ITT: Jrpgs you love that time forgot

Really fucking love that series, same with Shadow Hearts (hence making shit to try to get other anons interested). Though I will admit that I still have a lot of JRPGs, including "must play" ones on my backlog. Thinking of either giving .hack, Tsugunai: Atonement, or Ar Tonelico a go next.

I will forever be mad at Sony over Mobile Arms. They act like the series has no place on modern systems, but there's still mobile shekels to be had. Faggots.

Damn shame user, I hope that never happens to me.

It really doesn't help matters that various publications have opted to just call the series on the whole a "filler JRPG series" as if there's absolutely zero merit to playing them other than to waste time between much more anticipated, worthy releases (most likely Square stuff at the time the stuff I've seen was written).

Does the PS4 even have an PS3 games, at least ones that were native multiplat or "remasters" like TLOU.

It makes me wonder who picks and works on these ps2 rereleases, but they are flawless in my experience but the ps3 ones could be buggy as fuck.
Though its still a mixed bag, for Every Wild Arms 3 or Max Payne theres a shocking lack of things like .HACK

Grandia is a really fun, light hearted RPG that doesn't take itself too seriously. Grandia 1 and 2 are some of my favorite games, it feels like playing through a 90s anime.

Though I heard they fucked it up in the third game.

3 is trash but 1 on the PS1 and 2 on the Dreamcast are fantastic.

Damn shame about the Grandia PS2 and PC remasters though. Talk about even the art getting treehouse'd

you are my hero chart user, do you plan on making more for other games besides Wild Arms and Shadow Hearts?

Some of them are really random, lot's of pinball and tabletop garbage I doubt anyone even plays. Yet a lot of classics that everyone loves never got a digital release.

It was a typo, I meant PS1 games. Sorry.

One of the few jrpgs I can still remember vividly after all these years. Climbing the wall at the end of the world, fighting that strange sumo guy who abducted Feena, good stuff.

Wait, they censored stuff? I heard it was just some bad graphics.

Remember "not ryoko" the wings of valmar?

Yeah she is censored in about every line and scene and they tried to replace detailed spirtes and models with low poly chibi for a younger audience.

You ever see the ios FF6? its that but worse.

Going on adventures with your best friends, the wacky villains fucking up on their own, exploring the world and making friends with local people, having light hearted conversations with your party during dinner.

Grandia 1 was the shit.

Man, fuck this shit. Are there Dreamcast emulators?

With .hack, I assume Namco just gives next to no shits about the series, especially since Sword Art Online has basically usurped it. Now .hack is lucky if it even gets a cameo costume in something like Tales of SAO. As for rereleases, I've hoped that they'd have possibly done a pair of cheap HD collections, or at least PS3 PSN digital rereleases, but nothing. Either they quietly tried and found the issues with getting PS2 games working right digitally with the PS3 too cumbersome, or they simply don't care. Japan did at least see PS2 the BEST prints of some of, if not all, the IMOQ entries; I seen some as imports around where I live before, but to my knowledge they don't even have PSN versions out there. Though, the JRPGs on the PSN for NA, PAL, and JP really vary.

Well, it's not like I do it for fame or anything, but I'm glad someone still appreciates it. As for the future, I've got a half finished Breath of Fire one, and the Shadow Hearts ones still need my friend to help edit and trim (was already stuck hogging his computer last night to install games onto my PS2 drive, like AT2 with the publicly released v1.0 retranslation; would be a bit much asking him to give that stuff a looking over by the time I finished at like 4 AM) before I can call them finished. Or maybe i'll just call them a Full Autism Edition and call it a day, I don't know yet. Anyhow, probably whatever piques my interest to do them for as I play stuff and feel it needs some further elaboration (so, maybe .hack, Glory of Heracles, or Ar Tonelico/Surge Concerto when I get to them)? I am heavily considering a Tales one though; Tales has gotten more popular over the years, but that's just prompted more inquiries about what games are worthwile, where to start, etc, that I feel having a proper image would be better than writing the same responses each time. Though, I will need some moonruner to help that's played Destiny 2/Rebirth/Destiny DC/etc that can provide opinions on those entries.

Okay, let me rephrase the question. What PS1 games can even be played on the PS4? Because last time I checked it had nothing but PS4 games and PS2 "HD" rereleases.

I love jrpgs with a lot of hidden fun stuff. Skies of arcadia and the wild arms series tickled this fancy.

A great game in its own right, now only mentioned as "that chrono trigger sequel"

you should consider the SaGa games in the future, there are a lot of them and its quite confusing to get into if you dont do some looking, a chart would do wonders for easy sharing.

for example you got fan translated remakes of all the game boy games (one on the wonderswan and two on the DS), a PS2 remake and a translation of Romancing saga 1, an android port of Romancing saga 2 wich is the only way to play it in english, a wonky but functional translation of Romancing saga 3 followed by a vastly superior spanish translation the two SaGa frontier games on the PS1 and then unlimited SaGa for the PS2 wich is a really fucking weird entry in the series and even harder to get into.

almost all of the SaGa games have lots of quirks and gimmicks you wont find anywhere else, its a love or hate thing, but its something people looking for something a bit different in JRPG´s should check out

if you are interested I stole this FAQ from the SaGa threads in cuckchan´s /vr/

pastebin.com/kRbSg6PG

NullDC and DEmul. Not sure how well either work personally as I'm using a toaster, but those are the options for emulating to my knowledge; might ask for more info next time DCanon or someone makes a thread. Shame that I've heard the PS2 port job for Grandia 2 was pretty bad; at least with Skies of Arcadia, both the Dreamcast original and Gamecube extended port are good, and with emulation I think you can even negate the Gamecube version's music issue by patching it to have the Dreamcast version's OST quality.

Oh, and speaking of .hack, as of January 1st, LINK is at 85.65% of total files translated, and Beta patch v0.3.5 "Propagation Outbreak EX" has been released, though it's still not done.

Other recent JRPG translation news:
transcorp.romhacking.net/projects/herc4/
at2.metalbat.com/?page_id=502
soltriggerenglish.wordpress.com
a0t.co/2016/12/29/december-2016-update-3/#more-2475

I do see it mentioned in other situations, like that one anons trying to force the idea that Chrono and Xenogears/Saga are the same series. Not sure I believe that.

See, part of it is that in making these, I feel it's best to play them first myself and get a real good feel for them (which takes time) and what I would personally want to see on them. However, for stuff I haven't played myself but have offered before to at least make something for if other anons can provide the necessary information, I've gotten no input, which doesn't help things. Unless there's an user as dedicated to (autistic about?) a given series willing to write up shit to provide me with, I'm probably going to have to play through them all myself before doing anything. Though I will say that of Square's series, SaGa would probably be the one that I would take the time to do one for (provided I like it enough to), as it's probably the least known of their major franchises out here.

Been trying to put together a chart image for the Vita as well as finish the revision for the PSP one, but it's very hard to get descriptions for those games even then, so there's been no massive progress on any system image front lately either.

I wish /vr/ here had more of a userbase. Shame that half/vr/ either hasn't seen enough reason to move, or has been too worried about potentially splitting up their posterbase to have made much of a presence here. Though, considering an archive of a (I think it was somewhat recent) thread I came across a while back, I'm not sure I'd want them over here at this point.

Actually, on that note, I wish that more of the boards here had more active userbases. I like my JRPG discussion, but it can be a bit hit-or-miss trying to do so natively here on Holla Forums, but as far as other options go, /vr/ here's practically dead, /vg/ doesn't seem to have had the population to warrant a JRPG general like halfchan used to have 24/7 on their's, and /jrpg/ has been dead a year and a half.

Tales of Eternia has various hidden items, vendors, and NPCs to teach you things in across its binary planet system to encourage exploring around, if that's what you're looking for.

And yet Grandia III somehow gets up on the NA PSN, leaving a conspicuous absence of Grandia II (probably much the same way PAL fans have access to Wild Arms 1 and 3 on the PSN, but no WA2 because they never saw it there to begin with and neither Sony or Nintendo have utilized the rerelease format to the fullest to give people games that are in English but never came out in their region). I can understand maybe not putting the PS2 port up in the west (not sure if that was a case of it being just a bad port in the west on account of some Ubisoft fuckery, or if Rocket Studio did a bad port on the whole and would have affected it worldwide in turn), but would it have been so hard to have gotten the Dreamcast original ported to the PSN, or given the Jet Set Radio treatment with an HD rerelease? As of now, my computer is a toaster, I know of the PS2 port's issues, and I don't know anyone with a Dreamcast, so for now i've just had to write off playing Grandia II on the whole.

To be fair though, we don't have Grandia Xtreme on the PSN either, whereas in Japan all four games are available digitally.

Pro tip: Go to mom and pop stores, flea markets and online shit like gumtree. Look for dreamcasts with a 1 in a circle underneath. They are the mythical god device: A console with no copyright protection. Burn a grandia 2 iso on a disc and BAM you got it mang.

Attachment seemed relevant, despite the filename.

Too bad the only places I stand much of a chance of finding a Dreamcast locally are actual independent vidya stores, and while some of them are better than others, I doubt they're selling them all that cheap (not when Shenmue II DC is $130 preowned, and people need something to play it on). That said, what's a decent price to drop on a Dreamcast like that as an upper end, if I might ask?

If they dont know what they have a dreamcast without games will can often be found as cheap as 20-30 bucks and if its a gen 1 DC that can play everything including the last 15 years of indie schmups from nippon you are in for a good time worth that price.

Never had much luck finding cheap systems (though I've certainly gotten lucky with otherwise expensive games for cheap), but I'll keep it in mind. Thanks.

Remember the mmmaaarrrkkkkk

THHHHEEE

Also i guess PS2 games on PS4 have trophies and extra content instead of just straight emulation? i never knew. Then again how often are these releases talked about?

Yeah, I'll keep the (1) or fabled (0) in mind in looking.

Extra content? No, they're not extended ports, just upscaling and trophies the original games never had to my knowledge. I'm not real sure if any rereleased PS1 or PS2 game has actually had the content added, subtracted, or changed from the prior release.

