JRPG thread

I serously love JRPGs, especially ones that really feel like an adventure, with a lot of secrets. I think one of my all time favourites are Skies of Arcadia. I am on the fence whether I should play Dragon quest 8 or Wild arms alter code F next. I played Wild arms 1 about 1.5 years ago and i really liked it. I started playing Dragon quest 8 several years ago, but I dropped it. Feel fre to talk about any JRPGs you like.

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Obligatory

Cant find my Wild arms infograph if someone will post it

The fan translation of the 3ds remake of the first Dragon Quest Monsters was just released.

gbatemp. net/threads/translation-dragon-quest-monsters-terrys-wonderland-3d.431204/

The PSP version of Valkyrie Profile should be removed from the infographic. It is shit, the resolution is wrong so the sprites and art looks awful, and it has awful slowdown and frame rate issues the PSX version does not have.

Just get a PSXtoPSP eboot.

Radiant Historia is good.

...

I've actually just started playing through Skies of Arcadia for the first time. It's pretty fun so far. I've just gotten through the intro.

It does bother me how many JRPGs have German translations but still stick with the English voice acting. Tales of Symphonia is particularly bad about this, because of how much voice acting it has.

Kill yourself.

Tell me about the jrpg man, why does he grind?

Cause he doesn't want to play video games that take actual skill.

I don't like JRPGs and I'm convinced at this point that they are all trash, can anyone recommend me one that will change my view on?

Would that be painful?

Final Fantasy 5, the class system is fun. Also the story does a good job of balancing serious situations and funny ones. The story is more straightforward than the other games in the series, with a clear villian and goal.

extremely so.

I'll put it on my phone, thanks.

And Holla Forums is fucking dead.

Holy shit I've played almost all those games.

I've spent my life well, I can die tomorrow with no regrets.

this

Do the world a favor and kill yourself.

He's a big guy…

You should play the gba version, the android version is garbage.

Ai are you the official spokesman for the world user kun? I think I can still enjoy living for another 15 years sorry.

Sad part is they can't even see it.

Anyone else here has played both the PS1 and SNES version of tales of phantasia? I actually preffer the SNES version. There is something about it I feel, a certain charm, that the PS1 version lacks.
(Let's not even talk about the GBA version. The mobile version just fills me with rage.)

Feels good to see my stuff get posted around.

I've considered revamping it, since people have pointed out the old half/vg/ one has some notable issues, and with access to larger filesizes here I figure more than 45 games could be included. Strikes me that it might be difficult to get consensus though, given how JRPGs in general are a bit love it or hate it in general (I assume the half/vg/ one was made specifically among the posters in JRPG General at the time), and certain games can be rather hit or miss in general even among series fans, despite being technically solid (Tales of the Abyss being a good example).


From what I've seen, the PS1 version is the easier to go back to of the two (and once the NDX bundled version is fan-translated, that will likely displace the PS1 version), but I will agree that the SFC original has a particular charm to it, and if one wants to go back and see the series from the very beginning, still has reason to be played even if not all that refined compared to later versions. Shame that DeJap wasn't exactly the most professional of fan-translation groups.

Also, while I certainly don't dislike Fujishima's art (despite being prone to same-facing characters), looking at Inagaki's old work for the SFC version before he left is pretty neat too. Makes me wonder why he left, or perhaps why they got rid of him, whatever the case was.

I like them both, but for some reason I prefer the SNES version too. I can't put my finger on why, though. Maybe the 100% 2D graphics, and by extension the atmosphere, just appeal to me more.

Plenty of decent stuff not even on there, you know. Not sure why they even chose a nine by five set up for the image, since that's rather limiting, but there was admittedly the included pastebin for further games.


I've found Wild Arms ACF pretty enjoyable, but from what I've seen from discussion with other fans, it's a fair bit hit or miss (admittedly the translation quality not exactly being better than the original, despite LONG delay on Agetec's end, doesn't exactly help matters). Also the most expensive game in the series, along with Wild Arms 5, in my experiences (I at least got my copy cheap).

Some ACF location art I found looking for something for an user in the last JRPG thread.


I would assume for PAL releases, there might be technical issues with including (I'd guess) four or five different languages in audio (hell, there's been occasions where US released games meant to have dual audio saw a good chunk of the original Japanese audio cut to make room for the English dubbing; AT2, for example, where the missing audio was part of what prompted people to look into what other changes were made, resulting in an entire retranslation effort). Meanwhile, text itself is pretty small in filesize compared to stuff like images or audio, so I'd expect there's very little issue with having fit four or five different text translations into a game, compared to the same amount of voiced dubs.

You're a good guy and likely the Wild ARMS bro.

Loved this one but are any of the other Arc the Lad games worth playing?

Read the spoiler text. up there. Yes.

Again, the biggest issue would likely be just trying to get input and consensus. I don't mind adding love it or hate it games there if they're solid enough, but not every game or series is for everyone, and I get the feeling even various worthy games would wind up seeing a fair amount of post-image release complaints (if there's something I've learned from experience, people are more prone to voice issues after the fact, rather than beforehand).


I've generally heard pretty decent things about the PS1 games when they've been brought up. Might be worth mentioning though that they were handled here by Working Designs, so it wouldn't surprise me if there was some rewriting or now-dated pop culture shout-outs in places.

I don't know what hurts more. The fact that the best way to play it is through Dolphin or the fact that it being on two shitty selling consoles killed it and it's sequel. I wish SEGA would make a PC port for it so they can rake in that Steam cash and be convinced to revive the sequel.

The PS1 game, or rather game collection, is very good if you like TRPGs.

Come to think of it, why didn't Sega port it to the PS2 instead of the GC? There's no practical reason I can think of.

Sage for double post.

Not sure. Maybe Nintendo asked them directly, wanting to be able to add another JRPG to the rather small amount the Gamecube had compared to the PS2? But I suppose it was at least better handled than some of its fellow RPG ports off of the Dreamcast. Grandia II to the PS2 for example, or the Gamecube ports of Evolution I and II (I hear they had to basically abridge Evolution I to retain enough disc space for Evolution II).


I've wondered if maybe someone at Sega, knowing how prone to being hit or miss they are, has declined on making a sequel under the idea they might not make something able to match the original, or that would live up to fan expectations. I'm a bit surprised the game hasn't been ported around more though.

At least Sega seems happy to acknowledge the series a fair bit though, with cameos and making characters like Vyse playable in other stuff. Same can't be said for various other franchises that get left by the way-side once they stop being made, and their publishers couldn't care less about keeping awareness up.

I have no clue. According to wikipedia there was a PS2 port and even a Windows port in development alongside the GC port. I think the initial poor sales of the GC port and the cancelling of the sequel(and eventually Overworks being absorbed by SEGA) had something to do with it.

I want those cameos to actually add up to something someday. We've been seeing a recent trend of dormant IPs being brought back to life and I'd love to see Skies of Arcadia get such treatment. I want Skies of Arcadia to be more than the F-Zero of SEGA. (It does make me happy though that Vyse and Aika show up in the Valkyria Chronicles anime though)

So I'm looking to play the Phantasy Star RPG's from the Genesis and I can either go for the Genesis collection for the PS2 or the 360. Which one would be recommended or are they the same?

Any version of Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection has all four of the main PS game, even the first one on the Master System, but you have to unlock it first by beating the first boss in Sonic 2 with two players for some reason.

You mean "PS3" instead of "PS2", right? I think the PS3/360 one has been the only Genesis collection (in the west anyhow) with all four games on it, though I could be wrong.

I assume the ports over the years that the west has seen reuse the official translations, and considering I've seen something along the lines of the original releases getting retranslation patches or something, it might be something to consider playing them that way instead (I think the PS2 remakes of PSI and II have been fan-translated as well, though I'm not sure where they stand in quality). But take that with a grain of salt, admittedly it's a series I still have in my backlog.


