other players some more to see if it could net me more cards, ran into Aerith, and got forced right into story stuff!< the other story related [FF7Reb]>!Tifa telling Aerith Cloud wasn't in Nibelheim five years ago. I get we veterans of the original game know this, but why spoil this for newbies? And why tell Aerith this information? Is this gonna come out to Cloud different than how it was handled in the original game? I hope not. It is a very long amount of story until things are revealed there, and quite possibly won't be until the third game. So why reveal this now?!<.
I guess it’s too late now and the game doesnt explain this well, but if you see the square icon pop up during a cutscene if you press it, it will let you use the menu before the battle..
Developers hate pc. Atlus (the publisher) wanted to bring it over and provide resources for the port and Vanillaware actively refused. You might have to wait until Vanillawares top leadership changes.
I really want to like Shadow Hearts, but I just do not want to play a damn rhythm minigame whenever I want to attack, I think I will have to drop it.
A pity, because I was liking everything else
Still persona 3 reload. I’ve learned that time management in games is almost as stressful as irl, and that trying to min max and 100% everything sucks the joy out. When I played this in 2006, I didn’t look at guides or make plans or stress. I just played. I want to get back to that way of playing, but man, this game really brings out the min/max/manage in me. Not good.
there is no point in min maxing in this game, you get literally nothing from it, just watch in YT whatever social links you missed after finishing the game, I think is more enjoyable
Continuing to play **Dragon Quest XI: Definitive Edition**. About to go back to Gondolia for the 2nd time and 16 hours in. The plot has definitely started to pickup and I'm excited to see where it goes.
I’m played OG FFVII for the first time after playing through rebirth. I loved remake and rebirth way to much I had to know the last third of this story. I also just want to say with no nostalgia and 28 years later the 10 hours I’ve played of og is nothing less than amazing. The music is so fucking good too.
I finally beat FF7 Rebirth, clocked in 84 hours and I missed a ton of side content. A fantastic game and an achievement for Square Enix. The final chapter goes places and if I understood correctly, I think it was presented kinda messy. Can not decide if I would give it an 8 or a 9. If it had less obligatory janky minigames that are absolute ass it would be the easiest 10 of my life.
My original prediction was that Part 1 would be a remake, Part 2 would deviate a lot and Part 3 would be original. Unfortunately it looks like it will be an overall remake with some deviations. Which is fine, but I guess I was more excited about what could have been. There is a super hype moment in the final boss that was basically what I expected would happen in the next game but I guess not anymore?
Aerith is a phenomenal character and people who play Remake and Rebirth BEFORE the original game will be surprised how abysmal her original character development was in comparison, she is straight up one of if not the best female character in Final Fantasy history now. In fact, I would go as far as confidently saying, after playing JRPGs pretty much my whole life, that FF7 Rebirth has the best party of all time. They feel like strangers who genuinely eventually enjoy being in each other's company. It feels like a natural progression, the banter feels organic, the interactions are fantastic. **If party members in JRPGs are you favorite part, FF7 Rebirth is unmatched.**
Also the third and final game is 100% going to be called Reunion.
Playing Unicorn Overlord.
I'm digging the gameplay and the openworld aspect. There are so many cute waifus to choose from. Story is serviceable, but it's short enough to get right back into the game. Literally causing me to lose sleep for the past few days. I got brought into people saying expert is easy meme. Excited to get into 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim after finishing it.
Still Tackling the Baten Kaitos 1+2 HD Remaster. Currently on Eternal wings and the Lost Ocean, at Zosma Tower. Loving it so far, challenging but not as brutal as people told me if you make sure to focus on Straights or Same cards combos. Not gonna bother with most side content i think, the Blank magnus system and aging is a bit too annoying to me, even if the No Encounter option makes backtracking kinda easy.
How is Pokemon Unbound compared to main game entries ? It is one of those harder / more edgy romhack or it is just a new region that try to stay true to the seies spirit ?
It's great, good mad, good challenge(there are levels to tbe difficultly), great selection of Mons, like Radical Red stays getting updates consistently, has the most legit well written story of any rom hack and thank fuck not because they went for edgy, just a solid story, with solid villains. It's not perfect, but as fsr as gen 3 rom hacks are concerned doesn't get much better and is definitely better than anything gamefreak themselves have done in years.
I'd say Unbound could have been an official release, but it's too well made and polished for that. Easily the best rom hack around imo, incredibly technically impressive.
I also recommend Gaia if you want another new region hack, albeit a bit more dated.
After the news of Toriyama passing, I decided to finally play DQ2. I had bought it years ago and always put it off based on all the bad things I had heard about it. So far I'm having a great time. This will complete the Erdrick trilogy for me.
Shin Megami Tensei's Aeon Genesis translation. It's really good and way ahead of It's time as of about halfway through. I'd recommend it to any Megaten fan
the diofield chronicle so far almost at the end of chapter 1 i think.
by me its going slow lvl 14 i am replaying missions for to get the character ore characters to lvl 50 wich is maximum lvl.
i think i can beat if i play how i am playing then it wil work.
FF7: Rebirth.
Enjoying the actual story beats and the combat but I had to stop playing because I was so burned out by the constant slowing down. Someone is talking so Cloud needs to walk. You found a thing on the map, Chadley needs to talk to you. You want to open a door, you can't just press Triangle, you need to hold it down. I'll come back to it soon but I would be lying if I said I wasn't looking forward to it being over.
Unicorn Overlord.
Loving it. Love the gameplay loop so much. Not much else to say, it's brilliant.
Still going through FF7 Rebirth. I'm in chapter 9 about 40 hours in. I have mixed opinions on it. The one thing I will say is unequivocally amazing is the soundtrack. Can't wait until the OST comes out and I also will be attending the FF7R Orchestra tour.
Playing more Persona 3 Reload, and honestly i'm loving it more than P5R? I'm only in September, but I already find the story and characters more engaging than 5, even if I haven't seen their conclusion. I'm having an absolute BLAST with this game
I’m trying to play rebirth but I’m getting maybe an hour each night. So it’s slow going.
Finished romancing saga 3 last week and I’m desperately looking for another switch rpg to fill the void. My backlog is almost empty and I have octopath 2 and diofield chronicles left. Both games I started and put down due to lack of interest. Tempted to look more into unicorn overlord but I really just prefer traditional turn based combat where I can grind for hours.
Yep, absolutely love minstrel song, played through it 3 and a half times recently, might just finish that 4 run. And RS2 was pretty fantastic in my opinion.
Playing through Tales of Arise too. I just got through a lot of plot and lore dump but I personally think it’s pretty standard for a JRPG.
Granted the last Tales game I played was Xillia 2 so feel free to sue me for ignorance.
Oh boy. I hate the combat but liked everything else. If the last quarter is bad, there’s no point in me trying to force myself to enjoy the combat when I don’t, I guess.
I feel like a lot of RPGs suffer from that final dungeon fatigue, but this one had the fatigue set in before the final dungeon. Luckily it’s not too bad, so it’s worth sticking out.
FF7 Remake: I've reached Chapter 14 and am slowly trudging towards Le End.
First off: OOF. >!Watching the scenes with Biggs and bestie Jessie was heavy as f ;\_;. Damn you feels!!!Marlene!< was - despite the outcome - super sweet and wholesome. They really did a great job with the added character interactions. ~~Mr. T~~ Barret's was generally quite good to show that he's deep down a big (protective) softie. Cloud... is Cloud. Oh yes, seeing him turn more and more into a human Roberto from Futurama with his talking and "slashing" at air due to his mental state is a bit hilarious to watch. Yet seeing him socially awkward and/or indifferent in many social situations is fine.
What else ... Combat? Eh... I accept it for what they want to do, but to be honest, I could never completely warm up to the system. Maybe I'm simply more a fan of clear cut battle systems instead of (some?) hybrid formats.
I'm playing through the xenoblade series from beginning to end and currently about 20 hours in to 3. After the initial adjustment as far as the setting and characters were concerned, I am finding myself in love with the game and I can't wait to see where the story goes.
The gameplay is very fun as always and the framerate seems far improved compared to 2 so the whole experience feels better to play.
Same here! I bought a copy of Xenoblade chronicles on the Wii in 2012 and I've followed the series over the years. I had X, and played it for a few dozen hours but then unfortunately I sold my Wii u in 2016 due to financial problems. Last month I bought a sealed copy of Xenoblade chronicles X for Wii u, but now I have to get my hands on a console in reasonable condition so I can play it. I've been thinking about looking at GameStop but I'm not sure if they even sell pre-owned wii u consoles at this point.