Not too much, though for the most part I just use Techraptor and NG for vidya news, so I'm not sure if other larger sites are more or less prone to mentioning them. And of course here there's a (not exactly unwelcome, all things considered in the industry) vibe of "Rerelease? Just pirate the original version", so when PSN or VC rereleases of stuff happen discussion here is mostly a blip on the radar. I do at least try to mention which ones have official releases as needed (even appending these when WA3 got a rerelease), just to let people know their options though.

I've seen Grandia mentioned multiple times but I've never played it or even tried to look at it. Is the battle system really unique and going to take some learning? Or is it fairly standard? The little bits that I've seen make it look like it's hectic.

Semi-forgotten, Skies of Arcadia. I started a save a while ago, and holy shit that was a comfy JRPG. I stopped fairly early and got side tracked by other games but it was fun playing a fairly standard JRPG with a unique setting.

A lot of Grandia for the time was amazing, now you will go "OH, thats where this mechanic is from!" if that makes sense. It and Skies are the "ADVENTURE" rpgs that feel less about 'teens saving the world' till the end and more about grabbing your potions and antidotes and going on an adventure.

Though fun fact: i own both releases of Skies because its my favourite jrpg and the DC version is monumentally harder.

2 and 3 are the best.

I heard that the encounter rate is fucking insane on that, I've only played a bit of Legends. Good to know that Grandia has a sense of adventure with it. I think that's what I'm missing in a lot of JRPGs and part of why I play Tales games, despite them being 7-8/10 at best and usually ending in "FRIENDSHIP SAVED THE DAY!". That's also part of why I don't understand the love for Atelier games, now that I've started one. Seriously, can anyone explain to me why that series is good?

Not just encounter rate. You know how pokemon red and blue is fucked? like moves that increase your speed dont or slow you, 100% crits are actually 0% crits and so on? its the background maths that are fucked in every regard. Insane encounter rates of seconds apart, overhwelming enemy numbers, low cash rewards expensive healing items and so on all compound to make the ironman version of a far easier but more enjoyable gmaecube game.
But beating it is a jrpg rite of passage like reading DUWANG or something.

Holy shit, you've got to be kidding me. Well, I guess I'll take my pansy ass and keep playing Legends. If only the sound wasn't compressed to shit.

Oh right, speaking of Dreamcast games, Evolution. I remember owning Evolution Worlds on Gamecube, that was an interesting game. I remember the story being somewhat unsatisfying but it was overall a fun adventure.

Evolution: the world of sacred device on DC was strange, sold as a jrpg but its basically Persona 3's tartarus: the game. You expect to explore a town but only explore one house, not bad just strange.

Yeah, I don't remember a lot of exploration. I remember a little dungeon crawling, and a lot of cutscenes. also maybe helps that the GC version was both games but missing some content that some say is filler.

Funny thing is I have actually played it and I regretted not including it in my original post.

If memory serves, the Gamecube port of the first Evolution game was butchered compared to the Dreamcast original to keep enough room on the minidisc for Evolution 2, or something.

Oddities are kind of what Sting's known for a developer. Some of the games in Dept. Heaven are a prime example of that, like Knights in the Nightmare.

It's such a good game. Shame it sold abysmally when it came to NA, we never got the PSP port, and Namco has never seen reason to put it (or Destiny for that matter) on the PSN, leaving emulation pretty much the only way to play it that won't take a massive bite out of your wallet. I actually have my own copy though, as I had wanted to co-op it with a friend. No regrets there.

...

nobody besides DC fans even talk about this fantastic gem

It's because its not that good TBH. fight me

More of a cross between Dreamcast, Gamecube, and JPRG fans that remember it, I'd say (Oh, and scalpers too, but fuck them). Though, it certainly doesn't help that, aside from cameos in other games, Sega hasn't exactly kept the game relevant over the years. Although, given how hit or miss Sega can be with what they make, maybe it's for the best they haven't continued it as a series beyond porting it to the Gamecube.

2edgy4me

Honestly don't know why SEGA haven't put it on PC yet. They've gotten a metric fuck ton of their games onto steam in the last few years.

Sega isn't the sharpest bulb in the shed, and have a track record of both smart moves and rather dumb ones. Think they confirmed today that Yakuza 0 and Persona 5 will remain Sony only.

Why not pirate it and emulate?

Grandia Battle system is just basic turn based RPG combat but the characters move around the map so you need to take in count their position when casting magic, using itens.

Oh, and the other thought I've had is that in some cases where a game didn't sell all that well prior, it might make the publisher leery of doing even a digital-only rerelease, resulting in a delayed one, if it EVER happens, despite a cheap digital rerelease likely being easy money since people would rather pay $6-10 for an old game than $90+. Looking at the PSN, when Suikoden II (which averages about $130-150 physically where I am) got put up there, it became the best selling game that month or something like that, but it still took Konami five years to give enough of a shit to get it on there. I expect maybe similar is true for Tales of Destiny and Eternia (Namco may have a mindset of "why bother? They sold like shit originally so the audience still won't be there"), but that's also a case where none of the PS1 entries have seen a PSN version in Japan either.

This seems like the place to ask, good turn based rpgs
And i do mean turn based, not "there's a bar filling up and everything happens in real time"
recently went through persona 3, brave story new traveller, ff1-3 + 10 and dq8

Well, I'm really fond of Wild Arms and Shadow Hearts, the latter of which's Judgment Ring system being a rather nice take on turn-based combat. I will mention that the later entries (WA 4 and 5, and SH: C and SH: FtNW) in each do change things up a bit, shifting from the classic "choose entire party's actions before the next round actually happens" set up to "choose each individual member's action as they occur", complete with a turn-order bar to plan actions around.

Both series have really damn enjoyable music too.

Licensing issues man. Lots of developers and publishers are long gone. And remember nobody figured 15 years ago that one day they might want to re release a game. On a platform that didn't exist yet. Besides do you think anyone who worked on Ar tonelico or Star Ocean knew they were making classics that gamers might still want to play a decade+ later?

This industry doesn't have a past or a future. Everyone lives in the now.

That one might be more to do with Square seemingly hating the idea of rereleasing old Enix published games, at least out here. I'm pretty sure ActRaiser is the only one to see one in the west, leaving the west with no VC or PSN rereleases of Dragon Quest (any), Soul Blazer, Illusion of Gaia, Terranigma, Star Ocean: The Second Story, Valkyrie Profile, etc. Hell, even with the PSP versions of Star Ocean, Star Ocean 2, and Valkyrie Profile, they were never even given a digital release, thus they're officially locked to the PSP in UMD format here (not that CFW and PPSSPP aren't a thing). It really just comes off as them still giving their former rival's stuff grief even all these years later.

Few people deserve that.

You don't understand, I'm an actual retard. I can't into Tales of Graces battle system because I can't spam TP recovering items to spam TP consuming moves. Any movement that's different from the norm fucks me up. Is it really just turn-based, kinda Chrono Trigger style combat? I'll try it next after I've beaten the current games I have since you all rate it pretty highly.

Graces rewards good play, hitting weaknesses and properly timing guards and dodges to regain TP mid combo. Otherwise you're left turtling for CC. It does take a little bit to get used to (especially since in the west we hadn't had anything similar, while Japan had Tales of Destiny/DC for the PS2 that used it in 2D format), especially the addition of the sidestep, but I see a good amount of liking of it from other fans. I think Namco did too, considering the Xillia games featured a hybrid TP/CC system, using TP as the cost for artes while the CC system determines total artes that can be chained together in a cycle.

Was pic related any good? Always got it confused for Wild Arms as a kid.

The hybrid systems I can deal with, it's getting gud and dodging/blocking at the right times to be able to get CC back to keep up the pressure. I forget where I stopped before I lost a few hours of progress, but I made it work. It's just not my favorite system.

Episode 7 of Xenogears as well.

The game, and both it's designs and music were great. Too bad the party members were heavily underutilized, unlike the cast in Chrono Trigger.

I think I've heard importers say before that the Sole-CC system worked better in 2D with Destiny PS2, which has some things that Graces lacks for whatever reason (such as jumping). I don't think it has the A-Arte flowchart set up either and allows for normal mapping, but I could be wrong. I suppose most will have to wait for Absolute Zero to get done with it in a year or two before playing it though.

My bigger gripe with Graces was the writing. I mean, Tales isn't exactly a paragon of good storytelling, though it usually suffices for driving the plot, but Graces' felt especially weak on that end.

Sheeeit, I've been doing that for the last week or two when I saw this thread. I probably still have my copy of the game lying around somewhere, but I cant' be assed to fish it out and dust off my PS2 to play it so I've just been emulating it. I know I still have my copy of Wild Arms 1. Both are among my top favorite RPGs, partly because they make a glancing pass at the wild west setting which is criminally underused.

Also forgot how long JRPGs used to be until I started playing this again. I'm like 14 hours in and only about halfway done. There's not even a whole lot of padding through grindan if you mystic lucky cards for every boss.

It's very good. A nice blend of JRPG and dating sim. The girls are cute and varied, and your relationship levels with them has gameplay consequences as it determines how effectively you can blacksmith your weapons.

It's got decent English voice acting, from what I recall, and a average amount of anime cutscenes. Or so I think, since it has been over a decade since i last played it and my memory is hazy.

Do you really love 90's anime and dating sims where you don't get to fuck? If so, this shit is the bomb diggity.

It's certainly a series I'm happy to have all the main entries for. Not sure if I want to grab an actual copy of XF though, given the qualities of UMDS and ease of CFW on the PSP.

As for length, I was pretty damn surprised how long WA3 went for when I played it. The ingame clock is somewhat broken, but I swear it must have been a good 60-80 hours on it. Also really liked how each "arc" had a tweaked opening, resulting in a good five or six variants of the animation being played for it.

SaGa Frontier is one of my favorite games despite being unfinished. I wish it would get a remake but it'll never happen.

At least Alkaiser will always be awesome

Same, but it's probably for the best it never gets a full remake due to Squareenix's shitty track record.

Grandia

It has been well over a decade since I last played it but I don't recall hating or disliking any part of it. I recall the dating portions to be pretty cute. I'm just unsure how well it aged.

Agreed, although maybe there'll be a fan remake someday. Who knows.

