Do you like JRPGs?

P4 Arena is not an RPG.

I have only ever finished two JRPGs: Final Fantasy V and Chrono Trigger, I really enjoyed the second.
As of right now I am currently playing FFXII but it feels like i'm forcing myself to finish it, there are things that I like about the game but there is so much bullshit padding to extend the game's lifespan it's ridiculous, I spend most of my time just walking, doing tedious fetch quest hunts and dealing with the horrid license system not to mention that everything is expensive as fuck and I have to spend like almost an hour running back and forth farming succulent fruit drops from enemies to just buy some shit that will be useless shortly after. I would really like to play some actually good PS2 JRPGs after this.

Penolo best girl, if only she had some personality.

Yeah, though since I just finished a whole series of them in a row, I'm taking a bit of a break.

You already got some planned, or are you wanting suggestions?

Not even remotely close.

Only if its fun

You and me. We're on the same wavelength.

Yep, I've been playing Grandia II and its really fucking good, the soundtrack is great, the battle system is fun, but the dialogue can be a bit "weird" for lack of a better word.

I am open to suggestions, was eyeing DQ8 is it good?

I don't like you

Yep, I'll even play the crap ones.

wud ?

Admittedly that's still on my backlog (I honestly need to give Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy more of a go overall), but from what I've seen in the past, Dragon Quest VIII is a bit of a favorite amongst western fans (Dragon Quest V is also highly thought of; incidentally, both the SFC original and PS2 remake have fan translations). Though, I have heard that the western release suffers slowdown the Japanese release apparently didn't, and via the added voicing, can be seen as the instigator for the trend to accent the fuck out of the games that were brought west after it. Might take that with a grain of salt though; some other user that might be more experienced with Dragon Quest on the whole might be able to give you more/better information from their own experiences.

Anyhow, how are you aiming to play stuff? PCSX2, physical PS2 with discs (legit or burned), IDE+loader? Just wondering, as that can affect how readily you might have access to games suggested.

I find all JRPG settings, artstyles and settings generic and uninspired, i prefer old CRPGs like Fallout or Wizardry 8.

I have a chipmodded PS2 slim which im using to slog through ffxii

My nigger.

All final fantasies play fantastically on PCSX2, shoulda played it there speedups and save states are a godsend to rpgs. Also money cheats.

You are gonna hate me for this but i hate emulators

They're OK.

I assume then you're using actual discs, given the lack of an internal drive port and USB 1.0 ports being shit to run games through? Not sure if the original disc type a game was on matters in regards to burning games (CD-Rom, DVD-Rom, and DVD-9), but it might be something to keep in mind.

You prefer turn-based, real-time, traditional, strategy/tactical? Just asking since the PS2 does have a lot of JRPGs on it.

Considering my computer's a toaster and I don't know of anyone with a Dreamcast where I am, it's a shame that I've heard the PS2 port of Grandia II was a poorly done one.

I like any kind of JRPGs but the ones with a certain degree of exploration and nice wordbuilding are my favorite (for any game really)

It's irrational, pcsx2 in this case offers the superior experience.

I liked shadowhearts but you might not.

I finished replaying TWEWY for the first time since its release

such a unique game that has not been even closely mimiced by anything else

wood

Wild arms 3 and 4 are pretty good. Pretty much all the ps2 smt games.

Well, I certainly like the Wild Arms series (3 on the PS2 is a fan favorite), and I'd second what says about Shadow Hearts (good series, but might have too little exploration for your liking; though, given the premise of it taking place on Earth, and characters sometimes remarking on how long it takes them to get somewhere, using a world map instead of an overworld feels a bit more excusable than most JRPGs that have taken toward doing that). As far as world building though, I've heard the Ar Tonelico games really excel with that, as well as characters and music, but aren't not for everyone (actually been debating on if that's the next series I want to delve into myself). Still, if you feel like looking into them, AT2 has had a full retranslation effort after just how much NISA got wrong with it (both in terms of script and technically). Full patch release can be found here, and from a (now old) news post, they've tested it with just about every method of playing PS2 games, so it should work fine as a burned disc.
at2.metalbat.com/?page_id=502

Still seems ridiculous that Square felt that a fucking mobile port warranted an entire countdown teaser site for. As if fans wouldn't take such a thing to be for a sequel instead.