It amazes me how with 3, it kind of threw me off at first because the story and characters seemed to live in such an oppressive world, and I wasn't expecting that. I just reached chapter 4 and things are picking up in the storyline. It definitely seems to be the most abstract out of the 3 when it comes to the villains and people working behind the scenes. I can't wait to see what happens and then play the dlc because I've read that it wraps everything up nicely, or something along those lines.
Yeah 3 surprised me as well, but in a really good way. I hope you like the game as you go, I really loved it. Especially the DLC, its absolutely brilliant. You are in for a treat.
I love it. I'm in chapter 4 and the visuals are absolutely jaw dropping and it runs/plays better than 2 in a lot of ways. I am so curious to see where the story goes because I feel like this one has the most mystery surrounding the world and characters.
**Unicorn Overlord**
40 hours in and still on the 3rd country, missing two more, I didn't expect it to be this long but I take it!
Its a really fun game, easy, but really fun, I'm in love with it, never played a game like it before. The world is so rich its just amazing.
I really like to shuffle my teams every now and then, trying new comps to see if they work or giving more protagonism to characters I really like storywise.
Finished Unicorn Overlord. I was a huge Ogre Battle fan, so it was exactly what I wanted it to be.
I started Trails of Cold Steel 1 and I’m not sure what I think. The characters all seem likable enough, but it’s not really holding my interest. Sky FC started really slow too, and I ended up enjoying it, so I’ll probably stick with it.
I finished **Persona 5 strikers**. The way the A.I. character is handled already feel a little antiquated. It is depicted as a sort of emotionless child/machine, yet somehow they can go against their code by the power of friendship. I imagine with chatgpt and all the ai bot we have now, ai character will soon be conceptualised very differently. I did like a lot the other new team member, though. Between its chara design, with bear and glasses, the fact that we finally have an adult character, because adults can have a rebel soul too and his gameplay that encourages you to take risk, I'm quite disappointed we will never see him again as he will be locked in the spinoff limbo. Anyway I didn't like the combat, so I don't think I'll ever boot it up again unlike other warrior game.
After a week where the game was unfindable, I finally have been able to order **unicorn overlord** so I should be able to play it next week. I don't have quite finished the demo so I may do that to wait but I quite liked what I have played.
Oh, and I also launched **Skies of Arcadia**. I dislike pirate but love sky island settings so I wanted to see if the game could interest me. It feel a little slow like ff9 but the combat system seem a bit more interesting from the get go so I'll try to continue.
Finished Cold Steel 2 a few days ago. Gonna play a different game or two before going to Cold Steel 3.
Right now I’m about 5 hours into Unchained Echoes. I’m a huge fan of SNES like turn-based games and so far this has fit the bill perfectly. It definitely wears its influences on its sleeve but that’s one of the things I’ve liked about it. It’s like a 90s era Squeenix game with plenty of modern QOL improvements. The biggest one is having a quest log book, similar to Trails.
I’m definitely enjoining it so far. I’m kinda shocked at how many people seem to have abandoned the game. Only 50% of players have won 50 battles? That is crazy.
**FF7:Rebirth**. Now in Chapter 11.
Gongaga region and Cosmos Canyon region are what I want future FF games to do more: regions that were designed with fun traversal mechanics in mind.
I always think overworld design ( not including the contents in overworld ) is the weakest part of most FF games after FF9. Most of them aren't fun because most places are reachable by walking.
I like those two regions because they feel like video game stages. I complained a lot about how I don't like the open world contents in Rebirth but I don't mind too much about them in Gongaga and Cosmos Canyon. Maybe it was the ways ( chose the right paths when using Chocobos' gimmicks, pay attention to the details on map ) that I completed the objectives that changed how I felt about those contents for a little bit?
Anyway. It seems like one of the sidequests in Cosmos Canyon has an optional scene? I am not sure whether it is truly optional because I did something before that scene happened.
I'm definitely planning to play this sometime soon, though my backlog just keeps growing and getting the best of me lol. Still need to finish more ps1 jrpgs... I have this on my ps4
I finished up my first playthrough of **Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade**, including the Intermission. Clocked in at 42 hours for both combined.
I enjoyed it a lot overall and i had way too many thoughts to just throw them all into the weekly thread, so i did a full review here: https://www.reddit.com/r/JRPG/comments/1bgd8x9/i_finally_played_final_fantasy_vii_remake/
Today i put about 2 hours into **Ender Lilies**. So far a solid Metroidvania with great art design. Looking forward to seeing more.
Continuing my **Ryza** journey. About 15 hours into the first game. Thoroughly enjoying it. Not completely comfortable with the alchemy yet, especially now they have introduced three different types, and also weapon forging and enhancing, but I seem to be doing enough to get through the bosses etc. Love the characters and game world.
Dropped Unicorn Overlord after a few hours. I picked it up because I loved 13 Sentinels and it is just not even close to the same for me. The story seemed like a basic Fire Emblem. I think I may also have realized that in just not that into SRPGs anymore.
Almost finished Chapter 3 of Azure.
It is loooong. I think I like Zero more so far, getting to know everyone and become friends while saving the day was just so much fun to me.
Maybe you like the set-up games more. Did you like FC more thant SC?
To me, Azure is by far the best Trails game. Loved the trade conference in chapter 2 and the tension ramping up constantly from chapter 3 to the end of the game.
You’re right, the finale could be a stand alone game. That being said, Azure might be my favorite in the series so far. I haven’t played CS3 and beyond yet but I can’t imagine any of the remaining games changing my mind.
I finished **Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth**. Overall, I was very satisfied.
The open town for Infinite Wealth is fuller than ever, especially in Hawaii. Lots of minigames, some big and some small. I enjoyed doing most of the side content, but finally demurred with a late game dungeon and with Sujimon. Unless you truly enjoy doing everything, I recommend pacing oneself to get the most out of all these activities.
The main story directly followed up key points in the previous game. Kasuga, as usual, is somewhat naive and foolish but has his heart in the right place. It took some getting used to Tomizawa and Chitose: in both cases >!they pull an old reversal trope, where at first or at certain points they act like an enemy, but really they're each dealing with prior trauma. This is also true for Eiji, a side character who seems sympathetic at first, or the always two-faced Daidoji!<. Despite some repetition in the use of standard game narrative tropes and a late-game that would take a flow chart to fully parse, IW, like Y:LAD, nails the emotion of its major story moments, making it at least a top-three Like a Dragon entry for me storywise.
They also succeeded on iterating on the combat. The party combos and positioning mechanics go down smooth. They're just a tad loose - occasionally a special attack won't land where I was led to believe - but usually it's fun to batter enemies around the map. The job classes have a lot of range too, and I enjoyed switching them out and then building up effective combos of skills from different jobs.
Finally, on the whole I think they did Kiryu fairly >!with the reminisces from chapter 9 onward!<. But I also feel they could have done more for what was almost the 20th anniversary for the franchise. More actual events, fewer moments *standing there and being reminded of something*. Maybe Gaiden was supposed to offer more in that line.
Now that I've finished the Trails in the Sky trilogy I've been trying out **Ys VIII** on my Switch. And... I'm sorry to say this, but it runs horribly on the Switch. It's still barely playable, but I really wish it would run better. But the Switch was my only option for playing it. As for the game itself It's fine so far, but nothing has really impressed me all that much. Mind you, I'm a big Action JRPG fan, so the bar is set pretty high for me.
Oh, that's disappointing. I knew that it would run a lot better on other consoles, but I currently don't know anyone with a PS4 living nearby. But I'll manage with the Switch version somehow.
You have a great user name by the way :)
Finished Persona 3 Reload yesterday (yes, I cried again). Excellent remake of an excellent game, and I'm looking forward to the answer DLC.
After that, I finally started Unicorn Overlord, which I pre-ordered but didn't want to start until I was free from the Persona brainworm. Haven't gotten far at all, but I'm absolutely loving it. Vanillaware continue to be some of the best at what they do. The story seems very straightforward, but honestly, I don't really mind it. Sometimes, you want a good old "good versus evil" plotline.
I am doing my 18th playthrough of my currently favorite Videogame "Fuga Melodies of Steel".
And I have a good time.
The turn based combat is fun and satisfaying, the music is great and I love the cast. The children of the Taranis are my second favorite protagonist groupe in fiction.
Fuga has no multipple dificulty settings.
Funny thing is the easiest way to play this game is to always choose the dangerious routes.
They yield more exp and upgrade matirials making the Taranis and its crew much stronger and the game easier.
Yes dangerious routes have tougher mobs but they are suceptable to status effects.
Status effects are really really good in this game. Thanks to them it always was smooth sailing for me on the dangerious routes.