I was always kind of disappointed with the rest of the SaGa series, though. Frontier was my favorite game for years when I was a kid, along with Final Fantasy Tactics, and I finally checked out the other ones (I think the direct sequel to Frontier was on PS2?) and I remember them being just…bad. I should maybe give them another try.

Graces plot isn't much to write home about but some of tbe designs I really like. The stones powering the cities in different ways was cool to me. Seeing the industrial city in a game that was more high fantasy is always fun, especially since the series heavily relied on magitech in more arcane ways in other games. Straight up guns was cool.

I'd pretty much written that off as a neverever, is it actually being worked on?

I've kind of wanted to see some drawfag do an image of various transforming/shapeshifting JRPG protags in their alt forms looking cool: Yuri, Ashley, Ludger, Red, and one of the Ryus from BoF. haven't exactly bothered to ask in the drawthreads though, since ideas I've had in the past wound up quickly jossed as too complex to be made for free (even something rather simple like "Gallows Sengen" with Gallows from WA3).

Part of why I don't have that much faith in FFVII remake, or if they ever opted to make a finished version of Xenogears. I mean, remakes aren't necessarily bad, but still.

Yeah, Not-Russia was probably my favorite area of the game.

By Destiny PS2, I meant Destiny's PS2 remake, technically the Director's Cut of it, rather than actual sequel. Absolute Zero's actually making good progress on it since taking it out of Cless's (twelve years to finish Phantasia) hands. Destiny 2 is still Cless' project though and he hasn't updated his site in three years if memory serves. Destiny 2 and Rebirth do have script translations on gamefaqs though, but it's still not the same as actually playing it with a patch.

It's a shame that this is the game known for killing it's franchise. I found it to be an amazing rpg and one that delivered an experience that's not easily replicated. A palpable sense of tension as the game drew on and I made my way to the conclusion.

So many RPG's pretend to have tension and threats but since the story moves at the speed of plot it's very easy to not buy into it. It's the rare game like Dragon Quarter, that has some form of time keeping, that really hammers home the idea that something bad is going to happen if you don't have a sense of urgency to your actions.

I do think the combat needed some tweaking, specifically one of your party members is super finnicky on when she will be useful, and the other one is very good but lacks a lot of options. But overall the Three man party worked well enough and the only real black stain on the game's combat is a mechanic introduced at the tail end. fuck Absolute guard The story is simple, meloncholic, and has a good feel to it. It's not an earth shattering plot but it's one that feels very personal.

Good RPG, good gameplay, good art style, and good characters. I couldn't ask for more from one of my favorite PS2 titles.

Haven't played Dragon Quarter myself, so I can't personally say if it's good or bad, but from what I've seen in discussion it seems to have been rather divisive. I still think that, had it been considered an outright sidegame (Dragon Quarter having outright been Breath of Fire V in Japan) and developed alongside a Breath of Fire that felt more inline with the rest of the series, it could have potentially spawned a subseries or at least been an interesting side game, and the series might not have died off. Just seems like too much change for what seems to have been originally meant as a main series entry (again, given "Breath of Fire V) as the title in Japan. But of course, Capcom eventually sensed there was still money to be had from the series, and they'd dug Ryu up and reanimated the series into a mobile game. Not sure how that wound up being received, but either way I think that move puts the series into a catch 22: If it did well, and there's more mobile shit aimed at the mobile audience, and if not, Ru goes right back into the ground.

On that note, still got a half finished Breath of Fire image. Been considering putting some mechanics and tips stuff on the right hand side, but aside from fishing and some explaining of the Gene system in BoF III, I'm not sure what else is worth noting to fill out the rest of the space. Maybe I ought to reformat things around however much space winds up being left though.

Someday or maybe a spiritual successor fangame will be great too.

Same, though I do recall that I didn't really liked how Unlimited Saga played, despite that the game's music was bomb diggity, but I might give it another go.

Seeing that it's going to be episodic, and that they're altering things like the honey bee inn is already a red flag that this is going the way of the Lara Croft reboots.

I know some user in the Vita threads recently picked up Saga: Scarlet Grace and said it was pretty good, so I suppose there's at least that for moonspeaking SaGa fans that have been looking for a fix for a while. Doubt it's going to come west though.

Wasn't that what Legend of Legacy was supposed to be, or something along those lines?

Too bad I don't have a Vita, and my moonspeak is still underdeveloped.

Yes, it's a spiritual sequel to SaGa, but I haven't gotten around to pirating it.

Goddamn this was one of if not my favorite PSX games.

I do hope at the very least somedays there's a scene to fan translate Vita games we never got here, considering Henkaku is a thing. And maybe Tales of Hearts R can get unfucked.

The sole problem with this game, aside of roster bloat, is that "it's a chrono trigger sequel". It should have stood on its own entirely. They fucked up a nice game and a cherished memory.

Life is suffering. I lucked out long enough to beat Evolution 1 before the problem started.

Seems Project Metafalica took the time to compile a full breakdown of the changes their retranslation patch made for anyone curious about it.
at2.metalbat.com/?p=765

How the fuck does Vyse stay 1 dimensional through the whole game, but only ever becomes more endearing and likable as the game goes on. Motherfucker is always upbeat, always ready for the next adventure, and you can't help but get pumped up to go with him and see what's just over the horizon.

>at2.metalbat.com/?p=765

This makes me extraordinarily happy. For all the shit that NISA gets and deserves, their butchery of AT2 is what I consider their highest sin. Esty Dee is bad, but fucking up this wonderful game (series) is absolutely unforgivable.

They deserve to burn for it, but I'm euphoric that some beautiful nerds went out of their way to fix it.

What I'm curious on is what Project Metafalica might do next. I mean, beyond maybe a deserved break after having worked on unfucking AT2 for like nine years, is there enough demand for them to maybe look into doing the same for AT1 and Qoga, or was AT2 the most ruined, and thus most deserving, of the trio? Or, considering that to my knowledge they got the help of one of Atelier Traduction's hackers, will they maybe return the favor and take help out with the English script for Atelier Ellie + Marie PS2 (given that Atelier Traduction is a French oriented team)?

On that note, is Ar Tonelico Qoga worth the time? In regards to the series, it's mostly AT1 and 2 that I've heard good things about (barring the official English script quality).

While I'd argue that it's generally better for a character, especially a protagonist to have some distinct character development over the course of a game, I don't find much wrong with one that has already developed into who they want to be prior to the game if they have an enjoyable enough personality, especially if they (and thus the game as well) are able to help the rest of the cast grow in turn. Yuri Lowell (ToV) being kind of like that, as he's already developed himself into an anti-hero with a disdain for (an admittedly corrupt) authority, but has a likable, if sarcastic, personality, and is able to help the rest of the party grow in turn. Plus, beyond his experience in the Imperial Knights causing him to become disillusioned with the way things are, it also provides lore reason for why he's already good at and enjoys combat by the time the game starts.

There is San Andreas, which had songs patched out.

AT3 is alright, but definitely the worst of the 3. Really though, everything AT is good shit and you can't go wrong playing/listening to it. The series is godly.

So does the story for Ar Tonelico 2 require me to have played 1? Based on at2.metalbat.com/?p=765 it looks like they went above and beyond to the point the game is improved over the Japanese version. Should I play on Hard mode from the get go since JRPGs tend to become easy with accidental grinding?

Oh, so it's like Earthbound VC (I think I've heard something about some of the music used in the original being an issue with trying to rerelease it)? I suppose that's sometimes unavoidable due to licensing issues.

Well, maybe I'll look into it after I play the first two if I like them enough. Though, I assume that the change in English script quality going from the retranslation of AT2 to it might be jarring.

Yes. The main plot isn't exactly a direct continuation from 1, but if you haven't played it you won't fully understand terminology, setting, and whatnot. Those things are all incredibly important in this series because of how unique it is. Also one of the characters you recruit is best girl and also a returning character from the 1st game, alongside a bunch of other important facts about her which you'll likely not comprehend if you don't play the first.

I think it's pretty important to play them all sequentially, as setting lore is revealed tidbit-by-tidbit, across all the games. Considering how deep and established it all is, it would behoove you to play in order. Also they're all actually really good games.

About the difficulty, it's fine if you play on normal. For 2 in particular, the difficulty can ramp up in certain battles if you aren't particularly good at rhythm-esque timed button-pressing gameplay. I don't think it ever becomes particularly hard, per-se, but even still. Anyways, it's nothing that old fashioned grinding can't overcome.

Any idea how well the actual terminology is kept consistent across all three, especially now that AT2 has been retranslated?

Terminology is consistent. The other games were average NISA jobs. Others studios could have done better, but NISA didn't do the worst job and kept it all coherent. No major game-breaking bugs either, to the best of my knowledge.

It's only in 2 that they went full retard and brought out the quality that we all know them for. That said, the base game isn't so terribly done that you would find yourself wondering if it was translated by some other team who has never heard of the series.

I don't know how the retranslation will play into this, but I severely doubt anything major will suddenly find itself drastically out of line with keeping with the established terminology. Reyvateils will remain Reyvateils, and so on.

So, as far as what to expect, the localization quality for AT1 and 3 are roughly same, as opposed to just getting worse and worse?

What even prompted AT2's script issues, beyond the parts intentional changed? Looking into the credits on MG, it seems both AT1 and 2 had the same translator and editor (I haven't checked AT3 yet).

Mana Khemia 1 and 2 on the PS2 both have an excellent turn based system based on timecards, which you can play with to modify the tides of battle. It's also pretty damn fun and it has great music.
Then there's the already mentioned Grandia (which does have a bit of real-time elements) and Wild Arms / Shadow Hearts series.

Project Metafalica deserves praise for the finished work, but seriously, that french guy from Atelier Traduction is the hero that made the project complete the final sprint to the goal line - in a few months he managed to fix pretty much all of the shit that required careful ASM hacking and debugging to fix. I've checked the progress threads in their forums and it's quite the ride. He's one hell of a programmer (self-taught, even!)

AT2 was probably a bit rushed and also misdirected. Everyone laughs at MasterLL's 'rated for innuendo' video about Aurica's first crystal injection in the first game (which, while quite full of innuendo is supposed to be a serious scene according to the devs), and NISA grabbed this aspect, overblew it and marketed AT2 as 'even raunchier than the first'. I find it hilarious that the company that censored Mugen Souls and Criminal FUCKING Girls to oblivion was brazen enough to market AT2 like that back then (then again, around those times the SJW cancer wasn't as widespread).