Thanks for the suggestions, most def gonna give all those a pirate.

Guess i'll have to beg for JRPGs with original settings, story and artstyle then

You are going to open a huge can of worms in calling it good. A lot of anons, from what I've seen in the past, tend to regard WA3 (or ACF, depending on how they feel about the remake) the last good game, with WA4 and 5 getting dismissed (while XF is a Tactical RPG spinoff). Granted, I didn't mind WA4 that much myself (though I was only going to play it initially due to finding it cheap, and having already low expectations from what I'd read on it; did get more than my $15 worth of enjoyment from it) and found WA5 pretty solid, but WA4 still felt like the lowest point of the main series, and I was glad to find that WA5 improved on some aspects like the HEX system and reimplementing a proper overworld (with four overworld themes to boot) instead of a "choose your location" map.

A bit sad that Naruke got sick partway through 4 and thus doesn't have that much contribution on WA4, 5, and XF, but Agematsu and Kouda still did a good job with WA4 and 5's OSTs (I haven't played XF yet admittedly).

I would still play WA4 over any FF game.

I liked the Breath of Fire series, 4 being my favorite. That series is pretty much dead though considering the latest entry is Japanese only and has microtransactions galore.

You niggas are alright.

I skipped 4 so far but really enjoyed 5 with the undub patch. Agematsu's work with the WA5 soundtrack was pretty nice overall.
I'm just heartbroken that Naruke showed interest in a new entry just in time for the 10th anniversary of WA only for Sony to announce mobileshit.

It's just like Breath of Fire now - relegated to the mobage trash heap…

Got Lost Odyssey through some promotion recently.

Supposed to be top-tier. Anyone confirm?

Have you tried the pc port? It might run on your toaster, it runs on mine after all

If you haven't played Romancing Saga III, go do it now.

yes, I love jrpgs

I used to play them almost exclusively, but as I grew up, I found myself playing traditional JRPG's less and less and hybrid or niche ones instead, such as Action-RPG's or Dungeon Crawlers. Now I usually can't even muster the will to play a regular turn-based one without some tertiary aspect of the game heavily incentivising me.

It's a complicated feeling.

i like the tactical ones but then again i also like the western ones too

Most are shit and replace role playing with Grinding.

A copy pasta for you

generally speaking yes. The only semi popular JRPG that I really couldn't get into was Last Remnant.

Does dark cloud count?

This really triggers my autism.

this is Holla Forums visual novels are explicitly allowed but other non-games are not.

FUCKING PEASANTS, STOP WANTING GOOD GAMES, LET US DUMB DOWN YOUR GAMES FOR BURGERCUCK NORMALFAGS SO WE CAN MAKE MORE MONEY

This shouldn't be making me as mad as it does.

...

...

Yep

How many groundbreaking RPGs has the west made in the last 10 years?

Please go back to reddit.

Great answer.

How many groundbreaking rpgs has the east made in the last 10 years?

We have IDs here you mentally ill homosexual.

Never ever.

Pathetic

Third pic says to compare the groundbreaking, successful RPGs made in the last 10 years. I'm just wondering which ones they're talking about.

To be honest, I haven't actually gotten through much of what Square's made at this point. Admittedly it's mostly from having such a big backlog anyhow (and not wanting to fall into a trap I've heard others talk about in years past of thinking starting out mostly with Square games and feeling that there games are the pinnacle of the subgenre), and it's not to dismiss works, particularly the classic ones, as being "bad" either, but most of what I have tried honestly hasn't managed to grab me quite like other series have, and I'm not real sure why. I mean, Chrono Trigger I did manage to love enough to go through multiple NG+ of, but I've never gotten all that far in the likes of Final Fantasy IV, VI, and VII thus far. I don't know, maybe I haven't been in the right sort of mood or mindset for them.

It was both Naruke and Naneko who did, if memory serves.
I will never cease being angry at Sony's decision for Wild Arms being rebooted as phone shit. And while I'm also mad at Capcom about Breath of Fire too, they're at least a third party company. Sony though owns their own line of systems and should by all means take advantage of that to keep games and franchises they own the rights to on them, yet they act like Wild Arms and Arc the Lad have no place amongst them anymore. Perhaps with the former they've taken note from various publications about it having just been a "filler" JRPG series compared to more anticipated titles.

