What JRPG are you currently playing?

animaX · 25-03-2012 11:37pm

Retr0gamer wrote: »

My advice is to make sure you spend a lot of time forging weapons and leveling them up. If you don't then the game becomes a grind.

noodler wrote: »

Is that not a grind in itself?

Haha, was just about to say the same thing! I have to admit, I felt the same. Started Vagrant Story and got a few hours into it but gave up on it. I never felt as though I was doing much damage, got the feeling I wasn't doing it right! Would like to give it another go some time

Retr0gamer · 26-03-2012 12:27am

noodler wrote: »

Is that not a grind in itself?

It's a much better alternative. Hard to describe to someone that hasn't played it because the battle system is so weird.

penev10 · 30-03-2012 5:45pm

Finished Radiant Historia last night. Excellent game. Theres a real boss rush at the end though. It's almost a given that the "FINAL BATTLE" isn't going to be that but I must've spent the past 5 nights fighting bosses! Difficulty level is great though as it's little to do with level and more to do with strategy and party balance. I finished the game at Lvl 50. Did feck all grinding. You can actually avoid all the grunts from early-on so tedious walkover battles are never a worry.

Now onto Devil Survivor 2. I've 18 hours of flying to do this weekend and it better live up to it's predecessor (which is one of my favourite RPGs of all time, although technically I'd class it as a SRPG-lite)

funky penguin · 05-04-2012 9:24am

Playing SMT Persona 2 for the first time, also slugging through Tales of Xilia in Japanese in a vain attempt at learning the language.

I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO NEXT AND I'M PRETTY SURE IT'S STILL THE TUTORIAL. ;_;

_Godot_ · 06-04-2012 7:34am

Started up Rogue Galaxy again and managed to beat the first boss (the on where you have to jump onto his back), and I'm now at Burkaqua village. Leveled up a bit and combined a few weapons.

Xevkin · 06-04-2012 10:14am

About 3/4 of the way through Radiant Historia myself. Not a bad game at all, and the combat is a nice change of pace.

Above poster about FF12 Zodiac - a HD version for the PS3 would be quite something. That and some character development for half the party.

Sephiroth_dude · 06-04-2012 4:32pm

funky penguin wrote: »

slugging through Tales of Xilia in Japanese in a vain attempt at learning the language.

will that get a european release?

funky penguin · 07-04-2012 6:30am

No idea, all I've heard that if demand is enough, then it will. I have no idea how they gauge the demand though!

it's a pity, it's a lovely looking game, and plays well......it'd be nice to fully understand what's going on though!

EDIT:

Found this:

http://www.siliconera.com/2012/03/22/shh-dont-tell-anyone-but-we-found-a-tales-of-xillia-trademark/

So, looks good!

ancapailldorcha · 07-04-2012 1:45pm

Just started Final Fantasy Tactics:War of the Lions. Tough little cookie.
Should be wrapping up FF6 any day now.

noodler · 07-04-2012 10:57pm

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

Just started Final Fantasy Tactics:War of the Lions. Tough little cookie.
Should be wrapping up FF6 any day now.

2 SAVE FILES

ancapailldorcha · 07-04-2012 11:09pm

I have 4. Thanks!

noodler · 07-04-2012 11:12pm

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

I have 4. Thanks!

And figure out the errand system earlier than i did!

ancapailldorcha · 08-04-2012 10:01am

noodler wrote: »

And figure out the errand system earlier than i did!

Errand system? I'm not that far in yet. I'm at a part where I need to defeat a white mage accompanied by several others who like nothing more than to crush me with cheap AoE magic.

Retr0gamer · 09-04-2012 11:34am

Ah, Miluda, loved that fight with her so atmospheric and its where the story really kicks into gear.

ancapailldorcha · 09-04-2012 11:45am

Just cleared the first chapter. Story is much better than I was expecting.

noodler · 12-04-2012 11:24am

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

Just cleared the first chapter. Story is much better than I was expecting.

I found it very difficult to keep up with the factions and names/places.

I hope you fare better!