I don't think NISA was intentionally fucking up back then with AT2 - they were mostly careless by failing to proofread/edit some parts, left some lines in Japanese, and didn't properly playtest a certain boss fight - almost every PS2 NISA game features the infamous enemy-attack-that-crashes-the-game(tm).
They were also out of space for both audio tracks so they excised some of the JP audio to make room for the US audio. So it's basically a half dub for each language. Dual layer wasn't an option, but they did step it up and released a Sakura Wars game for the Wii with two discs - both were identical in terms of the game itself, but each disc had a different voice language.

Yeah, it seems like the entire reason Beta 4 and 5 even happened was due to Rylefury or whoever lending them a hand. I seem to remember seeing some post prior to that with them not being real sure as to how much more progress they were going to be able to make with their then-current team and skillset.

Yeah, I expect that something must have changed there. Either the employees there opted to chug the kool-aid, or people that once were there and at least didn't actively hate what made the games they handled niche (the whole fucking point of the company being to bring niche games west) left and were replaced with the current shlock. I also seem to remember hearing something (not sure where exactly, might have been a screencap) about Soul Nomad having been a favorite of one of the head guys there, and from what I know of that game, that game is fucked up in a ridiculous way (not so much anything NISA did to it, but the actual content), to the point I have to wonder how or if they would even take on the game if it came out now with their [CURRENT YEAR] mindset.

Meant more stuff like the aforementioned "playing up the sexuality" which winds up changing the tone by "intentional changes". I'd just generally heard in the past that while the localizations for the series on the whole were sloppily handled, AT2 wound up being rather notable in how sloppy it was. Mostly just curious as to how that wound up, if it wasn't simply just an even more rushed job.

You mean the PS2 version; I seem to recall reading that the Wii version was English only. Also something about the English audio discs having taken more localization liberties, while the Japanese disc's English script was more accurate to the original Japanese script.

I know the Phantasy Star games were fairly popular in the early 90s, but after Phantasy Star Online came out it seems like most people forgot they existed. And that's a shame because they are far superior to PSO in my opinion. Phantasy Star 1 might be the best RPG of the 8-bit era.

My niggas. No other JRPGs I've played came close to matching the sense of adventure and discovery these games had.

Yeah, it's pretty good. It was made a lot of the same people who made Sakura Wars, which should tell you everything you need to know.

Been meaning to give Phantasy Star a go, but I can't seem to get a clear answer from people here on how the fan-translated PS2 versions of Phantasy Star I and II compare to the originals.

If you want to compare them yourself, here are some videos of the remakes
youtube.com/watch?v=gAiottpBvMU
youtube.com/watch?v=a51VrfAdLRo
and here are some videos of the originals(the video of Phantasy Star I found is using the fan retranslation, which I highly suggest you go with if you plan on playing the Master System version.)
youtube.com/watch?v=w4_dWvAhcR0
youtube.com/results?search_query=phantasy star 2

Was mainly wondering if you or someone else had given both the originals and the remakes a go yet at this point for more of a personal comparison.

I've seen that Phantasy Star II for the Genesis also has one, in addition to (what I am guessing) are some sort of extra character chapters. Is it worth using the fan-translation with PSII as well, and playing through what looks to be eight extra parts? Also, I'm not seeing anything like a fan-translation for PSIV; was the existing English script good enough to not warrant one, or is it being given the same treatment and simply isn't done yet?

Motherfucking Legend of Dragoon. Was my first jRPG I completed. Everything meshed so well. Art direction was great, gameplay offered variety, story was as jRPG's go. As reference, I played this alongside FF8 and found LoD to be the better game. So much more emotional investment and better pacing. They took the "end-of-the-world-kill-god" story and made it actually mean something.

Plus, Dragoon armor and abilities fucking rocked.

Can you please go into more detail on what is changed about Grandia 2? This is the first I've heard of it and a quick poke around Google doesn't turn up anything.

pic related

IS THERE GOING TO BE A TRANSLATION RESTORATION PATCH FOR AR TONELICO1?

What does an Atlus PR monkey know about SEGA's own decisions on what games to port to another platform?

You must have had some really low standards to consider that piece of shit a good game.

Like I said, first jRPG. You can keep your FF7.

must have been, LoD was mediocre at best, the plot twists are visible and the story is really cookie-cutter. its nothing to write home about.

Agreed. 2 is still in my top 5 favorite RPGs and the battle system is still unmatched. The anniversary edition was gifted to me recently, I should give it another go.

3 I tried playing last year and holy mother of shit was it boring. Even the tweaks to the battle system weren't enough to keep me going after 15 hours of ho hum standard JRPG tripe about about god beasts or whatever. In fact it felt they were aping 2's narrative with escorting and protecting Elena but there it didn't take that long for the actual story to kick in. The previous games weren't telling groundbreaking tales either but they also had personality and very defined characters where 3 has the most uncharismatic vanilla boring characters imaginable.

I also felt that even with some neat tweaks to the battle system, like the chained combos, they still broke shit, like how fast enemies move on the ticker relative to when everyone is going to attack. They advance so fast at points that it makes ambushing enemies useless since they'll catch up to you in a matter of seconds.

Yes this. I know the PS2 and original PC ports are trash because of glitches, but I heard the remaster is based on the Dreamcast version. Did they really fuck it up?

JRPGs that don't have a super fast forward feature to blast through easy battles are nigh on unplayable to me now. Even absolute classics like Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy V.

I tried playing them over Christmas and just found the turn based battle system so incredibly fucking tedious for non-difficult fights (which is 95% of the battles)

As far as the PS2 version, I'd heard it suffers from a variety of issues including slowdown, duller audio, and graphical issues. I suppose it's still technically playable, but it really doesn't sound like that good a port job. At least with Skies of Arcadia, it's more debatable as to whether the original or Legends is better.

Might get a chance of a more solid answer if you asked Project Metafalica directly on their site, or maybe dropped a comment in the NG article, since Aquagon's been answering questions there too.

From what I've seen of comments anons have posted before, Legend of Dragoon strikes me as one of the more love it or hate it JRPGs out there. Still debating about whether or not to play it myself, so I can't exactly have a personal opinion on it myself yet.

How is Emerald Dragon anyhow?

Shit which Grandia was on Dreamcast? That was my game in Winter 2000

Grandia II, which also saw ports to the PS2 and PC. Grandia I was Sega Saturn (in Japan) and PS1, while Grandia III and Xtreme were PS2 exclusive

Any fellow Growlanser fans?

4(or rather 4 Reloaded/Wayfarer of Time) is the best JRPG of the 21st century in my opinion. It just got everything so right. 2 and 3 are very good as well. I haven't played any of the others yet.

Well, the only other one available in English is Growlanser 5 (Heritage of War). I don't like it as much as the other Growlanser games but it's definitely worth playing if you're a fan of the series.

I have wild arms 3 on disk stilll

I kinda don't like it tbqh senpai

I still have to wonder why, of the PS2 entries, Heritage of War is the one with the PSN version, while neither Growlanser 2 or 3 are.

I had a copy of Shadows of Memories signed by the team that made it, gone now, like tears in the rain ;_;

If i can vote with my wallet for the price of a big mac that there is still wild arms fans going to buy games thats a small price to pay.

Wish it wasn't all PERSONA all the time

I think it has to do with Atlus owning the IP and Working Designs (or at least Victor Ireland) owning the translations for 2 and 3.

IIRC, Vic said that he wanted to let Atlus use the Working Designs translations so Growlanser 2 and 3 could be put up on PSN but Atlus refuses to use them as they don't want to pay him royalties for using his scripts.

Persona sickens me so much because it bled over in to other companies as well. They all want the teen fantasy date 'em all be popular moonlight as a demon slayer shtick. Come the fuck on go back to fantasy or high tech I don't want high school dramas being 100% of anime and videogames.

Much as I'm a fan of the "show a bit of support for something you enjoy when possible" thing, Sony has gotten the wrong message. They've seen the demand for another Wild Arms game (after nearly a decade of nothing), but apparently don't feel it's worthy of putting on their own systems anymore. I'd thought the series might be safe (being owned by a company that actually owns a line of their own video game systems) from the scourge, but it, and Arc the Lad, are being shunted over to, and rebooted for, mobile phones, just like Capcom has done with Breath of Fire and Square has done for Valkyrie Profile and Star Ocean. This places both series in a catch 22 for fans of the older ones: If Mobile Arms and Arc the Mobage succeed, it's just going to be more mobile games aimed at mobile consumers, and if they fail, right back into the dirt they go. Ergo, the people wanting to see Sony put their own series on their own systems are no longer the intended audience (kind of telling that up through last year they seemed open to a PS4/Vita entry).

The really sad thing is that this is likely all that came of the series 20th anniversary last year, aside from some admittedly welcome new official art/sketches.

Unfortunately the subseries/spin off of Persona has eclipsed SMT in popularity, leading both to Atlus pandering to where the money is (just how much media has Persona 4, and to a lesser extent, 3, had now?), and nitwits making apparently serious claims like "SMT IV is the Dark Souls of Persona games", as if Persona is the main series, and/or "JRPG" isn't the genre/subgenre either falls under.

I will support having my favourite jrpg on my current gen system and never touch a moba game and my weeb karma shall remain untainted.

Karma? You don't know Karma, your support of the publisher over the actual developers will come back to bite you.

I was referring to everything said in

I could understand that, as Wild Arms 1, 2, 3, and XF (WA5 in Japan, too) all had PSN versions prior to Mobile Arms ever being announced, but I'm going to have to agree with on it. Part of why I won't buy Suikoden I, II, or III on the PSN after Konami has expressed a big "fuck you" to fans of their series in their pursuit of mobile and pachinko shekels. But that's just me. You can do what you want I suppose, and at the very least Media.Vision is still in business, albeit still third party as usual. Not sure if they actually see much if any profit off the PSN versions, considering Sony themselves owns them.

Grandia 3 is so underrated.