Yeah, I've been hoping stuff like the cameo items in Soul Sacrifice, newly-made official art for the anniversary, and news articles over the last few years might lead to a new Wild Arms game myself, but there's been nothing thus far. I wouldn't say it's impossible for Skies of Arcadia to see some love in the future, but it might be wise not to get your hopes up too much. Plus, I know there's some anons that would argue it better for beloved games/franchises to stay dead if it means sudden new entries tainting the name with modern standards for gameplay or translation quality.

Still, if you have social media, maybe shitpost the idea at Sega's twitter, and ask Sonic if Vyse has plans to get up to anything anytime soon.

There was a collection released for the PS2 and another released on the PS3/360.


That's odd but I looked again and the collection for the PS2 is missing the first phantasy star. I was really going into this for IV since that's the one that keeps popping up on recommendation lists.

I know they had a collection released for the PS2 that didn't have as many games total on it, just thought you were specifically meaning the multiplat one on the PS3 and 360.

Something else funny for you as far as Phantasy Star and rereleases go: the GBA Phantasy Star Collection has Phantasy Star I, II, and III, but not Phantasy Star IV. I'm not sure how much room Phantasy Star IV would have likely taken in comparison to the others individually (if the combined filesize was the reasoning behind its absence), but it seems a bit odd to choose to include the game people aren't really fond of (Phantasy Star III, from what I've seen in discussion anyhow) over the one people seem to consider one of the best in the series. I think I've heard that collection had other problems as well, but I'm not certain off the top of my head.

IV is kind of a catch-22. On one hand it's good for newcomers because it's the easiest one to play if you're only used to more modern RPGs, but on the other hand a lot of the story's punch doesn't really hit you if you haven't played the the previous games(or at least the first two. PS 3 doesn't have much to do with the rest of the series, outside of a single missable line from an NPC.) I guess you could just read a synopsis of the PS 1 and 2. It's not the same, but it's enough to help you get all the references and understand the whole arc and themes of the series.

Good to know. Thanks.

Any idea on how much of an improvement playing with the fan-retranslations are, or how the PS2 remakes of PSI and II compare to the originals?

Other than that I have played 90% of those and 90% of those I haven't finished
Surprised not one Etrian Odyssey is on it, though.

Wild ARMS 1 had a huge impact on my childhood (Rudy is my all time favorite JRPG protag), but beyond 3 and ACF (3 was okay, but never finished it, and ACF changed so many things that I hated it) I never tried any of the others.

Might eventually give 3 another shot, and try playing 2 at some point. Is 5 worth giving a try as well?

Again, for whatever reason half/vg/ decided on a forty-five game cap for those, and I figure it had to have ceased seeing work sometime in late 2012, given the mention of Persona 4 having the Vita port and Xenoblade Chronicles being the latest original release. They did have them mentioned in the pastebin link though (so for whatever reason, they simply didn't make the cut for the actual image), and JRPGG's more indepth google doc had them too (though EO3's description is still completely blank after all these years).


I found Wild Arms 3 to be really good. It's really long too, and uses a somewhat tweaked version of WA2's mechanics. As for Wild Arms 5, I found it rather enjoyable, but it's rather love it or hate it among fans, a number of which seem to disregard anything after WA3 or ACF (where exactly depends on the person) as trash. As mentioned in the image though, while stand alone, it also serves as an anniversary game celebrating the series, so you'd probably get the most from it after playing more of the prior titles.

I can only imagine that porting from the 360 to PC is too expensive and complicated.

IIRC Microsoft owns the Lost Oddysey IP so it's not completely impossible. Mistwalker itself is pretty much dead.

But the game is kinda niché so I wouldn't hold my breath for a Lost Oddysey remaster any time soon.

What was up with Mistwalker opting to ignore making any of their games for Sony systems? I mean, I know Sony's got their issues, and at least with Nintendo you could say they still hit the occasional JRPG fan with stuff like The Last Story, but Sony's home consoles have generally been the place that got a lot of JRPG focus since the PS1. Just seems like making stuff like Lost Odyssey 360 exclusive, you'd miss a LOT of potential people that would buy and play it that might not have seen reason to get a 360. Did Microsoft and Nintendo toss money at them for various projects or something?

Not sure if they're dead yet (according to wikipedia they've apparently got some unnamed game they're working on with one Silicon Studio on), but they seem to have fallen into mobile dev hell, the way some other companies like Matrix Software have (Matrix actually pulled themselves out and made a Vita exclusive dungeon crawler, though only time will tell if they fall beg into being port bitch for Square).

Microsoft money hatted a lot of Japanese games in the beginning of last gen. Also the founder of Mistwalker had personal problems with the CEO of Sony.

I see. Never really followed what went on at Mistwalker much. How many other JRPGs on the 360 remained exclusive that weren't multiplat from the start, just Lost Odyssey and Blue Dragon (the latter of which saw its sequels go to the DS instead)? I don't exactly count Tales of Vesperia anymore between the extended PS3 port and its fan-translation, but I suppose it's an odd case of being in English on two platforms but only officially released in English on one.

Gonna respect a guy, who refuses a lot of potential money because he hates the moneygiver's guts.

But it's even the case for German-exclusive releases, like Tales of Symphonia, which had a different release per language, rather than the typical PAL multi-language release.

If I die before there is a Golden Sun 4, I'm going to kill myself.

...

I haven't played the remakes, but the fan-retranslation of Phantasy Star 1 improves things significantly.


Come now, user, there are far better DQ girls than Jessica. Like Bianca for example As long as you don't read the horse cock doujins.

You can in the 3DS remake, too bad the localization is gonna be shit even if you ignore the accents.

Yeah, those 2-button hack and slashes you underages grew up on are far superior to something that might actually want you to stop and think.

I honestly have to wonder if Camelot even wanted to make a third game, considering how a lot of the changes seemed to be done knowing they'd irk prior fans.


How often does a game's release see an actual audio redub out there? Just curious.


Alright, I'll look into patching up the first and second games, I suppose. Do you know if they use the JP or NA release as the base game file to patch?

What is the Mount and Blade of JRPGs?

Might be worth posting some recent fan-translation news:

Absolute Zero September progress report:


Also looks like a Tactical RPG for the Sega Genesis, Vixen 357, has been fan-translated as of last week or so.

Something you can go back to infinitely, with a limitless amount of content… probably Disgaea, courtesy of Item Worlds.

I choose to believe that one day Camelot will remake GS1 and 2 as one game on the NX and it will be fantastic. I also want Golden Sun 4, but I agree, it's like they intentionally fucked up GS3 to make sure no one would ask for another.

Still been working at trying to make something I'm working on a bit easier on the eyes. Anyone got an opinion on whether Sample 2 here is easier to read than Sample 1? I tried to pare some of the individual stuff down a bit though I suppose there's still the issue that they're not exactly "bullet point" friendly.


It just seems a bit odd. I mean, given that they were probably best known prior for the Shining series, you'd think they might feel RPGs were their forte. Instead, most of what they've done since leaving Sega behind has been sports related, Golden Sun aside. Not sure if that's a sign that they don't want to work on RPGs much anymore, or if Nintendo simply wants them to keep pumping out sports titles for them.

Given how many there are I'm tempted to believe the Mario Sports titles are easy money, while RPGs are a harder sell. Still disappointing, though - any studio could make a Mario Sports title pretty easily. It seems like perfect material for handing to an up-and-coming second-party studio, leaving Camelot free to do something of their own volition.

I've told you this before: 90% of that text does not need to be there. The Judgement ring can be explained by a simple image and three sentences explaining what each color on the ring means.

Use the Irish method of editing: keep rewriting it, reducing the word count each time.

Star Ocean 3's story wasn't that bad compared to 4 and 5… kinda wished they stopped at 3…

I'll still love the series to death but dam am I not looking forward to the next one, if they ever decide to do another one…

...

Depends on the kind of game. Most WRPGs do. A lot of JRPGs don't (though I haven't played many from after console gen 6). Most western games in general, especially bigger-budget ones, have German dubs.

They only seem to handle the tennis and golf ones too, as opposed to the soccer and baseball ones.

Also surprises me a bit to find out they developed Beyond the Beyond, which I can't say I've heard much good about at all.