Though, you might keep an eye on this. Naruke's been working on an anniversary arrangement album from the looks of it.
score-refire.com

I get the feeling that sixth gen (or borderline fifth gen? I know some people are a bit iffy as to where the Dreamcast really stands, given how brief it was current for) would be an absolute no-go. It just seems odd that Grandia II's PS2 port, on a system well known for JRPGs, would get a notably subpar port. I mean, at least with Skies of Arcadia, both the Dreamcast and Gamecube versions are good to the point it's a bit debatable which one better makes up for its shortcomings (and I suppose amongst emulation users, the Gamecube one might win out; think I've heard it has a music restoration patch or something).

My own thoughts here, and I'm really not sure for certain why that might be, but here in NA it would seem that the "professional" critics were prone to giving it a lot of grief, and scoring it quite a bit lower than WA1 (which seems to have been considered more 80-90% range). Granted, that might be putting too much weight on what western publications think, but it seems like it could have possibly been a point of influence. Also that it was a spring 2000 release in NA and the PS2 would soon be out, so maybe SCEE wanted to focus more on the new platform as well (compare with, say, BKO on the Gamecube, being one of the last NA releases prior to the Wii, when most people were focusing on the new system; it didn't see a PAL release either)? Just speculation. I know you guys also failed to get ACF, though the most likely cause there seems to have been the game selling pretty poorly in NA (due to repeated delays on Agetec's end killing hype) that no one really wanted to pick it up for a PAL release.

Speaking of missing stuff, did you guys even get Twilight Venom out there? Just wondering since it debuted in Japan in late 1999, but NA didn't see it until 2003 (to the point ACF included the first episode as a bonus)?

I've considered it before (hell, I've got a patched version in my backlog of fan-translated games, but SaGa's a series I've heard can be a bit hard to get into, and I'm not real clear on where the best entry to get acclimated is.

Wild Arms 3 does have a good amount of callbacks to the first game (and by proxy ACF, being a remake of WA1) to the point it might be some sort of distant sequel, but Media.Vision is VERY wishywashy about possible continuity for any of the series. WA2 is also good, though the English script might make you have to reread some lines a few times to understand what's said.

Shadow Hearts technically starts with a PS1 game called Koudelka, which isn't for everyone (and is executed differently, being a horror game with JRPG elements in it, rather than a JRPG with horror designs) but does set some groundwork and is the first chronological entry. From the New World is a side game featuring the most refined combat the series offered, but also is a lot lighter and quirkier than the rest (thought those were already on a downward slope of dark-to-quirk ratio). I liked the whole series, but people are rather divided on both Koudelka and FtNW.

There are references to the ideas that would become WA3's plot in the Sealed Library in the original WA. The Yggdrasil system is specifically mentioned.

Thanks gamefaqs

2.32] The Tree of Life
Agter the grat war, a huge magical machine was built to restore the land from
the devastation. The machine was named [Yggdrasil], after the tree in the
legends. The demons discovered the machine and stole the reviving mechanisms.
Rather than use the mechanism to give birth to new land, the demons' leader
[Mother] used it to give birth to more demons.

Sounds to me like you never even tried to play a JRPG. Even the most popular ones have relatively unique and imaginative settings compared to western RPGs.

"JRPG" is not a definitive enough term as it just means RPGs that come from Japan. Ys, SMT, and FF can all be called JRPGs yet they all play quite differenty, and their similarities can just be traced to just being in the same genre. You could only say you don't like JRPGs if you don't like RPGs in general.
They already did, back when RPGs from the west were actually worth playing.

lol

Tokyo isn't that unique or exciting.

No

Screwing around with debug menu in 黄金の太陽 失われし時代 (I'm playing it in the original Nipponese) right now.

Did you know that if you walk through walls here you'll drown, something that doesn't happen with any other body of water in the game?

A lot of players know about the ability to drain this cave (which is useless), but did you know there's a weird duplicate of that part if you walk out of bounds near there?

Jasmine also has quite a few unused sprites if you bypass Garcia being made the lead. Breaks half the cutscenes in the game and requires a warp/restart from sanctum to fix though.

wut mate

Best games in their series:
Breath of Fire 5
Dragon Quest 8
Final Fantasy 6
Lufia 2
Rance Quest
Star Ocean 2/3
Suikoden 2
Wild Arms

I've played many RPGs over the years, and I only liked a select few of them, and about half of that select few were JRPGs.
So yeah, I guess.