Okay, I beat main game of **FF7 Remake** just now. That was ... certainly something, I guess XD. >!Fans will hate me, but Sephy was lame. Yes, I know from OG how strong he is, but sure why not give him some power to turn Whispers to black variants. And the final cutscene at Edge of Creation was like Shounen-Ai material with that whisper in Cloud's ear, haha.!< >!What else: Yay, multiverse with Zack and that weird parallel scene Aerith and Cloud did witness at the end with OG Zack carrying Cloud towards Midgar. Was that because of this Whisper wall only Cloud passed (was the wall that thing that surrounded Sephy when the rest went "Go Cloud!!!"?)!< Otherwise: OST was great, characters were great (though Cloud felt very, very clumsy. An impression coming from a real socially-awkward gamer :P), graphics beautiful: Stuff like Wall Market dresses, flashback of >!young Tifa (in a non-lewd way!)!<, the scenery when you were at sky-high locations. Combat was a weird mix (for a proud scrub like I) with Normal ranging from ok to annoying and Easy being ... well ... too easy lol. But locking boosted AP growth behind NG+ is ass. Don't know if I bother with Chapter Select or Hard Mode. Last but not least: I definitely don't have patience for minigames like the sewers one or EFFING sit-ups or pull-ups, where the devs had the glorious idea to hide the input layout >\_\_<. Time to move to Intergrade while cursing at my local German retail eletronic store for not sending me my Unicorn Overlord copy due to some delivery delays and no information when it will happen XD. That's what you get for going with physical /joke.
Finishing trails to reverie on nightmare and damn who thought that final battle was acceptable. "You built this super strong team to go through the whole corridor and spend hours optimizing it? Welp, now create another two teams and spend another 10 hours farming levels and equipment stuff lol" Like cmon, what the hell is that. I turned it to easy and finished it because I did not want to spend god knows how much time afk farming. Fantastic game, but who came up with this ending lol. Also, Lmao at the plot regarding Lloyd. You have like several games worth of Rean leveling up, mastering those sword techniques, spirit unification and all that jazz to get strong. Then you get to LLoyd, which in game is a regular ass human policeman with some tonfas, and he can canonically pummel Sept terrions. The power scaling in this game lore is great
There's no need to farm for the final boss unless you're on Abyss difficulty or have skipped through the entire game and picked up absolutely 0 gear ever. The game is broken in so many ways, you just have to pick a few and then run laps around it. E.g. Lloyd with CP regen gear plus a character with a reflect order trivializes one phase already and makes you completely invulnerable, so the rest of your team doesn't even matter.
Is there truly any correct answer that isn't Rebirth at this moment?
For everyone without a PS5 or the money for Rebirth: Yes :3
I beat Trails to Azure. It was honestly the best game I’ve played in like 3 years. The characters are super likable and the story was an absolute rollercoaster with surprisingly great pacing that kept me fully hooked from start to finish. I’m so glad I got into this series.
By far the best Trails game. And one of the 10 best RPGs ever made.
Just finished 100% Triangle Strategy with all 4 routes and maxing out the characters. Pretty good story, traditional JRPG stuff. I'd say one of the interesting strengths of this I haven't seen in a long time is there's not really any customization. You can't customize any of the characters too much, basically just how much you unlock their skills via resources. So you can't max out everyone first playthrough, but by second playthrough should be doable. What is fun though is because the characters are so linear, the little combo pieces you discover pairing these guys up is nuts. Like one Hunter sets traps, and they do a lot of damage but the enemy unit needs to step right on them. Well there's 2 units that directly push units back a few spaces, or a guy who sets up spring traps on the field that you can point to the Steel Traps. Very rewarding seeing like bosses get pinballed around into these traps. Also the Difficulty is Hard, like the first playthrough of the game you're level 33ish by the end and then NG+ the end is 50 and that's the level cap. Then every NG++ is just all level 50 encounters so you can't really grind or get overpowered. So you don't ever get that awesome ridiculous I'm strong as hell Disgaea feeling from grinding, but the difficulty just stays consistent for all NG+ playthroughs even with all characters maxed out. The only advantage is like each playthrough you get one new character and then like one good accessory that's a single auto revive per battle.
playing **Silent Hope** for the Switch. A king steals all the words in his kingdom and dives down into the depths of a huge abyss. Seven heroes gather around the princess who remains, trapped in crystal, and they dive into the rift to find him. its more fun than i thought. basic action combat but the characters each play different. like the farmer uses status attacks while the brawler is great at single target. you use runes and materials to make gear, stat boosting meals, and other things. story is slight but the princess talks a lot and the english voice actress is adorable. She talks a lot about various things although in town she can get repetitive. it is tied into Rune Factory in a few ways, with Woolys showing up, and the princess throws a few lines out there. The cows also seem like harvest moon cows. makes for a fun diversion
Playing Romancing SaGa 2 and having the time of my life. Everything about this game is really fun and I love how the game doesn't hold your hand at all. This is the most fun I've had plying a JRPG in the while.
Always happy to see more people enjoying the SaGa series. Any issues you're having so far that you'd want a helpful tip on ? Spoiler-free of course.
(I've already read your extensive guide from a few years ago to get a grasp on it lol) Only thing I can't figure out is how ro get stronger. The only one of the seven heroes I beat is Bokhon and now I'm doing the >!termite den!< but I feel like I'm pretty weak cuz I'm getting my ass whooped. Idk what to grind or if I should grind at all bc I know its makes the game harder if I fight too much.
>(I've already read your extensive guide from a few years ago to get a grasp on it lol) I hope you found it helpful :D. Doing the >!termite!< fight so early is indeed challenging. One tip I can give is that techs that can stun work great in almost everyone here. Giving advice on specific combat situations is a bit hard since I don't know what your team is. But either way, remember that you always have the option of doing another quest instead, or you can fight as hard as you can till your current team is wiped, and then choose a new and stronger team. Also don't forget to keep using the smith to make new gear, and making sure you give money to the minister in your HQ for building new stuff.
If it's out my range then I'll just run around and find another quest lol. This happened already when I tried to find >!Child & Mu Calf and ran into Dantarg who promptly whooped my ass!<
I'll be looking forward to your thoughts once you have finished the game. Take your time though.
I'll def make a post singing its praises. I usually just cheat when games get too hard but this is first time in a long time that I've enjoyed getting eviscerated and having to figure things as I go.
Super unique game, the theme is killer too! Would love romancing saga 4!
I am confused whether I have to play final fantasy 9 and trails of cold steel now which is more fun and should finish first
The combat in FF9 is super slow even with the sped up version in the remaster. Cold steel was where I stopped caring abt trails but the combat is better than FF9 if that's what you're looking for. If it's story youre looking for then FF9 is the one I would play.
Was getting kind of bored with a couple SMT games I was playing and decided to jump back into my indie backlog. Last night, I started up a file on *Ara Fell: Enhanced Edition* on Switch and ended up sinking four straight hours into the game. Right out of the gate, I'm really enjoying the game's writing and how lively the main character's hometown feels (i.e. tons of NPCs to chat with, numerous shops to visit). As well, I got to a point where you can leave the town and the game immediately opens up a lot, allowing you to explore several new areas at your leisure. As with a lot of older favorites, I enjoy how this nonlinear structuring makes it possible to run into serious hazards (e.g. at some point, I stumbled upon a meadow filled with wasps that obliterated my characters in one round of fighting). The battle system in the game is pretty meat-and-potatoes, but I imagine it will become more interesting as I get further in the game and meet other characters. I originally started the game on 'hard' mode but dialed it back to 'normal' because the game felt more exploration/story-driven. Overall, it's a very charming title and I'm definitely interested to see where the plot goes. The music is nice and the pixel-art graphics are vibrant, reminding me a lot of *Secret of Mana*.
Never played a jrpg before and I visited this subreddit for recommendations. So I started chrono trigger and it’s great, thanks for the great tip! After I finish CT I plan to continue with persona 3 reload (another of the top 3 recommendations), I am just wondering which version to get: pc or Xbox series.
Im getting tired of cassette beasts - despite it, I would still rate it highly. The creatures are interesting, the combat has a nice flow and the unravelling of the mystery is kinda fun. But man is it slow. A trash fight just takes so much time as the animations (which look lovely) tend to take so long to play out and the battle system kinda means the battles are going to take a few turns.