I'll give it another run through then and see what I can or can't purge. And part of the issue with trying to have an image explain the Judgment Ring is that depending on the action, different colored sections are used. I don't think there's a single ring that has every component on it, so if I did go that route, it would probably take multiple images to properly explain.


Yeah, I assume that was made before Wolf Team had settled on what names to call them, and I suspect Inagaki decided to have a bit of fun with filler names. Still hilarious though.

Bebedora was pretty cool.

Huh, well, considering how often Europe and PAL areas have gotten the shaft, it wouldn't surprise me that PAL localization teams (for Japanese original game, anyhow) aren't exactly willing to make extra effort beyond the text (or at least doing Britbong dubs for some games where a NA release was uncertain, like Xenoblade Chronicles), but even then I've heard they can be really hit or miss; the French translation for Wild Arms 5 is rather unprofessional from what I've heard, to the point if you were to know French as a primary language and English as a secondary, the English script is still the go-to to play with (I would assume 505 just ported XSEED's script from the NA version).

As for WRPGs, do you mean ones that have seen actual physical release, or is it more digitally released ones? I'd suspect that removing disc space limitations would allow for easier implementation of full length extra dubs, if perhaps bloat the filesizes.

Who else is autistic about playing every game in long running franchises?

I don't know how you're going to get past Destiny 2, or Rebirth for that matter if you're trying to play the series in order. Since you know those titles never made it West.

Pared it down further and added a break between each point to make each stand out, due to having more blank space to work with. Also did the same for the Koudelka section above it for cohesion.


While both have been stuck in fan translation hell, from what I know of it, someone going by the name of lanyn or something (not sure if they use a lowercase "l" or an uppercase "I" for it) over at GameFAQs has a translation scripts, at least for the main stories for both games. Still, it's not the same looking back and forth between a script, and having the text patched right into the game itself.


Depends on length of a series, availability in English, and whether the entry is solid. With Tales, I've played almost all the main series games that are in English, but for the time being have skipped most of the ones we didn't get (I have played Phantasia PS1 though), and haven't exactly played them in order either. With Wild Arms and Shadow Hearts though, the series are (perhaps sadly?) short enough that I've played them in order, every game has been translated, and the latter has the extra reasoning of being a rare JRPG series set in the same world and having a chronology to them where playing out of order would spoil things.

Right here. It's pretty frustrating but I can't seem to help it.

On that note, the official Rebirth effort still hasn't seen an official update since 2013, but according to the forums, they're still working at it. Meanwhile Cless hasn't posted any updates on his site since early 2013 either, and his forum is broke. Can't say if he's been making any progress on Destiny 2, but considering how long he spent on his Phantasia PS1 patch (twelve fucking years), I wouldn't expect Destiny 2 for a LONG time, even if he is still working on it. He did let Absolute Zero pick up Destiny DC (which he was also supposedly working on), so maybe they'll step in for Destiny 2 sometime afterward as well.

Playing in moon, though otherwise I'd just be forced to skip them anyway so I wouldn't feel as bad about it.


Tales aren't connected so logically I should be able to skip but it just bothers me.

Most Tales indeed aren't connected. That said, of he mothership titles, Destiny and Destiny 2 (the actual PS2 sequel, not US Destiny II) are, though they're about (I want to say) two decades apart, Symphonia is a distant prequel to Phantasia by about four millennia if memory serves (and as such can still be played independently), and the Xillia 2 is a sequel to Xillia by a year or so.

Well, Severance was breddy gud and required more than two buttons.

Never forget

So much of the good stuff will never get a western release or even translated. What's the point?

Learn fucking japanese.

There's still plenty of worthwhile stuff that the west has gotten in the past, and the occasional recent release that gets by unscathed, I suppose. But yeah, [CURRENT YEAR] mindset for localization quality has tanked a number of games lately, a good amount having been JRPGs of sorts.

Still kind of hope to one day hear something about Dark Kingdom SFC or Gran Historia getting a translation, as both have sounded rather interesting.

How far in does the story start getting good?
I was promised Lovecraftian horrors.

Actually with the decline of the Japanese market we're seeing more and more Western releases.
And except for Nintendo and Nisa the translations are pretty good.

Xseed TLs Falcom games, Tales games are finally dual audio and Gust keeps making Atelier games.
The game industry isn't all bad.

I do wish TK was more willing to do physical Vita releases of Gust's stuff, and not use NISA as the distributor (though thankfully that's all NISA can do with the games anymore).

Speaking of more recent JRPGs, anyone know if Aksys has posted anything preview-wise for Exist Archive besides the game's opening (which as of the preview seemed to have the music replaced) at this point in time? While I'd like to think they'd do a decent job with it (Muramasa Rebirth turned out pretty good), I've heard enough about some of their other games to be a bit leery of them, and it would be nice if there was at least something people could compare lines over with the original Japanese or something, as opposed to it being left a surprise. Was hoping XSEED would have picked it up, but I suppose there's far better chance of it turning out alright from Aksys than, say, NISA.

Might as well learn how to read Finnegan's Wake. One just cannot into moonrunes.

Spoiler: It doesn't get truly good until Eternal Punishment

A big factor is also that most people in Germany (especially the ones playing video games) already speak at least some English anyway. It probably would be different otherwise. If most people in America spoke some Japanese, I imagine that they probably wouldn't go through the trouble of dubbing most things.

Both. A lot of those games are German localizations specifically, or let you get German language packs. It's easier with digital distribution. It's more dependent on what company is putting it out than the medium.

I don't like them as much anymore.
When I had a super nintendo is was amazing that you could pack so much text and story into the game and I loved reading it.

Now I see how badly written and trite it all is, and I see them as a failure to evolve. I don't want to read a kids story slowly. If they could find a way to axe the story or simplifying them drastically it would be more bearable, but then the combat hasnt aged either and you can almost always just spam attack and use the corresponding elemental magic, healing occasionally. They autoplay themselves. It was all an illusion. I really liked them too.

IS picks up once you get Jun
EP hits the ground running and maybe twenty minutes

*takes maybe

Most Jrpgs don't give me that impression, and i played most of them for the first time as an adult.

I think the only one that did was Grandia, and i know that was a translation that was criticised.

Same, I've been playing through most of the ones I've picked up as an adult myself (think Pokemon and Golden Sun are the only ones I'd say I played as a kid/teen) and I really don't mind, maybe because I'm not exactly looking for realism and more focused on fun characters and interesting worlds.

Or maybe I'm just not burned out on them yet, I don't know.

3's story is mostly hated because it made is seem like nothing that had happened in the 1, 2, and the first half of 3 mattered because none of it was real(IIRC, they said in 3 that the entire story of 2 was just some hackers raiding a server.) It through everything fans had become attached to out the window. You're right about it being better than the stories in 4 and 5, though.

I'm not sure what the hell they were thinking with DQ's recent direction

In what way, constant remakes? DQXI looks interesting.

DQXI certainly LOOKS nice, and I'm definitely looking forward to it, but we still know next to nothing about it.

thanks, needed this

Maybe he's referring to how Dragon Quest IX and X had multiplayer focuses, or something? Admittedly I haven't been following XI's development much, so I'm not sure if they're carrying that forward or if it's a more standard entry.

DQXI for the 3DS is simultaneously "modern" (top screen) and retro (bottom screen).

That's only for the beginning of the game. After that, you can only have one style active at a time.

Retro all the way, as I imagine most will.

Was going to ask if the bottom screen was effectively just a map of sorts, the way some DS games have handled things. What's it replaced by after the beginning, the menu?

Neat that they're trying to appeal to both fans of classic and modern graphical styles.

...

I have to wonder, do you think Sega even still has the source code or whatever for Skies of Arcadia? I've seen speculation that them having lost the source code for Panzer Dragoon Saga was part of why that one never got ported anywhere; wouldn't shock me if Sega might have lost it for Skies of Arcadia after the Legends release.

Playing through Wild Arms 2.

good to know the creators have good taste.

Wild Arms and Trigun have interesting relationship. From what I've heard, Trigun was heavily influenced by Wild Arms 1, and Wild Arms 2 was in turn heavily influenced by Trigun.