...

I love JRPGs, too many to name, though I admit most of them aren't great unless you have a real soft spot for the genre. They're kind of like a guilty pleasure for me, I guess. I just can't get enough of all the little cliches and tropes that have been done to death.

The SNES SMT games were better.

We have pink text now?

As much as i like smt 1 and 2, smt 3 beats them by a mile. DDS are worse than smt 1 and 2 though, i'll give you that.

not really. i dont really like video games either. ive been playing RA2 recently, but its boring because the AI is stupid as fug

A problem I find in SMT1 and 2 are fuckhuge dungeons full of nothing. The problem is worse in 2.

That and its hard to find anything. If they did a modern remake, just fixing the dungeons and keeping the gameplay, they would probably be better than 3.

Name 10 good JRPGs that aren't based on DQ High Fantasy then.

Wild arms 1 2 3 5
Smt 3
Persona 1
Smt SJ
Raidou 1 and 2

what happened to v and why is it full with idiots?

Are you including yourself on that list?

user, what?

Might be cheating a bit to list multiple entries in a single franchise.

Wild Arms
Star Ocean :^)
Barkley Shut and Jam Gaiden
SMT including Persona
Neptunia
Xenogears/saga/blade
Ar Tonelico
Atelier series
Youkai Watch

I couldn't list 10 without stretching the interpretation, and I already double dipped and listed some series that you did. It's actually a moderately tough question without dipping into the esoteric.

It was obvious from the start this was some marketer garnering data. What you should ask is why is there no porn dumps.

Fuck off honestly

Looks like the marketers know exactly how to manipulate you then.
They have you by the ballsssssss
You're their bitch.

That accent in the English dub man.

...

They did really good choosing that slow, sultry voice.

Wild ARMS 4 is the least DQ of all WAs.

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Depends as long as they have interesting combat systems turn based are okay, but they need to be well done I will probably love a JRPG. I like the atmosphere of the most JRPG's but I cannot play a game that doesn't have a good gameplay, even if the story and characters were great.

I want more JRPGs like this.

Posting the worst JRPG I've ever played. Couldn't even get through half of it.

I wish I got those hours back. Why do so many JRPGs have relentless grinding? It was excusable in the early final fantasy games, but not anymore. Are they too afraid to change?

They actually did with the whole dungeon crawling vidya

You didn't even get to the bad part then.

You mean it actually got worse? Good. I am glad I dodged a bullet.

I want another panzer dragoon rpg

You have to replay the first half
THREE
MORE
'''TIMES'''

You've gotta be fucking kidding me.

Yes, good game.

Normalcuck detected. Mass Effect might be more your speed.

I am fucking not. Did you get to the button mash 'minigame'? You have to do it sixteen times.

I think anyone who knows anything about games understands JRPGs to mean games which play like Final Fantasy: menu-based combat with a party, using either a turn-based system or an active turn system. I'm aware FF isn't the only JRPG series, but you'd have to be blind to say none of the other standout names of the genres like Wild Arms and Breath of Fire and SMT have nothing in common.

I've never understood how people can think this. You don't seriously think Demon's Souls is a JRPG, do you?

Couldn't you customize the encounter rates in that game so you could stop fighting enemies when you didn't need to?

This is the whole deal for me. I'm just over 30, and I've reached the scary point in my life when I wake up in the morning and in what feels like a very short time later, the day is ending and I don't know what happened to the time in between. I don't even have kids or any of the other huge timesinks people my age get into, and the hours still fly by like nothing. I've also found myself getting into crunchier RPGs, and away from a lot of the standard JRPG fare. I used to care about the story, when I felt like I had all the time in the world, but I've played and seen so much that now I just see all the tropes coming a mile away and guess most of the twists. I still have a big soft spot in my heart for the old games I played on NES/SNES, but when I go back and try to emulate them I just can't get into it.

