JRPG Thread

Ever since I figured out how to emulate Turbo CD games, I've been playing nothing but those. I recently finished Ys Book 1 & 2, which was fantastic, and am about two thirds of the way through Dragon Slayer: The Legend of Heroes, which is also really good, except for the voice acting and the grinding. To be fair, the game is pretty easy so you don't have to grind to beat it, but if you want to be able to afford the best equipment you have to grind for money quite a bit.

Live A Live, The Glory of Heracles III, Emerald Dragon, Adventure of Houri High, and Metal Max Returns.

The translation fix for AT2 actually came out?

beta 3 or something like that.

Fucking great JRPG.
And if you can into moon, Metal Max 2. I can't read moon though, so I've only played a little of MMR. It's my favorite take on post-apocalyptic environments and the tank customization is great.

Have you ever played any of the Metal Saga games? I haven't, but they're supposed to be a lot like Metal Max.

There's a plethora of fan translated games that don't seem to get brought up or played that much (the main fan translated SFC ones that seem to have a fair amount of general popularity being FFV, Live a Live, Seiken Densetsu 3, Star Ocean, and Tales of Phantasia). I've heard good things occasionally about Lennus II, for example.

It's on Beta 4 now. They got the help of one of the coder for the French fan translation of some of the PS2 Atelier games (and thus knows how to work with Gust's coding reasonably well) to help them fix some stuff they previously couldn't. at2.metalbat.com/?p=537 (beta 4 is already out now, but the preview post has the changelog)

Hoping some user can fully patch the game (Beta 4, Raki fix, and undub) and maybe upload it to mega or vola, since my toaster and patchers for more advanced systems don't get along.

Pretty sure the Metal Saga games ARE still Metal Max games, just not under the same exact moniker.

Still needing to get my PS2 set up to play downloaded games from a drive before I give AT2 a go, but I've heard good things about it (poor localization and bugginess aside; the former being what the retranslation aims to fix). Wild Arms 3 though is excellent in my experience with it. Really damn good (and lengthy too) game. Really got a lot more than my $8 or so out of it, but then again, I love the series on the whole.

If you want something a bit more recent JRPG wise. 7th Dragon 3 is one of the better ones to come out in a good bit.

Bump

...

Sadly JRPG threads aren't something that tend to get real big here. Even on halfchan most discussion had to be relegated to /vg/, barring a few like Grandia, Skies of Arcadia, Wild Arms, and Tales that could escape being shitposted a whole bunch. There's both /vg/ and /jrpg/ here as well, but I think /vg/'s been pretty dead (and checking a while back, they didn't seem to have a JRPG general that was active, and /jrpg/'s been outright dead since last year. Been having to just take discussion when I can get it for stuff I like in various threads (such as PSP or Vita ones) instead.

Wild Arms 3 takes the battle system of Wild Arms 2 (which had force replace MP entirely; a change that works out pretty well), further refines the Personal Skill system, and has spells tied to equipped mediums, which you can swap out between party members, even midcombat. Only thing I found a bit disappointing with it was that, barring Lock-On and Gatling, there aren't any actual ARM related abilities, the way the prior games had, leaving them as mostly normal attacks used to build Force (though normal shots are still excellent for Clive, since his gun deals an assload of damage per shot, at the cost of him being slow and not having a lot of ammo). Guarding also has an auto reload function.

Yeah, I think they'd originally thought Beta 3 would be the most they'd be able to do with it, aside from maybe some typo fixing and such before a finished release (though I know some translation patches actually see something like ".9 Beta" as the finished release instead of doing a whole new one with no changes as the "done" one), but having someone that knows how to work with Gust's code is pretty helpful for them now. Bit annoying that they have all their patches posted behind a log in on the forum they use (and as mentioned earlier, with my toaster, I have the rely on prepatched stuff anyhow).

Really? I'll have to check those out. I liked Metal Max Returns quite a bit.

Also, has anyone here ever played those Japanese Wizardry games? If so, how are they?

Unfortunately there's only two Metal Max games in English (MMR and Metal Saga). MM2 has a fan translation effort, but is stuck in fan translation hell, and apparently no one has bothered to look into fan translating the other games (though admittedly it might be a bit early for MM4: Moonlight Diva, since the 3DS is still relatively new).

Reading those AT2 notes in the changelog really fills me with a warm feeling. It's not often you see people passionate about video games go out of their way to help out. Completely unfucking the things NISA messed up, fixing translations, bringing back deleted content, and throwing around small improvements here and there. And even adding a hard mode. All without turning into complete faggots. I don't often see that kind of passion.

Well damn. What makes it so good though? I played the original but didn't care for the pacing so much so I never finished it. What makes this so good?

Thanks on the WA3 info. I'm pretty sure I've seen you talk about the game before in another thread. I didn't realize JRPG threads would be so dead here now that I think about it. Vita and Dragon Quest threads seem to be the only JRPG threads we have these days. I think people just fell out of the genre after the PS2 fell off the map. I know I sure did. Now I'm going back to play all these games.

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4 is not on snes nigger fag

also 4 is jap only on ps1

Prime comfy material right here. I don't know if manga has a "healing" genre but this a Non Non Biyori fit that genre.

Fuck the genre tbqh. There's only a few authors/directors who do comfy and soothing cave paintings right and don't fall into clichee.
The overwhelming majority of the healing genre is pandering bullshit for japanese faggots with horrible taste.

On the note of Beta 4. I got the links for it if anyone doesn't want to register to use it. It's the undbubbed version which you apply over beta 3 version.
Beta 4a
mega:///#!jcBmDbwa!hIMwZV_KKIFbgwwCy3ZWS1IaOPvCFF500xybttxFU30

Beta 4b
mega:///#!SQwzRIzB!I1gG-fXn4WTv2zxajn5hDyjcHnJZ4bJtIaiLyb8eDuI

Beta 4c
mega:///#!HNxxTQoa!peMaKKkpKDogCYsn_D_ZQjueubq7TilcthFmbFbxmMM

Any recommendations then? I'm always down for new manga to read.

No problem, hope you enjoy it. Thought about possibly making a JRPG general on /vg/ before, but considering how that board's pretty dead, I get the feeling it would be a wasted effort.

And yeah, you've probably seen me talk about Wild Arms and Shadow Hearts before. Not sure how many other people besides me have been playing them recently.

Quick question: Is that just the patch in the mega links, or an already patched game file? Going to give it a download anyhow, but I'm just want to double check what's actually there.

Just the patch. Not the whole game.

Cool, thanks. I think I've got a prepatched Beta 3 with the raki fix and undub as well in one of my game folders (wasn't sure if they'd be making anymore beta patches at that point. Can it just be patched on top of those, or will the other parts interfere?

Dragon Quest

None of them are bad games by any means. All of them are mandatory if you call yourself a jrpg fan.
>GBC 1, 2, and 3 for bonus content, DS 4 for Psaro, SNES 5 and 6, PS1 7, PS2 8, DS 9, and fuck you if you play 10.

Final Fantasy

Bad games have been omitted.
Job systems and character customization is surprisingly where this series shines. Games with more rigid ability/equipment sets, yet with flexible options are ranked higher than blank slate characters meant to be filled with whatever(10,7,6,8). I feel that too much freedom cheapens the game and allows for easier broken combos at early levels. 10, 7, and 6 are still great games despite this.

See Also
>Pokemon current gen Casual PvP doubles/triples with your bros is fun and encourages you to breed more max stat pokemon with your hacked ditto to use in different kinds of teams. The natural evolution of the turn-based jrpg is a PvP turn-based class/type jrpg with loads of customization options for stat configurations and movesets. Fire Emblem would actually be cool if it had this.

*Bad Games and the 2 good MMO's have been omitted.

Well the difficulty curve is pretty solid, it being based around equipment rather than levels. There aren't any useless classes and postgame I found myself swapping out characters to best deal with the situation.
Story's whatever, but that doesn't really matter too much. Status effects are king for both you and the enemy with certain ones making or breaking your fight.
You get multiple squads and they all gain exp at the same rate provided they're in your backline, you get just enough backline slots you can have every class in there so you're never going to come up to a situation where you go "oh man I really wish I had a Y, time to grind one up"

Just add the patches 1 tier at a time and it should work. That's what it sounded like when they described it onto their page.

Sounds good. I was looking forward to the game and this sounds like it's up my alley. Played the first game when I heard Yuzo Koshiro was doing the music.

Yeah it's probably one of my favorite JRPGs of the past bit. Really solid.
There's some slowdown on O3DS in certain areas, but that's about the biggest complaint I have.

It feels like there was actual effort put into the game, which was surprising when I played it

Treasure Hunter G and Mystic Ark come to mind (both have fuckawesome OSTs, Youtube them if anything.)

Same with Romancing SaGa 3. Euphoric soundtrack with so-so gameplay.

Go play SMT, faggot.

Any chance you could grab a screenshot of their actual forum post page on what order to patch stuff in for reference? Just wondering since you apparently can't even view that page/thread they post their patch links to without logging into an account.

Also, after downloading all three parts last night, were part 2 and 3 supposed to only be a few KB each in size, or are the internet connection problems fucking shit up on my end?

Which fan translation of Mystic Ark would you recommend, on the off chance you've tried both? Normally when it comes to fan translations you generally only have one option, but there's a few games that give people more, and Mystic Ark has patches by Aeon Genesis as well as Dynamic Designs.

Maybe it stems from them really feeling AT2 got the shit end of the stick from NISA and they want to give western fans that much of a better experience than NISA cared to, but I have heard that Ar Tonelico fans are pretty devoted, at least in regards to the first two games. Even halfchan /a/ used to apparently welcome discussion of the games there (despite them only having an apparently mediocre sounding OVA and a three volume manga to make them directly /a/ related), and if memory serves one even put together a big pastebin of download links for stuff, back when megaupload and the like were still the go-to file sharing places.

I do have to wonder if Japan's interested in accessing that unused content on their own version of the game too, considering it sounds like it's just something that western fans have discovered in the code. Not sure what their fan translation (not sure how much they need it for western games, as I hear they teach at least some English in Japanese schools) and/or romhacking scene out there is like.

Man, Ar Tonelico 2 is such a good game. I don't think I've ever seen it mentioned here or anywhere else before this. Shame that AT1 and AT3 are meh, though.

It gets brought up from time to time (I see some mention in the Vita threads every so often, since Ar Nosurge is a related game), but yeah, it doesn't get brought up all that much. One of the more niche JRPGs out there, with stuff like Atelier and Shadow Hearts (though the reasons are different), I suppose. I used to see it brought up a fair bit back in the JRPG generals on halfchan, and even half/a/ would have occasional threads on it, but there's not a lot of JRPG discussion here on fullchan anyhow, sadly, aside from occasional ones when news comes up about something, recurring Nepnep threads, and that one user that had been playing through every main series Dragon Quest game starting a thread when he finished one.

Reminds me though, I need to update the mention of the AT2 patch on the PS2 chart.

Another one that hates FF2. I bet you don't like SaGa either.

after learning about the game breaking glitch at the final boss i lost the will to finish ar tonelico 2 as much as i loved it and the first game. i know i could play a fixed iso these days but i just dont have the desire to for whatever reason.
but damn, i love that setting

I know one user that claimed to feel that the struggle to beat the boss before it glitched just added to the experience. Not sure I'd agree with that notion (trying to overcome a glitch sounds like something more at home for an experience with .hack or something), but yeah, it's pretty good that the fans have taken it up as a game to be fixed in order to let western fans play it as it was intended, if not more (considering the unimplemented content that has been found, reimplemented, and translated).

Still, maybe give it a while before replaying so you're not burned out, but next time give it a go with the patch maybe.

Final Fantasy itsjustmyopinionitsnotobjectiveyoufaggotsdontgetbutthurt tier list:

.hack

Anything similar to FF12 izjs? I've already played Xenoblade.
It's just great the amount of little stuff you can do, like giving everyone shields that absorb dark and heal your party with red mage dark spells. Equipping nihaplaoa on an archer and throwing remedy at the enemy for instant debuffs. And many others.

Playing Growlanser II, it's alright. Charlone best girl.

the most amazing FF tierlists are those where XIII gets put in low tier (which I would agree with), but X getting put in high tier

It's almost entirely due to CTB and some aspects of encounter design. I think FFX has the best combat in the series by far.

I was furious when they ditched it for yet more fucking ATB in X-2 and single player MMO faggotry in XII.

Amazing taste, user.

Here you go, faggot.
mega.nz/#!5gN0nKbS!Tzy3azAg2P42uBuDD8jd0hieZP5emk9anjfT2F0ETOA

When I see a thread like this, I'm invaded by a mix of strange feelings…happiness, nostalgia, sadness; it makes me wonder…what in the FUCK happened with the turn based and strategy JRPG genre? I mean, it was the shit back in the day. SNES, alone, had tons of amazing JRPGs, though for some retarded reason, many weren't translated like Live a live or Bahamut lagoon. PSX and PS2 also had amazing library for that genre, but in the next generation…it's mostly gone. I miss the days when I watched stuff like E3 to check which next JRPG I could look forward to. Today, not a single one was even announced. I'm not saying that ps3 don't have a few games of the genre here and there, but when you compare the libraries with PSX or ps2, both in numbers and quality…it's clear the genre sucked in ps3. For some reason, the genre seems to have moved and stayed in the handhelds, like 3ds and vita. But why? Don't anyone want to see and play their jprgs in their big screen, with controller in hand? I already saw people, fans of action rpgs - which are so common now that they're becoming very generic, it's why many fans hated to see that the remake of FF7 will be action based - and people that work in the industry that such happened because gamers today only like action and shooters…but then again, games like Bravely Default sold very well despite all odds, proving that there still is a solid market for that genre.

There's still some turn-based ones around (Atelier comes to mind as a series that is and is still ongoing), however there seems to be some idea (among consumers, as well as publishers, I would guess) that turn-based combat is an outdated mechanic compared to real time combat, hence various series having started to dabble in the latter (and not having had the benefit of time to get good at designing around it, the way long running real time series like Tales have), making the results a bit iffy, as sometimes it works out reasonably well and sometimes it doesn't. I personally enjoy both provided they're done right, but maybe that might have to do with the fact that I only started looking into JRPGs some years back and am not burned out yet. I don't know.

I will say that it strikes me as sad when you look at just how many older JRPG franchises are dormant, dead, or being mutilated (BoF6) right now.

The PS3 has some good ones on it in my experiences, but there's certainly a difference in the sheer volume of them compared to the PS1 and PS2 (a fair number of which are considered classics now), with some older series either dying off or ignoring developing for the PS3 for a really long time (such as Atlus with Persona 5, or any non-fighting SMT/Persona related game). And of those, the quality can be a bit mixed, and the Atelier games all saw eventual enhanced ports to the Vita.

If you ask me, it was probably a matter of being cheaper to develop for, and if memory serves the cel or whatever the PS3 has in it was a bit hard to design for anyhow. I don't mind handhelds myself, but I find that I'm mostly playing those when either at a friend's house or before bed, whereas playing on an actual console I do more of whenever.

A game which Square-Enix didn't even want to give us out here at first if memory serves. Hell, it's hard enough to just get them to bring Dragon Quest over (despite how popular it is in Japan and being a mainstay JRPG series worldwide, and one of the oldest that's still living), and of course they toss in accents into the script even though fans justifiably complain about.

Thanks dude.

How easy is Growlanser to get into for someone that hasn't had a lot of experience with tactical/strategy RPGs?

People got tired of turn-based JRPGs, the same way they got tired of platformers, arena shooters, and other genres that were actually good. A lot of people felt the genre became over-saturated, while others simply thought that turn-based, menu driven, combat became obsolete once technology allowed for RPGs to have more action oriented combat, like Kingdom Hearts.

Also, from the Ps2 era on wards, a lot of normalfags started to flood gaming. Many of them thought, and still think, that turn-based RPGs are "boring games for nerds, man! And what's with that cartoony art style? Is that anime? Aren't animes those weird Japanese cartoons with tentacle rape? That's disgusting, only a pathetic loser virgin neckbeard would play something like that!"

They're fairly easy to get into, though it may take a little bit to get the hang of the combat. 4(AKA Wayfarer of Time) is probably the best one in the series to get into, but 2 and 3 are great too. 1 is good, but it's more like a traditional JRPG rather than a TRPG. 5 and 6 should be avoided altogether.

That ignores that stuff like Tales and Seiken Densetsu had been around since the SFC and GB respectively. Though I suppose at the time they were still the minority for how JRPGs handled.

Thanks for the info. Which ones are in English anyhow, 2-5?

I was talking more about 3D games. Most 3D action RPGs before the early 2000s usually pretty clunky.

Yes. Supposedly there's a translation patch for 1 floating around, but I haven't been able to find it.

Fair point. Not sure how well a 3D Tales would have worked on the PS1 or SFC, though Eternia certainly was a smooth 2D entry (and still holds up the best out of the 2D Tales games in English thus far).

Huh, well, I'll keep an eye out for it, I guess. What makes the fifth game all that bad anyhow?

Anyone happen to know how to emulate Shadow Hearts properly, so it can consistently run at 100% in Hardware mode? Can't even find anything on the pcsx2 site. Apparently the way the specific title is coded makes it run shitty.

You mean the first entry on the PS2? I've heard it's had some issues emulating properly in the past (even on 80GB PS3's it apparently has freezing issues in regards to the lottery), but if I recall right from a nichegamer article a while back on an at-the-time new release of PCSX2, the guy there that wrote it specifically tried Shadow Hearts with it as a test (considering he apparently likes the game and it was known to have issues in the past) and it worked much better than it did prior. Might be an idea to make sure your version of PCSX2 is up to date. Granted, I haven't given it a go myself, so I can't say personally how to get it running right. My computer's a toaster and I have an actual copy of the game. You might want to ask in the emulation thread if you haven't yet.

Big thing though is to make sure there's no slowdown or whatever during Judgment Ring usage, as that directly impacts gameplay, since you need to be at least somewhat decent with the Judgment Ring to execute actions.

Does Pokemon Blaze Black 2 count?

Oh, and if you or someone else does find what settings to use, I could use them for something I'm working on which would likely be helpful to various anons, since to my knowledge the games do have some issues with emulating, so being able to provide what should work would be nice.

Depends on how one looks at Pokemon. Some seem to prefer to consider them monster raising/battling games rather than JRPGs. I personally consider them to be both.