There's also that black cat milling around Meria Boule. Though due to differences in release frame, the shout-outs were likely a bit lost in the US at the time (Trigun not coming out here officially until some years after WA2).

Reminder to be careful when choosing Personal Skills, as in WA2 they are permanently acquired and some have cumulative stat boosts based on how many levels its been since you acquired them (IE: early acquisition = high boosts in the long run).


The release dates certainly line up for that to work (WA1 releaseing in 1996 in Japan, Trigun starting in 1997 Japan, and WA2 in 1999 Japan). I assume direct confirmation of the trail of inspiration is likely in some Japan-only material or something (Fargaia Chronicles, maybe?), as the most I can find on it are mentions on Wild Arms wiki, which in part states that the devs have mentioned they threw Kuroneko-sama into WA2 as direct homage.

I heard it on Holla Forums. It may all be a like, like that guy who claimed he had definitive proof that SE was going to announce a new Chrono game at last year's E3.

*a lie

Would help if Wild Arms wiki would source stuff, but given how niche the series is, some topics still doesn't have proper, indepth pages. Contrast with how Aselia wiki goes all out with character pages, complete with equipment, skill lists, title lists, arte lists, equipment and item lists, etc for Tales games.

Other issue being that additional materials besides the games themselves (and strategy guides, I suppose) rarely come west, and XSEED's 10th Anniversary artbook for the series doesn't contain developer interviews or design notes (though it did have character bios in English for people that hadn't played the prior entries to know who the cameo characters in WA5 were). The Japan only Fargaia Chronicles book focused on Wild Arms, Wild Arms 2, and Wild Arms: Twilight Venom since those were the entries the series had at the time, hence why I'd wonder if it might contain that information. No one's bothered to fully scan it, let alone translate it though (I've seen a few individual pages from time to time, like pic related of memory serves).

On that note, I've got another official looking image like that that I found a while back providing bios for those two kids that idolize Ashley. I'll see if I can run the text through Google translate; if it mentions Marvel or anything Marvel related as reason for their naming, then I'd say it's a safe bet the book would include mention of the Trigun shout outs.

Can someone suggest me some JRPGs with sci fi settings? Preferably for the PS2.

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How's the grinding? Does it have any post game content?

Going off google's translation, it doesn't directly mention Marvel for either, but the translations of their listed titles of "President" and "Leader" respectively work reasonably well as shoutouts to their namesakes (beyond just the names themselves). Not real sure how big Marvel is in Japan, but Media.Vision was apparently quite aware of them. Of course, this is like half the page in the image. Looking around some, I found the rest of the page in a photograph, but naturally it's hard to read due to the spine bending the pages and the camera not being dead on. Looks like the rest was just "case files" involving the Young ARMS (as the US version of the game calls the boys collectively).

Anyhow, looking around more specifically, Wikipedia mentions clear influence from Trigun on Kaneko's work with the series (it actually does cite Fargaia Chronicle as the source), but it doesn't mention a specific game (WA1 couldn't have been influenced by something not out yet), and doesn't list a "Wild Arms -> Trigun -> Wild Arms 2" inspiration chain, the way Wild Arms wiki implies ("Indeed, the two have a few hidden cross-references between them here and there. The creators of Trigun were fans of Wild Arms, and the creators of Wild Arms 2 were fans of Trigun…" from their page on Vash the Stampede).

The real question is, which JRPG has the best soundtrack?

Deepest Lore.

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The average gamer can't read and has concentration problems. That's why JRPGs are an acquired taste.
They're also not very social.

Gamers a shit.

TotS was half of a good game. That half was Darc's story. The other half, Kharg, was a lame shadow of Darc's game.

Even the music during Darc's half of the game was better.

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Chrono Cross. Too bad the game itself is hit or miss.

PSX era Matsuda is him at his best.

Alright I need some suggestions for some action JRPGs. Preferably something with exploration, single character/no party and pre 7th gen.

Also some dank ass low polygon 3D would be nice.

vagrant story?

Suggest anything, assume I haven't played any games

Terranigma

ID might have changed, I don't know.


You should hear his (and Hirota's) work with Shadow Hearts if you haven't yet. Not PS1 era, but still really damn good. Not sure why he didn't stick around for FtNW.


Meanwhile, apparently Tony was popular enough to warrant being an NPC in every Wild Arms game, albeit not being the same character/design each time (in XF his name was given to an animal). I suppose he became a bit of a legacy name, the way some series are fond of having different incarnations of a character share the same name.


Yeah, I suppose JRPGs aren't for everyone, and even among the multitude out there, they range from mainstream (for a JRPG anyhow) to pretty niche (even compared to other JRPGs).

There's a few like Tales or the older Mana titles that have the potential for it due to allowing for co-op play. Shame it hasn't been a more popular thing to attempt to try, though I suppose it works much better for real time combat ones compared to turn-based.

ys series

MOTHER 3

For all 2 of you that secretly own an Xbone, Lost Odyssey went BC on it awhile.

Tony is in WA1 in the same role as the remake.

ok i wasnt too upset by it but all ive seen are people bitching about it everywhere and how stupid it was, how the fuck did it get on recommended?

The gameplay is actually fairly decent, but the story is rage inducingly bad.

Sounds reasonable.

Also to the anons posting shadow heartsshit in here, fuck yeah, shit is my favorite JRPG series

Lunar 1 and 2. It doesn't matter what versions you play, they're all good.

It's become a favorite of mine as well. While it's certainly seen some love from anons over the years (big part of why I looked into it myself was seeing it brought up from time to time back in the day on halfchan), I still think it goes rather underplayed, so I do my best to try to keep awareness of it up.


Right, forgot whether or not he was named in the original.


As mentioned before, that was an image made by half/vg/. Wouldn't surprise me if what's considered worthy of recommendation changes over time; I remember back towards the end of my time in the JRPG general there, people would rag on that image for having included various games.

I love you bro but we've talked about this before.

What about the PSP versions?

Only Lunar 1 got the PSP treatment. I haven't played it, but from what I've heard it's alright. It's probably just as viable as any other version, but be sure to play some version of Lunar 2 if you go that route. It's the better of the two games(though Lunar 1 is still very good.)

I know, and I suppose it's more on the reader if they want to go through all that info or just play blind (plus I will admit I've gone full autist with both these and the Wild Arms graphics; probably will do the same for more series in the future). Still, for the time being I'll leave it as a work in progress (yet again). Might force a friend to give it another full looking-over himself since he's taken a good amount of writing classes.


I've heard that, for whatever reason, the PSP version of Lunar opens with a spoiler heavy prologue segment that likely does more harm than good for series newcomers compared to the prior versions without it. I could be wrong though.

Reminder there's a third Lunar and only the vastly inferior Gamegear version will ever be translated.

Rogue Galaxy and Shadow Hearts Covenant are the best JRPGs ever. Fight me

Raidou Kuzunoha vs. King Abaddon fits that perfectly (Soulless Army has all sorts of minor problems that really kill it, though it's playable).


Digital Devil Saga 1+2

Translation never ever. Why aren't you learning Nipponese?

The effort of GBAtemp is still in the works, and is currently on proofreading the script, if memory serves. There's still technical issues they need to work out though. Supposedly they hope to have a finished patch by next year.

At least they keep people kind of up to date on where it stands. I wish the guy working on Sol Trigger would post a fucking update already since he hasn't said shit since January, at least on his site.

It's a good game, but the story is the weakest out of the three one way or another.

I honestly think this is a more mature genre, or a genre you can only truly appreciate as you grow older.

JRPGs are very word, story, and character driven with some investment involved and that generally doesn't appeal much to children who like their gimmicks and instant gratification.

Most of these series were from before most of them were born too. They just don't have the same sympathy for that era and legacy and it's almost always the underaged b& whining about this genre.

JRPGs are pretty long too. Take trails in the sky FC and SC: both of those games take at least 60 hours.

Not everyone wants to invest time into them.

I hate this stupid ass trend. WHEN I GO OUTSIDE I DONT WANT TO PLAY VIDYA YOU STUPID FUCKING JAPS!