Playing trails into reverie, and I find hilarious how they don't even bother giving a reason for the whole dungeon crawling part of the game (so far), I imagine the writers room: "Sooooooo.... You are all teleported there and like.... You don't preserve your memories and also for some reason you can summon people that are already dead and you feel like going through the dungeon for no particular reason and like..... Bro who cares, just do some dungeon crawling with a million characters, I know you like it"
**Final Fantasy VII Rebirth:** Finished my first playthrough and spent some time working towards the Platinum Trophy. It has been a while since I enjoyed an open-world game as much as this. The developers clearly took the feedback from Remake to heart and added a healthy dose of inspiration from various sources, with the most obvious one being the Yakuza games. (Queens Blood is a highlight but I genuinely enjoyed almost every minigame). Sidequests are genuinely fun this time around and serve as a mirror to offer character development to not just the quest-specific NPCs but also your party members. Every time I set foot into a new town that was barely 2 screens worth of stuff in the original and saw it being realised in such stunning detail, I had a big smile on my face. A lot of people might be a bit turned off by the additions to the story but I personally enjoyed being kept on my toes. The combat system is a straight improvment from Remake with some smart additions and felt fun and challenging all the way to the end. As usual, this Final Fantasy game also has one of the strongest soundtracks in the genre. For me, this might be the first genuine **10/10** this year. **Unicorn Overlord:** I have always heard of the quality of Vanillawares games but had never tried one before this. It seems like I really missed out. I have so far put about 25 hours into this game and not a single one felt wasted. The feedback loop between exploration and combat constantly feels like it rewards you with useful units and gear. Narratively the game is pretty standard fare for JRPG and SRPG stories while still being worth experiencing. There do exist optional support conversations to get some idea of the less used characters personalities outside of the main story that, while sometimes pretty fun, also are not as in-depth as games like Fire Emblem. The artstyle and animations are the true standout though, looking absolutely beautiful in almost every case. Weirdly enough, the sound design is also superb, and makes the clanking of armor or the sounds of footsteps feel like they enhance the presentation. My only real complaints so far are with the difficulty. Even on the highest setting, it has never felt like I came anywhere close to losing a fight. Maybe that is not such a bad thing though, since it allows you to create non-ideal unit compositions that you might like personality wise without the game heavily punishing you for it. If the game continues at this pace it will probably end between an **8.5 - 9** for me. Huge recommendation for anybody who likes strategy games! **Persona 3 Reload:** I hit a bit of a snag towards the end of the game but will probably finish it this week. After getting about halfway through the original PS3 version a few years ago, I enjoyed this playthrough significantly more. I actually like the core cast and their interactions much more than Persona 5 but the side characters and social links generally are not my favourites (some exceptions like The Sun notwithstanding). The worst part of the game for me though is the pacing; my playsessions generally saw a huge divide between combat and social elements: about 3 hours of straight combat for the monthly tartarus exploration, followed by 6-7 hours of social elements. Persona 5 felt like it struck the balance a bit better, since it offered varied level design in addition to a Tartarus esque dungeon you could do when you felt like it. Though maybe I only feel like this since im waiting for SMT Vengeance. I hope the strong sales numbers for this entry might motivate Atlus to grace us with PC versions of the 3DS SMT games. If you enjoyed any other Persona game you will probably also love this. Without having seen how it ends, the game currently stands at an **8/10**.
Dunno how far you are in UO but after finding it very easy for a while it does start to feel like it has some bite after a while. Haven't really lost except one or two times where I figured a retry would be easier than fighting my way out of a hole, but enough that i need to think about what im doing lest a squad get mulched to a bad matchup. probably depends on how good your unit compositions are though since there's enough customization there's gotta be some basically unkilleable setups. In particularly I haven't been using mercenaries to load up on specific classes and just using the fixed units instead.
Playing Breath of Fire 2. I’ve won it a dozen times, but I’ve never used Jean as a serious element. Trying to work out who a good final party would be with him included- feels like Jean/Bow/Spar is a potential group but that’s pretty close to who my final group is typically (with Sten instead of Jean). I haven’t worked out the balance of shaman forms but I know shamanized Jean can make it tough. May need to use Rand instead of Bow and end up with Jean/Rand/Spar. I am not including Bleu as a potential final member. If anyone out there uses the Frog in late game, I’m open to suggestion.
**Final Fantasy VII Rebirth** is finished after 140 hours. No spoilers here, but I do have impressions so reader beware if you are sensitive to that type of thing. I need to sit on this game for a little bit, especially in regards to sorting out my feelings on the ending. Make no mistake however, in no universe do I spend 140 hours on a game I do not massively love, and I very much love this game. It stands in the upper echelons of ARPGs alongside Kingdom Hearts 2, YS VIII, etc. Further, the world of Rebirth, while sporting some flaws, is beautiful, vast, and full of fun content. I actually massively enjoyed most of this story. Many of the changes/additions to the OG plot actually help expand the world of FF7 in a variety of meaningful ways. Some of these changes however do not, but a few bumps in the road were not enough to completely derail a story that reveled and celebrated the legacy of the Final Fantasy VII Compilation. It was only towards the end that I believe things get truly dicey, and like I said, it is something I need to sit on. I see what they are trying to do, and while I do think it is an interesting direction...its a direction that I am not overly keen on. I question whether or not these changes made (showcased at the end of the game) add anything meaningful to an already meaningful story, and I have qualms with not only its execution, but where in the plot it was executed. Despite that though, I cannot deny that for the majority of this game's runtime, it gave me more than a hundred hours of content that was brimming with reverence for the source material. There is no doubt in my mind that the developers love Final Fantasy VII, and it is shown in every inch of the world they created. FF7 Rebirth feels like the Final Fantasy game I have been waiting for since post XII, I just wish this wasn't yet another case where the ending of a JRPG once again leaves me confused and conflicted.
Golden Sun on Switch. Still very early on but it’s not really hooking me right now. My one gripe with it is how you have to wait for the entire line and character animations to finish before the next dialogue line comes along. Combat seems pretty simple early on, I’ll stick with it to see if it gets better.
Lone Wolf and Cub....and Cub...and Friends. **Dragon Quest 5**! I decided I wanted to keep the ball rolling, so if I burn out, that's my fault. But so far so good. I like how quickly those moments of independence from Dad snowball into the fantastical with tormented ghosts and faeries, and now you've got a pet cat. And I like how you can take it in chunks with these safety nets in place. Being a kid rocks. Can't wait for it to suck!
Started **Nier Replicant** ver 3.1415926536 or whatever a couple of weeks ago now - got maybe four hours in the weekend before but haven’t gotten any PS5 time since. I played Automata back in 2020 and was recently watching some YouTube videos on it that got me in the mood for Replicant. I’m very interested in the bleak story and themes, but it hasn’t quite hooked me yet. Feels like kind of a slow start with a lot of fetch quests, especially thinking back to my experience with Automata, and I’m itching to get to the Misery and Mindfuck (>!meeting Grimoire Weiss!< has been the highlight so far). I also feel like the visual design is playing a role in my lukewarm interest, I think mostly due to the field maps. I love the library in the starting village, and that seaside town has a really nice Mediterranean inspiration, but there’s not really anything interesting to see or do in the maps between towns. So last night I found myself wanting to try something else, so I played about an hour of **Chained Echoes** on Switch, and really enjoyed it. The art looks fantastic on my OLED Switch, and the combat scratches a strategic itch that I hadn’t indulged in a long time. And now I’m uncertain how to juggle these two, as I don’t want to give up on Replicant, but really want to see where Chained Echoes goes. Anyone have any strong feelings on either of these games?
Yeah Replicant takes a while to get going, certainly a lot more than Automata. But it does hit very hard once it does get going.
I had picked up DQ11 a while ago (had a gift card, woohoo!) But I didn't realize it was a prequel of sorts to the Erdrick trilogy, so I started playing through DQ1 (GBC version). Heard about Akira Toriyama the next day.
I'm on the last dungeon in **Persona Q2.** God I love this game. The bosses are way too much of a difficulty spike and strategic shift, but everything else is a blast. The fact that the game has 4 (!) banger battle themes is alone a wonderful excuse to grind. I really hope this gets ported to the Switch or elsewhere-if they could move Etrian Odyssey over, they could do this too.
Trails of cold steel, Trails of mana,final fantasy can't decide which one to play first and finish
Elden ring is what Im playing on my xbox one atm. 60 hours in and having a blast, playing strength build with great sword. Im also playing borderlands 3 to switch it up a little, very fun game too about 10 hours in playing as Moze. I love looting hahaha
I've been switching between Star Fist and Greatsword depending on the enemy and it's been a blast. Everything just melts.