Oh yeah, there's an Emulation General going on. Actually been getting into a ton of JRPGs with a buddy who apparently binged a shit ton of them on the PS2 some years back. Can't believe how many of these games ended up overpriced on Amazon. Shadow Hearts is eighty fucking dollars now.

I wonder if the bother is even worth it. Got a little bit in, and it's pretty funny, but it seems kinda boring/generic as well. Wondering if Rogue Galaxy is any good as well. You faggots play Dark Cloud at all? The first one is practically a bare bones prototype for Dark Chronicle.

4archive.org/board/jp/thread/14224455
Might this be it?

It's not necessarily bad, it and VI just don't feel that much like Growlanser games. They tried to change the gameplay up and experiment, but it didn't really work out that well. V does have some interesting character designs though, especially the gothic loli.

Where do you live, and what are your Amazon settings? Because Shadow Hearts shouldn't be anywhere near that much. Cheapest complete copy is about $50 there, which is close to average for it from what I've seen the last few years (a friend got me a copy as a birthday gift last year or so, so I've only had to spend about $50 on the entire series, since I've got copies of all four entries; normally that would be about $160 or so at average prices).

Honestly, there's not that many PS2 games that are in the "pricy" ($45+) territory yet, and while a good amount that are are JRPGs, it's still a small amount of all the JRPGs the system saw that have prices like that, at least as far as preowned goes.

As for Shadow Hearts itself, I found it great. It takes a bit to get going, but I found myself getting pretty attached to the characters, and Yuri in particular is a rather enjoyable protagonist due to being so different from how JRPG protagonists usually are. As far as critic reviews go (for what they're worth), SH1 was apparently considered a bit mixed when it came out, with some apparently finding the dark fantasy/historical fiction vibes fairly original for a JRPG, while others claimed unoriginality. Still, it's a pretty solid JRPG, and one of the earliest actually pretty good ones the PS2 saw, along with FFX which released close to it as well. Certainly better received than its predecessor was (just my opinion, but I think Koudelka really got unfairly shafted in reviews; though that's not to say it didn't have technical issues here and there).

Anyhow, I'd say to stick with it a while, but then again I've just really come to love the series, enough to be working on an infographic to help other anons get into it. But it is a somewhat niche series (due to being rather out there at times), so I suppose it's not for everyone.

I've heard good stuff about that one. Haven't given it a go yet myself though.

So is it just a case of fans disliking it because it handled differently than they'd come to expect, or are there actual flaws and/or lack of refinement to what they changed with it? If it's the former I might be able to deal with it; there's a number of games that are rather hit or miss or outright disliked by fans of various series that I'm pretty okay with, namely because I knew not to expect more of the same going in (Shadow Hearts FtNW for example).

I think it is; was either half/a/ or half/jp/ that had been working on it. Not sure how up to date they've been keeping the links in the pastebin.

I rarely hear people mention Treasure of the Rudras around here, and I was curious if it was any good. I should probably finish Live A Live first, but I've been putting that off for 6 years and a dead computer.

I've heard a lot of good stuff about it, at least when it is brought up (which as you say, isn't too often; I'd say there's only a handful of fan translated SFC games that really get brought up that much anyhow). Apparently between the mantra system and what various moonspeakers had to say about it (claiming it was shit and for translators to not waste their time, at least according to a "history of this game's translation" blurb I've read; considering how people seem to like it here these days, it makes me think maybe they just wanted to keep it as a perk for knowing moon, though I'd be curious as to how the actual Japanese felt about it) caused a lot of delays in it getting an English patch though. Having a magic system based around words isn't the easiest thing to make work between languages from what it sounds like, but they managed.

Also really like the style used for the box art. Apparently the same guy did the art for Hagane, Clock Tower 3, and Onimusha 2 and 3.

Yeah, it's best to take longer games like RPGs one at a time so you actually make progress. Still, better to have a lengthy backlog of worthwhile stuff to play in the future than having nothing at all of interest.

Speaking of loli. It's odd how so many JRPGs have lolis in them except FF and DQ. The 2 biggest RPG series barely have a loli in them. FF6 and DQV I think are the only 2 games with a loli in them out of the whole series. Not sure if Maribelle counts.

FFIV has Palom or Porom, whichever one is the girl I don't remember.

FFIX has Eiko.

You left 10 in there.

13 being shit tier really goes without saying. 10 isn't the worst game I played, but it really does get stupid. 9 isn't that good. Can't vouched for 11.

Atelier Totori Plus. I bought it and Meruru's port 2 years ago after finishing the original release of Escha and never played either of them. Needed some kind of fix of the genre after hearing about the P5 delay. Almost forgot how much fun the crafting system is, might even try to get all of the endings.

Don't forget that if you aim to play Rorona sometime, the plus version is an outright overhaul compared to the original version.

Shadow Hearts avoids it as well, unless you count Anastasia Romanov (who contrary to her looks is apparently 15 or so when Covenant takes place). Also maybe Jeanne, but she's dead after the first hour or so and her soul just roots around in Yuri's Spirit Graveyard. To be fair though, it's not exactly the sort of series all that friendly to kid characters. Especially the orphanage in the first PS2 game.

A little of both, but mostly the former. Like I said, it's not a bad game, but I'd recommend only playing 2, 3, and 4 before giving it a try.

The same thing can be said about Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter.

Dragon Quarter strikes me as a game that probably would have done better as an outright spinoff (In the US, they at least dropped the number from the title, but in Japan it's still "Breath of Fire V"), provided Capcom had a proper breath of Fire V in the works as well. Just seems like they took a bit too much of a risk with that much change in a main series entry, but I suppose that's just my thoughts. Not going to claim the game's good or bad without trying it myself first.

Either way though, dumping their flagship JRPG series into the freezer after Dragon Quarter seems like such a waste, only getting it out again when they wanted to try for some easy mobile bucks with BoF6, which I don't think any series fan asked for.

SE and Capcom site on some really good IPs but don't do squat with them. Instead they put all their resources into 2-3 big games. Mostly following western AAA tactics. However for this reason, they have to aim for a wider audience while still trying to keep their old fans. And yet they still manage to piss on their fans at times.

Honestly I would love a Seiken Densetsu 3 remake with a new combat system and more depth to the 3 story paths you can take.

Yeah. Looking in particular with Square, there's a lot of IPs they have access to that they're ignoring, be it making new entries entirely (with them claiming stuff like Chrono Trigger DS sales were too low to show much interest in them continuing the series, apparently ignoring that that was the third time the game had come out physically and both prior versions on now reasonably emulatable systems), or just not bothering to bring them west (like SaGa: Scarlet Grace, though that may be more that Square hates localizing for the Vita apparently). And then there's also the fact that they used to have a lot of stand alone games (stuff like Threads of Fate, Live a Live, Treasure of the Rudras, etc) in the past, while these days they really don't seem keen on doing much that doesn't have something to do with an existing franchise or style. Think some of the last ones they did were TWEWY, Blood of Bahamut, and Sigma Harmonix, and only the first of those was even cleared to be brought west (BoB is now fan-translated while Sigma Harmonix is unfeasible due to vertical text, apparently). Seems like they're mostly sticking to Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts, Dragon Quest (though apparently they really don't care for doing much with that in the west, and when they do, they fill them with accenting these days), and Bravely, as well as what western IPs they've acquired from Eidos. And that's just their JRPGs, seeing as they've also dabbled in other genres such as fighting (Tobal, Bushido Blade) and shoot 'em ups (Einhander) which they also haven't done much with since the PS1 days.

Well, they've done a number of remakes of Seiken Densetsu, so perhaps Secret of Mana and SD3 might be in line for it sometime? Though I'd wager chances are if they were to come west, it would be mobile only.

Really need to give the Mana series more of a go sometime. Only played some of Sword of Mana so far, but it seemed pretty enjoyable.

Ar nosurge has such a good soundtrack, but don't listen to it before you play the game. It's just so perfect for certain scenes. Now when I hear some songs I remember sitting in the hotsprings with Ion and it makes me really happy and really sad, because I'll probably never get to be with her in another game. It might sound pathetic, but my time with that game was one of my best memories of recent times.

I guarantee a Bushido Blade 3 or reboot with gorgeous graphics and online multiplayer would sell like funnel cakes. We barely have any realistic fighters where a single hit can kill you. Funny how Nioh borrowed the stance system from this game yet SE just sits on it. Even For Honor is supposed to be based on this game. With SE loving graphics, you would think this would be natural for them. The game doesn't even have to be balanced. Just stupid fun and realistic besides jumping like ninjas in a kung-fu flick.

If you're Ion-user. You recommended me to watch a playthrough of Ciel no Surge before going into Ar no Surge. Very tempting to just jump into the game but I'll take your advice since the game seems to be close to a visual novel. I really regret reading some of the spoilers ages ago when I thought I was never going to get the game. It does make me more interested though and thankfully I've forgotten most of them. Then again, it's not like 1 spoiler will ruin the whole experience.

I would hope many people's best memories here have something to do with video games.

Pretty sure I've seen you around before. Still need to get to watching that translation of Ciel first before I start it, and I also want to get through AT1 and 2 first before I even do that. And I'm still needing to get an IDE drive set up to play the retranslation of AT2.

Also, if you're the same user I'm thinking of, did your PSP memory stick come yet? If so, you should get back to Koudelka.

How did Bushido Blade games do out here when it was current on the PS1? If they were really low it might help explain why Square hasn't been keen on returning to it.

I know they've always been known as a JRPG developer/publisher first and foremost, but it seems like they've opted to embrace that and ditch dabbling much in other genres as far as their own Japanese developed titles go. Except even then they half ass it, having abandoned a lot of their classic IPs along the way. Out here in the west, there's also the issue that as far as their JRPGs go, they seem to want to be known as the "Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts" company, considering how even some of their surviving series aren't being localized much anymore, and they have had a real issue with getting games they own the rights to up on VC or PSN to make them more available. I mean sure, stuff like Final Fantasy and Mana are up there, but none of the SaGa games are (Japan at least has SaGa Frontier 1 and 2 on theirs), nor is Brave Fencer Musashi (also on the Japanese PSN but not in the west), nor are their any Dragon Quest games. Speaking of old Enix-handled properties, I don't think they've cared to do digital versions of any of Tri-Ace's stuff either.

I think there's quite a few of us, but yeah I'm the one who watched tons of ciel nosurge videos, rad his summery, and tried to help get it localized to embarrassing results and everything, so it was likely me.
It is a lot like a VN, but without the gameplay potions it's easy to see how that wouldn't be appealing for some people. What you could do is just watch the beginning and then read the summary and watch the videos for any that you feel you want to see (Here's the guy's website unit03.net/view/Ciel_nosurge/Summary ), but I'm sure lots of people went into the game without any knowledge of Ciel, so if that seems more enjoyable you might be able to enjoy reading or watching ciel nosurge stuff more later then.
It does suck about the spoiler thing. I don't think the game really has any that would affect the experience too much, but I'm certainly glad I didn't know about anything I wasn't supposed to, since there is a lot of little stuff. I think where the game really shines is the little stuff though at least. The interactions and how you get there is probably more important than the main story and ending, so if you do play it hopefully you can still enjoy it.

Yeah, that's definitely you, since I made that transparency of your image.

I assume you haven't played them yet (if you are the user I've spoken with about Koudelka before), but would you say that Ciel is to Ar Nosurge as Shadow Hearts is to Shadow Hearts: Covenant, in that you could play the latter without playing (or in the case of Ciel I suppose, watch/read) the former, but doing so would cause the latter game to have less meaning? Because looking back I sure as fuck wouldn't have wanted to play Covenant without playing SH1 first. Lots of little details and calling back to the prior game that wouldn't have had as much impact had I played out of order, and various scenes probably wouldn't have had as much of an emotional draw.

Just curious on if that sounds about right from your own experience with Surge Concerto.

That is me, I forgot to check the mail today, so I just did when you reminded me and go figure it's not here. I'm sending them a message. I have a feeling it's the post office, since most people probably wouldn't risk messing up good feedback for $8, but I'm just really sick of not knowing whats going on. I've been wanting to play Koudelka, since talking about Shadow Hearts has been making me really want to start it. I bought Shadow Hearts a few months ago now and still haven't even gotten to play it. Hopefully, it doesn't take me long to beat Koudelka when I finally do get to use my PSP. I usually get through things pretty fast when I try.

Oh come on, my image gets completely swapped, and not just the thumbnails for once? I can't even repost the original image since the site says it already exists. How is it that fucking no one has found a fix for this yet?

Yeah, it's not a real long game (probably 12-15 hours on a first playthrough), and I notice that in the later sections, enemies give enough exp that you're not having to go out of your way to grind (for levels anyhow; still a good idea to work on getting Koudelka's spell levels higher and Edward better with weapons/unarmed, but even that's not a huge chore), the way you have to do a bit of it early on just so you're not constantly getting beat up too badly by the enemies.

Still need to get to finishing making this, since I've been wanting to have something to easily post to help generate some interest in the games, but I can't quite decide how autistic to go with it, as far as leaving it as just the actual entries and an overview of the series, or going in depth with mechanics and tips (particularly for Koudelka, as that game's not the most intuitive; most people likely won't have direct access to the manual unless they download it, and the game doesn't have a built in help/mechanics glossary the way the PS2 games do), the way I did with the Wild Arms ones.

Don't worry user, I can't listen to Inorganic Love, Immovable Hourglass and a ton fuck of other tracks without tearing up. But hey, even if we never see her again at least we made Ion happy

That does sound about right. I think you build the biggest bonds in Ar nosurge, but almost every single one starts in Ciel. Ar nosurge will have people who previously played Ciel confused as to what the hell is going on anyway, but there's a lot of things, directly referenced, that someone who played Ciel would understand and without there's no way to know exactly what it is they're talking about. Even the opening animation had an emotional impact for me knowing what happened in Ciel where if I didn't it would've pretty much meant nothing. I really wouldn't be surprised if there's a big correlation between the people who disliked the game and went in empty handed.

It wasn't as big of a change to the series as Dragon's Quarter was to Breath of Fire. More like the change that happened between Final Fantasy IX and X, except the devs actually admitted it was a mistake.

You should, Secret of Mana, Seiken Densetsu 3, and Legend of Mana are really good, all for completely different reasons. SoM is just a really solid action RPG, SD3 has a great class system and tremendous replay value, and Legend of Mana is sort of like if Rune Factory was solely focused on adventures and dungeon crawling, in a good way.

Not sure if you can count it as a JRPG, but I'm having a fucking blast with Vagrant Story.

I'm starting to deal low dmg to enemies now, I assume I should keep around one weapon of each type for specific enemies? For example, only spears and great axes seemed to deal acceptable damage to humans outside of Léa Monde.

Makes me realize how few JRPG fans we actually have on this board. At least the Vita and 3DS is keeping the genre healthy.

So what was up with this game? It was plagued with bad reviews for being too obtuse and Saga fan, from the few I've seen, disliked it for being too different from the other games. But the people who stuck with it and learned it appreciated it. What are your thoughts on this game?

Worst thing about Sword of Mana is that there's content locked behind multiplayer. SE had a fetish for that stuff for some reason. I kind of liked LoM but dropped it when the combat got really repetitive. Stun locking the AI with hammers was OP too. I did like the would building aspect though. That and all the areas having their own little plots gave the game a lot of charm.

Didn't care too much for Secret of Mana. Got through the whole game and stopped before the last boss because the combat was a real chore along with the final areas. I had to really push myself to go that far. SD3 hit a soft spot for me though. Combat wasn't too dull and class changing made multiple playthroughs interesting.

I should be able to do that in a couple days hopefully. Shadow Hearts should be longer right? It would be a shame if I've looked forward to it this much to beat it in only a day. Regardless, at least I'll have the whole series though.

I'd just put as much in as you enjoy doing. If there's anything people normally don't understand you might want to include it somehow, since it's most likely to help someone and it can get old answering the same questions, but I think most of the people here just download isos anyway, so as long as it gets their initial interest. Sometimes not knowing things is part of the fun anyway (for me at least).

Yeah all I can do is keep learning Japanese for more Ciel, I guess. I hoped that the Atelier games could absorb me like they have others and recreate some of those feelings, but while I see the appeal and enjoy them on occasion, they just don't compare to me.

I'm actually getting to the point where I really want to play something else again too. I haven't played a western game in ages and while JRPGs are my favorite I still miss things like Deus Ex. The other people on this site worry me and make me think I'm probably not missing much though.

Guessing there's no ingame glossary of the prior game's events? Just curious since Namco actually included one in Xillia 2, since the prior cast already had established bonds and characterization in the prior game, so there's not a huge amount of sense in them doing it all over (which isn't to say they get no further character development in Xillia 2, but it's mostly a game focused on Ludger and Elle, while the rest of the cast had their own game already) and/or terminology/backstory? Strikes me as something that might have been potentially useful to have, though I'm guessing it's more of a problem as far as the west goes since we don't even have Ciel itself (while we have both Xillia games).

I've seen the openings for all the games just out of curiosity as to what they were like. Granted, I suppose I've missed the meaning of Ar Nosurge's in not having sat through Ciel yet, but it certainly looked and sounded good.

Perhaps? I know I've seen rather mixed opinions among anons about Ar Nosurge before. And there's a big difference between someone choosing to not play the prior game (the way I think most Shadow Hearts fans probably started the series with Covenant; Koudelka and SH1 didn't sell too well and aren't the easiest games to find, and I hear the PS2 games have some amount of issues emulating) and jumping in with a direct sequel (either due to hearing it's better or not even knowing it had prior entries; Shadow Hearts: Covenant is actually only labelled as such on the western cover and marketing, and even ingame is titled "Shadow Hearts II" instead), and not even having access to the prior game to play in the first place. Of course, that's mainly an issue if the games are directly related in story/cast.

I'd say it counts, but I'm of the opinion JRPG just means an RPG made in Japan/by the Japanese, as opposed to it having to have a certain style to it, the way some people believe. Crimson Gem Saga wouldn't be a JRPG to me, for example, as it was made in Korea (though it still has the traditional eastern RPG feel to it).

Better to be known as [X game/character] - user than "Floortiles-user." I've seen a few people here before, and I'm probably one of the few that actively tries to discuss Wild Arms and Shadow Hearts. Also Tales when it fits.