WHY THEY HAD TO KILL BOF? WHHHHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY?

Don't forget they reanimated its frozen corpse to make mobile shit. It's not dead anymore, but not exactly alive in a form that any series fan probably wanted to see.


It certainly seemed like a noticeable change of pace in 7th gen,what with the DS and PSP seeing a lot of attention from JRPG devs. I mean, maybe it's just me, but comparing the PS1, PS2, and PS3, it seemed like a drop off in the amount on the latter compared with the former two (with the Wii carrying on the Gamecube's trend of being rather lacking in JRPGs, and the 360 had a smallish library of them; of the three, the PS3 still had the most, but it seemed lacking compared to the PS1 and PS2 JRPG libraries). I suspect the difference in development costs between the PS3 and DS/PSP might have played a role.

Also noticeable around 7th gen how some older series just never quite made the jump to the next gen, at least on consoles, and died off. Seemed like Final Fantasy, Tales, and Atelier were the big ones to stick with the PS3 to a degree (while also dabbling in the DS, PSP, and other systems too). Maybe Star Ocean as well in a way (though I'm honestly a bit surprised that the series got an eventual greenlight to continue, given how people seem to react to SO4).

Doesn't make sense at all.

Well, the DS Lite had pretty decent battery life, and I know I've certainly enjoyed playing lengthy games on handhelds when out at a friend/family member's house, or playing them while in bed. I just recharge them when I get the chance to.

There was certainly the issue to be had in times past of save points needing to be more frequently available for handheld games due to using limited duration batteries instead of constantly being plugged in (which was even more of an issue before systems used actual chargers, and had actual batteries that needed to be replaced every time), but these days sleep modes seem rather common, and I've had it before where my PSP ran out of juice, but after charging it for a few and turning it back on, the game picked up right back where it was when the battery ran out.

Mah nigga

Tip top tier taste.

Having a 50 inch 4k TV playing games on a shitty 3ds or Vita seems… regressive.

Never understood the appeal of handhelds.

Damn you. Don't remind me that we'll never get a new Wild ARMs game.

...

...

It's been lkike that for years.

That fight is so good.

True, but lately they've actually been making more progress (assuming you're talking about SCS3; Sol Trigger guy is self-admittedly lazy on updates). Probably would have been done faster though had the guy that made the original insertion tools either not left or at least left instructions for it.


Not sure I'd say never. Media.Vision seems open to a new entry, Kaneko wants one, and I assume the fans (the ones that don't consider the series dead past WA3, anyhow) want one too. Real issue is if Sony's actually willing to allow for it, as they own the rights to the series, not Media.Vision. One of their higher ups has expressed interest, but there's been nothing solid thus far.

Handhelds are pretty comfy to play when you're lying in bed or want something you can easily pick up and play (turn-based strategy games are perfect for this).

Playing through Wilds Arms 3 has reminded me of two things I hate about the series.

1. Amnesia is still the absolute worst status effect in video game history.

2. The Search function is complete shit. No idea why they ever added it in.

I honestly didn't mind the search function that much, and the good news in regards to it with WA3 is that you can use it on horseback and hold momentum, so it's not so stop and start.

Amnesia is shit though, and if there's any status null that ought to be on everyone at all times, it's Amnesia nullification. Especially with how common it is that post-combat chests have gas traps.

I guess you didn't even pay attention to the story of these games to pull out that bullshit


Literally makes no sense


Believe me or not but in many JRPGs, there is a way to play through at low level is you have the skill, the items, and the stategy necessary


Luck is there in many non-JRPGs as well.


Nothing prevents it from being on PC


Most of them aren't casual, you pulled this up by yourself


Probably the only thing i'll agree, but again no WRPG has the customization at the depths of the original D&D

Tales of Graces f, Hearts R, Xillia, or Xillia 2? Which one is best?

Been playing pic related recently. It's pretty shit tbh, but I keep playing because I think Arnice is qt waifu material and I wanna see if she ends up getting her fingers stinky.

The best thing about handhelds is that they're generally not cluttered with over-produced AAA cine-shit. It tends to be more about the gameplay, and whether or not the game stands on it's own merits. It's also much cheaper to produce games on handhelds, and nobody really expects anything major to catch fire, so developers are more free to experiment.

Gravity Rush is a great example of a game that probably never would have been made if it was pitched for a console release initially, but made a great handheld showcase title and ended up being good enough to ruin with AAA production on a major console.

Since asked, going to drop this here for him.

Has pretty fun combat (game pretty much utilizes the combat system from Destiny PS2, albeit tweaked for a 3D field) with emphasis on hitting weaknesses and rewarding playing well, though some are a bit divided on the flow-chart style to A-artes as compared to the standard mapping system for B-artes. All characters have a mixed physical/magic style to their artes, aside from Asbel who has Sheathed/Unsheathed styles instead. Skits are entertaining as usual, and as characters go Malik and Pascal are some of the most enjoyable the game offers (and makes up some for Asbel and Cheria being rather bland; Hubert and Sophia have their ups and downs). The story is a point of division from what I've seen among anons, even in a series not especially known for all that good of stories.

Utilizes a mixture of the usual Tales TP system combined with CC (called AC in this incarnation) for combat, along with emphasis on linking a player character with an AI (which unfortunately hampers co-op some, since it effectively means only two players can play at once if you plan to utilize linking as intended). Pretty fun, if rather easy (For example, Jude's Snap Pivot personal ability acts as a prompt for a number of buffing skills once set, in addition to avoiding damage, making him more than a bit overpowered) in my experiences. Suffers a bit in the post-game due to being a bit rushed for the series 15th anniversary, leaving just the arena and a single bonus dungeon (which you have to do three times to finish) afterward. If you play this, play Jude's route first, as his exclusive scenes focus more on the actual story, while Milla's route has scenes more about the world itself, and actually is absent for some notable story scenes.

Picks up about a year after the first game. In addition to the returning cast (plus two newly playable characters that had been bosses prior) being fully playable, the protagonist role shifts to Ludger Kresnik, whose mid-combat weapon and arte swapping is pretty neat (he uses swords, handguns, and a sledgehammer). Combat handles much like the previous game (albeit with some rebalances and tweaks), though storywise its a good bit darker in tone, and while not without it’s lighter moments, ultimately feels bittersweet at best. Also has a choice system for various scenes that generally build relationships between Ludger and the rest of the cast (and element remniscient of Symphonia’s relationship system). Ludger being mostly a mute (albeit still expressive) protagonist on a first playthrough, as well as the debt system are points of divide, but on NG+ you can have the option for him to be voiced, and with the latter, if you learn how to properly manage your gald, and the return of Giganto Monsters to hunt for bounties, the debt system becomes only a slight annoyance.

Perhaps I’m a bit biased due to my liking towards the series in general and as such am not being as harsh as others are about them, but the biggest issue I’ve had with the series has been Namco’s trend towards takin content that in the past would have been rewards for doing optional stuff or beating certain challenges, and locking them behind a paywall. Comparing how costumes were handled in Symphonia, Abyss, and Vesperia (where even with the PS3 version having DLC, they still added a lot to the base game itself to obtain), Graces has a noticeable decline to just two full sets for any character that can’t be nicknamed Dick (he gets a single alternate one in game), with Abel, Sophie, and Cheria having a few more. Xillia got even worse with it: there’s only four total alternate costumes across three characters in the game itself; the rest are entirely DLC. Xillia 2 has a fair amount of ingame costumes for Ludger, and the rest of the characters also get both their new and old outfits from the prior game (including Gaius retaining his final boss outfit), but it’s still pretty DLC heavy, albeit DLC costumes bought for Xillia 1 also work with Xillia 2 and don’t need to be rebought.

Counter point: Glass, bronze, bomb.

I'd like to try Xillia but it having been rushed makes me very hesitant. Does Xillia 2 stand well on its own?

Nothing that you won't pick up. Xillia 1's characters all show up as main supporting cast and all have their stories continue from where they were. The new MC has his own story, though, and the old characters aren't as important, ultimately.
If you're willing to put your time and cash into two games, can't hurt to do Xillia 1 and 2. There's some fun stuff in 1 that you'd miss, and the game isn't too ass despite its flaws.