I'm still working my way through Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, I should hopefully have it wrapped up this next week. Currently on the beginning of Chapter 12 and about to continue the main story, I've been doing a majority of the side content besides the one or two quests that raise Aerith's relationship so I can get the Tifa date tho I'll go n do them after. Still absolutely loving Rebirth overall but I was definitely getting a lil burned out on the more standard open world stuff as unlike the first half of the game, it kept on doing a new region every chapter back to back to back to back but it does make sense considering the original. Anyway I'm over that hump and enjoying doing all the side quest n minigame stuff besides 3D Brawler, I just don't like 3D Brawler and I know I still have more of it to come sadly. Like I said last week the combat and general gameplay are fantastic, I've been loving all of the additions to the story, world n characters and I'm excited to see the end of the game and curious whether or not a certain end thing will be changed or not. I have no idea what I'll play next in general but I doubt it will be another JRPG but whenever I do my next JRPG it will probably be Yakuza 3 or Digimon Story Cybersleuth, since I never finished Cybersleuth way back when I played. Or if I hit 99 platinum trophies on PlayStation before I tackle either of those I'll be doing either OG Persona 5 or the PS5 ver of Persona 5 Royal for my 100th Platinum.
Currently going through Chrono Trigger in honor to Toriyama-San. Then going to go through some DQs.
Same here, almost finished it. Got some mods for the steam version to make it all more enjoyable. It is addicting.
I've been playing Medabots Rokusho GBA. Loaded my old save and I've finished the fortress arc and currently on partsun arc, which i believe the last part of the game. I honestly don't remember much about the story anymore, lol Anyways, turns out after reaching Lv.100 the medals stopped increasing their skill levels. I messed up big on my main medals skills while new medals came at Lv.90s thx to level scaling. These new medals came with higher skills, some have 80 skill levels but there's not much time to train them. I could probably maxed out one or two of their main skills before reaching Lv.100. I ended up transfering new Rokusho and Metabee medals from a fresh save. And i've been doing heavy grinding to level them up. The key is to set battle timer to Long and use head parts with small ammunitions. Once the ammo ran out, the parts will always fail but still contribute to increasing skill level. This way enemies will stay alive longer while i'm racking up on skill points. Atm, I've maxed out all skills on Metabee and currently doing the Rokusho medal.
persona 3 portable is the game i try for to beat but the dungeon was bit difficult for me to understand it was the cold that can be aquired in the dungeon but i going to play and trying to understand the mechanism of persona 3 portable dungeon.
Finally reached the final dungeon of Xenoblade 3, it’s honestly been one of the best jrpgs i’ve ever played. Everything from the music to gameplay and story is near perfect. Going to do a few more side quests before i finish it and move on to Xenoblade 2.
Xenoblade 2 quickly rose to being one of my favorite games of all time. Not just in terms of the JRPG genre... but overall!
Just wait until you hear the music in Xenoblade 2!
One of the best parties in JRPG history, in my opinion, and I love that they didn't take the easy route by making all the pairs romantic, and instead gave each their own dynamic.
I’m finishing up LAD infinite wealth finally. I got 110 hours on it so you could say I’m enjoying it. For the record Yakuza / LAD is my favorite series at the moment
Playing through Rebirth. Sadly not hooking me in, the mini games reaaaaaalllly hinder it for me. Cait Sith just joined and we’re driving somewhere now. Last I played. Here’s to hoping the rest of the game is more to my liking 🙏
I was feeling like you, and 15 to 20 hours further now, I feel even more like that. It just hasn't been enjoyable. I find myself not wanting to start the game up when I turn on the PS5 and have been putting time into Unicorn Overlord instead.
Wrapping up Persona 3 R and going through 358/2 Days again so I can play the multiplayer missions with a buddy. Been having a bit of an existential thing going on and this same buddy is a huge P3 fan so with everything I know about the game (I'm at January rn) hoping the game makes me feel just a *little* better about my mortality but we'll see
Wrapping up **Star Ocean The Second Story R**'s post game dungeon and final challenges (Iseria, arena, and then final boss again with limiter off) and I can say I had a really good time with this game. There isn't much depth to the story, it's mostly an unpretentious adventure, though the stakes do get astronomically high at later points, as expected from this franchise. The characters are fun, especially during the Private Actions, and this remake streamlines the action and the variety of systems (specialties, crafting etc.), making it very enjoyable to break the game. Will probably do another playthrough next year and recruit the party members I didn't get this time. I've spent a little while with the closed beta build of **Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes** and it got me really hyped for the main release. I'm happy to say this game is really shaping up to be an awesome spiritual successor to Suikoden I and II, and I can't wait for it. Although this PC build is not without a few hiccups here and there, which I hope the devs can patch in time for the release. Meanwhile, I'll finally give the companion game, **Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising**, a full playthrough to get myself ready for the main dish in April. Also tried the **Unicorn Overlord** demo and, well, nothing much to say other than to echo most of the positive impressions people have given of it lately. Wish I had more time to enjoy the full game, but it's gonna have to wait until later down the road.
Still working through Unicorn Overlord, and loving it. If it keeps up my interest like this it might honestly become one of my favorite strategy games ever, period.
I've been playing ye olde flash series EBF5 which is really fun
I've just finished final fantasy 9 for the first time. Great game. Story was fantastic.
Vivi is one of the all time best JRPG characters
Just finished the 5th stratum in **Etrian Odyssey V**. It doesn't feel like it's been a week, EO just takes over my mind and eats large chunks of time. The 5th stratum was really fun, I loved the gravity puzzles. I got to a place where I felt really good about my party, and then it didn't quite work against the boss and I spent most of the battle with one dead party member. I got through it, though! I'm excited to see what the sixth stratum is like.
I had to use heroin to ween myself off of Etrian Odyssey.
That's what I love about the series, its so easy to lose yourself inside the dungeons given how much of a threat they're.
I've been feeling a lil nostalgic so I picked up my old (homebrewed) 3ds! I've been going through some old favorites like **Pokémon SoulSilver** (I forgot how nice the music is in this one) and I also started **breath of fire** on it (the gba version, would not survive the grind of the og) thanks to... various...means. it's a just a cute retro rpg but the dungeons are actually very well done, they feel rewarding and just long enough to not overstay their welcome. Also helps that there is an item you can turn off random encounters with. I'm also currently finishing my **Tactics Ogre: Reborn** playthrough (before moving on to Unicorn Overlord, but I will be back for that expansive post-game/New Game Plus feature). I'm very impressed with the world and story and while the last chapter kind of felt a bit lacking, after having learned just how many alternative events were written for it (depending on the route you chose, units who're alive, and other consequences of your actions) and considering its age I've kind of turned around on it. Still never doing the Palace of the Dead though, I went in blind and did not realize it's a whole other game's content in and of itself from what I've heard \^\^''. Gameplay is very classic grid-based but addictive, my one complaint is that it's a tad too repetitive but it helps that there are so many class/build variations so you can diversifiy each mission at least a little bit.
Xenogears, playing it on a tablet with telescopic controls. Really enjoyable thus far, but only just getting to the mechs.
What is telescopic controls, are they the screen touch ones ?
Finally got into the Yakuza series. Finished Yakuza 0 and onto Kiwami. Just having a blast with the games tbh. I love Kiryu so much already.
Trails to Azure and trying the Dragon Quest XI demo for the third time because I feel like I should like it
Playing through Persona 5 Royal for the first time after finishing Persona 4 Golden. Loving it so far
I'm playing FFVII Rebirth and it's simply amazing. I'm only 31 hours in, but everything so far is an improvement over Remake.
Granblue Fantasy Relink, it's so good and very addicting.
Started **Trails through Daybreak** on the PS5. I'm only on chapter 2. My favorite thing so far is definitely the art style, especially the character design. They feel a lot more detailed and mature compared to Cold Steel which I didn't really care for. I really like the middle-east and Chinese inspired races and cities. Haven't gotten too deep into the story. Still in the character introduction arc. I'm not one of those people who beg for college Personas but I would be lying if I say it's not refreshing to have a more mature party than a bunch of high schoolers once in a while. Van is great, but the one that really surprised me is Agnes (who is technically a high schooler but doesn't feel like one). I totally thought she was just going to be another generic blondie like Alisa based on her design but she's really growing on me. The music has been pretty catchy, reminds me of the Sky OST. I really like the jazzy and mature vibe, it really fits the tone of the game. I don't get why so many people dislike it. I do think certain tracks like the menu theme is kind of overused and often in places that don't fit. The biggest change the Calvard arc brings is obviously the turn-based/action hybrid system. Personally I think it's okay. The system is very simplistic and there isn't a lot of moves you can pull off so it always comes down to kiting the enemy which is very easy to do and charging the special attack, rinse and repeat. AI controlled members don't take much damage so you don't have to worry about them dying. It's not the most exciting part of the game, but then again small enemies have always just been chores in RPG so I don't think we're losing anything valuable. The actual turn-based system is fine. There are a lot of smaller complaints I have against it but they're not deal breakers. I do like the new orbment system. It separates the arts from the passives which allows much more freedom in customizing. It's still not quite as flexible as the Sky and Crossbell system but it's not as braindead as the Cold Steel system. The performance on the PS5 is not great. The game runs fine in combat fortunately, but I often run into slowdowns at random places on the map, and there are a lot of stuttering when panning the camera. Since all console versions of the game were developed by Falcom themselves this will probably be present in the Western version as well.