Unfortunately there seems to be something of a dislike for JRPGs among a lot of anons, to the point they usually seem to be brought up for greentext template threads due to various conventions or cliches used. And not just here; also used to see a fair amount of it on halfchan as well (Rugga using stuff like Atelier and other anime styled JRPGs to rile posters up likely didn't help matters), and aside from a handful of series, it could be pretty hard to have much good discussion without the threads being shat up or dying off fast. Part of why I think some anons opted to just start a JRPG general instead of dealing with trying to get threads going directly at half/v/ (sure, you could say generals lead to being tripfagging circlejerks, but it was nice always having someone to discuss the games with and get further recommendations). While the occasional JRPG thread here certainly seems to work (though I've only seen them sparingly, and I think this is the second or third I've seen that has turned out pretty well), /vg/ here's pretty dead, /vr/'s pretty much dead (as far as potential for having a place to discuss classic ones), and /jrpg/ is outright dead, so there's not a lot of options aside from the occasional thread, or working discussion into other threads where it might fit (such as system threads if you want to talk about a particular game/series on that was on one).

I still remember some time back on halfchan, before people started coming here, some news about Wild Arms potentially having another game in the works finally surfaced. Some user tried starting a thread on it, only for it to be bombarded with stuff like "great, more weebshit" as if the average poster wasn't interested in the series.

Part of it is that I'd like to give these games a go with a friend since the classic ones are some of the few co-op JRPGs (it's what I've done with Tales). I mean, as far as I'm aware, Sword of Mana doesn't (and I was kind of wanting to play the games in order, if even having to start with a reimagining of the first game), but I can't really get my friend to come over for playing vidya these days, nor does he feel like hacking his Wii to play downloaded or fan translated stuff (which would likely be how we'd wind up playing SD3). I suppose maybe that's resulted in a lack of drive to get more into it.

Yeah. I'd have to directly check my memory cards (I still have stuff packed up from moving recently; need to windex my entertainment system since it's dusty), but SH1 took me a good 40-50 hours, and I think Covenant too about 60, sidequests included. Still working through FtNW, but I'd say I'm about 30 hours in and only started the second half of the game recently.

Only western franchises I've really liked (admittedly not having had a lot of games growing up, there's some good classics I've missed out on from both east and west) were the classic PS1 Spyro and Crash games, Ratchet and Clank, and Darksiders. Which isn't to say I'm not open to giving them a go at times (I've been meaning to give the Legacy of Kain games a playthrough in the future), but that I find myself more drawn to eastern developed stuff.

They weren't. Even at their peak, JRPG's are a pretty niche genre of video game, only appreciated by the patrician.

You need to understand that they are shitposted and rarely discussed because you are overwhelmingly surrounded by normalfags and casual western AAA game players.

Yeah, Atelier requires a pretty different mindset to play through Than Ar Nosurge. It's more a light fluffy walk with friends and while Ar had those moments it's a much more involved atmosphere I think. If you do continue to give Atelier a shot try go full autism and make some items that break the game and stomp the bonus bosses with them, that's where half the fun lies. But yeah, I can see why it wouldn't appeal to a lot of people, combat's not much to write about, character's are fairly solid but you never see them truly tested to their utmost limits to see what really makes them tick. And the story isn't sone grand epic, as Atelier Sophie puts it "it's not always about saving the world". Really Atelier's all about an stunningly autistic item crafting system and comfy slice-of-life shenanigans.

If you wanna give another Gust IP a shot and happen to own a nogamestation 4 you could always try Nights of Azure. Bit on the darker side like Ar, gameplay's fun if a bit easy till you unlock the true end route. Art and art direction are fantastic, music's phenomenal as usual and the characters are fun but a bit flat.

I suppose so. But it struck me as odd, since prior to that, Wild Arms had been one of the series that could generally escape threads on it being shitposted to death, along with some other stuff like Grandia, Skies of Arcadia, and Tales. Though I suppose the big thing is that, aside from Tales, all of those had been pretty much dead for years (with SoA being outright stand alone, only having the original release and a Gamecube port). Maybe the simple notion of it getting a new game and becoming an active series again was the issue (I mean, I know the fanbase is a bit divided on 4 and 5 and it ended on a spinoff, but 5 was still pretty enjoyable to me)?

How's the localization for Nights of Azure anyhow? It caught my interest back when it was still in development, but since I don't have a PS4 yet (maybe in a year or two; still waiting on more games of interest to justify it, and the trend of taking multiplat PS3 and/or Vita games and making them PS4 only out here isn't helping with that) and the PS3 and Vita versions never came over, I haven't picked it up at this point. I also haven't seen much discussion on it at all either.

Does Tales of the Abyss ever get any better? I'm, like, thirty hours into it and I still don't see what the big deal about it is. Luke, Jade, Guy, and Asch are absolutely the most interesting characters among the cast, and I just can't bring myself to give a shit about any of them. It's made worse by the constant inclusion of Anise and Natalia, neither of whom I find tolerable, and the constant references to concepts about the world and the geopolitical setting that were only dimly explained twenty-five hours ago.

From the small the small bit of nip I have at my disposal it seemed pretty accurate, besides changing Arnas to Arnice (stupid decision) and the nigh unpronounceable Lyuritus/Ryulitus/etc to Lilysse (makes sense since it keeps with the yuri/lily pun and the flower does play a small role in the story) the translation seemed on point. No memes, no references, just pure translations straight from the characters' mouths.

I'm trying to play Tales of Symphonia. Never played a Tales game before.

The battle mechanics are okay, but the characters are absolutely unbearable. Are all Tales casts this obnoxious?

Might as well also post this since it's been in progress as well (along with the Shadow Hearts one up there). Was considering having the right side be about mechanics throughout the series, so maybe some other BoF fans can help out with what they think might need to be brought up. If not I might resize the image and have it just be about the entries themselves.

I personally really like Tales of the Abyss, but it's not for everyone. Even among series fans it's pretty hit or miss. It's also a pretty long game, averaging about 60-80 hours in my times playing through it (done multiple runs, both solo and with friends). And no, I didn't particularly like Anise either, and think her character could have been handled much better considering the shit she pulls and gets away with.

With the characters on the whole though, what I liked was that all of them had actual flaws that they needed to acknowledge and start trying to work out. Some of them actually do overcome them during the game, while other issues (such as Jade being a bit of a sociopath) aren't the sort of things that get wrapped up, because they're the sort of issues that take longer to. Even the villains have characterization and motives for why they work for their boss.

Still, if you're really not liking it, you shouldn't force yourself to keep playing it.

Thanks, might have to look into it. Does it strike you as the sort of game that's liable to get hard to find as time goes on, or that might see an updated version (admittedly, like Atelier Sophie, it already has a native Vita version in Japan; not sure if Gust would pull a Rorona and have a Plus version on the same system it was originally for)?

Symphonia and Vesperia have generally been considered to have some of the more likable casts, of playable characters anyhow, in the series (barring mixed opinions on Zelos). Still, if you're not fond of anime tropes and character behavior, it's probably not the series for you, as Tales draws from that a fair bit (and not just in art style).

How far in are you anyhow?

I'm thirty hours in. I've dug my grave deep enough, now I just have to lie in it.

Not very. I'm at the fire temple. Maybe 5 or 6 hours in? I didn't get very far the first time I tried it, either.

For some reason, every character is just varying degrees of "punchable" to me. Lloyd, Colette and Raine being the absolute worst of the bunch. Genis and Kratos are a little better, but not by much.

Does it get any better?

Maybe try again in another 5 years, once you hit the double digits?

The game is niche as all hell, so finding a physical copy in your area will probably be out of the question. Over the internet, copies will probably be a bit scarce worst comes to worst you might just have to grab a digital copy.

As for a re-release I'm betting on probably not. It seems like Gust just wanted to port their games onto portable systems and thought "hey let's add some things while we're at it". I mean everything after the Arland trilogy was pretty much a straight up port except for Atelier Shallie which received heavy complaints on both side of the pond. Arland, especially Rorona just got a bit of sprucing up. Now that their games have caught up on multiplat I don't think they'd ho so far as to re-release their stuff.

Yeah, the combat can get tedious real fast if you're not a big fan of it. Something about the way you had to time your actions, while in real time, tickled me in the autism.

That's a fair point. Multiplayer would probably be the best way to play the earlier games in the series anyway, as the A.I.'s pathfinding is pretty bad.

Vesperia's cast was alright and the characters in the 2D games are fairly bearable, if only because those games have much less voice acting.

The pacing for the game is admittedly flawed if that's also felt like an issue. Does help when you get the Albiore II though and can potentially start upgrading the flight stones to reduce travel time (Act III also introduces fast travel using the Albiore II, as there's a fair amount of back and forth in that section).

Again, it's not the sort of game for everyone, especially due to how the cast starts off (it's honestly pretty different seeing how everyone's a bit hostile and quick to jump on each other's flaws; thankfully Guy and Ion are at least decent enough to keep the party moving to where they need to be), but at the very least, you've stuck with it to this point, rather than just dropping it after only an hour or two, which I don't think does the game credit, as for those that wind up liking it, it's pretty good, but still flawed.

You're still at the start of the game. I'd say to keep at it through to the Tower of Salvation and see if you want to keep going, since that's where shit hits the fan.Symphonia starts out rather generic, but hints at shit not being quite right before the Tower.

Also, Lloyd is an idiot, but for most people comes off as more of a lovable idiot than unlikable, and if anything, of the group of characters you have thus far, Genis is the one more prone to being disliked, since he's kind of smarmy (and deserves at least some of the slaps his older sister gives him for not knowing when to shut his trap).

Well, I'll pick it up if I see it I guess. Wouldn't hurt to be on the look out for it if it's going to be that difficult to find when I do get the system. What's it going for these days anyhow, if you've seen it locally (online and local prices not always matching up, if you have the right stores).

I picked up Sword Art Online Lost Song so I have a decent length RPG to play on my Playstation Abandonware. Surprising, since I fucking hate the show and couldn't even make it through the first season.
I'm surprised by how much I enjoy just the flying about and the aerial combat, and how much I haven't gotten annoyed. Maybe it's because the protag has switched from being a boring edgy cunt to just a boring cunt, and there's gameplay to distract me from him. Decent variety in playable characters, not regretting so far.
Sorry for filling the thread with pleb tier shit.

I wouldn't call it horrendous, but yeah, I've even noticed some issues with it in Sword of Mana when you have an ally with you. Makes me wonder though, since Tales (being the other big name JRPG to have co-op as an option) got better with their AI over time (both passively as well as adding more control through strategy settings), were Secret of Mana, SD3, and Legend built directly with the idea of playing with someone else in mind, or was that still a bit of an afterthought/perk and it seems there just wasn't enough time spent on making the AI pathfinding better? Not real sure on the history behind Seiken Densetsu and design choices for it, if Square even made those readily known.

Sorry, couldn't help you with the pricing. Mine is legitimately the only copy I've seen in my area. Seriously, good like finding a copy I've got a feeling you'll need it.

I've had a surprising amount of luck with finding older games that now cost a lot (no luck for the SNES' library, unfortunately), but thanks.

Checking FUCKING GAMESTOP's webpage for it (considering they at least have the perk of giving an idea of what stores have what games), there's apparently a fair amount of them locally that have it (albeit as "Low Stock") as both new and used as well, and it doesn't seem to be horrendously expensive as well (about the price used copies of Tales of Graces f were going for for a while). Gives me some hope that it'll remain available as such, but I'd rather this not turn into a case of Infinite Space or Endless Frontier, where the local stores have a ton when you're not looking for it, but by the time you are, they're all gone, hard to find, and copies are $60+ each for complete ones.

Speaking of complete, do PS4 games even have a manual in them, or do they carry on the sad tradition of later PS3 games not bothering with them?

What is the best JRPG in term of gamepaly depth ?

Oh, and also, I recall hearing Gust's prior excursion into real time combat (AT3) wasn't considered that good if memory serves. Does Nights of Azure seem like it handles it pretty well, showing they learned a thing or two since then?

It seems really predictable so far. For instance, it's so fucking obvious that Collette's going to die at the end of the pilgrimage. I'm sure there's more to it than that, but the foreshadowing's really blatant.

It's honestly just boring to me. The storyline at least is. The gameplay's okay, and that's pretty much the only reason for me to keep playing it.

I heard Abyss is better, or at least it sounds more appealing. I might give that one a chance, too.

I don't really like any of them. But Genis isn't a complete retard like Lloyd and Colette or a cunt like his sister, so it's a little easier to take.

That's good to hear then. Hopefully it won't be as painful as I imagined then. Also unfortunately they've scrapped manuals wholesale, you'd be lucky to even get a sheet of paper with a button layout diagram. The only manuals I've gotten were from EDF 4.1. (unless my memories are failing me) and a Dark Souls III day 1 copy the store had laying around.

And old wounds have opened up. Exceed will never come out in english.

Definitely, if you wanna push the combat system to it's utmost limits stick with the daggers and gun in boss fights. Diving in, dodge cancelling, sliding around and switching to gun mode to unload is a lot more fun than I expected the game to be. One hint that really does cone in handy though is that ordering your servans to "follow" makes the teleport directly behind you without engaging the enemy. Comes in handy when the boss is winding up for a big aoe and you know the AI is too stupid to dodge.

Just started Dragon's Crown. Haven't played enough to even start to form an opinion yet. After this, SMT II-IV Final and Trails in the Sky FC and SC. Could play the Third too, but I'll just wait for the English version, the localization of TiTS seemed really good from what little I saw and compared to the Japanese version, and I've spent the last year and I have playing JRPGs in Nip, so I'd like to just chill out with some games in English for a bit after I finish the SMT main series.

I'm pretty sure the current locations and items and stuff had little descriptions, but I really don't think there was anything close to what Tales has. Even the past event / "journal" entries are pretty handy in most Tales I've played.

That's actually kind of risky to do things like that. A lot of times there's spoilers in those things. The best ones are when it's a spoiler but no one would even know without having played the game though. Hidden in plain sight, I suppose.

I actually just did that a couple of hours ago. I hate how fast that shit builds up. It's especially annoying when consoles that have a lot of grooves in them. I'm guessing they weren't worried about dust when designing the PS2.

Okay, nice, most JRPGs seem to be 30 hours at the very least. I'd just want to be prepared if it was shorter. Abrupt endings can really suck.

It must suck seeing what Activision is doing with them now. Sony was pretty ridiculous to act like they were making a new Crash game only for it to be remasters or whatever too. I suppose Naughty Dog is retarded now, so maybe it's better that way. I never did play the sequels to the first game.

its not even close

plz ?

Oh right. It's just a beat em up with RPG elements.

I'm looking forward to giving that a shot when it's cheap sometime. I just hope I can get into the story. It looks kind of overly dark / edgy to me. I really liked the balance of different tones Ar nosurge had. Do any of the Atelier games ever get serious or emotional like that did? I get the impression that those games are better to just play when you want to relax or have a little laid back fun.

Dark Half and Chaos Seed

Nights of Azure isn't actually edgy at all. In fact it's got your typical Gust light hearted moments to balance out the one emotional turmoil of the game which is choosing the one you love or the world.

Atelier on the other hand does get a bit darker when you approach the final boss as you learn it's a demon who terrorized a country for centuries/the living incarnation of a volcano/your sister's captor or what have you. But it always remains cheery and optimistic throughout, giving out this whole "we'll definitely succeed if we try hard enough" vibe so it never goes truly dark. So yeah, Atelier's really there if you're in that comfy mood.

I forgot to add that while it does keep it's constant optimistic tone the games do have their serious moments with some emotional weight behind them. Mind you it doesn't pack the punch that Ar does but that's a very high bar

Any rpg's on PC that are translated and even halfway decent?

The shit i've so far seen and played on steam the last year has seriously made me consider that perhaps Nips arent the "saviors of vidya" after all. In some cases i'd rather play generic cowadooty clone than Last Remnant or such utter bullshit.

Vagrant Story has a relatively flexible equipment crafting system
SMT in general allows you to go nuts with demon fusion and skill inheritance.
Etrian Odyssey has a very in depth class system
The World Ends with You has its absurd pin systems where you can get certain ultimate sets to become OP as fuck and a combat and loot system that helps gives you benefits for handicapping yourself.

Asking for JRPGs on PC is like asking for Grand Strategy/RTS on consoles. You're bound to find some but none of them are going to be even close to the best the thing has to offer.

...

Meant to post this earlier, but the internet went out.

Symphonia's not the most subtle game, but that's not exactly Tales' forte (though the games do have a tendency to like to toy with the player's expectations of what's going to happen). Neither is the general writing, but usually it's adequate (Graces aside; that game's writing is pretty poor, though the game itself is still entertaining), and the combat and character interactions fun.

And again, Lloyd's dumb, but has some moments of surprising brilliance, at least compared to how he usually is (the infamous coffee scene being one).

Abyss is an odd one. Not in terms of gameplay or execution (Legendia is the really strange one on those ends), but the way the cast in in Abyss lends it to be really love it or hate it. Initially most of the characters are pretty hateable (Luke in particular comes off as a real asshole initially, and not the enjoyable/humorous type like Shadow Hearts' Yuri, and you really don't learn WHY he's that way, beyond being spoiled rotten by his parents, until later in the game), but start to improve after a while. But you wouldn't see that if you don't stick with it long enough for it to happen. Also, while I certainly like the game even if it's not my favorite, I wouldn't recommend it as an entry point for the series, since it strikes me that it might leave the wrong impression either way.

And again, Symphonia is initially pretty generic in story, but improves as it goes on if you ask me. Should also be said that it's a bit of a fan favorite, and considering I first played it probably four or five years back (long after the original version was current) and found it pretty enjoyable, I don't think it's just nostalgia or whatever.

Yeah, it's a shame, since I heard Exceed fixes a number of thing and picks up after the ending of the first game. Not sure Atlus did much marketing, but it really didn't seem to sell well, and from what I've seen, SRW fans aren't particularly fond of Endless Frontier for deviating from the Tactical style of the main series and other OG games, or something like that. I'd hope one day Exceed gets a full fan translation, but right now all it seems to have is a menu patch.