If memory serves, Glass at least has a slight benefit in that spells harmlessly pass through. Though it's still not something you want to have left on you since any physical attack is a one hit kill.


Honestly, Xillia's still pretty enjoyable if you ask me. It just gets a bit rushed near the end and in the postgame, but I still feel it stands on its own. As for Xillia 2, it's for the most part a sequel with a bit of a different focus to it; Xillia 1 doesn't end on a cliff hanger or anything. There are summary logs that are added to the menu as you go on, but it's still not the same as actually going through the first game, seeing characters and how the relate there yourself. by Xillia 2, the prior cast has long since established relations. Might just be my opinion, but I'd recommend going through both (starting with X1 and moving to X2 afterward if you liked that one). Both are pretty cheap these days last I checked (not just on the PSN where they regularly get in sales, but physical preowned copies too) too, so it's not as if you won't feel you're wasting too much.

Alright, I'll give Xillia 1 a chance and see how it goes from there. Thanks for all the info. I needed the reminder that Holla Forums can sometimes deliver.

Oh, and in case you're wondering, there's no need to worry about Xillia 1 having cliffhanger bullshit like some games that get direct sequels see. X2 is a follow up rather than feeling like perhaps the second half of the same game. They also have the same voice cast in English as well, so no need to worry about whether or not they retained the English voices (which is an iffy point for games that see western releases that see direct sequels brought over).

Also meant to ask if these would be your first games in the series or not. If so, it does strike me that they might not be the best places to begin with, though I figure a fair amount of newcomers to the series started there since Namco actually bothered to market for once with Xillia and it paid off.

Second, sort of. I rented Symphonia years ago but never finished.

Symphonia's a pretty good entry point and is more widely available these days due to the PS3 version of the prior Japan only PS2 port coming west, along with being ported to the PC (I think fans fixed the game since the initial Steam release was rather poor to my knowledge, but I might be wrong), as if Eternia (known as Destiny II in the US) and Vesperia. Main issue with the latter two being that aside from emulation, Eternia is hard to officially come by (physical PS1 copies are a good $90-120 where I live, the PSP port was only cleared for English release in Europe thanks to SCEA's rules regarding ports at the time, and there's no PSN version because greedy as Namco is they haven't put it up for easy profit), and unless you have a PS3 with CFW (and as such have access to the fan-translated extended port) Vesperia is officially 360 only in English.

Main reason I don't consider the PS3 ones that good of entry points is that some note having issues going back and playing the earlier ones, as the series does get more refined mechanically as it goes on. You still get pretty good fluidity as far back as Eternia though.

Breath of Fire 3 (widescreen PSP version ) > Breath of Fire 2 (re-translated > Breath of Fire 4 > Breath of Fire > Breath of Fire 5

Give Symphonia another go, first. It has one of the best stories of the series, but the gameplay has aged like milk. The PS3 rerelease is pretty alright, and even includes the sequel on disc hear the sequel is trash, so I never really bothered but you can also get it on PC if you're willing to put up with a near broken game and trying to deal with fan-fixes.

Alright, i guess I'll try to hunt Symphonia down, then move on to Xillia.


Absolutely not. Thank god I still have my PS3. That thing is a real late return on investment, but the returns have been damn good.

Worth mentioning there's some slight differences between the Gamecube original and PS2 port (which the PS3 version is based on). Namely that while the PS2 version has additional content and some technical tweaks, it has a lower combat framerate and apparently worse shadowing than the Gamecube original. Why they didn't just make the PS3 release a definitive version with the pros of both and cons of neither, I don't know, but I suppose either way works out if you're not too picky (I still have my Gamecube one; admittedly haven't given the PS3 one a go). PS3 version also has the original Japanese dub if that's your sort of thing.

And yeah, that's kind of the nice thing about getting into a console late: Ideally it's long out of its "no gaems" period with a decent library, and the games for it should be cheap for the most part (depending on how far past current the system is).

Good to know. It'll probably be the PS3 version since I think I know a guy who'll let me borrow his.


That would've taken actual work and SOME money, user. Why do that when you can get away with being lazy and STILL make money.

I suppose, but it's not like it would require them to make an entire remake (which Namco hasn't exactly been against doing for various entries; see Phantasia, Destiny, Innocence, Hearts, and Narikiri Dungeon, which have all gotten full remakes). I think they'd just have to get around whatever prompted the need for lower combat framerate and shadowing in the prior PS2 version and that would pretty much fix the debate between them. Plus, they actually added some new stuff for the PS3 version anyhow, though I think it was just cameo costumes, some of which were of characters from games after Symphonia (such as giving Raine Pascal's outfit).

Why would you? Are you unable to figure out a strategy?

Started hacking away at this one after finishing VFD, which feels defanged by comparison. Really dig the character creation here, any other JRPGs do this? Usually I'd stick to SRPGs or dungeon crawlers for my fix, so I'm glad to see it here. But I can't really think of anything other than the usual job / class changing systems.

shit list

Help.

I've heard mixed things about it (haven't played it myself; still trying to figure out how to rope a friend in for co-oping some of the older Mana titles), that it's pretty good but also rather buggy (with that being speculated justification for why it was never brought west despite SD1 and Secret of Mana having been brought over, as well as Legend of Mana after it). How much do the bugs drag it down?


My own backlog is tremendous, with a good chunk of it being JRPGs. Best advice I can give is that for longer games, it's best to stick with maybe one or two at a time. I generally try to have one console game and one handheld game as what I actively am playing at a given time. That way you make decent progress over time instead of trying to play a lot at once and making little to no progress through any of it (and in some cases risk starting over because you can't recall what you were doing for that particular game when you left it off).

On the off chance you know Japanese, I suppose it's not an issue, but last I checked, AG hasn't mentioned any progress for anything they've been translating for like a year

Yeah that's what I usually do, one game at a time. Just have more right now because I'm giving Persona 5 a break (all that reading is killing me. Probably wouldn't be a problem if I hadn't been doing this for two years now, I was having fun with all the reading, even in Japanese, up until a couple months ago). At least I should have IV Final done in a day or so, then I think I'll concentrate on Trails until I'm ready for more Persona 5.

Should i play Breath of Fire 3 or FFVII, im new to jrpgs.

Both are considered quite good, but I will say that Breath of Fire III is related to its two predecessors (it's not exactly a direct sequel, but is in same timeline and has returning elements; for example, the mural on the title screen crawl is of the final battle of BoF I), so you might get more out of it playing the prior ones first (BoF I is a bit bland but helps establish things, while BoF II is pretty good as long as you play with the fan retranslation patch). FFVII, meanwhile, is stand alone, at least for its time (it's since spawned related games, like Crisis Core).

Anyhow, if you're actually looking to get into them, I might as well dump some (more or less) copypasta I've made as some advice:

If you want some decent starting places, consider Final Fantasy VI (IV, V, and VII are also rather well liked), Dragon Quest (III, IV, and V tend to be fan favorites), Paper Mario (both the N64 and Gamecube ones; also Super Mario RPG for the SNES, though it’s not quite the same), Mario and Luigi (especially Superstar Saga on the GBA), and Chrono Trigger for Turn-based/ATB systems, and Tales of Eternia/Symphonia/Vesperia (playing through most of the localized games in the series, those have struck me as good starting points) and some of the Mana games if you want real time combat. Also plenty of other series (Baten Kaitos, Breath of Fire, Grandia, Legend of Heroes, Lost Kingdoms, Lufia, Lunar, Mother, Phantasy Star, SaGa, Shadow Hearts, Shin Megami Tensei, Star Ocean, Suikoden, Valkyrie Profile, Wild Arms, etc), as well as standalone games (Infinite Space, Lagrange Point, Radiant Historia, Rogue Galaxy, Skies of Arcadia, Vagrant Story, Xenoblade, Xenogears, etc) if you find yourself liking them. Though that's not to say you need to hold off until you've played the more starter-friendly games above.