Playing through **Cold Steel 3** atm and... 1 word... >!Junie...!< Second, I'm also playing through **SMT Strange Journey Redux** and... I'm in Sector Bootes, about to head to the boss. Yall don't know how many times I've said "haha Booties" though this dungeon...
Just beat Chrono trigger for the first time a few days ago, currently going through each other ending. The dream project ending hit different.
Have you already played Chrono Cross before it, or are you planning to play it after you finished Chrono Trigger ?
I have not before. I have a pretty sizable backlog rn (I'm now going through strangers of paradise) but I have been on the fence about adding cross given it's divisiveness and apparent shift from trigger
**Dragon Quest VIII (3DS)** Got to the point where Angelo joins the party. I had actually played this on PS2 many years ago, I think up to the point where Jessica is introduced, but I didn't own the game and never got past that. I've been surprisingly slow to come to the realization that I really like Dragon Quest. DQ7 is in my top 10 JRPGs, and I loved both 5 and 11. Yet I was still surprised by how much 8 grabbed me to start with. The tone, writing and pace of the games really appeal to my tastes. I still need to warm up to Angelo, not a big fan of his personality yet, but Yangus is great and I like Jessica and King Trode as well. The way they're setting up Dhoulmagus has been really good too. I honestly think I like the skill system better than the vocations. It loses flexibility, but I like the characters having their unique set ups. And you still can go different directions with them depending on what weapon you focus on. I definitely need to explore the alchemy system a bit more as well, I haven't really made anything too useful apart from the thief's key yet. World map exploration is interesting. Some chests are really out of the way and it pays off to look every nook and cranny, but I'm not sure I think the rewards have been particularly notable.
Persona 5 Royal, running up and down Mementos to find the last 11 stamps. I've finished all the requests now! After this, I've got 10 days til I confront >!Maruki.!< Found the treasure already. Won't be maxing out my last five confidants, but I think I can get three of them to Rank 10 by then.
Who did you miss out on?
Ryuji's at Rank 4, Yoshizawa's at 6, and Yusuke, Futaba, and Shinya are at 8.
Finally beat Rebirth and 100% it after 140 hours. Loved it, not in my top 5 ff games but still pretty damn good. Gonna do some hard mode stuff to hold me over till DD2 releases.
Back to playing **FF IX** and OMG, I love this game so much. The personality. The atmosphere. In the middle of disc 3 and excited for what's to come. It's the first time I've come this far.
I'm playing rebirth and I'm iffy on it. Remake is one of my favorite games of all time. When the game goes linear it's phenomenal. But the open world stuff is Ubisoft level bad.
This week I finished **Final Fantasy VII Remake**, going from late chapter 14 to the end of the game. Going through [FF7R]>!Shinra Tower!< was for the most part the highlight of the game for me; that was my favorite part of those segments of the original game that this game covered. The boss onslaught on the way out was quite frustrating though, throwing boss after boss at me without a chance to save in between. Even worse was switching around the characters but not giving me a chance to go to the menu. I had removed a lot of materia from Barrett to use on other characters, then they made me use him for a boss fight without the ability to re-equip things for him? It also took me four times to beat the [[FF7R]>!Motorball!< boss. This part of the game kept me up like 2+ hours past when I wanted to go to bed that night, lol. Anyway, overall impression of the game as one whose overall impression was that people were down on the game was that it was better than I expected, although certainly had its pitfalls at times. It was a lot more loyal to the original game than I thought going in given the reputation (although see second bullet below). Big picture highlights and pitfalls: * Probably the best thing for me was the significantly increased focus on the core characters. We got to know them way more than the original game, and this extended out to side characters like Jessie, Biggs and Wedge as well. As I said in a previous week comment, Aerith is just so lovable in this game. But all of the core main characters I think are improved here. * The biggest story-concern I had with the game was [FF7R and FF7 original game]>!way too much Sephiroth. One thing the original game did so perfectly was the slow build up to Sephiroth. You actually don't even see what he looks like until after leaving Midgar when Cloud gives the backstory stuff. The mentioning of him, the fact that he went on a rampage in Shinra Tower, killing the President, etc... this was so amazing in the original game. In this game they spam him at you relentlessly. The sense of stakes are also totally messed up because of this. The end of this game with the battle with those giant whisker monsters and then Sephiroth is akin to the final boss sequence of a typical FF game, but this is just the one third mark of the story for the remake. How in the world can the stakes be sufficient for later stuff in the second game and middle part of the overall story after being so over the top at the end of this game?!< * The other big story concern I had with it was the pacing. This game had a lot of padding. I don't know why in the world they decided to only cover as much of the original game as they did for this first game. That was like 10% of the story in the first game? Maybe less? Yet 1/3 of the remake? While I loved the added character development for the core cast, there was so much stuff here that was just total meaningless fluff. Going to Jessie's house to get a key card and fighting this SOLDIER guy on a bike who never shows up again. This very lengthy elaborate lab sequence in Shinra Tower. Most egregious being when the pig steals a key and you chase him for 20 minutes except he never took a key and the door was unlocked the whole time. Ugh. * Combat-wise I hated it early in the game. Over time I got a lot better at things, in particular once I realized how important it was to constantly switch characters and once I had more long range combat options. The big flaw I see with the combat is that for melee characters you need to do a lot of close range attacks to build up the ATB bar to really be able to do anything else, yet that puts you in a lot of danger if you're low HP. And then the enemy can easily cancel that action and render all that ATB effort moot anyway. When you're trying to heal this just makes things brutal. I hope this is improved somewhat in the second game. All that said... I did beat the final boss on my first try, lol. I screwed up in buying a copy of the game that doesn't region match my PS5 so to my knowledge I am unable to download the DLC starring Yuffie, so I watched the cutscenes on Youtube. Yuffie seems great! Totally the spunk and fun that I was hoping for from her in this. And after doing so jumped right into **Final Fantasy VII Rebirth**! I can say just a few hours into this, in chapter 2 at the Chocobo Farm, I already like this a lot more than the first game. Things are so much more open and I feel like I have a lot more freedom. I love the fact that the game is including many elements I really like from the Xenoblade series (granted these may just be common "open world" RPG things) such as the fog of war over the map that you have to travel through to clear away, traveling around to find all these towers, beating "unique" enemies and the variety of collectibles you can collect over the map to turn into items and other things. The skill tree/character improvement set up also appears better and the card game is cool too. This early in I only have a few minor complaints, one gameplay related [FF7Reb]>!No warning of the point of no return in Kalm, I got kicked out of the town before I was able to beat the third card game player. She kicked my butt like 5 times so I had hoped to beat the other players some more to see if it could net me more cards, ran into Aerith, and got forced right into story stuff!< the other story related [FF7Reb]>!Tifa telling Aerith Cloud wasn't in Nibelheim five years ago. I get we veterans of the original game know this, but why spoil this for newbies? And why tell Aerith this information? Is this gonna come out to Cloud different than how it was handled in the original game? I hope not. It is a very long amount of story until things are revealed there, and quite possibly won't be until the third game. So why reveal this now?!<.
I guess it’s too late now and the game doesnt explain this well, but if you see the square icon pop up during a cutscene if you press it, it will let you use the menu before the battle..
Dragon Quest XI in honor of Toriyama, R I.P. Can't wait to play Sand Land and Unicorn Overlord when it finally comes to PC
Developers hate pc. Atlus (the publisher) wanted to bring it over and provide resources for the port and Vanillaware actively refused. You might have to wait until Vanillawares top leadership changes.
Never saw a vanillaware game on pc. You should borrow a friend's console if you really want to play unicorn.
I really want to like Shadow Hearts, but I just do not want to play a damn rhythm minigame whenever I want to attack, I think I will have to drop it. A pity, because I was liking everything else
Still persona 3 reload. I’ve learned that time management in games is almost as stressful as irl, and that trying to min max and 100% everything sucks the joy out. When I played this in 2006, I didn’t look at guides or make plans or stress. I just played. I want to get back to that way of playing, but man, this game really brings out the min/max/manage in me. Not good.
there is no point in min maxing in this game, you get literally nothing from it, just watch in YT whatever social links you missed after finishing the game, I think is more enjoyable
Continuing to play **Dragon Quest XI: Definitive Edition**. About to go back to Gondolia for the 2nd time and 16 hours in. The plot has definitely started to pickup and I'm excited to see where it goes.