Is that like some sort of quick input thing you can do on the fly, or do you need to open a menu whenever to make them behave that way? I remember finding quick inputs like that pretty useful in stuff like Xenoblade (getting the party to get out of the ether in the Lorithia fight, for example, as otherwise they're content to just fight and die in it) and Tales of Eternia (where you have some commands to gather the entire party at the player's location, reverse party formation, and make everyone jump at the same time.

The Japanese haven't been especially big on putting JRPGs on PC, though some (such as Falcom and Square) have been more receptive to it than most. Really, the bulk of them are on consoles and handhelds, and some of them (depending on the era) you can at the very least emulate

I suppose that's true, but with those I haven't seen anything in particular that stands out much as such.

Still, that's the sort of things that helps me get interested in games. That, and OSTs I suppose, though admittedly some are better enjoying hearing them for the first time in the game itself.

What I do find annoying about it though is when you watch an opening or listen to a few songs on youtube and then the related videos section gets filled with potential spoilers. Final boss videos should be banned from being related to game opening videos.

I got all my systems and games cleaned off before moving, it's just that the TV and system stand is all smudged now from being carried in. Also not sure where the Windex is here right now, might still be at the old place.

They're pretty good amount not being abrupt, and, SH1 aside, they don't have any noticeable points of no return until fighting the final bosses, so you can sidequest and shit up until the end (in SH1, you want to make sure you're done doing stuff in Asia before fighting the boss at Kuihai Tower).

At this point, I really don't care. The PS1 Spyro and Crash games are still great (I've also got a soft spot for Hero's Tail and I hear good things about Twinsanity as far as more recent Crash games go), but I've given up hope on anything good happening to them at this point. Best thing that can happen is that they just get left to their eternal rest, but Activision won't allow that. What boggles my mind is why it's been apparently fucking impossible for any of the developers since Insomniac and classic Naughty Dog to make a Spyro or Crash game on par with the early ones. It should be that hard, but they've kept proving me wrong.

I'd rather momentary excitement and let down than a massive build up via a countdown site only to have a fucking mobile port revealed (like Square did with TWEWY). Oh, and Crash 2 and 3 are really good, though 3 does suffer a bit from the "tries to do too much" syndrome. CTR is also a really fun kart racer.

thanks luve

quit it with your avatar shit

Emulate. The stuff you find on steam is almost the Japanese equivalent of RPGMaker games.

Speaking of Steam (and GoG, I suppose), how is the anniversary edition of Grandia II compared to the Dreamcast original? I assume it's at least a good improvement over the PS2 port.

Any games similiar to smt that have the enemy negotiations?

Persona 1 and 2.

I've heard that Song of the Angel does something similar. None of the games are in English though, but Nightcrawler (who also translated The Magical Land of Wozz, Dual Orb II, and Emerald Dragon) is apparently nearing completion with translating the SFC one.

With Tales of Symphonia, it was the first 3D Tales and it really shows. The battle system is mainly taken from Tales of Eternia but with a bunch of rough edges. Most of the characters just aren't that fun to play. Combo wise there isn't much you can do. With Eternia, Phantasia, and Destiny, your melee character was a wall that protected the team so you always had this push for screen control. With Symphonia, the enemy can just walk anywhere and you can't have units just stay out the way. Usually the enemy is in the center and everyone else is scattered across the field. So with this you're just there to distract and slow them down while spell casters nuke.

The combat is also boring when you're just chaining 4-5 attacks repetitively 24/7 and you can't get that creative with combos. The unison attack isn't all that good. It's flashy looking but essentially comes down to just spamming your best attack and get Prism Stars. The overlimit system is completely set against you because you gaining super armor doesn't help you nearly enough as the enemy getting it. They can take way more damage than you can and your strategy doesn't even change when you get it.

I like Symphonia but I can really see why people wouldn't like it. And yes, Tales characters are pretty obnoxious at times. They were more down to earth in Phantasia though.

You could always try Last Remnant.

To be fair, I do know of one person that seems to use the screenshots from that VN a fair bit, but I wouldn't exactly call using it a single time in a given thread avatarfagging. Not sure how the 4AM threads wound up becoming so full of them, but they are. At least they seem to keep it to that one thread though.

I didn't mind Symphonia's combat that much (I'm also pretty fond of Eternia due to it adding more fluidity for such an early entry), but the later games certainly did build on and refine it, be it making casters actually fun to play, free run, a skill system (though I really wish Item Thrower wasn't a skill that has to be learned in Abyss and Vesperia), ability to conserve overlimits, etc. I suppose with Symphonia the real goal was to get the series to make the jump to 3D graphically, so perhaps upgrading on the combat was a bit of an afterthought in comparison. I'd be curious to know whether Symphonia or Destiny 2 started development first though; I know Destiny 2 came out first, but to my knowledge (admittedly I haven't played it yet; game's still moon only and Cless is apparently quite lazy about starting work on anything else after spending over a decade on his Phantasia patch) it does build on the combat, while Symphonia mostly just borrows from Eternia. Makes me think Symphonia might have started development first since it doesn't build off of Destiny 2 instead.

All your commands are quick inputs. Just hit L1 and down on the d-pad to get your servans to follow and then L1 and left to get them right back into the action. So you don't have to pause or anything to throw your commands out, it's all seamless.

We can hope, Endless Frontier was a lot more fun than people give it credit. As much as I love menu based RPGs I wish more of them experimented with having a more active battle system like Endless Frontier did.

fuck off with this, thank god , dead genre

Cool, might go out and give it a look later today.

Not sure if you've played it, but Sands of Destruction ("World Destruction" in Japan) has a turn based system where each turn is divided up into a certain amount of actions the character can take, which is influenced by a number of things. I found it pretty fun, aside from a little mechanic called "Defiance"; I get what they were going for with it (make it so that the player has to think about their actions as the more they attack the enemy the more actions or more frequency of turns the enemy gets; I forget which exactly but either way it's meant to prevent it from just being constant spamming), but it just comes off as annoying and most bosses have it, making fights with them pretty long. Also wish Sega had given Kato more free rein with the story, since he'd wanted to make something darker and Sega wanted it to be lighter, so it's got some issues.

Shadow Hearts also isn't exactly an "active battle system" but it does require a bit more input from the player themselves in order to actually play, since you have to be able to use the Judgment Ring properly to be able to succeed at them (unless you opt for Auto Ring in Covenant and FtNW, but that's no fun).

Not exactly the same but the Dragon Quest Monster series

I've seen Sands of Destruction around, and Shadow Hearts is a cult classic I've never gotten around to playing. Thanks for the recommendations user, I'll definitely go check them out.

Again, Sands of Destruction is rather hit or miss. I see more of a dislike for it from anons than I tend to a liking for it. But still, maybe do your research on it, since if you're the type to like having actual copies of games, it's not the easiest DS JRPG to find, nor is it all that cheap complete (though thankfully not Infinite Space, Endless Frontier, or Avalon Code tier pricy). Given that it's a bit hit or miss, you might want to emulate. Also, might be worth mentioning that while it did see an anime series, it's not the same as the game. From what I know of it the anime is a reimagining or different cycle after the game or something, I don't know. But from what I'm aware of with it some of the characters have the personalities changed around for the anime (Such as Lady R'hia being a kind and softspoken character in the game, but I hear she's a bitch in the anime)

Shadow Hearts as a series is pretty damn good if you ask me, and was made by a team that had ex-Classic Square guys among them (some of whom would later work with Mistwalker on Lost Odyssey as well). Might want to give a read if you want to know more about the series, though that's still a work in progress.

Also might as well post the intro if it helps build interest.

The series does have a chronology to it starting with a PS1 game called Koudelka, but it doesn't use the Judgment Ring combat style (Kikuta had apparently wanted to use it or another more active input system, but got overruled by the rest of his team; The Judgment Ring would be used in the PS2 games, after he'd left the company). You don't necessarily need to play Koudelka first, but it does help set the premise a bit, and some elements do make a return in the games after it.

Yeah, planned on doing some research on Sands of Destruction. Heard a bit about its reputation but never really got any info on its battle system so I'll give it a once over to see if it's my cup of tea. Even if it seems a tad weak emulation's always an option.

The opening seems pretty interesting. I'll give the chart a look and watch some gameplay to check it out. Probably look over Koudelka too just to get the whole story.

Koudelka's worth playing in my opinion, it's just… different. A lot of the complaints I've seen about it (official reviews shat on it back in the day, giving it about a 60% or so) seem to be more opinion oriented, and I suppose that the mixture of turn based JRPG and horror had a tendency for various elements to annoy fans of the opposite genre (such as horror fans perhaps not liking the turn based combat and random encounters, and JRPG fans perhaps not liking having such limited bag space and weapons breaking during combat with no way to repair them), and fans of Kikuta's music seemed disappointed that his game didn't feature much of it outside combat and cutscenes (given that he opted for exploration to mostly be the player and the environment's sound effects). Which isn't to say it doesn't have actual legitimate issues (namely that key items don't have their own slot in the bag, the way letters and diaries do, and played from the actual discs there is some pretty prevalent loading times; works better as an eboot on a PSP), but still, if you can get a feel for it, it's pretty neat, has some pretty nice atmosphere, a dark story, and actually has really quite good voice acting for a PS1 JRPG.

Also, with Sands of Destruction, I'm not sure how well it emulates, but even on my DS Lite, big enemies that take up both screens can cause it to lag a fair bit.

Also, Koudelka and Shadow Hearts are a tad pricy these days at about $45-50 each if you like having actual copies, while Covenant and FtNW are better priced (about $35 and $25 respectively, maybe cheaper on a good day) and a bit easier to find. And for better or worse, absolutely none of the games have PSN versions either.

Covenant and FtNW also build on the combat system too.

Given SE's determination to put the entire FF library on steam I'm surprised they aren't doing the same with DQ.

According to Wikipedia, the multiplayer was sort of an afterthought.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_of_Mana#Development

The Trails game by Falcom are really good, and I think Grandia 2 is on PC now. Grandia 2 has one of the best battle systems ever in a JRPG.

I love that game, but only the Dreamcast version is any good. I tried playing the Anniversary Edition, and I couldn't even get past the first area of the game because it crashed every 3 minutes. Even then, there were a ton of other problems with the game. I just got a refund. They may have patched it by now, but I have no idea who thought that was okay to release.

The PS2 version was also really buggy. If you want to play it, you should probably just emulate the Dreamcast version.

Yeah, I wouldn't worry about those too much, but I'm just always scared to look at anything regarding sequels when I haven't finished the first game.
I've never had them ruin anything for me yet, but Youtube's linked videos are ridiculous. I make sure never to look to the right if I need to watch something on there. I wonder if there's extensions or something to turn them off entirely.

Recently there's been Final Fantasy X and Tales of Zestiria, but while each are okay they're not the best the genre has to offer (or even their respective series)

I don't think DQ is nearlt in the same level as FF. I know normalfags and girls who don't play JRPGs that play FF, but if I asked them about DQ they wouldn't even know what it is.

I honestly get the feeling that Square-Enix doesn't want Dragon Quest to compete well with Final Fantasy here. I mean, they won't even put the games on the VC or PSN where I'm sure they'd do well, while Final Fantasy easily got up on both. I've heard rumor that during the merger, rather than having Enix guys put in charge (considering they seemed to know what they were doing budgetwise compared to Square, who was the company actually requiring the merger), or having a balanced group of both Square and Enix people at the top, Square guys got put in charge. Might explain why Enix' old stuff has stayed off the PSN and VC, at least in the west (though Square still has an issue with getting some of their own games up there), though I'd have to double check whether Japan even gets digital rereleases of Enix's old stuff either.

I think part of the issue is that, barring Dragon Quest VIII, I don't think Square-Enix (or classic Enix as well) did a lot to promote the series to get all that popular out here. And with the DS versions of the Zenethia games, I recall hearing that while V had a surprising amount of demand among series fans (given that the west had never received that one officially and that V has a reputation as a really good entry), Square didn't bother to do much of a print run for it, complained about low sales, and then quietly reprinted it for sale in their own online store once preowned prices reached $80 or so, or something like that (it's been a while). Also not real sure what the deal with IV DS' pricing has been; for a while it was also at about $70 used, as far as complete copies go. Looks like it might have also gotten a reprint or demand significantly dropped since then though.

Either way, it seems as if Square just doesn't really care to go out of their way to try to get the series more popular out here, do low print runs of various ones, piss off what western fans they have by tossing text only accents on stuff, and act as if there's not much demand for bringing any of them west (hence it taking forever for them to even announce VII and VIII 3DS coming west; I think we're still missing about five or six games even then, but I'd have to check the old NEVER EVER image).

I know the PS2 versions of games that started multiplat (or became multiplat down the line) weren't generally the best releases of the games, but who did the PS2 port of Grandia II, and how did they manage to screw it up so badly?

I'm pretty sure the Anniversary Edition of Grandia is fine. The crashing issues aren't widespread and are supposedly due to some incompatibility with Xbox one controllers.

Some company called Rocket Studios was responsible for the shit ports of Grandia II.

A lot of slowdown, degraded graphics, major audio problems, a few bugs and the occasional crash.

I just played that Final Fantasy XV "platinum" demo and it made me give a shit even less about that game. Hopefully that isn't representative of the real game in any way. I didn't enjoy that.

That probably is part of the problem. I think part of it is that the games style doesn't match up as much with what regular people here think is cool though too. Not that it couldn't amass way bigger sales, but I just don't see it reaching the same people Final Fantasy can. While people here flaunt not caring what people think and being a geek and everything it seems like appearances are extremely important and it would be viewed as too child like or nerdy or something.
It's big focus on handhelds probably doesn't help it in the west either, as far as gaining mass popularity. I suppose it is on home consoles, so it shouldn't matter, but it's just been awhile.

god damn it's a good day

I meant more of how did they actually prove that incompetent, let alone that the game saw release in that state.

Did Rocket Studios do much else of note vidyawise?

There's certainly a difference in tone, I think. Still, I'd think anyone that has an overall liking for JRPGs would probably appreciate Dragon Quest, if particularly to see how it (and the industry, given how the first game was one of the earliest JRPGs along with Legend of Heroes, I think) has come along over the years. The big issue is that Square-Enix doesn't seem to care to promote series here much. I suppose with Final Fantasy there's not a whole lot of promotion needed at this point since it's long been a household name of sorts (and likely the thing the average person thinks when they hear "JRPG"), but it's also the safer bet for them as far as how they might feel a potential western payoff is for doing so, so it (along with maybe Kingdom Hearts too) gets the focus anyhow while other games/series they have had that could use more in the way promotion don't get it. Still though, I'd wager Dragon Quest is a lot better known out here than other various JRPGs, even other classic ones. Which leave it feeling odd that the less popular ones at times can see every last entry (main ones anyhow) localized, while some of the bigger name series like Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, and (recently becoming a lot more popular) Tales have still missed various versions, if not STILL missing games outright.

Considering the popularity handhelds see (or used to see? I think they might have been usurped by phones) in Japan due to travel time on trains and such, as well as Dragon Quest's long standing popularity, it's understandable that they've been focused more towards handhelds for a while.

Damn, I was just thinking about how much I didn't like that Final Fantasy XV demo and realizing I'm probably even more doomed in hoping for a good FFVII Remake than I originally thought. I wonder why they would bank their potential biggest game ever on that awful combat system.

Yeah, I would imagine that it would appeal to most people that appreciate turn based JRPGs, but I just don't know if it's even possible for it to sell like Final Fantasy does or gain that same kind of popularity as it has in Japan. I think even one of the 3DS remake ones sold a million copies. It's just crazy how much they love it. It makes me kind of happy though, since the games seem way more substance over style when compared to Final Fantasy where the graphics are one of the main parts of it's identity.

It is, but not in a good way. A lot of people know that it basically invented JRPGs as we know them today and revere it for that, but there's also this meme floating around "gamer" circles that Dragon Quest is the Japanese equivalent of Call of Duty and that all of the games are exactly alike, except for VIII(the only DQ game most of these people have ever played) which was only good and/or different by accident because they let Level 5 make it, or something like that.

I'm pretty there's maybe five or so people around here that really want to talk about the series (I've never seen discussion get real big on it and the series is admittedly rather niche even if well regarded), so I've never really looked into making a thread for it. Part of why I've been working on an infographic, since it might help generate more interest.

Probably some notion that it needs the combat updated. Personally, when it comes to remakes, I prefer combat to be improved on, but the basic style left the same. If the game was originally built on being turn-based, leave it turn-based, even if various people complain about turn-based combat being out dated or whatever.

I know Wild Arms ACF is a bit hit or miss with fans (I find it to be on par with the PS1 original as far as personal enjoyment, but I suppose the idea of a remake is that it's supposed to surpass the original through updated mechanics/graphics/audio/whatever), but Media.Vision made the right call in leaving the combat turn-based (the whole series has been as such, even the tactical spinoff), and the mixture of combat elements from Wild Arms 1, 2, and 3 make it a neat hybrid. I do kind of wish it had the "Force replaces MP" factor 2 and 3 had though, or at least left MP restoring items in (it's not bad for most of the characters, but Jack burns through his MP pretty quickly, and doesn't have much in the way of restoratives like the original version had), but it's still enjoyable, and I'm honestly not real sure how well Wild Arms would work with a real-time combat system with AI allies, or whatever.

Yeah, it strikes me that at this point it might either be a bit too late for it to be able to see the same degree of popularity Final Fantasy sees here, simply because they really haven't bothered with trying to get it popular for a long time.

I've seen people claim the same about most JRPG series from time to time, to be honest. Even with stuff like Tales where each game tends to have some unique aspect to combat and the games have a tendency to build on various additions that worked really well as far as mechanics go, you still get people saying "if you've played one Tales game, you've played them all" which I really don't think does Tales credit.

Admittedly my own experiences with Dragon Quest are a bit lacking (need to give it more time, but I've liked what experiences I've had with it), but from what I've looked into, it does seem like even in the main series there are various elements that make them different enough, such as monster recruiting, class systems, or even various ways the plots handle.

I'm curious, if someone used VIII as a starting point, would it have a tendency to perhaps leave the wrong impression of the series on a new fan? I'm just wondering what might prompt that line of thought, since there's certainly various entries in series I enjoy that I wouldn't recommend a newcomer to the series start out with for various reasons (not even that a particular entry is bad, just a bit too different to give a good idea of what the series is overall like).

If I ever stop procrastinating. Magical Vacation.

Falling that. I guess some other JRPG I've yet to finish that I have.