Big thing to keep in mind is that there's a lot to pick from (even more if you're willing to look beyond the mainstream for more niche franchises like Atelier and Ar Tonelico, or go for fan translated ones as well, as they're popular to patch into English, even if it takes a long time to translate), and even if one particular series or gameplay style doesn't do it for you, try another one rather than writing them all off.

That’s also not taking into account the swath of tactical JRPGs as well: Dept. Heaven, Disgaea (as well as various other NIS tactical games like Makai Kingdom, Phantom Brave, and Soul Nomad), Final Fantasy Tactics, Fire Emblem, Front Mission, Langrisser & Growlanser, Ogre Battle & Tactics Ogre, Shining Force, Super Robot Wars to name some.


I've gone and downloaded TitS FC and SC for use with my CFW PSP (since my Vita refuses to recognize the download of SC I have on my PS3 I've been trying to transfer to it) myself. Saw something about FC having an undub patch for the PSP version, but I'm having trouble finding if similar exists for SC PSP.

Making a WW2 version for of Shadow Hearts starring Axis affiliated mystics in RPGmaker, how difficult is programming a queue battle system (FFX, Trails) in game maker?

…And of course all three files for TitS (one file for FC, two for SC) register on my PSP as being corrupted when put on there. Fantastic. Too bad emuparadise hasn't bothered to toss SC up on their site, but then again they don't have any recent western PSP releases listed at all (no English Brandish TDR there either) or I'd get them there as they're generally pretty reliable, provided the file extracts properly.

Wonder why that guy deleted his post.

I didn't(hotpockets), thanks for the suggestions. Currently playing BoF1 on snes9x, quite a bunch of puzzles so far.

Huh, wonder what they found bad about it?

Again, BoF1 is a bit bland (and I am NOT a fan of that one tower late in the game, you'll know it when you find it), but sets the ground work. The later entries are better (though Dragon Quarter is decisive), so if you find yourself a bit turned off by the first, don't disregard the later ones.

Latest patch for Breath of Fire II should be v1.2b, I think. The guy that made it even has a program that double checks BoF II SNES roms for compatibility (I guess it's a bit picky) and will remove headers if needed.

GLORY OF FUCKING HERACLES MOTHERFUCKER

I PICKED IT UP IN A BARGIN BIN

IT'S WAY BETTER THEN I THOUGHT IT WAS GONNA BE

i'm starved for good jrpgs god damn

Have you tried any of the rest of the series?

They don't really drag it down much at all from what I remember(though it's been years since I last played the game.)

note that the first party member you pick up is a dick-ass magic thief that happens to be a reverse trap.

And you're in Greece. You're literally traveling to Mt.Olympus to ask why you're immortal

There was an user out there who wanted games with Greek mythology, well here you go. The combat is sweet as fuck as well. Look it up.

Anyone here remember this shit? I played it as a weelad, but I only recall that I spent most of my time autistically playing the bug chess and the factory assembly line minigames.

I hate that upon getting your second pistol, you never see a ballistic weapon again. Bullets > pew lasers tbh. And fuck those ice/platform/shieldbuster pistols you use only once and then sit there rotting in your inventory since they have no practical applications except in some obvious specific spots

Wow

No but after playing through the first hours of this I'm damn certain that I want to.

Apparently it's a popular series in Japan, that's all I really know.

I fucking found a copy in a gamestop for literally 2 dollars and got it because an user recommended it on here. Never underestimate the bargin bin, I once found Rhythm Heaven in there for like 3 bucks.

Yeah, that game really didn't do too well out here. I think the only notable review site that wasn't overly critical of it was RPGfan, with the guy saying it deserved at least being given a chance but seems destined to be overlooked. Anyhow, thanks to that, it's one of the cheaper DS JRPGs to pick up if you care about actual copies (just don't buy from Walmart). I think I got mine for $8 new on Amazon (looks like it's only up to $10 new now and is much cheaper used); still waiting until I give GoH III a go, and supposedly GoH IV is close to competition.

Speaking of which, Nightcrawler actually just posted an update about Gift of the Gods yesterday:

I think it's a wash there, user. Just play what has the gaems.

Glory of Heracles: Labors of the Divine Hero, Glory of Heracles II: Titan's Downfall, and Glory of Heracles III: Silence of the Gods all have English fan translations. There's also some fan translated Game Boy game as well; not sure if it's a port or standalone entry off the top of my head. I've heard that it eventually started as an ancient/mythological Greece themed Dragon Quest clone, but really came into its own with the SFC entries, or something. I don't know for certain.

Surprises me a bit how much translation focus it's gotten for a series where the classics never came west and only one entry came west. For comparison, one of Data East's other JRPG series, Metal Max, still only has one game completely fan translated (it's also a similar case where only a single game was officially brought west, that being Metal Saga for the PS2).

Why are you so fucking retarded, nobody gives a shit about your screen or how many cocks you had to suck to buy it. If you truly don't understand the point of handhelds then you might as well get fucked by a pack of wild niggers.

Picked a copy of that up a while back. Might start it after I finish what I'm currently playing to take a bit of a break from going series to series, considering it's a standalone game.

I still think they could have drawn the protagonist's hair better on the cover art. Something about the way it looks compared to the other two character's hair irks the hell out of me.

This game had some moments but I never finished it, just too fucking cliche, hate the characters and the story

Maybe I wanted it to be skies of arcadia too badly

Are there any good JRPG's on the PS4 yet?

I bet you watch anime on your phone.

Also might I suggest anger management?

PS: I wasn't bragging or anything, you can buy a 4k television for 600 euro.

Tales of Berseria is coming up.

Dude, no. Protag is able to learn the most OP skill in the game early on, and then when the double team moves are added, what little challenge it had fades completely. Boring side quests, absurdly complex crafting system, and shit story on top of that.

I beat and played a good bit of the postgame back when I had no taste.

That's why you recharge it or have multiple batteries, user. You don't seriously play for 100 hours straight, do you? JRPGs are meant to be comfy games you play on your free time like on your commute home from work or all the waiting or free time you have at work and one of the few games where it's a good deal what you're getting in return on the price per hours of gameplay.

It's not worth it until 8k.

Hated the story, but the combat system was really good. My disc was used when I bought it and would randomly freeze, I had to leave the console on overnight for it to load the Jasper vs. his evil clone FMV.

Yay, I'm waiting for Code:VFD's euro release. How did you like the encounter rate?

Guess the main characters

Have you been in a electronic store lately? Almost all new TVs are 4k now.

I spend my free time watching (old)anime and JRPGs so I'm not even going to use 4k.

What I am going to use is HDR.

I actually helped out on proofreading this one for a bit but then pulled out cause reasons, and I can tell you I have a newfound respect for fan translations. The game is small but there were still 1400+ files to proofread, I can't even imagine working on a game like ToP

What are some lighthearted, whimsical JRPG's like Skies and Grandia?

JRPG's that try to be grimdark and depressing like FF or SMT aren't fun.

Glory of Heracles, Seiken Densetsu 3, Ar Tonelico 2.

I have played every Tales game besides Berseria, Hearts, Xillia and Xillia 2. Why are you such an ass?

Nostalgia is about a boy and the friends he makes along the way searching 1800s Earth in an airship for his missing father, saving a girl, and preventing the world from being destroyed along the way. It rarely gets all that dark and is meant to harken back to fourth or fifth gen era JRPGs, though it does have some more modern features (such as earning SP to dump into skill customization, as well as having rather good 3D graphics for a DS game). About the only real flaws are that the game has, in my experiences, some rather sharp difficulty spikes at each new elevation (which can be dealt with some through properly leveling up ship related buffs) as well as in the bonus dungeons, and some physical western copies have a game-ruining bug where the second part of a boss fight fails to trigger. Not exactly great, but still a pretty solid game if you're looking for something with a bit of the classic feeling to it.

Also, while I would specify NOT to expect Skies of Arcadia from it, it does have airship combat and rewards exploring. Also an optional Dragon Quest party chat-esque thing where the party members talk about events amongst themselves.