I don't know how many of you all think well upon Golden Sun, but for me, 1 and 2 were some of the best games I'd played as a kid

dark dawn wasn't the worst, tbh

Those were my first JRPGs aside from Pokemon, courtesy of a former friend giving me a copy of the first game maybe five years back. The first two were pretty enjoyable, but I swear, it felt like with Dark Dawn, Camelot didn't really want to make it in the first place, given how a lot of the issues seem done to annoy fans of the prior games. Maybe they're just more comfy making Mario sports games these days? You're right though. It's not the worst JRPG around, let alone on the system (I think people are probably more prone to like it than, say, Lunar: Dragon Song), but considering what people liked about the earlier games that it's lacking, it's not all that good an entry in the series if you ask me.

Shame about the only potential discussion the series can see these days is about the English script changes and Golden Sun 4 being a Never Ever. Although, even on halfchan some years back it got popular to shit on for the verbosity of the script and if memory serves calling them good was a way to rile up their JRPG General.

Fuck, the translated artbook shit and datamined content really shows what an ambitious project Frontier was. The Fuse story I can do without because from what I've been told it was basically a joke campaign. However I wish they had been able to actually complete Lute and Asellus.

With Lute it was clear that you were supposed to have a longer story and actually develop the character a little

With Asellus you were meant to escape Fascinaturu via the living flame and enter Mosperiburg. There were a lot more mystics involved in her story and it wasn't just a raw boss rush.

At least Red and T260G are solid, Emilia is mostly there and Bleu is functional and has the sickest most ridiculously weebshit boss fight ever (even if it only lasts a few turns)

A shame about Dragon Song–I have no idea how you can mess a game up that badly, especially given its predecessors.

I like to think, had Isaac or Felix been given a chance to be a character in Sm4sh, some hope for 4 might have been revitalized, even with Dark Dawn fucking around like it did. We'll never know, sadly…

Playing DD was something I'd never experienced before–it was like, "This can't get worse, right?" with every new thing they threw in there. I ended up mixed on it, but, I think it's more accurate to say it was just mediocre, and even more so in the wake of TLA and TBS. Especially TLA.

I really have to wonder, given Ubisoft's banner on the cover art proclaiming that it had the original developers of Lunar: TSS work on it, just how many of those former devs came back for Dragon Song, and/or were they senile?

Unfortunately Sakurai had stated something before about wanting the have characters recognizable to the consumer-base (or at the very least, the local one out there initially; hence character like Marth and Lucas) as playable ones, so I guess some that hadn't seen a game in a while or were considered small fry just got relegated to assists, if even that. Though of course, Shulk still got in.

I'm certainly glad I got it cheap preowned when I played it. Now it's somehow holding steady at like $20-25 complete where I live, more than either of the GBA entries. I don't think it's particularly uncommon and most series fans, at least here, aren't too big on it, so I'm wondering what exactly is going on (beyond complete DS game price hikes thanks to fucking Gamestop).

My fucking niggers. Camelot used to be Sonic! Software Planning and handled all the old Shining Force games. Having been a Nintendrone family growing up, I had to go back when I was older and play Shining and holy shit it reminds me of Golden Sun in so many ways. The artstyle and settings are pretty different but they just give me the same feeling of "You're with your friends in a fantasy land doing cool shit."

I haven't played Shining in the Darkness and I still need to beat Holy Ark, but damn if the rest of the series isn't just a fun romp. I won't say they're nearly as complex as something like FFT or Disgaea but they sure are fun.

Yeah, I know. Part of the issue I have with my own theory of them not wanting to make Golden Sun, or maybe RPGs in general, anymore: I mean, they'd already established those as something they were good at (okay, maybe not Beyond the Beyond), even to the point of their old series from their Sega days having been rather prolific, and yet since they started working on Nintendo, aside from the Golden Sun trio it's just been Mario sports games (and We Love Golf for Capcom)? Did they just get sick of making RPGs? Or maybe Nintendo just wants to keep them on pumping out sports titles?

How easy is it to get into the Shining series anyhow? Just wondering, as I'm personally rather inexperienced with strategy/tactical type RPGs.

then you're a lost cause, stick to kingdom hearts.

aaaaaaaa

...

i swear to fuck i think i'm one of the only people who played this game

I saw a couple people talking about this game a few weeks ago but before that I almost never saw it being discussed.

I don't get this meme

The Genius of Sappheiros was popular for a while on half /jp/ and everyone there had a great time with it. It definitely has my favorite JRPG gameplay mechanics.

That could be a fairly easy fix. It's an issue with the power connection inside the system which can be sorted with some WD40 and some cotton buds.

mmmonkey.co.uk/dreamcast-random-reset-and-common-fixes/
archive.is/OlN0p

Doesn't help that a lot of critics were pretty hit or miss on it and that it's not a series the west had officially seen prior (similar issue happened with Glory of Heracles DS here). Unfortunately the other consequence was that Atlus (and anyone else that might have been potentially interested) saw no reason to ever bring the entries after it over.

It and Dark Cloud/Chronicle generally pop up here and there. Dark Cloud does seem to be the more popular Level 5 PS2 original IP though.

Some guy keeps trying to push the idea that Chrono and Xeno are the same universe.

Yeah, that could be true too. They might just have a bad taste in their mouths from making RPGs too, since they left Sega and then the Shining Series went in all kinds of other directions.

Shining's really easy to get into, it's not nearly as hard as FE. You can emulate SF1 on Genesis or GBA, and that's generally the best place to start with learning the mechanics. None of the games are direct sequels save for the different scenarios of SF3 and the Gaiden games, but you can play the enhanced Gaiden games on SegaCD. If you want something that's not a TRPG, Shining in the Darkness is the first game in the actual series, and it's easy to emulate. Otherwise, Shining and the Holy Ark and Shining Wisdom are Saturn games and they just take a little more time to get setup properly.

>Start writing up text file on the side for possible eventual Tales infographic.
>Five games (plus one remake) in and it's already a wall of text about four times the length of my screen with the processor window width at eleven inches.
>Still have eleven mothership titles and at least some of the escort titles/subseries to cover, plus mechanics, where to start, F.A.Q.
Oh boy.

Alright, was just curious about it since I still have the likes of even Final Fantasy Tactics in my backlog. How's the translations for them anyhow?

I could maybe see that; even with the likes of Media.Vision, who found their calling with JRPGs like Wild Arms and Chaos Rings have still done stuff in other genres on the side (including pic related, a fact which I personally find bafflingly out of left field), though I'm not sure whether or not some of them have been of their own volition, being that they're third party and some of the games they've made they were brought in for are from existing series (such as Valkyria Chronicles III, where I would guess Sega called the shots), and even Square back in their heyday were prone to experimenting with various genres besides JRPGs. Still, it just seems like a weird jump to go from tactical/strategy RPGs to sports games for a completely different franchise, even if Mario sports titles aren't exactly "Yearly Realistic Sports Simulator 201X".

Not the best. It's coherent the whole way through, but in particular they fucked up translating a few names in the series that can make the overall plot confusing. There's also no backstory to the main character in the first game translated, and though it's forgettable, it at least sets up a later plot point in making sense.

I usually cite tri-Ace in these kinds of scenarios since few of their games actually overlap in game play. Resonance of Fate is different from Star Ocean is different from Valkyrie Profile. It could just be that other studios get tired of the same thing over and over (ironic given Camelot now makes the Mario Sports games), but it can still happen. I also think it's trying to make the brand bigger in some cases, like Konami having shmups and Castlevania as their claim to fame among a few other series like Power Pro games.

Speaking of this whole thread, I'm starting Wild Arms Alter Code F now since I've been somewhat interested in the series but never have played one before. Is this a good starting point or should I play the original before the remake?

I see, any retranslations or additional materials that have been brought into English to make more sense of things that I ought to look into?

Yeah most companies do indeed like to diversify what genres they provide games for to better hit at a wider range of markets (though Square seems to have switched from developing across genres to developing across regions, resulting in them specializing in JRPGs and western shit, and of the former they don't even have as wide an array of series as they used to). Still, most of them opt to keep those series alive and well as long as they're profitable, hence the anger at Konami on the whole for tossing fans of just about every series other than maybe Yu-Gi-Oh! and that soccer series they do under the bus, or Capcom pretty much shitcanning Mega Man, whose titular character was practically a mascot for them in the past, and when they were about to offer fans a beta of MML3 no less.

Issue being that right now, Nintendo owns the rights to a handful of JRPG franchise, but aside from Pokemon, do nothing with them, or have been handling them poorly (and even with Pokemon I suppose it's debatable). Fire Emblem, while alive, isn't exactly in the shape older fans of the series seem to want. Paper Mario is getting shifted to action-adventure because Nintendo doesn't get that people want another game more like The Thousand-Year Door or even Paper Mario 64 and seem to have it in their head that the Paper Mario and Mario & Luigi series can't coexist as JRPGs. Golden Sun's dead, ending on a massive cliffhanger and has no fourth game in sight for over six years now. Mother is either dead or finished (not sure what the official stance on that saga is; still a series I need to give a go). Glory of Heracles was bought from Data East by Nintendo and Paon (ex-Data East), who sat on the rights for five years, released a single DS game to test waters, and promptly threw the franchise back in the freezer where it remains today. At this point possibly the only traditional JRPGs series they own the rights to that are still active (for better or worse) are Pokemon (which some people out there are more prone to considering "monster raising/battle sim" before they even think of them as JRPGs"), Mario & Luigi, and maybe the series they're establishing under the "Xenoblade" moniker, having acquired Monolith Soft from Namco back in seventh gen, but I'm not sure if they'll be continuing with that after how I've heard XCX was from other anons, even disregarding the localization issues.

Granted, Nintendo's not exactly alone in trashing various series (I'm honestly surprised Wild Arms lasted as long as it did with Sony, given their proclivities to early IP death), but Golden Sun proved fairly popular, and I'd have thought they'd have been more keen on keeping it alive, or at least having Camelot make a successor of sorts to it, and keep them working where established talents were. Just my thoughts on it.

(1/2)

My sympathies. I'd make a protagonist that actively avoids school using his newfound powers fighting monsters to make a buck and isn't remotely interested in relationships.

His friends would be the more traditional highschool anime type without making the contrast look obnoxious as if this more hotheaded and less social, but not edgy or angsty faggot character is somehow inherently better than them. The guy simply lives and thinks much differently and gets the player plenty of action and exploration with his monsterbros.