Sometimes I find a cool modification or something, like the Brave New World mod for Final Fantasy VI, but usually I just get bored. I like the combat system and dungeon crawling of SMT and the newer Persona games, but have a hard time staying invested in the story segments in between. I've found myself still managing to really enjoy the Etrian Odyssey games, but once again they're more of a crunchy dungeon crawl than a traditional JRPG. Overall, I think the biggest drawback of most JRPGs I've played in the past and present is the fact that they don't seem to be balanced very well as games with win and lose states. Most of them just have battles and numbers and level ups in order to pretend to be a game while holding your hand over the course of a mediocre 40-60 hour story.

I'm probably just getting old.

You could change the encounter rate, but that doesn't mean you didn't need to grind many, many times in order to stand a chance against the next boss.

I would like jRPGs if they had less Teens/Little kids.

Are there any games that feature actual fucking adults?

For reference, in Tactics Ogre, most of the characters look mature/older, apart from the three teens. Also no voice, so no high-pitched girls.

I've been waiting quite some time to finish this game. Glad I did. I had to go back and review the plot, since some I forgot some details towards the end, but it was still a good time. Relearning the game turned out to not be that bad.

Now that I've finished it, I can finish a few other JRPGs that I put off. I'm curious as to how much progress I can make over the next week or so. I'm still considering skipping FFI and going straight to II.

AND NOW THOSE FUCKS WANT TO REMAKE IT WITH A FUCKING ORIGINAL CHARACTER PURSE OWNER. GOD DAMN I'M AM 200% MAD AT THAT GARBAGE.

Of course. Too little time too many games.

10/10 taste user

How do we know that's not a man?

I guess most of the RPGs I've played had the "kill everything in your way to be strong enough" balance philosophy.

How do we know you're not a cock-sniffing faggot?

if that mattered to you you wouldn't be on Holla Forums

What the fuck is wrong with her tit

...

shit image

99,99% of them have shit-tiert (turn-based) combat and anime-tier trash-stories.

you're getting tired of seeing the same shit, especially the shitty gook rpg gameplay and the shitty storeis.

t. someone who has played 99.99% of Rpgs

Dark Souls and SMT are pretty cool and I've been planning on playing ff9, kingdom hearts 2, and persona 5 for a while. So yeah they're allright.

I certainly do, though I can understand why many people dislike them or just can't get into JRPGs.

Who was the best embryon member?

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The one you posted.

no

EXTREMELY easy MODE

Same is true of the Persona series. EP's cast is the most interesting by far, they're also the oldest, being in the mid20s and 30s.

Nope

She made my dick get hard to a cosmic level that even Gilgamesh was afraid to encounter me.

I'm just disappointed there wasn't more to her story besides leaving the forest of infinite viera waifus.

...

It's my kind of game.

It's hilarious how broken the difficulty is in Valkerie Profile, it punishes you for playing on easy, but rewards you greatly for choosing hard.

It's like they hated casuals, it's great.

Yes

I just finished it a few seconds ago, the game is ridiculously easy if you know what you're doing (saving up all of your items until chapter 4, when you get the Creation Gem and Creation Jewel in quick succession, allowing you to breeze through everything with the new items). Or the fact that breakable staves only break if you PWS with them, meaning you can load your party up with 3 mages with ether scepters and plow through the majority (that majority being the latter part, not the earlier) of the game with only menu magic.

Hated Jesus too.

what game is this semen demon from .

God this game is a fucking mess. Beautiful graphics, music, but a mess. Contender for best plot twist in a JRPG, though.

FFXII

Hey there shlomo.

Actually these games shit all over Odin for their OC do not steal Valkyrie-Norns.

That human is really hot.

I mean the rest of the cast except for Fran and Balthier actually had a fleshed out story. Vaan wanted shit to do with the whole situation until Penelope twisted his arm to do so. Basch's story was a typical dishonored knight and Asche was just the so called dead princess.

JRPGs are the lowest form of vidya.

Indigenous European Norse religion > Jew on a stick

You also described most CRPGs before the 90s - the games early RPGs from japan took their inspiration from.

Why is this always a thing in these threads? Barely any JRPG requires you to grind. It usually just means the player keeps making bad decisions which results in them losing. And the only way for them to win is to power up to the point where they don't need strategy to win.

I know it's a dungeon crawler, but Dungeon Travelers 2 is a game that really makes it tough to grind paste the appropriate level due to the way you gain exp. You get more for being overleveled and less when you're a higher level than the enemies. Generic encounters can easily get you killed if you don't play seriously too. Like fighting 2 minibosses at the same time in an random encounter. Anyway coming up with a good strategy carries you far in this game as opposed to many JRPGs where you can make many mistakes and still win. Like how the ps1 Final Fantasy games let's you carry 99 healing items so you never need to actually worry about limited resources. Making nearly every boss a battle of attention.