Yeah, I certainly still have plenty in my backlog to get around to as well. And as for as stuff I've been making (which I also really ought to finish), you'd be surprised how long it takes to get satisfied with something when it's about a series you care about. I can't even remember how long it took me to get to the point I felt these were "finished" enough to start posting as non WIP versions.

Best not to jump around too much, especially with long games. Otherwise you risk not making any real progress with anything.

Might as well describe the battle system a bit more. Basically, in addition to the actions-per-turn system, a lot of enemies have various passive abilities that can proc during combat, such as boosting various stats upon taking damage. The player's party can also gain these various procing effects through equipped items that have them as a bonus stat, as well as battle quips (you can choose up to four at once for each character). Each quip specifies how it activates during combat, as well as what the effect does (for example, if R'hia has her "All things…" quip equipped, she'll occasionally audibly say "All things come to nothing" when taking damage, bolstering her physical defenses). There's two kinds of physical attacks as well, Crush attacks (which are usually single hit, but have a high chance to break guards), and Flurry attacks (which are a lot of smaller hits that build combos). Many attacks also have a chance to induce a various effect, such as stalling the enemy's turn, stunning them, and knocking into the air (or out of the air if fighting something airborne), and can then be followed up with a powerful extension strike. Also worth nothing that the enemy can and WILL do the same to you if you're not careful. Party and enemy morale can also be increased or decreased, affecting how many actions either side can do. Fuck Negative Aura.

The game also has a surprising amount of voiced audio in the English version for a DS game, and while not exactly great dubbing, it's not really that bad either in my opinion. Taupie, R'hia, and Agan actually sound pretty good in English.

Again, not exactly a great game, but it does have a bit of a neat take on being a turn-based system have a bit more player involvement.

I'm guessing that since Dragon Quest is such a big and important name in JRPGs, a lot of people want to be familiar with the series, but are too intimidated by the number of games in the franchise to play through all of them(I can't really fault them for that, especially when some games in the series, like VII and VIII can take well over 100 hours to finish), so they just tell themselves that if you play one game in the series you've played them all. This way they can feel like their experts on the series, even though they've only played one or two of it's games. It's like that Mark Twain quote, "A classic is something everyone wants to have read, but never actually read."

Also, the fanbases of Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy have always had huge rivalry, even after the Square-Enix merger, and since Final Fantasy's shtick has always been experimenting with every new game in the series, a lot of it's fans glorify it for being constantly innovative, while calling Dragon Quest games generic and stale.

Been playing Tales of Zestiria lately, and I've been liking it so far. I honestly feel like the music is the best part about the game, and it's a shame that Go Shiina won't be composing the music for the next game. The combat is also pretty fun, and dodging enemy attacks feels great, but why did they have to make the party AI so fucking stupid? It gets to the point that fighting battles with only two characters is a lot more fun then playing with four, because I don't have to worry about them getting killed from their own stupidity. Not to mention that you gain less and less exp when you play on harder difficulty settings.

I suppose it does have a lot of games in it and some can take quite a while to beat, but honestly, eight main entry games (or ten I suppose, if you're counting IX and X, since if memory serves IX does things a bit different and X is an MMO the west never even got) in a series as long running as it isn't all that much. Meanwhile Final Fantasy is now on it's thirteenth main entry (discounting XI and XIV; also not real sure how to count XIII-2 and LR, do fans usually count stuff like those and X-2 as being main series?), and even Tales is on sixteen mothership titles last I checked.

I've certainly seen Square fans make the claim that merging with Enix ruined Square. Won't exactly take a side in it since I wasn't paying the thing much attention back then, but as far as I know Square's not exactly been the company that was good with it's money, hence them needing the merger to begin with after Spirits Within.

Is the rivalry more of a western thing though, or both here and in Japan?

Haven't given Zestiria a go myself yet, but I've heard that it has some issues, particularly since Namco apparently wanted to try out a seamless world with battles on the field, and thus there's stuff like camera issues due to environmental stuff that wouldn't be on the field in prior games.

Have you tried fiddling with the Strategy menu for the AI? Usually in my experience with the series, playing co-op have the best results (provided your friends or family can carry their weight with the characters), but the AI's generally adequate enough in most of the games (to the point that in X1 and X2 it's so integrated that playing without a linked AI partner gimps you), and you can tweak them via strategy settings and disabling various artes.

If you want more Go Shiina, consider giving Legendia a go, as that was a game he was given sole composition duty for. I'll warn you though, it's a pretty strange entry in the series for a number of reasons, and many series fans aren't exactly fond of it, beyond the music (which is definitely a highlight of the game). Shiina is usually relegated to composing remixes for the crossover escort titles like Radiant Mythology unfortunately, so playing the main series you tend to only really hear Sakuraba's work (I don't mind him as much as some people do, but he could really use a break to get some new ideas) and the west barely sees the escort titles out here.

I would prefer it to at least be comparable to the original too, but I could accept it if the new battle system was some amazing thing that's just as enjoyable in it's own right, but from the demo that doesn't seem to be the case at all. You'd think they would at least use something they've perfected or a tried and true battle system. The one in the demo I just didn't find fun at all. It just seems really dumb to even bank something like that on it. Hopefully that demo was just shit, because the empty world and everything else too about it just wasn't very appealing.

The equivalent for Wild Arms would probably be some clunky third person action shooting game that feels similar to other ones you've played, but not nearly as smooth or responsive. The tactics just feel shitty too I didn't find it nearly as fun as something like Tales or Ys. It felt more like Dragon age Inquisition than either of those how you just hold a button waiting for enemies to die.

I've been playing it too and the battle system is fun, but it does feel more unbalanced than other Tales I've played. The retarded AI really doesn't help either. Once you get farther in you'll realize how shitty the camera is too. It's my least favorite thing about battles. Some locations can be a constant struggle with the camera. Overall it seems like a decent Tales title. Definitely not the best, but a nice distraction while they figure out what they're doing going forward. The music is pretty damn good though. That and the characters is probably my favorite thing about it. There's some pretty bland songs along the way too, but none have been offensive so far and the great ones easily make up for it.

I actually like how open the world is, and the camera has worked fine for me. I also like how environmental stuff actually matters when you enter combat and slightly change the way you approach a battle.

I do fiddle around with the Strategy menu constantly out and during battle, but that's just not enough. Even if I set it so that my spell casters only attack from a far, sometimes they'll just run in and start using physical attacks, which ends with them getting killed when fighting a boss. What's worse, even if you set them to never attack and get away from the enemies, they still run around in random direction and sometimes run right into the heat of battle which gets them killed anyways. The AI is so bad that I sometimes have to pause the game and temporarily take control of them so they run in the other direction. Thankfully this only ever applies to boss encounters instead of normal ones though, since they're competent enough that I don't have to baby them with normal enemies. The only thing that makes up for the bad party AI, is the bad boss AI. There are two types of bosses in the whole game: Ones that attack the closest character, and ones attack the character with the lowest health. Both of which are really easy to exploit.

In all honesty, the game is actually really easy if I just let my party members die, but since I like playing these games without ever using items, running away from battle, or letting anyone die, this usually ends up making the game really difficult when it shouldn't.

I tried out Legendia a long time ago, and I actually really liked the characters, but I stopped playing it for some reason. My stopping point was right after you fight some psychotic ninja at a tower.
I also like Sakuraba's music, but for reason, his newer stuff feels really generic.

I agree about the combat being unbalanced. Most encounters can be breezed through with armatization. Expect when you fight spell casters, then you're pretty much screwed. I still haven't had problems with the camera, but maybe I haven't gotten to that point where it's an issue. As for the characters, I actually like them a lot, to the point I probably consider them my favorite Tales cast. I kind of expected to hate Dezel and Rose, but they grew on me really quick and I really like Sorey as a protagonist. Some of the town themes are kind of generic though, but stuff like the trial dungeon music definitely makes up for them.

Could this be the birth of the legendary shit tastes? Zestiria is a hot pile of steaming dogshit. I'd rather play Symphonia 2 over that game.

Nothing will ever beat Graces F, though. They could simply rehash that game's combat till the end of time and I'd never stop suckling down the diarrhea drizzle. God, please let them make another game like Graces F, but without all downsides and garbage Zestiria introduced.

Yep, those fucking medusa snake things or whatever that there's how many different kinds of really piss me off. I try getting there in time to stop them, but some go way too fast to be able to. I think you can tell your characters to prioritize stopping spells and they do sometimes, but even after tweaking them they're still retarded.

I really like Rose. Dezel I'm not a fan of though. Even his armatization sucks compared to the other characters.

It seems to get much worse as you go. In the beginning of the game I barely had any problems at all and thought it was exaggerated, but in narrow corridors it can be really bad sometimes. I actually decide whether or not I'm gonna fight enemies depending if there's walls around.

I think with Sakuraba it's really a case of whether or not he's given much time to actually come up with stuff for a given game. I mean, most Tales games (and he's composed for pretty much the entire main series, barring Legendia and Innocence, if memory serves) all have similar settings and such, so themes for various places can run together a bit at this point. I will say though, that for cases where he's making new music for an updated version (or in the case of Xillia 2 a sequel that reuses most of the music from the original), he actually makes some pretty nice stuff. Vesperia PS3 had songs like Restless Blade, Leviathan's Claw, and Lost Memories added that sound pretty nice, and a number of the songs in Xillia 2 like Splendid Dance Performance of Spirit, For the Sake of Mutual Proof, and Betting on the Last Guidepost are all pretty enjoyable to me (also an odd case where the songs have a long intro until they actually get to the part that loops during battle), and in both cases, the amount of songs he wasn't adding wasn't all that many new songs. Might be that he had more time to work with since there were less overall new songs he had to make.

Yeah, I'm not saying the battle system has to be the exact same (looking at something like the remake for Tales of Destiny, while it still has real-time combat like the original, it's considered a huge improvement from what I've seen, to the point some consider it to have the best 2D combat the entire Tales series has seen), but usually having the same base style helps.

I'd certainly welcome another take on Graces combat system, though I think I've heard from importers before that the solely-CC system worked out better in stuff like Destiny PS2. Also was a bit odd how in Graces the characters can't even jump on their own, with that action being locked to various artes. I would certainly hope they'd get a better writer on board for that if they do. Graces plot is really bad, even for a Tales game (usually they're at least what I consider "acceptable") and half the cast, including Asbel feel really dull as characters. At least Malik and Pascal were really enjoyable, and the combat there pretty fun, if different from what most western fans were used to.

What do you have their artes settings for when below X% TP at? Granted, I'm not even sure if Zestiria has that as a strategy option, but in prior games, when a character would get below a certain amount of TP, I'd notice they'd typically run in and start meleeing, since they were set to not use artes if below that amount, and regular melee attacks in a number of games restores 1 TP per hit, thus letting them have a chance to build it back up to the point they could toss an arte out there. Ideally though, with casters you'd just toss a gel at them and let them carry on.

Nope. Graces plot, while not exactly stellar, doesn't deserve the vast overreaction that it gets. It's not good by any means, but it's not bad. I think people are just complaining about all the FRIENDSHIP going down, in which case they need to fuck off and go watch more anime.

I starkly disagree about the characters, though. I found every single character in Graces to be wildly entertaining with the sole exception of Cheria. Their banter, skits, and unique character gameplay were all superb, and they developed nicely over the course of the setting/game. Even Asbel, who I would consider to be the most one-dimensional character in that cast, changed sufficiently over the course of events. Overall, they're definitely the most well-rounded cast of nuanced characters since Abyss.

Goddamn, Graces is just so good. Definitely the best Tales game.

With Asbel, I just wish he had more overall personality than "I have to protect my friends," "Richard is suffering" and "I've failed everyone." Say what you want about kid Asbel, but he was at least a rebellious little scamp that seemed to have fun, even if slightly obnoxious. The English voice for teen-Asbel doesn't help, and it just makes him sound really bland (Richard's English voice could have also used improvement; I've heard him voice Chester before in the ToP OVAs, and he did a pretty decent job there, so maybe the voice direction for his character in Graces wasn't that good?) in my opinion.

With the plot, I know people rag on it about friend-this, friendship-that (I have done that myself a fair bit), but I just kind of wish it had more going for it. Overall it just felt like the cast winds up kind of incompetent when they keep hesitating to stop Richard as he sucks off all the Valkines and robs the planet of energy. I do give it credit where it's due though, Asbel successfully pulling power of friendship on an eldritch horror is certainly fitting for him. And the skits and combat though are certainly entertaining, to the point I preferred seeing new the skits than the main plot.

I certainly don't hate the game, and found it a good bit of fun myself (probably one of the more fun Tales games to co-op with friends, as far as ragging on stuff goes), I just think overall it could have been handled a bit better, and I'd be interest in knowing if whoever did the lead writing is a Tales regular, or someone that was brought in for that particular installment.

It's bullshit when they all come at you in groups and start casting spells at the same time, with hard mode and above making it impossible to interrupt their spell casting.

I agree that Dezel's armatization sucks, but at least he has the highest HP out of everyone else, so he can at least take some damage without dying. I also found his spells in normal state to more useful then anyone else when it comes to exploiting weaknesses and staggering enemies. As for Rose, she just gets in the way gameplay wise during bosses, but I like her as a character and how she and Sorey contrast each other.

I've fought in narrow corridors, and I kind of see what you mean. Although the bad camera angles still hasn't hindered me so far.

I suppose. I really did like the battle music in Zestiria, which I believe he composed, so you might be right about him needing more time to do his magic. If anything I just want Go Shiina to compose the dungeon themes, while Sakuraba does the battle themes. Also off topic, but I find it funny that Sakuraba reused a part of the Sea of Karagol theme from Golden Sun for the Tales of Destenity 2 battle theme. youtube.com/watch?v=pvXrsqi7Ggc

TP doesn't exist in Zestria, instead there's SC which is similar to CC from Graces f (which I haven't played, but really want to). Normally when they run out of SC, they wait around until it fills back up, but sometimes they run in and start using physical attacks once they regain their SC. You can tell them how much SC they can use, but it doesn't stop them from running in anyways. The best thing you can make them do is put them on healing duty so they stay away from the enemy and don't charge in.

And even here, with complaints like this, it all just relates back to the FRIENDSHIP plot. Poor Asbel gets bludgeoned as a medium to channel this hatred through, since his immediate and most obvious traits are friendship, protection, etc etc.

But he has more than just that. Did you miss all the bonding with Sophie he does? His complex relations with Hubert and his village as Lord? or his dense-hero romantic overtures towards Cheria? Even his struggle with justice was pretty interesting, though a bit ham-fisted and drawn-out. Asbel was just a pretty cool guy in his own right, for a power of friendship homonerd. He's certainly more than just 'muh knight values.'

Yeah so like, suck my cock dude.

To my knowledge there's dual composition in Zesteria between him and Shiina for once. Usually it's just Sakuraba working by himself.

Vesperia also has a battle theme that sounds really reminiscent of Golden Sun, but I think it's more the vibe/style of it than being a remix.

Ah, I'd been think they were using a dual TP/CC style system like with the Xillia games. With Graces, the more caster inclined characters at least had long range weapons for melee combat, such as Cheria having throwing knives, Malik having his Bladarang, and Pascal with her Shotstaff (though the way she handles is odd, in that her gun attacks are generally long range while her spells are generally point blank around her; fits her character though), so there's little need for them to get real close to enemies if they opt to use physical attacks (which in Graces, all count as being artes themselves; there's no real regular "standard attacks" like you'd have in other Tales games, where you can physically attack without consuming TP or CC).

Admittedly it's been a few years since I played it, so maybe I'm not remembering it as well as I should. I might have to give it another go sometime soon.

And as for ragging on stuff, my friend I do that for every Tales we've played together, not just Graces. Certainly doesn't mean we dislike them.

Sadly, no one in Zestria has any sort of long range weapon they can fight with, so spell casters get really close to the enemy and have a habit of dying as a result. They're not bad at close combat, they just can't take too much damage. Also, Zestira doesn't have "standard attacks" either. Everything is an arte, just like in Graces, and it revolves around dodging and guarding, which your party members also suck at doing.

the fuck happened to the character design

4/jp/ has a permanent Gust general, so it doesn't leak out probably.

I didn't expect much going into this one, but it quickly became my favorite tales game of the series, and I've played through at least 80% of them.

Aside from "Generic Tales Protagonist", some translation issues, and some problems with party members ducking in and out of the party constantly, it was overall excellent and no tales combat system has felt that fun since. Being able to set up your own AI trees for companions was really amazing.

Too bad it's stuck on a dead system with no multi-player capability.

I know, it's weird. I guess a lot of those people played most of the Final Fantasy games growing up, so it's not as much of an issue for them.

That's pretty much what happened. The company heads became much more overzealous after all of the success they had during the Ps1 era, which led to bad business decisions that finally came to a head with Spirits Within.

I think it's a global thing, though it was bigger in Japan. They freaked out when the merger happened. It was like what the reaction to Sony and Microsoft merging would be today.

If memory serves, Cheria and Malik weren't exactly the best defensively in Graces. I think Cheria had speed to make up for it a bit (not carrying a bulky weapon and all), and Malik had a larger amount of health and his Bladarang artes could long a target down for the duration of a combo (though it leaves him vulnerable to other enemies until his combo ends and the blade returns to his hand. It's been a while since I played the game though, so I might be wrong. But neither of them ever really have much reason for needing to run into close range due to the way their A-artes work.

Tales has traditionally had two main character designers: Kousuke Fujishima and Mitsumi Inomata. In the past, they used to work apart on various games (Fujishima had done designs for Phantasia, Symphonia, Abyss, and Vesperia, while Inomata had worked on stuff like Destiny, Eternia, Destiny 2, and Rebirth). Lately though, they've been having both designers working on the same games together, as well as letting some of the other designers that seem to be usually relegated to designing NPCs and minor characters get more action with the main cast, such as letting Okamura design Ludger in Xillia 2.

There's also Inagaki who they had as the original designer for Phantasia SFC, until they got rid of him (or maybe he just left?) for whatever reason and replaced him with Fujishima, who did his own take on the characters which became the official ones people know the Phantasia cast by.

Shame Namco apparently didn't feel like keeping 8-4 on as tight a leash as they usually did for prior Tales games, considering they'd used them to localize since Abyss PS2. But yeah, I'd heard good stuff about it from importers, both in terms of story and combat, back before it got confirmed to be coming west, but the translation really doesn't leave a good taste about it for a lot of people that actually know of the changes.