(2/2)
See the images in if you haven't yet. Wild Arms ACF is essentially the same game storywise, with some extensions of events here and there, extra sidequests, and optional characters that can be recruited as extra party members. The translation is about on par with the original as opposed to being a huge improvement; while it does fix things at points ("Belselk" being properly translated as "Berserk") which is nice, it's tempered by Agetec other things up at points (how the fuck does "cocoon" wind up being "arch"?). Series fans, at least other anons I've seen in the past that have played the series a lot longer than I have, are also somewhat iffy on it as to whether it's better or worse than the original.

I suppose what I'm getting at is that you'll get about the same base story from either version (to the point that you won't be missing callbacks in WA2 and 3), but in combat mechanics it's a hybrid of elements from WA1, 2, and 3 in the same system. While some traits you can probably have little issue with going back to, say, WA2 or 3, other ones might present a bit of an issue (going from a more refined Personal Skill system, you can add and subtract skills at will and retain the skill itself to use on another character, to one where the skill is lost if discarded, or the PS Points permanently consumed on skills you can't remove or reset). Overall both versions are enjoyable in my experiences though, but that's just me. Big thing with the series though is that while no game is an outright sequel, they are fond of pulling elements in from prior games that are fun to see again for prior fans (Wild Arms 5 is particularly big on that, being an anniversary title and celebration of the series), so I'd still recommend playing some form of the first Wild Arms first and then playing in order, at least up through Wild Arms 3.

On a related note to that, I went to check who owns Metal Max at this point, since the bulk of the games, Saga aside, have been on Nintendo systems. They don't own it (Kadokawa does at this point), but I knew that I had seen the name "Cattle Call" as developer before I did some looking into Tsugunai. Turns out they developed Metal Max 3, and Metal Max 4: Moonlight Diva (in conjunction with 24Frame). That makes five total JRPGs, or even games, that I'm aware of them having made, yet they still don't warrant having their own wikipedia page (and the "Cattle Call" link in the main Metal Max page just leads to National Lampoon's Cattle Call instead)?

Also seems like the series is on it's way to being yet another mobile focused one since the latest releases, Metal Max: Fireworks and Metal Saga: Ark of the Wastes, aren't even for actual systems.

I think the GBA version might have a retranslation, but beyond that I don't think they did anything different.

It's both essentially, since none of the games need to be played for any other game to make sense despite 2 and 3 possibly being loosely connected.

Nice, good to know. I'm not a fan of the overworld so far, with needing to mash Square to find things. I had to do that in Cross Edge and I thought it was the dumbest shit. I'll keep going in ACF, and try WA2 and 3 later if I enjoy this. So far, it seems alright. The overly western soundtrack is a little grating but given the setting they wanted, it fits. I'm happy to see that it emulates extremely well, though.

Shame we'll basically never see these in the west, too. I played a little bit of Metal Max Returns, it's pretty neat. I liked that it's an apocalyptic society that still used regular technology like tanks instead of the usual "ANCIENT MAGITEK, WOOOOO" like Tales games and apparently Wild Arms does. It's also nice that the tanks actually fucking work instead of a cocktease like Todd Howard's franchise where you don't actually get a vehicle but you can somehow have Power Armor.

Wild Arms 2 introduced the Search function, which Wild Arms 3 and ACF retained. In Wild Arms 3 it's at its least aggravating: because the party has horseback mounts, you can search while riding and retain movement at the same time.

Also, as a heads up (it's mentioned in the image, but on the off chance you didn't see it), let the game pause on the title screen for a minute or so. A "prologue to the prologue" of sorts will start, providing further background to the game. Honestly, I'm not sure why they didn't just include it as a given at the very start of a playthrough of either Wild Arms PS1 or ACF as it helps provide an explanation for some stuff that otherwise might feel a bit out of the blue, but better to watch it early on than halfway through, like I did.

Naruke is a big fan of Ennio Morricone's work on old spaghetti westerns, with the Wild Arms series giving her a fitting chance to have an outlet to make her own inspired works (and at times like this, remix as tribute).

Wild Arms can go the "ancient tech" route at times with thing like the golems, but it depends on the game. On the whole it's unknown whether all the entries are even same planet/universe/timeline or just some planet in the multiverse that's always getting is shit pushed in called Filgaia, but some entries are closer to modern than others. Wild Arms 4 for example takes place maybe a decade after a lengthy war that engulfed the world, and you can still see surprisingly modern looking things in places: blown out apartment buildings, old tanks littering the land, a ruined suspension bridge lined with abandoned cars leading to an old decaying military airport, etc. Even then though, that entry is oddly on the far sci-fi end of the spectrum for the series.

Oh, and I suppose I forgot that Wild Arms 5 retains it as well, but at least you get the monowheel for faster travel. Really though, it's a matter of paying attention to what your heading for where you're supposed to be going next is and general context clues as to the location, and searching along the way for it. While I suppose it doesn't make much sense for why towns aren't automatically shown from a lore standpoint (how could use miss a town directly in front of your face?), it does add to the sense of setting out into the unknown and going places the characters have never been to. And in regards to the items you can find along the way, there's usually a key item or something later in the game that essentially pings the location of them, so you get a better idea as to where things are if you haven't found them along the road yet..

The PS4 doesn't currently have any PS1 Classics though, user (though it should).

Yeah, I skipped straight into the game and read one of the first books to get a little bit of the back story. I had no idea what the fuck the beginning cutscene is about except for I guess the main heroes after the end of the game?

I had just gotten past Jack's prologue when I posted that, and he and Hanpan had found the not-Computer which seemed more like it was built with magic rather than transistors and PCBs. I'm honestly not really bothered by it, but it does feel a bit overdone, given how many games came out after WA that used similar aesthetics for their ancient technology.

Honestly, I'd be okay with having to search out dungeons and cave entrances but towns and known ruins not showing up is kinda weird. Doesn't seem like it's a deal breaker, just a nitpick.

Okay, so I've cleared the first real dungeon in WA, since I had to take a break. Found the Golem. This game is really reminding me of Evolution: Worlds. I can't quite put my finger on what though. The puzzles are neat, I really wasn't expecting that going in. I thought it'd just be another grindathon with a unique setting and decent writing.

I like the SFC version, though BLUE-BLOODED PUREBRED O.G.ers hate the living fuck out of it.

The battle system still manages to keep it fun even if it's turnbased. There are some twists that are genuinely engaging and some permanent deaths here and there, and the 80s OVA feel really lends a lot to it.

Plot-wise it's not all that strong. At least the other ports keep things within their scope. The SFC port was definitely handled by someone who wanted their OTP to outshine the actual main characters and it shows (and there's one incredibly dumb death that makes a lot of elevens call it a kusoge while others wonder if it was Nintendo censorship, but that's neither here nor there).

I'd recommend playing through it at least once. As far as obscure JRPGs go I think you'll get bang for your buck. It has a lot of voice clips you'd not expect it to and they bothered actually animating sprites, avoiding the FF syndrome of "rotating clockwise means you are either teleporting, fighting on an empty stomach, expecting, or bringing about the end of the world".

Yeah, the way the games have dungeon items for progression in similar fashion to Legend of Zelda is pretty neat (I seem to recall hearing Lufia does similar as well), and it can get rather fun to try to figure out what else some of those gadgets can be used for.

In Wild Arms 1/ACF, you have different sorts of tech. Aside from the stuff that humans have once again advanced to the point of creating themselves, most of it winds up being dug up from underground or found within old ruins, sometimes leaving the humans baffled as to what its function was or how it worked. Some things they can get a bit of a proper grasp for, like how to tinker with and use ARMs (though the fact that the right kind of temperament seems required to properly use them keeps actual users low in amount and a number of people superstitious of them), but in other cases they don't have the right information to do much of anything but guess at them. Compounding matters, in some cases it's not even technology that was made by humans to begin with: the war in the backstory was effectively an alliance of human and Elw against the Metal Demons, and the non-humans were both decidedly more advanced. Of course, while they eventually got the Metal Demons the fuck off, the world was in really bad shape afterward, and the recovery very slow (by human terms), so you've got occasional traces from all three groups still littering the world. Part of why the game is at the tech level it is: humanity still hasn't quite reached where it was before, and even their numbers are still on the rather low side with how dangerous their world is (giving reasons for the handful of towns to be rather small for once, though it's worth noting that drifters likely spend more time in the wilderness than towns).

I see, I may have to give it a go then. Since you mentioned "port", I took a look and it seems like it's been on a surprising amount of systems. I was honestly kind of expecting to just see Super Famicom and Mega Drive or something, but instead it's a bunch of PC releases or something.

Did the classics sell? I'm wondering since I want to play parasite eve again or bushido blade.

I love that I got to contribute the blurb for 3 to that picture (the second paragraph). Just an amazing game. Really has aged exceptionally well, too. Three is still aesthetically a treat.

I was going to post the BoF franchise as well.

Feel free to contribute more as far as a possible mechanics section goes.

I would assume they did well enough as companies kept putting them up onto the PS3/PSP/Vita PSN, though sadly it was usually the games that were easier to find anyhow. Issue he's talking about being that somehow, the PS4 has no PS1 capabilities at all as of now, physical or digital, while every other prior Playstation system was capable of playing them in some format.

I know, I believe the spin of the non-capabilities where as follows.
but they seem to have changed that with the ps2 games, I'm still waiting for some old classic ps2 games.

I'm good even if its only online since they would probably only port the already library that was on PSN, but the problem is there is a shit-ton of Japanese PS1 games they have to port.
I'm not defending it but I can see why it has taken some time.

Given the trend in regards to the prior PSN on the PS3, and even the VC, I would expect that if you're hoping for actually rare stuff that would benefit from rereleases, you might be waiting a long time for uploads that may never come.

Might be wrong, but I would assume most of those that did make it up there had to be specially configured to run right off of PS3s, given the PS3 had long since lost the native PS2 capability. Think I've heard that Atlus had a hard time trying to get some of their SMT stuff up there, resulting in delays, while XSEED tried and ultimately had to give up getting the PS2 Wild Arms games working with the PS3. PS4 might be easier to make working digital rereleases for though, but it's the lack of PS1 capability that's odd. Every prior system included, so I assume it would have been pretty cheap to leave it. Not like the older PS3 models where the hardware backwards compatibility bloated the costs.