It's funny, even Thoroughim, who's played NDX before (and liked it enough that he's added it and ToPX to his translation backlog as a personal project rather than one people had asked heavily for), said that the script is deceptively long, despite being a side game in the series. I expect that the main series game scripts are even longer.

If possible, maybe try to do something like convert them to an ink-on-parchment look, the way SH1 handled the portraits? I rather enjoyed those in the first game and was slightly disappointed they got dropped in the later entries. Just a thought.

Those are the ones for the default status menu, which has to be 48 x 48, for cut ins and stuff it'll probably be in grainy photo style.

Suikoden 2

Anybody know if the english version of the Dragon Quest VIII remake is fucked?

I know what the answer probably is, but just let me hope for a little bit.

currently playing DQ7
finished last fragmented island. Now what? I'm stuck.

Not sure (have they even put out a trailer for it as of now?), but if it's being handled like DQ VII 3DS has, I'd say it's most definite they're going to accent it up again for cohesion with prior titles (also hear that one of Square's higher ups honestly doesn't think the games would sell here without that "charm"), if not worse.

I'm not really bothered by the accents, I'm just more worried about the overall translation.

Yeah, I can certainly see why. Square hasn't had the best track record as of late with how their games are handled out here, what with Final Fantasy Type-0, Drakengard 3, and Bravely Second being pretty notable botches. Part of what's made me rather leery of buying anything new from them, though considering the only current system I have is a Vita (which they seems prone to avoid bringing stuff over for), that limits what all I'd have reason to get from them anyhow.

Was there ever out and out confirmation that that one line people were posting from DQVII 3DS about one girl going off about how "a woman can lie under any man she pleases" line was made up by the localization team and absent from the original script?

games with a focus on characters tend to have better character designs. rpgs are excellent subjects for fap material

sizzle frizzle my nizzle

Speaking of spell names, I'm not sure how accurate some of the ones in Wild Arms are (and some of them change names between games, such as Awaken becoming Rise&Shine in WA2), but it's a neat feature that in WA1, 2, and ACF, the spell names are just defaults and the player can name them whatever upon binding a spell to a crest. Given what's been happening with Dragon Quest out here, it would probably be a nice boon for people to be able to do that there, though it certainly doesn't solve other issues like accents or the actual English script quality.

literally why
I bet they are gonna replace the orchestral soundtrack with the bleeps and bloops from the japanese release while fucking the dialogue raw with retarded accents and call it accurate.

Didn't the western PS2 release of Dragon Quest VIII also run worse than the Japanese original? Wonder what exactly caused that, the OST change, or the voicing, or maybe both?

Not that I know of.

The Legend of Heroes Gagharv trilogy is mostly lighthearted and whimsical, aside from a few parts in Tear of Vermilion. They're very good if you can handle bad grammar. A lot of the script was machine translated. That being said, nothing was censored or removed, so they still received a better localization than any game 8-4, NISA, or NOA worked on IMO.

In addition, didn't Namco release the games in the wrong launch order too? They really didn't give a fuck, probably since the games weren't actually made by them and thus wouldn't get the care stuff like Tales would get here. Regardless, I think I've generally seen Falcom fans not be real fond of those, at least the PSP versions anyhow. Also seen people say to just wait for an inevitable port job so XSEED can retranslate them (assumedly; they'd be pulling a BoF II GBA move if they didn't).

XSEED hired 8-4 to work on Wild Arms 5, and as far as I'm aware, the script was kept very close to the Japanese original. Also no cutting of the mentions of child abuse, or Rebecca's jealous speculating that Dean has a thing for little girls due to going out of his way to be nice to Carol, which some companies might be prone to opting to not have in the western versions. Point is, while I'd certainly consider 8-4, NISA, and NoA/Treehouse cancerous these days and wouldn't want to buy their shit new, older stuff should probably be taken on a case-by-case basis (especially if it's just your time involved and not money anymore). 8-4 for example has been pretty hit or miss over the years, and lately they've really gone down the shitter, but some hiring companies still seemed to be able to get them to actually do decent work up until a few years ago. And with NISA, Spike Chunsoft apparently tries watching them like hawks with their games (though it's probably still best to not buy them at launch to deny NISA money for localization), and thus either care enough about how their games are handled foreignly and/or are aware of NISA's general localization quality not having that good a reputation.

For Gagharv, yeah, they released the sequel first, no numbering, then released the first with a two at the end. I don't know what kind of coke they were snorting to make that seem like a good idea.

I know the series hadn't been brought over much prior to that (just the PC-engine version of the original, I think), but did no importer bother to try to correct them on that front, that they weren't releasing them in the right order? I assume Falcom themselves ought to have thought it weird, unless Namco just got the rights as a bundle and never bothered to look at the Japanese naming, which according to wikipedia CLEARLY have a III, IV, and V in the names out there.

I can only imagine the translation quality might perhaps slightly improve over western release order but likely be all over the place played in the proper order.

Yeah, in addition to the machine translation they changed the Growlanser-like combat to something more like what they ended up doing for Trails of Cold Steel. It's not bad, just not as good as the combat in the PC versions.

That's a bit extreme. If XSEED did retranslate them, then it would certainly be preferable, but there's no telling when that's going to happen. Having played both the Windows and PSP versions of the games, I'd say the PSP games are a viable alternative if you don't have a very good understanding of kanji.

A lot, A LOT, of insanely unlikely things would have to happen for that to occur. We're already hoping and praying just for Zero and Azure, Gagharv is way beyond dreaming, man.

Guess I'll put them on my backlog then. Especially since I don't think I'll be getting TitS going anytime soon, might as well start with an earlier one if they might be a case where it's potentially hard to go back to after later ones.


A game/series having a new publisher is a chance for a new translation if a new version comes out and is picked up for western release. Now, while some companies (like Square and whoever they whore stuff out to these days) seem fond of making official retranslations something to dislike, if it were to come to it, I'm sure XSEED's aware how bad the original translation scripts were for them as they seem big on Falcom stuff. It would probably just be a matter of Falcom making a new version, asking XSEED to bring it into English, and XSEED having the time for it. Of course, I have no idea how the script sizes for the existing versions of the Gagharv games are, though I know LoH is notoriously long on the whole as far as text goes (with SC's size apparently being a factor in why it took so damn long to be officially announced as being in the works, let alone actually released here).

Are those fan-translators still aiming at an initial release in the new few months? Just wondering, as the page I have bookmarked for them is just a locked status report from May, and I'm not sure how often/much they communicate with the average person about how things are going.

The president of Falcom said in a recent interview that he'd be interested in remaking White Witch, but the company lacks the manpower at the moment. He asked if anyone would be interested in helping them remake it. If they ever do get around to doing that, there's a decent chance that XSEED will bring it out over here.

Any particular mention of whether they might look into the other two as well if a possible Gagharv 1 remake does well?

Well color me surprised, It might happen. Are the writing and gameplay anywhere near par with the later series?

No, but I assume if they do White Witch they'd do the other two as well. The Gagharv games kind of rely on each other to tie up all the loose ends of each individual game.


Their stories are much more simple than the Trails games, but still pretty good. Especially Tear of Vermilion. The only problem I had with them is they each take about an hour before they really start to get going.

That's a problem? Modern Trails takes two to three.

Anyone who doubts Zero/Ao will be translated is a dink.

I don't see what this has to do with anything.

Seeing as Zero and Ao add a lot of world building to the events of Cold Steel 2 yea. They'd be pretty crazy not to try.

As far as I know they're still aiming for December. I don't really have high hopes for the translation quality, but I'll probably still play it.

The good news is that fan-translators are generally okay with doing touch ups as need be. That and bug fixes are part of why some games see 1.0X patch versions. Of course, occasionally there's some reason to worry (AG apparently has a 2.0 revision for Live-a-live that is a "rewritten and expanded script"; not sure what all's changed there, if it's actually valid corrections or bullshit the guy added), but the earlier patches should generally still be around regardless.

Why don't you think the fan-transaltion's going to be good though? Just curious.

Maybe with less interesting/engaging stories.

Depends on the sales numbers of the Third.