No that's visual novels.

JRPGs made videogames shit. people who play JRPGs are emotional faggots or burning autists. if you enjoy JRPGs, you are stupid.

...

Meant attrition.

I know what you mean. I find myself playing the average JRPG less and less and mainly focusing on stuff like dungeon crawlers and action RPGs. Just give me some deep gameplay and a lot of situations to challenge my team/builds. Great music too really helps pull me along too. When it comes to JP games, most don't have a story I could give a damn about. Could girls doing cute things help but that's me enjoying the characters, not the story.

Anyway many RPGs have to have a focus on world building and story telling which I really appreciate. Now, while I appreciate that, I would rather it didn't get in the way of gameplay. I don't need the game to have me take breaks with the gameplay (mostly combat) by giving me long town exploring sections. With older FF games, it makes sense because the gameplay didn't have much depth but they can be way more advanced these days when it comes to combat.

Seriously, I didn't expect it to be so good. My biggest gripes are how some classes become abysmal damage wise even if you invest into their offensive skills. Kunoichi definitely fits into this though they make it up for having great debuff capabilities while not being more resilient than the debuff dancer thanks to shadow clones. My other gripe is how painful it is to level lower level characters. Thankfully, it's not like Etrian Odyssey 3 where being 5 levels lower than the enemy completely nerfs your damage, evasion, and accuracy to oblivion. So I can bring them along my stronger team and they can at least do something as long as they get good equipment. Also 2-2 translation when? I actually have the LE but it's in moon of course. Think it'll be censored again if it's ATLUS?

I checked a guide on GameFAQs first to make sure I had a good team. One of the FAQs even gives reviews for every individual skill in the game.

Also, I don't care if all they censor is loli because big titty animu grills are superior.

I like the SaGa jrpgs, they seem to add enough to the turn base to make it exciting and skill needing. Same for Shadow Hearts with the judgement ring, though not the same extent.

No, and I consider the people that do mentally ill.

Legend of Dragoon, you'll always be my favorite.

I had not idea anything we put in (((echos))) gets highlighted now.

They censored one loli by giving her bikeshorts. One of the few cases when the censored version is better than the original.

What about enemy skills? Wouldn't you have to see what they're doing to properly plan around?

I remember this game getting horrible reviews all around when I was younger. Was it just too obtuse for retards or what? I've noticed games, unjustly, get bad reviews simply because people can't figure out how to play the game despite the game giving a detailed tutorial.

Pic related.

I can't see myself getting into LoD. My main problem is how long shit takes just to fight. From the slow screen transition, the attack animations for enemies, your dragoon attacks, victory animations, etc. That combined with some area having a high encounter rate would really annoy me. With Dragon Quest (at least everything before VIII) has very quick animations and the transition going into and out of battle are very fast. It's like SE wanted to show off their awesome animations and graphics without thinking how it would feel for the player after seeing the same animation for the 50th time.

Every SaGa game is confusing at best, and Unlimited SaGa relies heavily on RNG.

I liked SaGa Frontier 1; it had a lot of charm and learning/chaining attacks is kewl.

All of the above was more forgivable back in the 90's era, as most JRPG did this. Since GRAFFIX wasn't a ubiquitous and commonplace aspect of all games ever at that point, having 15-60(+) second animations wasn't too egregious because the wow-factor was still in place. These days, however, I agree that all those accumulated little things that delay actual gameplay input would severely damper enjoyment.

I still think LoD is a good game, though. It's got enough going for its combat system and story that it overcomes these 90's detriments and remains a fun game.

amazing game, one of the best I played in a long time.

Nope

I mean sort of, it specialized itself there but the deeper structures are drawn from Aryan roots. Tyr is cognate to Mitra and the roman Mars (not Greek Ares though, different strata), his very name is derived (Tiwaz -> Diwaz) from Dya/Diva, the root word of Divine, Diety, Deus, Devil, Jupiter (Dyu-Pater).

...