I want to go indepth with a lot of the mechanics of the game and the great design of them (the U.I., the master system, peco, formations, and examine/skill system, dragon gene system). But it's late and I'm sleepy lol

Maybe give some consideration to it tomorrow then?

the original ps3 the 20gb and 60 gb had in their architecture some chip so you could play some ps2 games with the discs.

But they took that shit out from the ps3 later with the 80gb versions or slim. only because it was expensive piece of hardware already.
So, my bet is that the collection of ps1 games on 3 would probably come to 4, after some time.

I hate going down memory-lane only because it reminds me on how open the ps3 actually was.

I've seen a bit of footage of BoF6, and let me just say this: the sprites are always facing forward, no matter what direction you're walking. Even on the NES, they had sprite designs for the backs of characters; i'm FAIRLY CONFIDENT BoF6 is just mobile garbage, from that lack of effort.

As far as Bof5 goes, yeah: if it wasn't a BoF game, i'd just call it crap and move on. If it was a side story, i'd call it crap and be annoyed they didn't make a real sequel. Since it WAS a mainline sequel, they removed so many running themes and changed so much gameplay decisions that it felt butchered.

Yeah, it's from Glodia and it started on Japanese home computers going basically everywhere from the MSX to X68k.

They decided to revamp designs and make a mainstream push for it around the mid-nineties which led to the better known ports (PC-E and SFC) and even a radio drama.

Maybe it's because we don't have vidya radio dramas or drama CDs that come west, but I've always been kind of curious about what that sort of stuff is. Is it just the game's plot told as an audio only thing?
>Ashley voiced by Cloud's future Japanese VA, Irving voiced by Sephiroth's.
Strikes me as funny how that worked out.

Again, my thought is that had it been released on the side while an actual Breath of Fire V was in the works, it could have been a possible offbranch without impacting the main series, the way Final Fantasy has Tactics and Crystal Chronicles, Dragon Quest has DQMs, etc.

I remember it from the GC version. Bought it off a friend recently, still holding out hope for the sequel, a remake or at the very least a PC port.

Hope he gave you a decent price to buy it for. Last time I saw a copy it was like $75 and sold for as much. Same place managed to sell a used copy of BKO for $100.

He's kinda right though, at least with regards to FF's random battles. There's no need to pay a huge amount of attention and while ATB sometimes gets good use, at the start it's basically just a time-waster.

Meanwhile you earn the ability to rush your way through fights in Nocturne and DSS, and the animations are nice and fast. Earthbound goes the extra mile and just hands you the win for fights you'd blast through anyway. I think the problem is more ATB/anim length and engagement than a chrg command though. Romancing Saga (PS2) has more intereresting combat where you can't just autopilot through or you'll get wiped, even when it comes to random encounters, same with SMT. Making the wrong move can hugely screw over your party so there are actual stakes to make combat better than mobileshit tier. I love FFV and the job system, but the early game can be pretty full, and the late game just feels like you have combat as a formality a lot of the time because you now have 4 ubermensch with which to pummel any non-boss resistance into the floor. Picking away at 6 right now (because I've essentially never played it) and combat time is easily doubled (if not more than doubled) due to how long initiative gauges take to fill

It became that "really expensive saturn game" and the "one rpg in a rail shooter series." Instead of being recognized for what it is, a cohesive, witty, touching game with remarkably intelligent combat and battle design, a very unique approach to development, and at a time where JRPGs were everywhere, a refreshing take on a genre filled with bloated, long-running adventures of a group of friends saving the world.

It's kinda like if Xenogears was a complete game.

He says it's because Lavos Looks like Deus so Lavos HAS to be a piece of Deus that flew into space after the final battle. Also Lucca appears in the village at the start of Xenogears.

In reality Chrono Trigger and Xenogears shared a lot of the same staff, even Takahashi worked on it. They were also the team that helped make FFVI, so a lot of the designs between the three games are similar if not directly influenced by the others. There is nothing really concrete about it.

...

It's because Sega lost the source code for everything before the dreamcast because of a retarded japanese burning practice.

Saturn back up loading is pretty easy, however. And the music is absolutely stunning. If you get a chance to study how the Saturn did things that were considered simple for the N64 and PS1 such as transparencies, Panzer Dragoon (the entire trilogy, let alone Saga) seem like absolute miracles. The system really did use sprites to make up 3D environments, just with angled perspectives, sort of like how Doom does it, but it's proper 3D just a very bizarre way of achieving 3D results.

Now you imagine a full game with elaborate 3D animations, constant camera movement and effects, full 3D models and it becomes a sort of miracle that the games not only look as good as they do (some of the best looking games of the generation, easily) but pulled off on hardware where it was pretty much unthinkable to do anything like that, and on competing platforms that were designed for it - considered largely expensive.

Hell, the last half of the final boss in Zwei is probably the most breakneck 3D movement of the time. youtu.be/fSqh_oUCRIE?t=249

What's even cooler is that through the in-game unlockables you can play as that final boss form. The engine wasn't just hyper-specialized for the hardware, it was also extremely flexible on the hardware.

Shame that Sega will never rerelease it and, from what I know of it, doesn't even have the source code for it anymore.

Said it to the guy before that cameos should never be used as evidence of being in the same series unless there is DAMN solid proof beyond that (IE: game is outright a spin-off relating to particular entries, such as Vagrant Story to Final Fantasy). Otherwise you wind up being able to say something like Tales and Legend of Valkyrie are the same series, because Valkyrie is a bonus boss in Eternia, or that Shadow Hearts and King of Fighters are related because one of the wolves in Covenant wears a red and white baseball cap and spouts Terry-esque lines (really just a shoutout from Nautilus since they and SNK used to work together).

Best thread

So my copy of Unlimited SaGa came in yesterday, but I'm actually going to be too busy to properly learn it just yet. It's really a shame that Square decided that the game didn't need a proper manual when it launched here. The game is, from an art perspective, absolutely fantastic. With the exception of VA every bit of visual and auditory content is too notch. Combat system seems neat (Combos off of parries? What is this madness?) but I get no sense of scale or of the stakes involved in each fight. I also have yet to spark anything, (which is the best part of the series) so that's a bit disappointing but not wholly unexpected

Can't believe nobody's posted Legend of Legaia yet. I don't consider Azure Dreams a jrpg, but I'm posting it anyway.

Isn't that the town building Roguelike? Much like Legaia, I've heard of it but never gotten around to it. Still need to beat Valkyrie Profile, too.

I still need to give Legaia a go in the future, but it seems to me as if it's a game were one is going to have to take the time to really get used to the how the combat handles. Is that an accurate thought to have going in, or is it easy enough to grasp starting out and just becomes more nuanced as the game progresses?

No. Absolutely not. The game gives you a nice tutorial on how it works right off the bat, and it never gets any more complicated than that. Just funner.

Ah, alright then. The only combat videos I'd seen were some end-game optional bosses (which work well enough for avoiding story spoilers), but it seemed to really not be a combat system like one I'd personally seen before, like having to execute the right attack pattern to actually perform a special move, or something of the sort.

Yeah, that's how it works and half the fun of the battle system. Throughout the entirety of the game (if it's your first time playing it), you'll be spending a good majority of trash battles just trying random shit you think will lead into a new move. Most of the time you'll just flail like a moron, but if you've got good intuition, you'll eventually figure something out and get some immense satisfaction. There's also, every so often, in-game hints and tips about how to do shit. NPC's even explicitly teach you moves, but this is usually more towards the beginning of the game.

Then, once you amass a good amount and level up to increase your bar, you can get into the super fun shit of chaining them. After that it's all just watching your dudes pound niggers like the fist of the north star.

Cool, I'll keep that mind, though I'm not entirely sure when I'll get around to actually playing it (does it seem like it would work well as a PSP eboot, or is it L2/R2/Right analog heavy in control?).

Is Legaia 2 as bad as people seem to make it out to be compared to the first game?

Don't quote me on this, but I don't even think Legaia has L2/R2 Right analog. It might have been developed right before that shit became a thing. Either way you slice it, the game is a-okay to emulate on whatever system you wish.

Yeah. Comparatively, Legaia 2 is hot dogshit. On its own it's an okay game at best.

Okay, just figured I'd ask since I can more easily toss an eboot onto my PSP than try to get it working on my toaster. Does surprise me a bit that Sony hasn't bothered to put Legaia up on the PSN despite them owning the rights to the series.

Just got to Milama in WA:ACF. Still not sure what to think but that's because I haven't found the next plot thread yet. Definitely hate the search system now, even with the map item. The battles also take a lot longer than I want thanks to waiting for the animation even in Turbo mode. Cecilia cut her fucking beautiful hair, whyyyyyyyyy

Worldwide trope about outwardly showing character growth. Certainly not the only JRPG to do so.

It's been a while since I played, but have you already been to the Guardian Temple or whatever it's named, or are you past that point? As for the search system, I don't mind it all that much, but considering how divided some people are on it, I have to wonder if it was maybe better received in Japan, considering it only disappeared temporarily for Wild Arms 4 (which did away with the overworld altogether in favor of a world map with visitable places). I suppose that borrowing WA1's on-the-field locations would have been something that would have gotten little complaint had they opted to use that again instead (considering ACF was already a mix of elements of past entries). Real issue is that you don't have any way of using the search system and keeping momentum, unlike the horses in WA3, or the Monowheel in WA5.

Search system is cool and contributes to exploration theme. Get good faglord.

Looking for that. I wonder if I went the wrong way. I went through a mountain pass of some kind and found the water village that claims it's near the Temple but I don't know where the Temple is. They directed me to the Sand River for a side quest, but I can't do shit in there. Guess I should head back through the mountain pass, I don't see anything else in the area.

Yeah, the searching in Cross Edge was mitigated because you could stop at search stations and do a massive reveal of areas of the map. You still had to hunt down secrets though.

Buildings aren't invisible, dumbfuck. Searching for items or secrets of some kind is fine. Searching because you don't have a Kingdom registered on your world map despite there being a castle in the town is retarded and needlessly time consuming.

