What JRPG are you currently playing?

Hi all, I am new to the forums. I've played JRPGs lovingly since I was a kid and am currently going back through some of the lesser-known ones that I missed on Psone and PS2.

At the moment I'm playing Suikoden V and am about half-way through. I also recently re-played Star Ocean 2, briefly tried Star Ocean 3 which I found incredibly disappointing, and also another lesser-known tri-ace game on the 360, infinite undiscovery. I would have to say that none of them have been great, although Suikoden V is above-average.

Star Ocean: The Second Story - this came out when I was about 13/14 and at the time, obsessed with final fantasy and suikoden, I loved it. Now that I've had a chance to play it a decade later it just feels like a second-rate FF clone. The cooking/item generation systems eventually just degenerate into button-mashing, backtracking across a world map and grinding for SP to get the best items. Unlike FF the graphics have not held up well at all and the battle system basically amounts to mashing the X button. That said, if you have to play a Star Ocean game, make it this one. The story has its moments of greatness, the protagonist is likeable enough, and there is a cast of interesting characters mixed in with the standard JRPG tropes (there is the loli, the sorceress, etc.). There is also a connect system which works mostly well and furnishes some interesting back-story moments relating to several of the characters. I've heard that the PSP remakes of this came and the 1st Star Ocean are not too bad.

I wouldn't even bother with the 3rd Star Ocean (Til' the End of Time), which is on the PS2. I was hoping it would improve on the faults of the 2nd game but it really didn't at all. The voice acting is probably the worst I've ever encountered in a game. The battle system is laughable (attack, then wait 5 seconds with fatigue while the enemy repeatedly hits you back in every battle). The dungeon environments were also bland and maze-like.

Infinite Undiscovery on the 360 was a bit of a mixed experience. While the game has many serious faults it's also easy to see that it has a lot of unrealised potential. I actually really enjoyed the first disc, for the most part, but the game totally fell apart shortly into the second disc. The background of the characters, their interaction with others and the ebb and flow of the story during the first disc was actually really well done. It was only about 30 hours in when the game started forcing you back into previous areas and fields that you'd already been to 3/4/5 times before that it became tedious. The battle system was tolerable if overly simplistic and it occasionally featured a system where you could have multiple parties fighting at once, similar to Last Remnant, although it was underused. I stopped playing it after about 40 hours because it appeared that the game had run out of steam, running around to random locations with no real plot involvement, backtracking to meet Kings and Queens etc. for no apparent reason.

When it comes to Suikoden V I have to say that I recognise that this game is great in the eyes of many. I would agree that it is a good game, but I don't believe it's a "great" game. I played the first two suikodens many years ago and to this day they are probably my favourite games ever. Amazing characters, heartrending stories etc. and a wonderful panorama of political machination, intrigue and drama.

With the 5th game I have felt that all of this is still present, although in a far more one-dimensional and barren form than it was in the first two. To begin with, the game is just so agonisingly slow-paced. I didn't mind so much the first 10 hours of gameplay but eventually it has you running back and forth between a handful of towns just in order to advance the story a little. The interface is really poor and feels like a NES game. The battles consist of little more than selecting auto-attack. The environments are also incredibly bland and unimaginative. As a whole it seems if the game lacks the imagination and inspiration that drove the first two in the series, and made them seem like such an epic adventure. Instead of little hamlets, vampire castles and beautiful forests, you encounter some strange village made of Kindergarten art, a city made entirely of a lame white/grey texture, and a "town" made of just boats. It all just seems a little out of place and uninspired. In my view the art direction in the 32-bit era looked far prettier. Maybe this is not such a big deal for some, but an important element for me in JRPGs is a sense of fantasy and adventure and Suikoden V just seems to lack it on the epic scale reminiscent of the first two. I also don't feel that any of the characters are anywhere near as interesting.

Finally started up Eternal Sonata. It's as generic and medium as most people have said. Nothing really sticks out so far.

Though I must say one thing, a story about Chopin is by default awesome.