The guy that was originally working on the Hearts DS fan translation's been doing some analysis on the localization quality of various recent Tales games, and has made a number of posts on his site complaining about the decisions made in how Hearts R was handled out here. I suppose it's been a real sore point for him since he's worked with trying to get the script into English before for the DS version (which he had cancelled out of respect for Namco opting to bring the remake over; wonder if he'll ever resume that since he's apparently been quite peeved over the lack of respect for the material that went into the localization).

Yes, I've read the issues that that fan translation guy had, and I agree with most of them. Even with my piecemeal Japanese I could point out bits of "Well, that's not really what they said there.."

….at the same time, It's a tales game. I'm not playing it for the plot.

I'm not trying to dismiss those issues because I know they're there and they are serious, but if I'm playing a tales game the part of my brain that wants deep stories and characters is usually shut off anyway.

I just hope that if, whenever the Vita becomes open to piracy and fan made patches, some fan(s) can get something going to unfuck that game's English script.

Honestly, considering that Namco didn't even initially want to bring the game over in the first place, I'm guessing they really didn't care what was done with it in localization compared to how they generally are for the console based entries (which admittedly have some issues here and there, but for the most part are pretty decent if still having room for improvement). Hell, if anything, they might have encouraged fucking around with it; I'd swear at times some of these companies get an idea in their head that a series (or some section of games in a series, such as handheld Tales) won't do well out here, go out of their way to shit up a cursory effort to bring something like that west (be it poor localization or bad marketing; effects sales either way), simply so they don't have to do any more in the future as can say 'well, we tried before and it didn't work out well."

Just looked up some gameplay, and I'm about to dive into it. Dark Cloud 2 got far too frustrating. Kind of surprised how many steps backwards it has. You have to grind for resources to build the towns, and there's a ton of different resources, and a lot of them you can't buy. Very annoying overall. Anyway, Rogue Galaxy looks like a good proper version of all the concepts put into the Dark Cloud games. Got a proper party, and the combat looks competent.

I've generally seen a good liking for Dark Cloud 2 around, but maybe it's the sort of game that's not for everyone? Also seems to be one of the few Level 5 games that's gone up in price a good bit, to the point it's a good $40-45 used where I live now. Most of their other stuff is usually $20 or lower.

I suppose it's a bit of a shame /jp/ here doesn't seem to get much traffic, but then again, they wanted their board to be unlisted.

Does the one at halfchan still do janny edits to piss off the mods and such?

an A+ thread tbh
bump

I just put the game back on normal. I always seem to end up way underleveled in these games and it makes bosses take forever even if I do everything right. At least you do have a chance at least though. I was trying to beat a boss in P4G that kept one shotting me and after getting pissed enough I looked it up and apparently I was 15 levels lower than I should be, so it's practically impossible. I guess plenty can one shot you in this too though. I tried that glowing thing at the in way too early it seems because it totally destroyed me.

He can be decent in that regard, but most of the characters can be altered with the right equipment. I'm not really a fan of the inventory and how you manage all of that stuff in this game, but I guess it does work.

The computer does seem to get her killed nonstop. I play as her a lot and shes really fun to play with though. You just have to be quick and sneaky, which is something the CPU doesn't do.

I might be causing it more since I run around so much. It just really helps though. I've even gotten used to the permanent free run setting that you unlock. The camera only did seem to get worse as the game went though. I think it started bugging me around the locked doors church part.

What because it's no longer cell shaded or the actual design?

Is this list still good or is there an updated one?

Doesn't even have a Lufia or Phantasy Star game and who knows what else.

Unlimited Saga somehow mystified me enough to make me try and figure out how it worked and how to best suceed at it. The instructions were vague at best. However, I ended up quite attached to it and enjoyed the boardgame uniqueness mixed with abilites. Someone made a 100 part series on how to play it properly (no joke). I liked the art and how complex it is. Probably spent over 500 hours in it.

After vidya reviewers and journolists being exprosed as the hacks and frauds they are these last two years, I can totally see why they tanked this game– it was too hard for them.

It's worth playing and can usually be found for cheap. As far as the SaGa games go, I still prefer SaGa Frontier for the PS1

Charts are always shitty anyway.

It seems weird it has DRPGs and SRPGs only to be way unrepresented too. Doesn't even have a Shining Force game on there. (Which reminds me I never did play the Sega Cd one)

*under

I've considered updating that since that was from half/vg/ and is who knows how old (doesn't even have any Wild Arms or Shadow Hearts games on it. I don't really see all that much JRPG discussion to know what all it ought to have that would satisfy most people though.

I suppose it is worth mentioning that they still have their pastebin to my knowledge, and as it says at the top, isn't meant to be comprehensive. I still think a better one could be made for here though since we have more room filesize-wise to work with.

Why isn't pic related on it?

Because that game is cursed. Just completely and utterly cursed to never be recognized, despite being an incredibly solid and charming game.

So sad. I guess that means HD remake never.

I think they might of just thrown handful of the more popular ones on there for people new to the genre. It makes sense for beginners, but just a picture and a name kind of sucks for things like this too. They're never in-game pictures either, so someone wouldn't know what kind of game they're even looking at.

I've been meaning to play that, but I haven't played Historia yet either and prefer handhelds. Does it matter which one I play first?

I haven't played Historia but I don't think they're actually the same series. More like a spiritual successors.

I think that is the case, but I didn't know if it was one of those things where it's really hard to go back afterwards (normally, stuff like that doesn't affect me, but still) or there was some good reason I should play them in order.

From what I remember the endings were both really bad downer endings and the mc is voiced by Naruto in the Japanese dub. Oh, and the human route is less gay.

The nonhuman route had a happy ending.

While I didn't get all of the endings to Radiant Historia, I don't think they have anything to do with each other, aside from sharing a few of the same developers. Their stories don't connect and the gameplay between the two isn't alike in any way.

As for which one you play first, it really depends on what you want. Radiata Stories is a great action RPG with a ton of very fleshed out characters and a lifelike world. Radiant Historia is a turn-based RPG with time travel, which leads to quite a few branching pathways. Imagine what Trails in the Sky would be like if it were apart of the Shin Megami Tensei series.

Let me clarify, Radiant Historia isn't apart of the SMT series either, it's mood and supernatural themes just resemble it a lot, to me at least.

They both sound fun, but I might just go with Radiant Historia first then, handhelds are just way more comfortable and convenient for me right now. (Hopefully, I can buy a nice comfy chair by the time I play Radiata Stories.) I see brand new copies sold really cheap sometimes too. It's pretty cool when things like that are still available.

What can I play on either 3DS or PSP?

Maybe. Plus, things change over time too. If memory serves, around the tailend of when I used to peruse the JRPG general there some years back, giving stuff like Golden Sun positive attention seemed to be considered a form of shitposting, despite it being on that as a recommendation

Radiata Stories and Radiant Historia aren't related to my knowledge. The former was developed by Tri-Ace and the latter by Atlus, unless some of the people that worked on the former joined Atlus later.

I've at least got it on the revised PS2 chart.

That's because Atlus can be pretty nice at times about running reprints when various games get too expensive or hard to find.

It's more what can't you play on them. A huge portion of JRPGs are on them one way or another. If you want something in particular then play Stella Glow.

Golden Sun might be a little overrated, since everyone likes to suck Nintendo's dick, but I still really enjoyed it. I wish i would've played the sequel before I forgot what was going on. It sounded like it had a really cool premise for someone who played the first game.

I noticed Square Enix have been good with that too. You can find quite a few of their DS and PSP games new at really low prices. They actually had an amazing Black Friday sale, but their store's shipping is a total ripoff unless you spend like $100 to get it free.

Does gameplay style (real-time, turn based, traditional, strategy/tactics, etc) matter to you, or are you just looking for general suggestions? Also, are original DS and PS1 suggestions something of interest, given the 3DS has DS backwards compatibility while the PSP has built in PS1 functions (and with CFW you can toss stuff on it that's not on the PSN store)?

I honestly haven't seen much liking for Unlimited Saga even among SaGa fans when I've seen occasional threads on the subject of the series, but I'd be wondering how many have actually given it a try. Still, there's something to be said about a game that has a lot of depth to the gameplay, but is likely to take far longer than normal to really get a feel for.

"Professional" reviews can certainly do a lot to make or break how a game does, and I know of times with various games where the general vidya media here not being receptive likely didn't help matters. Take Glory of Heracles DS for example. Most places wound up being pretty critical of it (I suppose it basically being from a series that pretty much stopped getting new games during the SFC/GB era hasn't helped it to feel "up to date" for some), though one of the guys at RPGfan apparently found it pretty good and expressed that he sadly didn't think many people would actually wind up giving the game the chance he thought it deserved (and I don't think people did, considering that you can still find new copies for $10 or so and cart only copies on Amazon for less than $1, and I don't think it got a reprint).

There's also import review cases, like with Zill O'll. Granted, I can't speak for how the games on the whole are, considering the west only ever saw one entry (and I never even see much discussion from anons on the one we got), but apparently some Gamespot reviewer imported the first game back in the day, claimed in a review of it that he didn't find it to be good or bad, and that "there's just no room for it on this side of the ocean" and not only did the first game not come west, but neither did the second on the PS2, nor the PSP port of the PS2 game. The one we did get, Trinity: Souls of Zill O'll on the PS3, was shat on by critics (affecting sales to the point TK didn't even bother to give the west all the DLC it had), though apparently customer reviews from people that gave it a chance were a good bit more accepting of it, with some even stating they weren’t sure why it was being treated so poorly by the media. Granted, I suppose the average person might not have that good a sense of taste either (to be honest, it’s still a game I need to give a try so I can't personally say how it feels at this point; thankfully it seems like it’s pretty cheap to find if one’s inclined to), but the difference is notable.

I certainly find them enjoyable (the first two anyhow, Dark Dawn has a lot of design choices that seem to have been done to anger prior fans and I'm not sure Camelot even wanted to make a third game in the series anyhow, given how long there was between the release of TLA and DD being announced; I will say that I loved the rough sketchy look of the official character art though), but they're rather flawed in a number of ways. Still, the way it handles, with it basically being the same continuing story, but with the viewpoint changing after the first half is neat, showing what's going on with another group of characters and why they're doing what they do, the reasons of which the party in the first game is still unaware of for most of the second game (Felix understandably wanting to avoid getting into a violent confrontation with Isaac).

Due to it not being a game that requires a lot of thought, it makes a good pair of games to play when sick or traveling in my experiences. Either of those might be a good time to replay the first and give the second a try if you have interest to do so (though I'm not sure if emulating can simulate the link cable data transfer to copy save data from the first game to the second; there's a password transfer as well, but if you want everything, it gets REALLY long).

Square-Enix has also had a similar issue with Atlus in that, if memory serves, they seem to be prone to asking more than average for their handheld games just because they have their name on it (though Atlus does include various bonuses with their first print runs at times; art books and soundtracks usually). And I think that with reprints they've been prone to ask about the same as the game originally came out for, but I could be wrong (meanwhile, Atlus seems fine with shaving a bit off the prices for stuff, even if asking the original price would still beat out what the games had been going for prior, such as only asking about $40 each for the PS2 Raidou games which had been going for about $100 and $60 each respectively prior to reprint).

As for prices to get free shipping, even Amazon keeps getting worse about that (likely as an incentive to get more people to go Prime). Used to be that for orders over $25 or so you could get free shipping, but at this point I think it's $50 or more of eligible items.

Hexyz Force, for the PSP, is pretty good.

Hm. No Falcom thread when I could use one, so I guess this is the next best place.

I’m going to finally try out the Trails in the Sky series as soon as I’m done with the SMT main series. Should I play these games in English or Japanese? I’ve watched a little bit of the beginning of the game in Japanese and English and the localization looks pretty good. Still, wanted to ask others, If I really get into the series I’ll likely want to play the others in the Trails series, and Ao and Zero haven’t been localized, so I’d have to play those in Japanese anyway. Might be weird to play TiTs and CS in English and Ao and Zero in English, but then I’ve done that before.

Oh, and Cold Steel is on sale on the PSN right now. Damn it, I won't be playing it for months, if I play it at all. Well, hopefully it'll be on sale now and then. I know that sales on the Japanese PSN are somewhat rare, or so I've heard, I barely use the Japanese PSN, but I've heard that the US PSN is better about sales.

You mean with the English or Japanese dubs, or are you outright asking about whether to play the Japanese original or English translation? I'm pretty sure the Trails games don't have dual audio (something about the contracts Falcom uses for the Japanese dubs being only for use in Japan, or something), but I'd expect there's likely fan patched undubs for TitS FC and SC.

I mean play them in English or full Japanese. As in, play the Japanese versions with Japanese menus and subs and VA and everything.

Has anyone played Seinarukana? I don't even like playing games on my PC, but I might buy it. It just sounds awesome from what I read. I didn't even really know it existed.

I don't remember it very well, but I thought there was actually quite a bit of Wild Arms-like puzzles and mixing combinations sort of like Tales of Eternia. I don't remember having any trouble with the game though either, I guess.

Yeah, even $35 wasn't too bad since I could get free shipping if I bought a handheld game, but now I think it's $48, which totally kills my impulse shopping from them. They really could offer a cheaper Prime without the stupid streaming.

Late response, but a few more obscure SNES RPGS are Paladin's Quest (Lennus 1), Lennus 2, Treasure of the Rudras, Super Shell Monsters Story.

Have fun!

I meant it more in the way of combat not requiring a huge amount of thought, since unleashes and summons are pretty strong, and if memory serves, you can get by easily with them and a bit of healing (Psynergy winding up rather underpowered in comparison).

The puzzles in towns and dungeons were pretty neat though, but usually it seemed more like a case of having the right Psynergy on you to get past them, rather than needing some combination of say "spin valve wheel/freeze valve wheel in place/hit now exposed switch with grapple" like in a Wild Arms game.

Is Paladin's Quest all that good? I've heard that Lennus II was generally a vast improvement.

The pastel-like color scheme that it has is very jarring at first, but it was a good game overall. Definitely original, but it's somewhat clunky as a result.

How's the localization quality for it?

To be honest, I don't know about the localization quality overall since it was very obscure. I can say this much:

There was nothing off text-wise, no major misspellings, maybe some grammatical errors here and there? I haven't played the JP version.

They DID get the main characters names right. Chezni and Midia are the right default names.

I think when it comes to the pubs, I think they changed them to cafes, I didn't really much attention to that. I know that seemed to be a habit with SNES RPGs (like Aqutallion / Secret of the Stars)

I was just hoping that it was better than the translation quality for stuff like BoF II (the official one). I'll give it a try sometime, probably before giving Lennus II a go to see how they compare.

Enix does a pretty good job localizing games as I recall.

I don't know any major flubs they had localization wise. Does anyone know?

Another version of , this time with the background I'd wanted to do with it. Hope the white text in the lower right is still readable over the faded ring.

I'm pretty sure a lot of JRPG localizations used to do that, even up through the PS1 where Sony was more lax about beer, alcohol, and in some cases, nudity/sex. Still, it seems weird to have cases like Breath of Fire III, where there's people clearly hitting the pipe and some (sprited) nudity with characters like Deis that made it through, but the pubs got turned into cafes or coffee houses or something like that out here.

I think I've heard before that Terranigma's localization has a few oddities to it, but wasn't that handled by Enix's European office rather than the US one (assuming that even back then, games had a tendency to come to the US before European countries) which I assume would have been used otherwise had it not been closed? Still, I can't recall hearing anything about them being big issues, and the game is still pretty well liked from what I've seen.

I suppose it would depend on how much Japanese you know. I'm not certain on what level of moonrunes you'd need for Legend of Heroes, but I know that the scripts involved are huge, so if you're not quite there yet with what you know, it strikes me that it might be a bit taxing if you're needing to look up kanji really often (depending on how much they opt to use them).

Still, I'm pretty sure you can probably find ISOs of the Japanese PSP versions on emuparadise or something, give it a try for free like that, and see whether you'd be up to playing them in Japanese.

You guys know how the beginning of ff1 is quiete tense?
As in, you have extremely limited supplies, reviving somone at that point costs a lot ans is punishing while exploring the wilderness is quiet dangerous as grinding is very risky and you are mainly concentrated on not walking to many circles so you dont run into two ogres who just mercilessly wreck your shit or can be killed with great effort that may not be worth it financially but maybe xp wise.

The beginning of ff1 until the second dungeon or so, is pure struggling and makes most decisions about what to buy and what to spend money on quiet meaningful.
Also teases you with a lot of stuff you simply cannot afford.

Never really played another game were such a hard progress curve was maintained that long, does anyone know what I mean or what other games have this?

Are you looking for the outright challenge involved, or more the sense of everything initially being against you?

How do you feel about NOA's involvement during the SNES era?

The feel of a hostile surrounding!
challenge too.
I had to dive thrice into that first fucking cave, was neat tho as scouting it out became tense and a question of either finding the shortest way or taking great risks/going several times in order to get all treasures.

Honestly can't think of a RPG that is like that at the start. However what you described sounds like the average Roguelike sans buying equipment, which some have. You might want to get into that genre.

Probably not quite what you're looking for, Koudelka starts out rather tense as you begin with barely anything, there's no shops to buy supplies at (you're stuck either getting them as enemy drops, or looting them while exploring), most of the NPCs you do run across want the party dead, and even the starting enemies can be a bit of a pain since your stats, equipment, and supplies are fairly poor quality at that point (the first Inverse of the game is also quite the welcoming party). Being a horror JRPG mix, I suppose it starting out the way it does, and having a feel of it being an uphill battle to survive just one night in the hellhole the game takes place in, was a deliberate design choice.

I suppose that difficulty doesn't last all that long though (maybe an hour or two once you start finding better stuff scavenging and get bonus stat points to distribute how you want), but the game on the whole isn't really long anyhow. There is a notable shift for the player's mindset too, between playing rather cautiously early on and hoping the next set of freaks you come across doesn't wreck you too hard, to the feeling of being able to take on most anything later in the game. The leveling curve when I played also seemed to have the level ups feel much more frequent as the game progressed than they were early on. I suppose there's a factor of whether or not the player knows what they're doing with their stat distribution too; strikes me that if one doesn't know what they're doing, it could make combat a lot harder (or at least more tedious), especially since if memory serves there's no way to reset bonus stats, nor can you just let them accumulate until you do know what to do with them (upon level up you have to select where to put your four points gained).