Sieghardt · 12-04-2012 7:38pm

Playing Tales of Graces F, really enjoying it after Abyss and Legendia nearly put me off this series for good

Mindkiller · 14-04-2012 10:05pm

Posting this here because a lot of people seem to be playing FF: Tactics. http://ffhacktics.com/smf/index.php?topic=8490.msg168572#msg168572

Thread contains a link to a patch for the PSP version which apparently fixed the slowdown issues that version has. I've been interested in playing it myself so I'm half glad I put it off up til now. There's some other widescreen aspect ratio thingy as well, I think. I haven't played WOTL so I don't know how well it all works, only that you'll need CFW. AFAIK, every single PSP model can be easily soft-modded now. Except maybe that budget one that just came out.

Retr0gamer · 15-04-2012 11:22pm

They stretched the game to 16:9 so everything is squashed and fat looking. It's a terrible conversion but still a great game.

Mindkiller · 16-04-2012 7:42am

Well you can play it in 4:3 now. It's more or less identical to the PS1 version except it has a new translation and really, really nice cutscenes.

Retr0gamer · 16-04-2012 11:18am

New translation was badly needed as well! The PS1 translation is quite possibly worst translation of a game since the NES era.

manicmonoliths · 19-04-2012 7:13pm

After seeing many comments on the JRPG forum, I bought Persona 3. I initially struggled to get into it, but it's thankfully really got going thanks to the Social Links. It's only my second Atlus game (the first being Catherine), I'm finding it slightly frustrating that I can't do everything due to the in game time constraints, but I think I'll happily play this game multiple times in the future.

penev10 · 26-04-2012 3:21pm

Am disappointed thus far with Devil Survivor 2. It's basically the first game with a new skin which should be no bad thing but it just feels like a poor man's version of the game. The characters and plot (so far) aren't as fleshed out for starters. Having to wait for the first couple of days to pass before you have all the features enabled is also a pain for us DS1 veterans!:mad:

megaten · 03-05-2012 5:53pm

Started Atelier Rorona. Seems quite fun though I can see my self getting stressed with the time limits later on as I presume they get tougher. Having SDish character models and better proportioned character art is really jarring on a High definition console though.

ancapailldorcha · 03-05-2012 10:29pm

Just had my PS3 & PSP nicked. Looks like I'll be starting FFT & FFVI from scratch.

Sieghardt · 04-05-2012 6:03am

megaten wrote: »

Started Atelier Rorona. Seems quite fun though I can see my self getting stressed with the time limits later on as I presume they get tougher. Having SDish character models and better proportioned character art is really jarring on a High definition console though.

nah they get even easier once you have access to certain features, you'll see.

penev10 · 04-05-2012 11:33am

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

Just had my PS3 & PSP nicked. Looks like I'll be starting FFT & FFVI from scratch.

Oh no, thats brutal! From your house? very sorry to hear that.

super_furry · 04-05-2012 11:36am

Picked up the Lunar Silver Star Story PSP remake for the Vita. It looks great and it's still Lunar but the battles are just far, far too easy. You can seemingly breeze through the whole thing with Party AI.

Retr0gamer · 04-05-2012 12:02pm

super_furry wrote: »

Picked up the Lunar Silver Star Story PSP remake for the Vita. It looks great and it's still Lunar but the battles are just far, far too easy. You can seemingly breeze through the whole thing with Party AI.

The original game was like that. Working Designs bumped up the difficulty for the Western releases.

Burning Eclipse · 04-05-2012 12:05pm

Final Fantasy XIII-2, which was a birthday present.

I didn't bother finishing the demo, as it wasn't too appealing, but I'm really enjoying this. If the demo had been the first hour of the game, I'd have bought it myself weeks ago!

super_furry · 04-05-2012 1:03pm

Retr0gamer wrote: »

The original game was like that. Working Designs bumped up the difficulty for the Western releases.

Hmmm, didn't realise that. Always thought the US releases were perfectly balanced - challenging without ever feeling like you needed to grind.