The Guardian Temple should be around a lake or something if memory serves. As for the sand river, you'll be able to get through there later, but you need particular tools to navigate it.

ACF has a slight issue in that, for reasons I can't figure out, the game has the world map mirrored compared to the original on the PS1, so if you're a prior fan with muscle memory for how things were, or perhaps looking up information outside the game that might have been written with the PS1 original in mind, it makes a bit of a problem.

Muh immersun!

You haven't found the town, so of course you'd have to search for it. Makes sense to me.

Well, I solved the problem. It gave me a radar to ping hidden objects but never told me how to switch to it. Just mashed buttons and found it, pinged around Milama and did the side quest to unlock going to the Temple.

It's going to be one those games for me, I can feel it already.

For what purpose? That's pretty weird.

One that insults your intelligence and makes you truly understand your mental insufficiencies? I mean, I suppose. I've played a few of those in my time, but I would never imagine Wild Arms could be one.

But I guess it takes all sorts.

...

Not to mention that Queen Zeal acts exactly like Miang and also has purple hair.

Yeah, basically. That and having some relatively weird shit that I can't figure out until later. The earlier puzzles were easy-peasy. I'm in the temple and putting the clock to 3:30PM and it's not doing shit. I even went around the clock twice because it's a 12 hour clock. I feel retarded as fuck right now.

I honestly don't know. Considering that the world map in ACF's opening seems to be the same as the ingame one for ACF, I would assume it's not something that was just changed willy-nilly for the west (unless Agetec had access to the files comprising the opening FMV to fuck around with, in which case they should have been doing their jobs better on the whole since they delayed the western release two whole years). The official art map for Wild Arms PS1 (which also doubles as the inner tray card in the game case) also matches with its ingame map too. Still, it's not like one can't get used to the change, but it's a decision where you kind of have to wonder what the point was.

Also, as a heads up, you've got different map modes too, between minimap, full screen, and transparent overlay.

Yeah, I've been using the transparent overlay. Got to Baskar Village. I'm a little more interested now that I've got some characterization for my party members too. The strength of the heart thing sounds pretty familiar. :^)

I guess my other confusion with Wild Arms as a setting was I expected more guns and wild west as opposed to decaying world and fantasy with guns and giant robots as weird relics that don't show up very often. Now that I'm mostly over that and into the setting, it's starting to click a little more.

Man, this whole game's pretty good too. I think I enjoyed the Modern chapter the most.

It's a sliding scale, depending on which game you're playing. If you want to go full retard with guns, wild west, and adventure, then you need to make it to 3.

From what I know of things, the genre Wild Arms fits into is called "Weird West", with its mixture of sci-fi, fantasy, and western elements, as opposed to hard-Wild West. That said, the percentage of each varies from game to game, such as Wild Arms 3 having the most western vibe to it, or Wild Arms 4 being much more on the sci-fi end of things.

I also find it funny that you think Wild Arms 1/ACF Filgaia is "decaying", when if memory serves it's been ever so slowly getting better by the start of the game (though the guardians could certainly use more people that believe in them). At least that Filgaia still has oceans, too.

Nice. I'll keep at ACF now that I've figured out where to go and what the game expects of me.

To be fair, it looks pretty bleak and the Guardians and townsfolk keep saying

Yeah, I certainly don't recall Filgaia being too fucked up in 1. Seemed pretty standard fantasy affair, actually.

3's where the planet is like, hermhem.

The guardians have most definitely seen better days, which is part of why Filgaia's recovery has been so slow. The issue is that when the metal demons invaded prior, the humans, guardians, and Elw (along with the Elw's creations, such as the golems) were allied to fight them off, and even then the damage to Filgaia from all factions was immense. This time, the guardians are still too weak to really help fight back much, the Elw have vanished, and the humans are in rather sparsely populated settlements with large distances between them, still unable to entirely understand how to use what tech they find, and don't exactly have an army to repel the demons with. With 3 factions vs 1, Filgaia won with heavy toll. Now, the guardians are stuck having to place their hopes in a trio of humans they find weak, but with the potential to become stronger, to try to mount a defense against the demons' plans, because if the demons gain a good foothold, they absolutely will rape Filgaia this time. So yeah, it's been bleak, but was still livable prior to the Metal Demons return.

On that note, if you like the characterization you're starting to get, Wild Arms is also rather neat for actually developing its villains. I wouldn't exactly say they change in mindset, but they have actual personalities and goals, and seeing how they interact with not only the party but amongst themselves is neat.

These are my two favorite games ever made and it seems they're both pretty much lost to history at this point.

I feel like Growlanser 3 was better and it's a masterpiece, my favorite game on the PS2, but IV is also really good.

Any good JRPGs with combat systems that aren't your typical turn based systems expect for Live a Live and Swordcraft Story? Because I already played those

Depends on how different you want? Talking about ATB or full on ARPG?

You're going to have to be more specific. Do you want real time combat, or turn-based with a twist beyond being standard menu-driven combat?

Both are fine, but I would prefer action driven real-time combat.

I had a hard time getting into this game at first but I'm so glad I did. Easily one of the most enjoyable battle systems I've ever played, especially at the second half/end-game.

Well, real-time combat is kind of Tales and Star Ocean's shtick (and while not the same, they are similar since both spawn from some of the same devs initially) if you're wanting party-based combat. Ys also has real time combat, though whether it's solo or party-based depends on the entry. Xenoblade is also real-time, but the MMO-esque nature of it (positioning matters, action bar with cooldowns) might be a turn off. Certainly not the only ones out there, but they come readily to mind.

The Shadow Hearts series is turn-based, but leaves success in the player's hands via the Judgment Ring system, which utilizes the player's hand-eye coordination to get them more directly involved. Decent timing results in standard effectiveness of action, great timing results in better effectiveness, and poor timing results in the action either being only partial or outright flubbing the whole thing. There's even an entire subdivision of status effects meant to mess with the player themselves, and the later entries allow you to customize the various character's Judgment Rings to allow for more hits (hit zones reduced as a balance), chance-on-hit effects, and ring type (which grants more of a reward as you reduce the ease of hitting the target zones).

Vagrant Story

Thanks anons, in return I suggest you play Terranigma. If you haven't already

In that case would Parasite Eve count? I know it's traditionally considered a TPS but I played them both back to back and they've basically got a lot of the same ideas gameplay wise.

When you start Vagrant Story, make sure to read the "read me" section of the in-game manual.

Vagrant Story's a lot deeper, but yeah. I need to replay Parasite Eve, it's been years.

If you've never played Tales before, Eternia, Symphonia, and Vesperia have all struck me as good starting point for newcomers due to being easy enough to get a feel for. Do note though that, at least from what I've seen in discussions in the past, some people feel it harder to go back to the earlier entries after having initially started with the more recent ones.

It's on my backlog, even got a rom patched for NTSC. Wanting to wait until I give Soul Blazer and Illusion of Gaia a go first though, as I hear they're loosely related, at least in theme.

I'd say go ahead and read the whole manual. A lot of it wont make sense at first, I read the block thing ahead of time and was totally confused by it until the game started actually giving my block puzzles.

Honestly the most intimidating thing about the game is keeping your weapons straight.

Well yeah, what I did was read the read me section then go back and read other parts when something confused me.

No game will ever be like this Radiata Stories.

I rarely see anyone bring this up, but it is way better than it had any right to be.

Kickass music too.

Okay, so going off of how the series had introduced the Valentines prior via 1 on 1 optional fights, the Shadow Hearts III that never was might have had Grandpa "Black Bat" Valentine as a playable character? Hopefully more in his prime though, he's a weak as fuck anticlimactic boss by 1929.

What about Radiant Historia?

Was going to say I'm pretty sure those games aren't related (being one was Tri-Ace and the other Atlus), but Wikipedia claims that some of the former Radiata Stories team was involved with Radiant Historia. Doesn't specify how many were involved though, and digging through the credits logs on MG, I only see three overlapping names (Hiroshi Konishi, Kenji Tokita, Teruki Okushi). Unless there's a lot more that were stuck going by pseudonyms prior (the way western VA's have had to do in the past) with Radiata Stories, I don't think that few constitutes as all that notable of development connection.

Did find some other neat stuff though, namely that Atlus' site for RH still exists and has interviews with the devs translated on there, Media.Vision apparently handled image-boarding (storyboarding?) for RH, and apparently Square at one point produced and sold some figurines of Jack and Ridley (bundled with Star Ocean 2 and 3 figures).

wew laddy. I'd be pretty interested in seeing the SO2 ones though.

Damn. I must be a faggot since artwork like this where they look up at you always gets to me. JRPGs make me too sad when they're over. They're crazy story and character driven and once it's over it's over unless there's a sequel which has a high chance of ruining everything but you still really wish for one. Never ever

Here's the link play-asia.com/radiata-stories-star-ocean-trading-arts/13/7011oz. They're out of print and out of stock though; probably been years since they made them.
I suppose at the very least for western fans we still can buy import Knightblazer (and OverKnightblazer) figures on Amazon.

I don't exactly get that way about individual ones that often, but more when I finish all the available games in a series (assuming the series to be dead/dormant), because if you were liking it, you've got nothing new to look forward to playing in the future. That usually results in me putting off actually beating the final game for a while.

>play-asia.com/radiata-stories-star-ocean-trading-arts/13/7011oz

The Rena and Claude don't look so bad. It's a shame about the Virginia figure though, but I understand. Back in those days, the demand for figures was, unfortunately, practically nonexistent.

True. I suspect I should feel lucky we even got all the games here (in NA anyhow), an 80 pg artbook courtesy of XSEED handling WA5, and also somehow Twilight Venom as well (which was brought over YEARS after airing in Japan; I'm not even sure it technically even aired in on TV here either, it might have gotten the straight to DVD treatment, as the only airdates I can find are the 1999-2000 Japanese ones, and ACF's western release was bundled with the first episode as a promo in 2005). There's a lot of other stuff to do with the series that's import only.

Bumping with some news. Seems Dynamic Designs has finished an English translation for Xak: Art of the Visual Stage for the SFC as a belated Christmas gift. Though, from the sound of things, it might be better waiting until a 1.01 patch for bugfixes.
dynamic-designs.us/xak.shtml