I've also heard rumor that the game randomizes the encounter rate in each room thus making each playthrough a bit different as to whether an area is more or less dangerous, but I can't say for sure.

Decided to work on a second graphic for the series mechanics and other information. Still need to work on images and the F.A.Q. section, but figured I might as well bump the thread with what I have at the moment for it; maybe someone else that's played them might be able to think of more that could be added specific to Koudelka or the mechanics for the PS2 games, or to potentially add to the F.A.Q. section later.

i need to play lunar series

Started playing SMTIV, gameplay is great but after a couple of hours it gets boring

Anyway, rate my jRPG backlog and tell me what I should add/delete. I just started with this genre so recommend me everything.

Final Fantasy IV, VI, VII, IX, X, XII
SMT Strange Journey, Devil Survivor
Stella Glow
Etrian Odyssey 2, 4
Tales of the Abyss
FE: Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn

Already played:
Final Fantasy V, Tactics, Tactics Advance
Persona 3, 4
SMT III
Souls games

I used to see people making claims of the localizations being really charming for them, but these days a fair amount of people seem to find them a bit dated due to what Working Designs did with them in localization (pop culture references and what not). Still need to play them myself, and unfortunately I don't think there's been an effort to do a more accurate to the original script fan retranslation, probably since people seem rather divided on if the official localization work was good or bad (unlike, say, Breath of Fire II or Ar Tonelico 2, where most fans hate the official translations).

I'd highly recommend the Wild Arms and Shadow Hearts series. Maybe give the stuff at and a read through, see if either pique your interest.

I really enjoy that one, but it's not for everyone, and fans are pretty prone to arguing about whether it's good or shit (I find it to be solid, but not without its flaws). Also not sure I'd recommend it as a starting place for the series. Certainly something you ought to consider down the line though, provided the cast being rather faulted and, early on, rather dysfunctional and argumentative is something you can deal with.

Thanks user. What other "Tales of" games are worth playing?

SMT:SJ has so far my second favorite stat system only next to SPECIAL.
I wanted to make an amalgamation of both.

They're all worth playing, bar none, since they're all incredibly fun. Especially if you can rope up some faggots for couch-op.

For recommendation, babbies first Tale is Symphonia. Vesperia is widely regarded as the 'best.' Xillia might be nice for a first timer as well.

Once you have played a few of them, you can move onto the true best Tales, Graces F.

Well, I've played through most of the localized main series ones and found most to be enjoyable. The only games really considered "bad" are Phantasia GBA (play the PS1 version with a fan translation or wait for the fan translation of the version bundled with NDX for the PSP), Tempest (even the fan translators admitted the game was shit and they mostly did it as an April Fools Joke and to practice), and Symphonia (depending on who you ask; there's a number of elements that really tend to annoy and anger fans of Symphonia 1). Incidentally, Tempest and Symphonia 2 are considered escort titles (which aren't always bad, but are still segregated from main series), while Phantasia GBA is just a bad version of an otherwise decent game.

As far as entry points, Eternia, Symphonia, and Vesperia have all struck me as being good places for beginners (really depends on what systems you have access to), but it's worth considering that some fans find the early games to be hard to go back to after the later ones.

Give me a few and I can do a bit more of an entry to entry thing.

I need to learn moonrunes

They added some stuff because the some of the NPCs say generic lines in the Japanese version.

Thanks. Unfortunately all my friends hate "anime games" so couch co-op won't be possible.

Uhh, I have access to almost every system so I'll probably start with Vesperia, since it's available in a console store nearby for equivalent of $10

Pretty sure Ireland's said in the last year or so that people that want direct (read as: accurate to the original content of the script and doesn't take a lot of liberties) translations aren't the audience he and Gaijinworks have in mind.

Wouldn't shock me if that was the same train of thought when he had Working Designs.

Still strikes me that pop culture references aren't going to help with the game's longevity. Unless the idea was that people now wouldn't be playing older stuff from prior eras (which strikes me it could very well be, the way some companies saw games as just a toy/fad and trashed the code/scripts after release).

With Vesperia, there's a question to be had: Do you have a PS3 with CFW? If so, you should look into the PS3 versions, which contains a lot of extra content and has been fully fan translated. The 360 version's decent, but in comparison feels like a high quality beta of the game.

Also, on another note, most of the entries brought west are cheap aside from the PS1 entries. Destiny goes for about $75-100 where I live, while Eternia (known as Destiny II in the US) goes for about $90-120, and neither of the games have PSN rereleases. This leaves emulation and eboots for use with a PSP as better options for your wallet (Eternia also has the benefit of a native PSP port that Europe saw in English).

No, I couldn't find one with the old software so I don't have CFW.

Well, after seeing these prices I'll probably have to emulate them.

Thanks for your help, user.

No problem. Bare in mind that the series has a tendency to get more refined in combat and mechanics as it goes on, but as far back as Eternia is generally still fluid (Legendia felt like an exception to that, as it handles somewhat differently; considering it was made by a guest team of Tekken and SC guys if memory serves, it doesn't handle the same). Phantasia PS1 also made a decent stride to improve melee fluidity, but unlike Eternia would after it (Eternia being the last PS1 entry), it doesn't have the benefit of its spells (and summons, given how they handle much like regular spells in that game) not interrupting the flow of combat.

Also, if you want to keep an eye on fan translations for the series, Absolute Zero is an active Tales fan translation group (they've translated Phantasia PS1, Tempest, and Innocence DS), and are currently working on translating Tales of Destiny Director's Cut (a director's cut of the PS2 remake) and the NDX bundle (containing Tales of Phantasia X, the most up to date version of Phantasia, and Tales of Phantasia: Narikiri Dungeon X, a remake of a costume-class based GBC dungeon crawler). There's also been Phantasian Productions who used to be handling Destiny DC before Absolute Zero managed to get Cless to relinquish on it. He's supposedly still handling Destiny 2, but given he hasn't updated his site in a few years with any progress updates and took twelve fucking years to make his own translation patch for Phantasia PS1, I'm thinking it's a NEVER EVER at this point (and if it does come out it likely won't be until 202X given the pace he's shown). There's also been a group working on Rebirth in the past, but I’m not sure ho much progress they’ve been seeing lately. A guy named Kajitani-Eizan was also working at fan translating Hearts DS, but cancelled it when Namco announced localization of the Vita remake, only to watch in horror at what they were letting happen to the translation. He now spends his time analyzing the localization quality of the more recent games they’ve brought over (which at least gives his site some decent merit to keep checking back at, even if he’s not translating anything anymore).

Both Destiny 2 and Rebirth have translation scripts that can be found at GameFAQs, but it's still not the ideal way to play the game, having to look back and forth between a text file and the screen/window you'd be playing from.

That's a shame, as Tales is really fun played together with the right people. Honestly though, I wouldn't even say they need to like anime or JRPGs, but just have a tolerance for them. I wasn't sure if the friend I've been playing the series with would like them that much as the only JRPGs I'd ever seen him play before were Paper Mario games, but he wound up loving Tales once I started bringing them over and it's been a lot of fun with each one we've done together.

i need to rape and kill him and gaijinworks, the todo list is getting longer

They're not that bad, as most of the references are limited to minor NPCs. The references are also much more tame in the Sega CD versions of the games.

That being said, both Working Designs, and especially Ireland, are responsible for a lot of the cancer in the localization business today.

Fuck Victor Ireland.

Think he also said something along lines of wanting to localize Idolmaster stuff for Namco, but that he'd have to remove a lot of stuff from it for any western releases he'd be allowed to do, since he considers the games borderline pedophilia.

I'd have to kill him.

It would be a disaster if they got their hands on that. Censorship and the "liberties" he takes combined is way too much. He writes some of the worst dialogue I've ever seen. If not the worst.

Let's not jump the gun here. He's not SLAPPYFACE-tier.

Whan I'm playing a fantasy game and they staart cracking jokes about the american president things don't get much worse.

Interview in question about involving that statement:
nichegamer.com/2015/07/15/gaijinworks-interview-how-victor-ireland-and-crew-are-localizing-the-rarer-games/
Apparently he also felt that the censorship for Criminal Girls was warranted.

He's certainly not been the only one to do that, not that it excuses it.
>XSEED managed to keep 8-4 in line when they worked together on Wild Arms 5, resulting in an overall good localization (there's a few oddities, like one of the save point parrots) which I've heard is pretty close to the original Japanese script.

I was just really disappointed Xseed didn't do Lunar from scratch. The "flavor" he adds to his games drives me crazy. It seems people like him and Nick Doerr think that they're better writers than the creators or something and I just find what they do cheapens the whole experience. It feels like some disrespectful "oh who cares what it originally said" shit, while they giggle and give us a radically different script thinking they're doing us a favor.
I'm just so pissed that Namco seemed like they were releasing an English version of Summon Night 6 and now it's Gaijin Works. The things I read about his interpretation of 5 seem like a disaster. Apparently, he wants to give daddy a headache the entire game. One or two lines I could take.

Admittedly literal translations aren't the best way to go about things as they can wind up sounding rather dry even if accurate, but an overly localized game strikes me as being too far in the other direction, to the point the characters, plot, and tone of the game can wind up very inaccurate. The concept of localization has its place (mainly making sure the translated lines read well in western languages, as well as perhaps swapping jokes or figures of speech out for equivalent ones, since the idea of "translators notes" seem like they'd be a lot harder to do in a game than a manga/anime), but it needs to done in a balanced way, where the characters, story, and tone remain intact and outright changes are kept to a minimum. Unfortunately it seems like a number of localization companies either don't get that or really don't care to do so these days, and some companies like NISA seem to outright hate various elements of the stuff they bring west these days (though I suppose in the case of NIS developed games they don't have a choice about whether or not to localize if their parent branch is pushing a game on them, but why work for a company that's whole shtick is "localize niche games" when they apparently hate elements of those games? Besides ruining the games for the western fanbase, anyhow).

Namco's never been one to handle localizing that series out here in the west. Used to be that Atlus was bringing some of the side games over to North America (PAL people getting fucked over once again) for Banpresto and FlightPlan, but they stopped doing so after Twin Age; not sure if it was maybe due to low sales (I don't see copies of SCS 1 and 2 or Twin Age around much where I live) or Banpresto being acquired by Namco. As for them letting Gaijinworks fuck around with the games, it wouldn't surprise me if it's sadly just one of those series they don't really care about what's done with it in localization since they haven't had plans to bring them over themselves anyhow. Looking at Hearts R, another game they had no plans to bring over until SCEA did something right for once and asked them to, they opted to not hold 8-4 on as tight a leash as usual and let them shit it up, likely because they just didn't care enough to make sure it was done well.

Honestly, I know that Summon Night's remained rather niche out here, but it's surprised me that, SCS3 aside, it hasn't seen any apparent efforts to fan translate (or in SN5's case, fan retranslate) the games we've missed, which have been pretty much the whole main series and a number spinoffs.

see WildArms1/2

I dare you to tell me how any of the shit you just listed doesn't fall under the purview of the concept of simple "translation."

Localization.

I'm not even convinced they hate things like Criminal Girls content as much as they just don't give a shit and aren't willing to put in actual effeort to do it justice. It very well could be that someone who does hate it is making the decisions, but I just get the impression that there's those people everywhere now. Seeing people at Xseed get defensive about fanservice and try to distance themselves even seemed concerning for as much as people tell me I should love them. I just look at all these companies like a mixture of individuals where probably half of them suck. I'm really hoping that more Japanese companies start taking matters into their own hands. The only downside is most of the things seem like they'll be digital only for awhile, unless more have someone else do light work like whatever is going on with PQube. Hopefully, Experience and Spike Chunsoft and everyone can figure out how to offer physical options as things move along though.

I'm sure that is the case, but it seemed like it was gonna be more for southeast asia and maybe the west would get it as an afterthought. I just wouldn't have minded importing it. Engrish doesn't scare me as much as whatever they call the thing Gaijin Work does.

In case anyone buys games and wants this one.

Both of those could have been definitely handled better (ACF should have provided an opportunity for the first game to see a much better official translation, but while Agetec didn't outright reuse the original translation script, they didn't exactly do a better job of things on the whole). Honestly, both games are something that would probably make for an interesting comparison of the Japanese scripts, how they were handled here, and how they ought to have been handled (better readability, references to Norse mythology, Ars Goetia, Lovecraft properly caught, etc). Shame that Mato's apparently only ever done indepth comparison stuff like that for games on Nintendo systems (and I'm not sure if he has time for doing so anymore, given how long his FFIV comparison has been stalled at Tower of Zot).

I'm just saying that ideally that's how it should be done, but a lot of companies opt to go overboard and make a lot of changes, sometimes for no apparent reason, giving a bad name to the process of even bringing stuff over. These days (at least among some anons here), it seem like if companies with particularly low reputations announce they're bringing something over, there's a sense of caution at best (I'm personally waiting to see more on how Aksys is handling Exist Archive before I get all that interested in picking it up, as to my knowledge they're a bit hit-or-miss with what they do), to outright writing off picking the game up at launch, if not ever, at worst. And I'm not saying that the sense of leeriness is at all unfounded either, not when various companies like NISA, 8-4, Treehouse, and NoA seems extremely prone to fucking around (NISA also having the issue that they have a tendency to add or uncover bugs in the process, some of which they have refused to fix even on systems where patching them out is an option).

Well the fact that they seem content with messing around, angering potential customers, and lowering possible sales makes me think that the changes they do aren't even made for potentially increasing their audience and profit, but more out of spite for the content of the games and the people that would buy them if left intact.

I'd hope so too, but I suppose it depends on how aware they become about how the western teams they've been using have handled their stuff, the way IF cut NISA out and started their own western team as IFI, if memory serves (though that might have been more over lost profits from NISA insisting there wasn't an audience for stuff like Neptunia on PC).

I'd be curious to know how well SN5 did in sales here if Namco's deciding to keep letting Gaijinworks bring them over.

Rewriting?

At this point I'm pretty sure what copies they have left of that available are most all going to be cart only. Gamestop really did a number on the used market for complete DS games in trashing the manuals, covers, and cases for more shelfspace (and thus further reducing the amount of complete copies around), though some of them have thankfully seen reprints. Of note, a Canadian online retailer recently did an exclusive reprint of Infinite Space, considering Sega had really shortprinted it out here prior.

That is how it is done. There is translation, good or bad, and that's it.

Using "localization" is giving power to a made-up bullshit word, used to justify things that are not translations, like censorship. Not a single bit of the acceptable and otherwise "good" things that localization covers can not also be described simply with the word translation.

It's just a completely redundant word, with the additional caveat of justifying censorship and other unsavory things that are definitively not translation. It shouldn't be used.

The thing is if something like Criminal Girls content really offended them they wouldn't even touch the game in the first place. The SJWs at places like neogaf still consider their foggy ass version some horrible product that will turn you into a child molesting misogynist. The odds that another publisher actually picked up that game is extremely low, so offering people content you have a problem with, but just watering it down a little would make no sense at all, when the alternative is it wouldn't even be touched by the vast majority of the people buying it. The censorship is total garbage, but removing some audio and adding a bunch of fog doesn't change that fact that the prime mechanic is based around rubbing down lolis.

One thing that also worries me is Japanese companies having a misconception of who likes their games and what is acceptable. With KT being scared to release everything citing SJW shit and Square Enix changing panties for the west, i just hope they listen to their real fans and not some loudmouths who complain about sexism, yet never would have purchased the product to begin with.

It seems like Victor Ireland is good at reaching his projected sales. I'll give him that, but I'm sue they could be much higher if he didn't scare away "purists" or whatever and have some $35 price tag on a digital PSP game. (I think it launched at $32 or $33 because people retweeted enough?)

Yeah, once I thought about that I didn't buy it. Normally, you can go to the store and exchange it for a complete copy, but the odds of one having that would be extremely low / practically nonexistent. I might of tried to buy the case and manual separate on ebay, but I still need to play the first game anyway.

Which is the better version of Persona 1, PS1 or PSP? I'm planning on giving it a go soon.

Criminal Girls was made by NIS, right? I'm not sure NISA has a choice in not bringing one of their parent company's games west if NIS wants it brought over.

It's stuff like that that's had me wondering how easy it is for western fans to really get in contact with the Japanese branches directly (assuming at least one person at them actually knows proper English and could relay a message if the higher ups don't understand) and tell them that western media shitstorms about elements of niche games don't generally represent the way the actual people interested in buying their games think. Because if western branches or publishers they use out here are meant to handle western feedback, it strikes me that such a message might just wind up being rerouted back to the western branch/publisher, who may or may not care to actually pass the message on.

If it helps, while I don't see the Devil Survivor games all that frequently, they're not rare either, and when I do, they're usually pretty reasonably priced even complete (maybe $15-20 each); makes me wonder if Atlus gave them a reprint. It's just that Gamestop isn't the place to really go to look for complete DS games at this point. I mean, you can get lucky occasionally at some that have tried to stock a few complete copies of stuff when they have space to (usually popular and/or somewhat pricy games, by their standards for DS games at this point anyhow), but even then, when they need more space, they trash some of the cases and manuals they still have left to make it.

Haven't played it myself, but from what I'm aware, the PSP version doesn't try to mask the idea that the game takes place in Japan, nor does it black one of the characters. Also think I recall hearing that it has an entire post game section that had been cut from the PS1 western release.

I dunno, that could be the case, it just seems like an awfully weird game to force someone to localize. Unless, NIS has way more balls than people like KT who don't think the west can even handle way lighter fanservice.

I always try to tell them on Twitter and stuff. I thought about trying to tell them in Japanese, but I'd probably sound retarded and I figured that most of them know enough english to understand what I'm trying to tell them. After messaging someone the first time and it telling me the company and like ten Japanese people followed me it made me think that maybe it stands out more in English anyway. Getting anyone to listen even in your own region seems hard enough as it is, but I figure it can't hurt to at least do something.

That is really cheap for a game like that, but I just don't even know what I want to do about those games. I'd easily buy them if I could get complete copies for something like gamestop's $5 pricing, but I think I might be better off just playing an undub on 3DS. I probably would've done it already, but I just have no space on that SD card, so I need a new one.