Retr0gamer · 04-05-2012 1:41pm

I thought the PS1 version of the first was was way too hard and needed grinding to get through. Working Designs always did that and often made the games too hard, in fact they destroyed a few games by messing with the difficulty. Silhouette Mirage is really boring and grindy in comparison to the japanese version, same with Popful Mail. There's another game on the PC Engine they localised that they made next to impossible. Lunar is a pretty breezy feel good RPG so think the grinding spoiled it a little and it's the reason I stopped playing it halfway through.

megaten · 04-05-2012 4:42pm

Actually Victor Ireland was on Retronauts recently and explained why Silhouette Mirage was changed. At the time EB games had a 7 day return no questions asked policy so they made the game more difficult so people would be less inclined to beat it in a week and the company wouldn't be faced with a bunch of their stock being returned.

Retr0gamer · 04-05-2012 4:53pm

megaten wrote: »

Actually Victor Ireland was on Retronauts recently and explained why Silhouette Mirage was changed. At the time EB games had a 7 day return no questions asked policy so they made the game more difficult so people would be less inclined to beat it in a week and the company wouldn't be faced with a bunch of their stock being returned.

I know, it was the reason he did it with all the games. Still made them crapper though especially because they got the balancing way off. The japanese versions of Popful Mail and Silhouette Mirage are much more playable. Silhouette Mirage is a Treasure action game that should be fast paced but in the US release you spend all your time griding the normal enemies for currency which killsthe pace.

I do admire what Victor Ireland did, but sometimes he went a little too far with the difficulty. TBH the people these games were marketed to were never going to trade them in.

ancapailldorcha · 04-05-2012 5:18pm

penev10 wrote: »

Oh no, thats brutal! From your house? very sorry to hear that.

Thanks mate! Had most of my PS3 saves backed up (Thank you Playstation Plus) but was just about to start on

Kefka's tower

in FFVI and had just beaten Cúchulainn in FFT. Gits.

Fergus_ · 07-05-2012 11:32pm

Got loads of JRPGs to run through over the summer holidays

Mindkiller · 17-05-2012 12:11am

Beat Persona 3 FES a minute ago. At least, I think I beat it but after I killed what can only be the big bad they still have me going to school. I'm too tired to watch what happens next, but I hope it doesn't pull another big demon out of its ass like Persona 4 did.

Overall I found it a really tepid grind, even more so than Persona 4. There's a lot to be admired in the Persona games but for the most part 90% of them is like banging your head against a wall for hours on end. If the other 10% wasn't so good I doubt I'd have bothered.

Retr0gamer · 17-05-2012 12:47am

Don't really get that at all. Found as a social sim they were great with some lovely writing. As a dungeon crawler as well they were excellent and it was nice to actually have a game that was challenging. I never had to grind in them either. Sure I lost a lot of progress if I played badly or pushed myself too far but never felt I was going into dungeons just to rack up levels.

Mindkiller · 17-05-2012 1:06am

I didn't need to 'grind' for any bosses, but what I meant was that the whole game itself feels like a grind. Something cool happens at every full moon but the rest of the month is taken up with going to school and stuff. Tartarus drove me nuts. At least in Persona 4 each dungeon was unique and had something to say about each character.

I found the social links extremely dull and ended up x-ing through some of them after a while, speed-reading them. One or two stood out, like the Dying Young Man. But mostly it just felt like another way to grind. Plus there's too much of a disconnect between what goes on in those scenes and how the characters interact with you in the story.

The game's story is very good, better than Persona 4. But you have to do an awful lot of dull crap to get to those parts. If there's a Persona 5 I might just hold on and see if Giantbomb do an endurance run of it. Or better yet, maybe they'll ditch the high-school social link stuff and do something else with it.

Retr0gamer · 17-05-2012 1:17am

I really enjoyed the social links, probably more than the dungeon crawling. Really hope they don't get rid of it and doubt they will.

I also liked Tartarus. If you go into an SMT game expecting a breezy JRPG in the vain of FF you are going to be disappointed. SMT games are closer to the old WRPGs like Wizardry or even Rogue likes.