I've considered looking into Legend of Dragoon before, but I've heard pretty mixed things about it from other anons over the years. Some seem quite loud about how fucking good it is, whilst others have been very adamant that it's not worth the time. Granted, a few games I've really liked also fall into that "love it or hate it" category, so for all I know it might be up my alley, but still.

If you're talking about Dragon Quest there, prior to the PS2 games, it would have been just Enix, without Square's involvement (as well as Enix just playing publisher/rights holder, whilst Chunsoft, HeartBeat, Tose, ArtePiazza, etc did the actual development). If you meant that about Legend of Dragoon though, I don't think Square (or Enix for that matter) had anything to do with that either. Wasn't that a game developed and published by Sony themselves? Just figured it might be worth clarifying.

Reminds me that the JP PSN apparently has both SaGa Frontier games, but Square-Enix couldn't be bothered to rerelease them on the western PSNs despite them already having existing English scripts from the original PS1 disc releases (same with BFM, which is another case of being on the JP PSN but not the NA or PAL ones).

Legend of the Dragoon is middling. On one hand it has the cool sentai mechanics, but it's so railroaded (more so than even FF7) that you have to really enjoy the combat system (which has more or less random rhythm minigame inputs) to want to finish.

No.

What would you consider falls under this for you?

For me it's Tales of Graces F. Love the game but I also realize that it's very easy for people to dislike it. The story takes a decent plot about loyalty, war, and the consequences of abandoning responsibilities to follow your dream, and shits on it for the generic "Protect the regional glowing artifact from the Big Bad (and fail of course)" sprinkled with the power of friendship. Most of the cast is unlikable for a the first half of the game and most of the environments are generic. It also has one of the weaker soundtracks compared to most Tales games.

However, the combat system is fantastic. Every character is fun to use and plays completely different. There's a great deal of depth to the point where you may not truly have a grasp on the combat until 20+ hours in. Going into the second arc of the game opens up even more mechanics allowing you to pull off 300+ hit combos on bosses if you know what you're doing. Difficulty changes reward you heavily while also dramatically changing the encounters due to adding in more mechanics. While the cast may be unlikable, the game still manages to have some good comedy with the skits thanks to Malik and Pascal. The Eleth Mixer mechanic takes the old cooking system from older Tales games and makes it much more practical and something to actually plan around. You can have a ton of food to help you in battle, focus on producing crafting material, or plenty of books for gimmicky shit in battle (critical hits do 2x damage on the enemy, but critical attacks on you can OHKO you). Boss fights actually vary significantly and many are actually difficult. Not simply because they hit hard. All this combined with a bunch of side content and replay value.

Nice trips but I'll fuck you up right proper if you keep talking shit about the best cast in all of Tales. Only Asbel and Cheria were bad, but even then they had their moments in the skits. The rest were quite scrump.

Checked
I meant more in regards to general opinion (IE: how Tales of the Abyss is loved by a good chunk of the series fanbase, whilst the others are very vocal on how shit they feel it to be; it's not my favorite entry, but one I still really enjoyed), rather than simply loving and hating particular aspects of the same game, though there's a few for me like that myself (I like .hack as games, but that "pay three or four times for chunks of the same game" release format; thankfully I've got a loader and HDD on my PS2). Though, maybe I'm not quite getting what you were asking.

I too agree that Graces is very fun but flawed. Gracesfag needs to fuck off though; his whole "the game can NOT be criticized" shtick is obnoxious.

I only liked them inside combat scripts. Otherwise not so much. I didn't hate them though so that's good at least. Like replaying ToS, I ended up hating Collete.

holy shit get that abomination out of here

Suck my cock, loser. Graces is the best. About as obnoxious as your infuriatingly milquetoast and agreeable stance on every game you ever talk about.

Speaking of Tales, I haven't heard many negative opinions on Berseria. And after putting 40 hours into it so far, I really enjoy it. The story, characters, and combat. My biggest gripe however are the dungeon designs which feel very boring to explore. While it's cool that they constantly hand you new mechanics to play with, you also don't start off with some that would be great to have. Like the guard breaking red aura which, without it, makes bosses a pain in the ass because they simply auto block for 90% of the fight. Also the fashion is really restricted compared to Xillia which allowed you to equip many items and move them in much distant places. Playing through it with a friend at the moment and we've agreed that Magilou and Laphicet are the most entertaining characters.

R-rude!