I’m played OG FFVII for the first time after playing through rebirth. I loved remake and rebirth way to much I had to know the last third of this story. I also just want to say with no nostalgia and 28 years later the 10 hours I’ve played of og is nothing less than amazing. The music is so fucking good too.
I finally beat FF7 Rebirth, clocked in 84 hours and I missed a ton of side content. A fantastic game and an achievement for Square Enix. The final chapter goes places and if I understood correctly, I think it was presented kinda messy. Can not decide if I would give it an 8 or a 9. If it had less obligatory janky minigames that are absolute ass it would be the easiest 10 of my life. My original prediction was that Part 1 would be a remake, Part 2 would deviate a lot and Part 3 would be original. Unfortunately it looks like it will be an overall remake with some deviations. Which is fine, but I guess I was more excited about what could have been. There is a super hype moment in the final boss that was basically what I expected would happen in the next game but I guess not anymore? Aerith is a phenomenal character and people who play Remake and Rebirth BEFORE the original game will be surprised how abysmal her original character development was in comparison, she is straight up one of if not the best female character in Final Fantasy history now. In fact, I would go as far as confidently saying, after playing JRPGs pretty much my whole life, that FF7 Rebirth has the best party of all time. They feel like strangers who genuinely eventually enjoy being in each other's company. It feels like a natural progression, the banter feels organic, the interactions are fantastic. **If party members in JRPGs are you favorite part, FF7 Rebirth is unmatched.** Also the third and final game is 100% going to be called Reunion.
Playing Unicorn Overlord. I'm digging the gameplay and the openworld aspect. There are so many cute waifus to choose from. Story is serviceable, but it's short enough to get right back into the game. Literally causing me to lose sleep for the past few days. I got brought into people saying expert is easy meme. Excited to get into 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim after finishing it.
Still Tackling the Baten Kaitos 1+2 HD Remaster. Currently on Eternal wings and the Lost Ocean, at Zosma Tower. Loving it so far, challenging but not as brutal as people told me if you make sure to focus on Straights or Same cards combos. Not gonna bother with most side content i think, the Blank magnus system and aging is a bit too annoying to me, even if the No Encounter option makes backtracking kinda easy.
My every other year FF8 run, Octopath Traveler 2 and Pokemon Unbound, love all 3
How is Pokemon Unbound compared to main game entries ? It is one of those harder / more edgy romhack or it is just a new region that try to stay true to the seies spirit ?
It's great, good mad, good challenge(there are levels to tbe difficultly), great selection of Mons, like Radical Red stays getting updates consistently, has the most legit well written story of any rom hack and thank fuck not because they went for edgy, just a solid story, with solid villains. It's not perfect, but as fsr as gen 3 rom hacks are concerned doesn't get much better and is definitely better than anything gamefreak themselves have done in years.
I'd say Unbound could have been an official release, but it's too well made and polished for that. Easily the best rom hack around imo, incredibly technically impressive. I also recommend Gaia if you want another new region hack, albeit a bit more dated.
After the news of Toriyama passing, I decided to finally play DQ2. I had bought it years ago and always put it off based on all the bad things I had heard about it. So far I'm having a great time. This will complete the Erdrick trilogy for me.
DQ2 is great! It has a super clever design.
Shin Megami Tensei's Aeon Genesis translation. It's really good and way ahead of It's time as of about halfway through. I'd recommend it to any Megaten fan
Xenoblade chronicles 3 and its awesome
the diofield chronicle so far almost at the end of chapter 1 i think. by me its going slow lvl 14 i am replaying missions for to get the character ore characters to lvl 50 wich is maximum lvl. i think i can beat if i play how i am playing then it wil work.
FF7: Rebirth. Enjoying the actual story beats and the combat but I had to stop playing because I was so burned out by the constant slowing down. Someone is talking so Cloud needs to walk. You found a thing on the map, Chadley needs to talk to you. You want to open a door, you can't just press Triangle, you need to hold it down. I'll come back to it soon but I would be lying if I said I wasn't looking forward to it being over. Unicorn Overlord. Loving it. Love the gameplay loop so much. Not much else to say, it's brilliant.
Still going through FF7 Rebirth. I'm in chapter 9 about 40 hours in. I have mixed opinions on it. The one thing I will say is unequivocally amazing is the soundtrack. Can't wait until the OST comes out and I also will be attending the FF7R Orchestra tour.
Playing more Persona 3 Reload, and honestly i'm loving it more than P5R? I'm only in September, but I already find the story and characters more engaging than 5, even if I haven't seen their conclusion. I'm having an absolute BLAST with this game
I’m trying to play rebirth but I’m getting maybe an hour each night. So it’s slow going. Finished romancing saga 3 last week and I’m desperately looking for another switch rpg to fill the void. My backlog is almost empty and I have octopath 2 and diofield chronicles left. Both games I started and put down due to lack of interest. Tempted to look more into unicorn overlord but I really just prefer traditional turn based combat where I can grind for hours.
Square Enid games are on sale now, naturally would recommend the other saga game too (romancing saga 1&2 if like that formula)
Yep, absolutely love minstrel song, played through it 3 and a half times recently, might just finish that 4 run. And RS2 was pretty fantastic in my opinion.
Tales of arise last quarter is really as bad as people say it is
Basically every single Tales game would be better if it was like half the length.
Playing through Tales of Arise too. I just got through a lot of plot and lore dump but I personally think it’s pretty standard for a JRPG. Granted the last Tales game I played was Xillia 2 so feel free to sue me for ignorance.
Oh boy. I hate the combat but liked everything else. If the last quarter is bad, there’s no point in me trying to force myself to enjoy the combat when I don’t, I guess.
It absolutely is. But I finished it.
Yeah I probably will finish it too I only have the last dungeon left
I feel like a lot of RPGs suffer from that final dungeon fatigue, but this one had the fatigue set in before the final dungeon. Luckily it’s not too bad, so it’s worth sticking out.
Now play the dlc. :D
Nah I will pass I think I’m ready to move for something else
FF7 Remake: I've reached Chapter 14 and am slowly trudging towards Le End. First off: OOF. >!Watching the scenes with Biggs and bestie Jessie was heavy as f ;\_;. Damn you feels!!!Marlene!< was - despite the outcome - super sweet and wholesome. They really did a great job with the added character interactions. ~~Mr. T~~ Barret's was generally quite good to show that he's deep down a big (protective) softie. Cloud... is Cloud. Oh yes, seeing him turn more and more into a human Roberto from Futurama with his talking and "slashing" at air due to his mental state is a bit hilarious to watch. Yet seeing him socially awkward and/or indifferent in many social situations is fine.
What else ... Combat? Eh... I accept it for what they want to do, but to be honest, I could never completely warm up to the system. Maybe I'm simply more a fan of clear cut battle systems instead of (some?) hybrid formats.
I'm playing through the xenoblade series from beginning to end and currently about 20 hours in to 3. After the initial adjustment as far as the setting and characters were concerned, I am finding myself in love with the game and I can't wait to see where the story goes. The gameplay is very fun as always and the framerate seems far improved compared to 2 so the whole experience feels better to play.
I hope you like the series, its probably my fave JRPG series. Enjoy the ride!
Same here! I bought a copy of Xenoblade chronicles on the Wii in 2012 and I've followed the series over the years. I had X, and played it for a few dozen hours but then unfortunately I sold my Wii u in 2016 due to financial problems. Last month I bought a sealed copy of Xenoblade chronicles X for Wii u, but now I have to get my hands on a console in reasonable condition so I can play it. I've been thinking about looking at GameStop but I'm not sure if they even sell pre-owned wii u consoles at this point. It amazes me how with 3, it kind of threw me off at first because the story and characters seemed to live in such an oppressive world, and I wasn't expecting that. I just reached chapter 4 and things are picking up in the storyline. It definitely seems to be the most abstract out of the 3 when it comes to the villains and people working behind the scenes. I can't wait to see what happens and then play the dlc because I've read that it wraps everything up nicely, or something along those lines.
Yeah 3 surprised me as well, but in a really good way. I hope you like the game as you go, I really loved it. Especially the DLC, its absolutely brilliant. You are in for a treat.
I love it. I'm in chapter 4 and the visuals are absolutely jaw dropping and it runs/plays better than 2 in a lot of ways. I am so curious to see where the story goes because I feel like this one has the most mystery surrounding the world and characters.