Hasn't it been similar between Marvelous and XSEED, in that if Marvelous wants a game of theirs localized, XSEED pretty much has to oblige (being their US branch), or at least put it on their backlog for the near future?

As for NIS, I hear they have their own internal problems, but I'm really not sure how aware they are of their western branch's issues. Or maybe they just don't care what NISA does to the games as long as they still make somewhat of a profit (given that as far as western releases go, I'm pretty sure those tend to mainly be a bonus on top of the native Japanese sales, though it might depend on the series and popularity).

You'd probably need to actually check for an undub patch to see if it even exists first, but yeah, at this point with certain complete DS games being as much as they are, and the system seeing a fan translation effort (still waiting on an update for Nora to Toki, I hope the person working on it's still picking away at it, but they haven't made an update post in about a month; could certainly be worse though, as another one I've been keeping tabs on hasn't had a progress report made since January), it would probably be a better idea to emulate or get a flash cart or something at this point if you don't have a decent selection of actual copies of DS games already.

I'm sure they definitely could seeing as they own them, but I wouldn't be surprised if they get some choice, since there always seems to be more games than they localize and Xseed does completely unrelated stuff while things like Net High just waste away.
I just tried looking up Crimnal Girls to see if there's plans for a third game and while there's absolutely nothing on that. It seems that Criminal Girls is sort of to NIS as Luminous Arc Infinity is to Marvelous. I had no idea Imageepoch made Criminal Girls. That actually makes me way more interested in it. I could've sworn some no name company made it.
Reading some of this stuff reminded me we never got Great Edo Blacksmith either. I thought that looked pretty decent. The Shin Hayarigami games look really good though. I forgot that was even NIS. I can't believe NISA never did those with the success of Danganronpa and even working on a Psycho Pass VN.

I actually already have it. These torrents are pretty handy.
3DS nyaa.se/?page=view&tid=790059
PS2 nyaa.se/?page=view&tid=598931
PS3 nyaa.se/?page=view&tid=722730
PSP nyaa.se/?page=view&tid=723485
There might even be more if anyone is interested. I wish I could save it all myself. I really need a new hard drive .

To my knowledge Imageepoch had generally been considered rather hit or miss out here (games like Time and Eternity didn't help things if I remember right); not entirely sure on what their reputation in Japan was like. Unfortunately some of their games just didn't make it over for whatever reasons, including every 7th Dragon game prior to the 3DS one, Luminous Arc 3: Eyes, and Sol Trigger.

I didn't realize Time and Eternity was Imageepoch. I heard that was pretty bad, but don't know much about it. Maybe they're just good with SRPGs? I really wish Xseed would localize Luminous Arc Infinity. I'm sure they could do it easy enough, since marvelous published it there, but it just seems like they don't want to do Vita exclusives anymore. I'm sure other things like Return to PopoloCrois and Nitroplus Blasterz sell way worse than their Vita games though, so I don't know what the fuck they're doing.

As far as I'm aware, Imageepoch didn't have anything to do with Luminous Arc Infinity. Rather, Infinity is apparently made by Felistella, who were formerly Flight Plan (Summon Night). I think Marvelous Japan either always owned the series rights, or at the very least acquired them.

I think I've heard something along the lines that Stella Glow was essentially mean as a spiritual successor, as Imageepoch did work on that, and I think they share some themes between them, or something. I don't have a 3DS here though, so I haven't given it that much attention.

Also, I'm not sure if I'd say they were just good with SRPGs. I mean, people seem to like the Fate/EXTRA duology from what I've seen (though the west only saw the first game; also might be more Fate fans that enjoy it than the average person? Not sure), and aside from Ignition bullshitting the voice actors for the English dub (who promptly bullshat the voicing quality due to really poor pay; think I remember hearing the total budget was about $5000), apparently Arc Rise Fantasia is also supposed to be pretty decent. Need to give that a go on my modded Wii sometime, as thankfully it has an undub patch. Luminous Arc and 7th Dragon were the biggest series they developed for though, looking at a list.

Oh yeah, I do forget that sometimes. It seemed well received though and I figured it might give me the same type of feeling Stella Glow does. I might be being overly optimistic though. I love Stella Glow. I'm actually at the very end of the game, so I was thinking I might finish it this weekend. I could probably just beat it right now withing an hour or two, but I just kind of want to make the next time I play it a little more special than "meh I'll play a videogame", since I liked it so much.

I didn't even realize they did those either. I'm looking forward to checking them out, but I still haven't even read the VN. I'll probably do that before the new game releases here, but it just sucks that I know what's gonna happen from the anime. I hear that it's extremely long too and there's a lot of other VNs and stuff I'd like to focus on too.

Really hope this image comes off as being useful and not just WORDS WORDS WORDS.

Seems like they did a number of games, mostly JRPGs and tactical stuff like Luminous Arc and Stella Glow. But between being a bit hit or miss with what came west, and a good amount of stuff outright not coming over, I'm not sure I'd say they were all that well known a developer. Certainly not "indie tier" unknown or anything, but not a name that readily comes to mind. Seems like it's a slightly similar case to Media.Vision: Decent smattering of games, but only really known for one series, out here anyhow.

You might want to ask around if the Fate/EXTRA games are simply aimed at series fans, or if knowing the universe from the LNs and such is a requirement to enjoy them. Because as far as I'm aware there's a number of different entries in the overall scheme of things with that series (Fate/Stay Night, Fate/Zero, Fate/Hollow Ataraxia, etc), and the west doesn't exactly have access to all of them in English at this point.

I had finally said fuck it and started Shadow Hearts and it seems like it definitely would help people who don't want to dig through all the in game descriptions. They do a good job of explaining things, there's just a lot of them. (I'm only to the part with the plane and puppy.) Besides the FAQ, I would probably find the Koudelka section the biggest help, since I don't remember them explaining things nearly as well though.
Do you know how you know when you've gained enough soul energy or whatever to fight and unlock another demon? I thought the star next to it meant I could, but in the graveyard it wouldn't let me. I think it said some require different levels, so maybe that means I have one level, but need two? Maybe I should go check again. I just don't like going to the graveyard unless I have to.

There's only one VN though right? I've never gotten into LNs, so I'm just not sure how much they would interest me. (My main problem was the LNs I did want to read were only in Japanese.)
You might want to ask around if the Fate/EXTRA games are simply aimed at series fans, or if knowing the universe from the LNs and such is a requirement to enjoy them.
I know someone said that you can enjoy the PSP game without knowing anything, but it just seems like it wouldn't be nearly the same. If I didn't want to read it anyway I might just play it first, but it seems like I'm the only one who hasn't read the thing and I kinda just wanna understand why people like it so much.

If memory serves, the star represents what level the element is currently at, with it being Level 0 (no fusion learned yet), Level 1, level 2, or Level MAX (which in both SH and Covenant requires a bit more than the average fusion to unlock), as aside from non-elemental, there are three ranks of Soul Fusions per element. If you pause the game and see an element's symbol glowing, you've got enough Soul Energy to get a new fusion monster.
Yeah, there's different amounts of Soul Energy needed for different rank summons. It's been a while since I played, but I want to say it was something like 20 for level 1, 40 for level 2, and 70 (plus special item) for level MAX.

Sorry, was getting them a bit confused. Fate/Stay Night and Fate/Hollow Ataraxia are VNs, while Fate/Zero is a LN with an anime adaptation by Ufotable.

Are you guys noticing this shit camera in Zestiria yet? I'm tempted to make a video to demonstrate how I fight enemies without even being able to see them. A couple of my last battles were zoomed into the fucking floor or something. So annoying.
(I think Lailah might have the same voice actor as Maid Sensei in Dungeon Travelers 2)

Oh, nice, thanks. Hopefully I can unlock another one tonight. I keep thinking about that game and wanting to play it, but I've been forcing myself to switch off. I figure this way I'm just less likely to get burned out and I keep making progress on everything. I miss games like this so much. With today's technology they could make such amazing stuff if their priorities were in the right place. I'm having more fun staring at the backgrounds in Shadow Hearts than I had in the entirety of the Final Fatasy XV demo.

That pic reminds me that I still have to figure out how to get POPsLoader to work on the PS2.

RIP in pieces Miyu.

I noticed that as well. I went to look it up the very second I recognized it, but finding out who voiced Maid-sensei proved to be ughman so I called it quits. I'm sure I could, provided I started searching in Nip, but that's some challenging shit.

RIP.

Yeah, Shadow Hearts has some nice early PS2 era prerendered backgrounds. I'm particularly fond of how they handled some of the areas, especially combined with the music ("Castle of a Silence" is one of my favorite location pieces in the game; embed related).

The two later games have fully 3D environments, which also look pretty good, but aren't quite the same.

Oh, heads up: stock up on some paralysis curing items or negation equips. You'll need them soon. Even though paralysis eventually wears off on its own (if memory serves), it's annoying to have so many turns wasted, especially with the Sanity element to the games.

Oh fuck, that is her. I didn't know she was in Zestiria. No wonder she sounded so familiar. I wonder if she recorded the lines for the upcoming anime the same time as the game or if they just worked around what they had recorded. At least she's still making people smile.

Damn, that's disappointing. I guess it might make it easier to find items at least. Fucking torch.

I was worried about when that would come into play. I think I have an accessory that blocks it, but I better buy some in case they're as prevalent as other status effects. The stupid confuse state had Yuri almost killing Alice a couple times until I figured out which enemies had it and always made sure to wipe them out first.

Doesn't surprise me that they changed it from prerendered to actual 3D, considering how a number of people at the time complained that the graphics made the game look like some "bastardized Dreamcast game" or something like they thought it didn't have a good reason for looking that way in [Current Year - 15]. Of course, it wouldn't shock me if western reviews were heavily comparing it to Final Fantasy X which released here days later.

Not exactly. While there's a lot of stuff hidden in chests, Sacnoth/Nautilus LOVED hiding unrequired items in innocuous places, or just barely being visible on screen. Makes searching around screens rewarding.

Speaking of torches and such, something I really liked as an element to Covenant and FtNW is that, rather early on, the parties in both games acquire a little gas powered lantern, and it keeps proving itself useful throughout the entire game, as anytime a room's too dark, they break it out again. Was nice to not see it just be a one off item, but something the developers/animation team kept taking into consideration.

The good news is that later on you should start being able to find/acquire accessories that block multiple statuses while only taking up one slot. The best of which being the Crucifix, which negates all non-ring statuses aside from instant death, if I remember correctly.

Don't forget to read the flavor text for items in the inventory screen, as well as the monster bios. Those are pretty neat and provide some further information and worldbuilding. Such as how Pure Class plant items (the ones that restore sanity) are essentially mind-calming drugs imported from the Americas.

Different seiyuu for the new anime. Feels bad man.

I love how half of the things people complain about are things that aged so well that they look and feel great decades later. I wonder what indie fags would even do if Sony didn't allow 2D games on the PS4. I suppose you can make puzzle, platformers in 3D if you really want to (or just go full walking simulator).

I've been finding tons of stuff in weird places. It seems like it's lottery tickets and disposable items most of the time though. Hopefully I'll find lore related stuff later on.

That sounds neat as long as you don't need to manage it like batteries in some games. I guess some do it okay, but normally it's just a pain in the ass.

I found it kind of funny Alice was beating the living shit out of things with her Bible. I don't think you're supposed to do that.

Damn, I was hoping they recorded them with the anime in mind. She just sounds so unique that I don't know if someone will be able to replicate her charm. Lailah is definitely one of my favorite characters. She's always doing something funny or cute and her vocal expressions are part of the reason it works so well.

Exactly. I mean, does Shadow Hearts look all that well on a graphical output end? Not exactly (the sequels improved drastically on that), but it doesn't look bad to me either, and works well with the vibe the game as a whole gives off. But then again, I'm more of a style over maximum output sort of person.

It is usually that sort of stuff, though occasionally you can find accessories hidden around too (such as the Flare Brooch making a return from Koudelka, though that item's in every entry).

No management required. I always assumed that whoever was the smartest in the party would remember to take it to get refilled next time they're in town.

Japan finds it funny as well.

I think in most cases with Tales, the anime (as well as various other media; some entries have received manga or novelizations as either adaptations or extended universe) for various entries are a bit of an afterthought. Though I don't think they anticipate the seiyuus dying. This isn't the first time it's happened for a character in the series either; Kaneto Shiozawa (Dhaos' original Japanese voice) fell down some stairs in 2000 and died of complications from it.

I think it looks damn good actually. I wasn't even planning on the CG and everything to be this quality. I thought it had too low of a budget to look this nice. Obviously, it's a little dated due to the hardware, but it really wouldn't take much to make it look like a fairly new game. Higher resolution, new models, added special fx, etc.

I just always assume video game characters are some type of idiots who wouldn't dare break a lock or kick down door in an abandoned house, but have no problem walking right into people's homes and stealing things out of their cupboards or blowing up entire ruins filled with priceless artifacts.
(Not sure why I even had to wander around looking for that torch and stuff when there was a two of them already lit right outside the cat lady's house.)

She looks kind of crazy smiling like that with her gloves soaked in her victims blood.

I love how the only way someone doesn't return for their characters role in Japan is if they die, but here it's just too much to fit all that in their tight schedule.

Ahhh, I'm glad I decided to pass on the Wii version.

Just completed TiTs:SC. Trying to think of a JRPG that I"m looking forward to and can't think of one besides the new Ys PS4 edition or FF15 PC edition. The entire genre seems to of been on a downward slope for the past 15 years.

I would love to play one of the latest Metal Max games if they ever get fan translated Metal Saga holds a special place in my heart.

I just beat the english DQIV. It is pretty bad.

I'd say NES if you want the truest version of the game though.

I liked what they did in X as well, but a lot of the endgame stuff made it pointless.

a jrpg I haven't heard of?

I heard there is a Seiken Densetsu 3 insanity patch that you can toggle difficulties up and they cleaned some of the stuff up that got cut in release, like descriptions of accessories and shit. Like apparently there are some accessories that makes you immune to poison, but they don't say that even in Japanese.

ff2 was gud, really fucking obtuse. I feel bad for people that got it as a present. But back then you had to learn to love your games before ADDing onto a new one.

Moon Remix RPG Translation fucking when?

A few of the former devs have apparently discussed the idea of revisiting the games with some HD versions at the very least (though I assume SH1 might require an actual graphical remake), but since they don't own the series they worked on they've been as of yet unable to do anything for it.

I'm not sure what the budget was for the first game, but I'm thinking that with at least a few ex-Square guys on the team, Aruze was willing to give them a bit more funding than they might have otherwise.

Also, while the CG does look pretty good for a somewhat early PS2 game, it's got a sort of… sheen(?) to things that shouldn't necessarily be shiny.

Well, Yuri's got no qualms about the former. Priest locked himself inside a church? Kick the fucking door in. Some jackass tossed a key into a fountain? Fish that shit out and carry on rummaging through the guy's house.

And then there's a part in Covenant with an assault on the Japanese Prime Minister's compound, and unlike a prior section the party doesn't even bother to try to be stealthy since they're fucking pissed. Pretty funny having the game cut to the guards inside repeatedly trying to repel the attack and utterly failing as they grow increasingly desperate and realize their boss fucked with the wrong people and now they're all going to die for it.

I assume that in a number of cases, they tend to do so because either they really come to like the roles they've played, or they feel like they owe it to their fans. Worth noting that with Phantasia, a few voice actors have changed, namely Chester's as Cress' seiyuu originally voiced both Cress and him (thus getting a separate voice for both of them is probably for the best).

I doubt that's liable to happen at this point. I mean, it's nice that MMR got a fan translation, but the series has remained fairly obscure out here, and unlike some series that could also be applied to, Metal Max is actually somewhat big, with four main Metal Max entries and two or three Metal Saga ones. The only entry I've heard of that still has one "in the works" (if no update in years can be called that) is MM2, but it's as of yet unfinished.

I think there may have been one in the works, but it may have since dissipated; doesn't look like the thread on RHDN has seen an update or even a new post in years.

I had Dragon Warrior III as a kid but never beat it. I recently discovered that it's third in a trilogy but chronologically first. I think I'll just play through III then check out the other two.

Play Path of Radiance. Now.

It's not that big of a deal until you reach Marsh Cave. Oh boy, Marsh Cave…

With I, II, and III, theres a number of options in English these days: the NES originals, the GBC versions, and the fan translated SFC remakes. Might be worth doing some research and seeing which version of DQ III sounds most appealing; just saying since, depending on when you last touched it, there might have only been one or two versions of it in English.

I still have the cartridge. Actually playing it will be no problem. Although I'll probably just emulate it for grafix.

Noticing the thread is past bump limit; worth making a new thread when this one dies, or just wait until someone makes another thread in a month or two? Just wondering since some threads seem to do better with time between them being made, and I'm not sure there's demand for having a thread like this up all the time, even if a single thread can last a solid two weeks like this.

Might be worth mentioning that there's some differences between the GBC and SFC versions even though as far as i'm aware both are remakes.

Think the GBC one has additional content while the SFC one has better graphics and audio, but there might be more to it than that; could be wrong though, or thinking of the wrong Dragon Quest remakes.

Shadow Hearts has a scene that's probably one of the best ever made. Major spoilers.
Shloop. Shlooooop. Shlooo-oop. Splat. Shloooop. Shloooooop. Shoop. Splat. Shoo-ooop. Schreeee! Schreee! Shloop. Shlooop. Splat.

That would be cool, but I'm definitely not getting my hopes up. I don't know anything about Aruze really, but it looks like all they care about is pachinko and slot machines. Their list of releases when I looked at it seemed really weird. If I remember correctly Shadow Hearts was the only real game series they have. Do they even make real games anymore?

Oh damn, I read the first line of that thinking it was gonna be about the door he just broke in my game, but I guess I shouldn't have read that. Weird coincidence that I'd think about that yesterday and see someone break one today in the first place.

Not him, but I really want to play that too. Do you guys normally just play a straight retail iso or is there a fixed up fan translation or an undub or anything I should lookout for?
(I wish owning a copy wasn't completely out of the question. I finally rebought a gamecube, but don't even have any games for it.)

I really like this thread, so I hope it would be sustainable on a regular basis. If you don't make one I'll have to make a PS2 thread or something. It's nice when people talk about games. I find more hidden gems in things like this than "only you played" threads.>Play Path of Radiance. Now.