Mindkiller · 17-05-2012 1:27am

I beat Nocturne/Lucifer's Call ages before this so I know how challenging they can be. This was much easier. The only bit that really gave me trouble was the second block when your AI-controlled allies are at their most useless.

That's another stupid thing with this game. The whole AI battle system is so unintuitive and they give you almost no control over it. I found it impossible to stop Junpei from attacking the final boss in its repel-physical form and killing himself unless I put him in 'stand by', but then he just wouldn't attack when the shield was removed. I know they fixed it with the PSP version but I can't get why they thought that was a good idea to begin with.

Anyway, out of the three SMT games I've beaten this goes in the bottom. Persona 4 is much better in near enough every respect bar the story, though I much preferred its characters. Lucifer's Call is a much better RPG than either of them even if it's a little obtuse for the first 15 hours or so. Maybe I should go look at DDS now.

Retr0gamer · 17-05-2012 2:40am

I really didn't mind the AI battle system until the end game when the characters got break spells and used them in stupid situations. Up to that point I had no problems with it. I suppose if you start with Persona 4 though and go back to it it can seem absolutely crazy but from my point of view starting with P3 it worked quite well.

noodler · 17-05-2012 9:58am

Mindkiller wrote: »

Beat Persona 3 FES a minute ago. At least, I think I beat it but after I killed what can only be the big bad they still have me going to school. I'm too tired to watch what happens next, but I hope it doesn't pull another big demon out of its ass like Persona 4 did.

Overall I found it a really tepid grind, even more so than Persona 4. There's a lot to be admired in the Persona games but for the most part 90% of them is like banging your head against a wall for hours on end. If the other 10% wasn't so good I doubt I'd have bothered.

Mindkiller wrote: »

I didn't need to 'grind' for any bosses, but what I meant was that the whole game itself feels like a grind. Something cool happens at every full moon but the rest of the month is taken up with going to school and stuff. Tartarus drove me nuts. At least in Persona 4 each dungeon was unique and had something to say about each character.

I found the social links extremely dull and ended up x-ing through some of them after a while, speed-reading them. One or two stood out, like the Dying Young Man. But mostly it just felt like another way to grind. Plus there's too much of a disconnect between what goes on in those scenes and how the characters interact with you in the story.

The game's story is very good, better than Persona 4. But you have to do an awful lot of dull crap to get to those parts. If there's a Persona 5 I might just hold on and see if Giantbomb do an endurance run of it. Or better yet, maybe they'll ditch the high-school social link stuff and do something else with it.

I could not agree more.

The games could do with some editing imo.

Mindkiller · 17-05-2012 12:54pm

Retr0gamer wrote: »

but from my point of view starting with P3 it worked quite well.

But it didn't work well at all. I had actually started with Persona 3 first but my PS3 yellow-lighted after 20 hours so that's why it took me so long to beat it. I still found it ridiculous the first time around as well. AI battle systems only work when the player can intervene at any point, which you can't in Persona 3. FFXII and FFXIII did it far better.

The 'heal/support' tactic was the worst. Aigis would use -kaja buffs as soon as her own buff ran out while everyone else's was still on, wasting a turn. They would use Diarahan when mediarama would have worked better, diarahan when hardly any health was lost etc. I didn't like how if you set them to 'knock down' they would do just that and 'wait' if they couldn't knock down the enemy. It's just such an annoying game.

Retr0gamer · 17-05-2012 3:20pm

Still don't think it was as bad as you are making out. Found the AI perfectly fine until the end game really. The 'knock down' thing makes sense as well since if you are going for a complete knock down you don't want the character to attack knocking the enemy out of knock down state. As for the heal/support command, if you fought the higher level enemies then this makes sense as well. When fighting them you have to make sure every one has status buffs on every turn, otherwise you are screwed. The AI tactics commands are only really to get you out of a bind of else for the tough bosses otherwise I found the auto fighting was ok. Sure it made a mistake every so often but it really wasn't that prevailant. I can see how some people can get annoyed if they expect complete control over their characters but I just saw it as another take on the same battle system were you were pretty much predicting what the other characters would do.