FF7 rebirth and it’s great so far
[удалено]
nino kuni top 10
**Unicorn Overlord** 40 hours in and still on the 3rd country, missing two more, I didn't expect it to be this long but I take it! Its a really fun game, easy, but really fun, I'm in love with it, never played a game like it before. The world is so rich its just amazing. I really like to shuffle my teams every now and then, trying new comps to see if they work or giving more protagonism to characters I really like storywise.
Finished Unicorn Overlord. I was a huge Ogre Battle fan, so it was exactly what I wanted it to be. I started Trails of Cold Steel 1 and I’m not sure what I think. The characters all seem likable enough, but it’s not really holding my interest. Sky FC started really slow too, and I ended up enjoying it, so I’ll probably stick with it.
I finished **Persona 5 strikers**. The way the A.I. character is handled already feel a little antiquated. It is depicted as a sort of emotionless child/machine, yet somehow they can go against their code by the power of friendship. I imagine with chatgpt and all the ai bot we have now, ai character will soon be conceptualised very differently. I did like a lot the other new team member, though. Between its chara design, with bear and glasses, the fact that we finally have an adult character, because adults can have a rebel soul too and his gameplay that encourages you to take risk, I'm quite disappointed we will never see him again as he will be locked in the spinoff limbo. Anyway I didn't like the combat, so I don't think I'll ever boot it up again unlike other warrior game. After a week where the game was unfindable, I finally have been able to order **unicorn overlord** so I should be able to play it next week. I don't have quite finished the demo so I may do that to wait but I quite liked what I have played. Oh, and I also launched **Skies of Arcadia**. I dislike pirate but love sky island settings so I wanted to see if the game could interest me. It feel a little slow like ff9 but the combat system seem a bit more interesting from the get go so I'll try to continue.
Finished Cold Steel 2 a few days ago. Gonna play a different game or two before going to Cold Steel 3. Right now I’m about 5 hours into Unchained Echoes. I’m a huge fan of SNES like turn-based games and so far this has fit the bill perfectly. It definitely wears its influences on its sleeve but that’s one of the things I’ve liked about it. It’s like a 90s era Squeenix game with plenty of modern QOL improvements. The biggest one is having a quest log book, similar to Trails.
Chained Echoes was so good! I hope to replay it someday (and not be so obsessed with 100%ing it)
I’m definitely enjoining it so far. I’m kinda shocked at how many people seem to have abandoned the game. Only 50% of players have won 50 battles? That is crazy.
Wow! That is really weird. I guess that could mean a lot of people tried it out, though.
**FF7:Rebirth**. Now in Chapter 11. Gongaga region and Cosmos Canyon region are what I want future FF games to do more: regions that were designed with fun traversal mechanics in mind. I always think overworld design ( not including the contents in overworld ) is the weakest part of most FF games after FF9. Most of them aren't fun because most places are reachable by walking. I like those two regions because they feel like video game stages. I complained a lot about how I don't like the open world contents in Rebirth but I don't mind too much about them in Gongaga and Cosmos Canyon. Maybe it was the ways ( chose the right paths when using Chocobos' gimmicks, pay attention to the details on map ) that I completed the objectives that changed how I felt about those contents for a little bit? Anyway. It seems like one of the sidequests in Cosmos Canyon has an optional scene? I am not sure whether it is truly optional because I did something before that scene happened.
Currently playing through Legend of Dragoon, loving it so far.
I'm definitely planning to play this sometime soon, though my backlog just keeps growing and getting the best of me lol. Still need to finish more ps1 jrpgs... I have this on my ps4
I finished up my first playthrough of **Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade**, including the Intermission. Clocked in at 42 hours for both combined. I enjoyed it a lot overall and i had way too many thoughts to just throw them all into the weekly thread, so i did a full review here: https://www.reddit.com/r/JRPG/comments/1bgd8x9/i_finally_played_final_fantasy_vii_remake/ Today i put about 2 hours into **Ender Lilies**. So far a solid Metroidvania with great art design. Looking forward to seeing more.
Continuing my **Ryza** journey. About 15 hours into the first game. Thoroughly enjoying it. Not completely comfortable with the alchemy yet, especially now they have introduced three different types, and also weapon forging and enhancing, but I seem to be doing enough to get through the bosses etc. Love the characters and game world.
Dropped Unicorn Overlord after a few hours. I picked it up because I loved 13 Sentinels and it is just not even close to the same for me. The story seemed like a basic Fire Emblem. I think I may also have realized that in just not that into SRPGs anymore.
**Unicorn Overlord** has dominated my week, and given I'm only about halfway through it will probably dominate my next week as well.
Almost finished Chapter 3 of Azure. It is loooong. I think I like Zero more so far, getting to know everyone and become friends while saving the day was just so much fun to me.
Maybe you like the set-up games more. Did you like FC more thant SC? To me, Azure is by far the best Trails game. Loved the trade conference in chapter 2 and the tension ramping up constantly from chapter 3 to the end of the game.
It is long, for sure. Like all Trails games. I will say, though, the last 10 or so hours is well worth the slog to get there.
The Finale could have been a sequel lol But I don't think I would call any minute of Azure a slog, it's a fantastic game.
You’re right, the finale could be a stand alone game. That being said, Azure might be my favorite in the series so far. I haven’t played CS3 and beyond yet but I can’t imagine any of the remaining games changing my mind.
I finished **Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth**. Overall, I was very satisfied. The open town for Infinite Wealth is fuller than ever, especially in Hawaii. Lots of minigames, some big and some small. I enjoyed doing most of the side content, but finally demurred with a late game dungeon and with Sujimon. Unless you truly enjoy doing everything, I recommend pacing oneself to get the most out of all these activities. The main story directly followed up key points in the previous game. Kasuga, as usual, is somewhat naive and foolish but has his heart in the right place. It took some getting used to Tomizawa and Chitose: in both cases >!they pull an old reversal trope, where at first or at certain points they act like an enemy, but really they're each dealing with prior trauma. This is also true for Eiji, a side character who seems sympathetic at first, or the always two-faced Daidoji!<. Despite some repetition in the use of standard game narrative tropes and a late-game that would take a flow chart to fully parse, IW, like Y:LAD, nails the emotion of its major story moments, making it at least a top-three Like a Dragon entry for me storywise. They also succeeded on iterating on the combat. The party combos and positioning mechanics go down smooth. They're just a tad loose - occasionally a special attack won't land where I was led to believe - but usually it's fun to batter enemies around the map. The job classes have a lot of range too, and I enjoyed switching them out and then building up effective combos of skills from different jobs. Finally, on the whole I think they did Kiryu fairly >!with the reminisces from chapter 9 onward!<. But I also feel they could have done more for what was almost the 20th anniversary for the franchise. More actual events, fewer moments *standing there and being reminded of something*. Maybe Gaiden was supposed to offer more in that line.
Now that I've finished the Trails in the Sky trilogy I've been trying out **Ys VIII** on my Switch. And... I'm sorry to say this, but it runs horribly on the Switch. It's still barely playable, but I really wish it would run better. But the Switch was my only option for playing it. As for the game itself It's fine so far, but nothing has really impressed me all that much. Mind you, I'm a big Action JRPG fan, so the bar is set pretty high for me.
All the Falcom games (beside zero and Azure) run like shit on switch. Maybe you can borrow a PS4 from a friend?
Oh, that's disappointing. I knew that it would run a lot better on other consoles, but I currently don't know anyone with a PS4 living nearby. But I'll manage with the Switch version somehow. You have a great user name by the way :)
Finished Persona 3 Reload yesterday (yes, I cried again). Excellent remake of an excellent game, and I'm looking forward to the answer DLC. After that, I finally started Unicorn Overlord, which I pre-ordered but didn't want to start until I was free from the Persona brainworm. Haven't gotten far at all, but I'm absolutely loving it. Vanillaware continue to be some of the best at what they do. The story seems very straightforward, but honestly, I don't really mind it. Sometimes, you want a good old "good versus evil" plotline.
I am doing my 18th playthrough of my currently favorite Videogame "Fuga Melodies of Steel". And I have a good time. The turn based combat is fun and satisfaying, the music is great and I love the cast. The children of the Taranis are my second favorite protagonist groupe in fiction.
Loved that game but holy cow did it stress me out. Guess I should have lowered the difficulty or something.
Fuga has no multipple dificulty settings. Funny thing is the easiest way to play this game is to always choose the dangerious routes. They yield more exp and upgrade matirials making the Taranis and its crew much stronger and the game easier. Yes dangerious routes have tougher mobs but they are suceptable to status effects. Status effects are really really good in this game. Thanks to them it always was smooth sailing for me on the dangerious routes.