Mindkiller · 17-05-2012 4:26pm

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Still don't think it was as bad as you are making out. Found the AI perfectly fine until the end game really. The 'knock down' thing makes sense as well since if you are going for a complete knock down you don't want the character to attack knocking the enemy out of knock down state.

But the problem with this is that you can only change the command when it's the party leader's turn. And then you're doubly screwed if he's out of action. You might find as well that you don't want knock-down on, but you can do nothing about it. Generally speaking there's always at least one or two enemies that aren't knocked down that could just as easily be attacked for some damage without getting in the way of an all-out attack, but the game doesn't seem to realise it.

It doesn't cycle the buffs properly either. Everyone's rakakuja could be gone but Aigis would still go ahead and cast a sukukuja that would affect only her. Using crappy medicines late in the game is annoying as well. I couldn't just sell them all either as I was stuck in Tarturus.

Mitsuru uses mind charge way too much as well. Half the time her mind charge was wasted on a diarahan.

Retr0gamer · 17-05-2012 4:49pm

Mindkiller wrote: »

But the problem with this is that you can only change the command when it's the party leader's turn. And then you're doubly screwed if he's out of action. You might find as well that you don't want knock-down on, but you can do nothing about it. Generally speaking there's always at least one or two enemies that aren't knocked down that could just as easily be attacked for some damage without getting in the way of an all-out attack, but the game doesn't seem to realise it.

I liked that about it though, you had to plan out properly knowing that there's 3 other peoples goes before you can make a change to the strategy. Persona 4's method was definitely preferable but I enjoyed it and it was something different. I think I was just a bit more accepting of the random element and saw it as a challenge unliek yourself. It's understandable.

Mindkiller wrote: »

It doesn't cycle the buffs properly either. Everyone's rakakuja could be gone but Aigis would still go ahead and cast a sukukuja that would affect only her. Using crappy medicines late in the game is annoying as well. I couldn't just sell them all either as I was stuck in Tarturus.

Mitsuru uses mind charge way too much as well. Half the time her mind charge was wasted on a diarahan.

Agree although I found these were late game problems and by that time I was steamrolling Tartarus so it wasn't affecting me as much.

Mindkiller · 17-05-2012 5:03pm

Retr0gamer wrote: »

I liked that about it though, you had to plan out properly knowing that there's 3 other peoples goes before you can make a change to the strategy. Persona 4's method was definitely preferable but I enjoyed it and it was something different. I think I was just a bit more accepting of the random element and saw it as a challenge unliek yourself. It's understandable.

But then it becomes a case where you're fighting with the battle system itself rather than the enemies. Sometimes it feels like you're babysitting a bunch of idiots. There's no effective way of responding to an enemy's attack. You just have to set your commands and try and predict what might happen, hoping that your allies wont do something too retarded. I'm disappointed because Lucifer's Call did the same type of battle system much better, and that game is ancient. It was a genuine challenge, not an artificial one.

Anyway, I finished the last bit off earlier. Had a look at the Answer and I don't think I'll be playing it. Aigis was my least favourite of the characters in Journey and I don't feel like starting from scratch with my personas.

Retr0gamer · 17-05-2012 5:28pm

Mindkiller wrote: »

But then it becomes a case where you're fighting with the battle system itself rather than the enemies. Sometimes it feels like you're babysitting a bunch of idiots. There's no effective way of responding to an enemy's attack. You just have to set your commands and try and predict what might happen, hoping that your allies wont do something too retarded.

I never felt I was fighting the battle system though. Thought there was a lot of strategy to the fights, not just from the press turn system but also from the rogue-like esque resource conservation issues. The AI pretty much did what I wanted it to do until the end game when it no longer mattered. I much prefer it to the auto battle system in FFXII since it kept you more on your toes.

FLOODY777 · 17-05-2012 6:35pm

I've just started Persona 3 Portable. Have any 'problems' from the original version been ironed out for this version? Eg. The AI etc. mentioned in the last few posts?

What JRPG are you currently playing?

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