JRPG Thread

I'm at the end of Trails of Cold Steel and am realizing how awful the cliffhanger is going to be. At least there's only two months until the sequel drops.

I need a JRPG for the Vita or 3DS(no CFW yet, sadly) or PSP (w/CFW) or any system emulatable on them.

I'm thinking I'll probably finish EOU2 or actually delve into Stranger in the Sword City, but I think I want something more standard.

Also, besides BOF 3/4, what JRPG has the best fishing?

More like Rutee's edgy older sister. And as crazy as her design is, I don't mind it.

The psp version has a remastered soundtrack that I believe is worse than the original.

Avoid EOU2. Play EO4 instead as EOU2 is a DLC cut content fest wity more casual mechanics that rid of any risk and tension the games build. Also I would recommend Rune Factory 4. It has some pretty comfy fishing too. Which you can cook and give to NPCs so that you both can go cave exploring.

Here's some Tales of Berseria footage. About 37 minutes of it going over the tutorial. I really like what I'm seeing so far with this.

Overall it seems very promising. I like what they're doing with the game so far. I hope they take the Graces-F difficulty system and apply it to this.

So it's like Xillia's Snap Pivot/Teepo Switch/Dual function magic artes/etc mechanics? Sounds neat - I like it when characters specialize in their own ways and not just because of their arte repertoire.

Still got an ongoing playthrough of Shadow Hearts: From the New World to get back to (as well as finally finishing up making the infographics for the series). Also Muramasa Rebirth, if that counts. Got a big backlog of stuff to still get to, and I'm not sure what to start next. Might ask later with some particular selection for ideas on what to hit next.

Tales of Eternia's really enjoyable in my experiences with it.

I actually really liking how in the Xillia games, each character had both a personal skill as well as link one that made them feel unique (such as Rowen's Arte Tuning, and Magic Guard for both him and his partner). Still, I do hope they're more or less done with the Link/fusion systems, as those can hamper the potential for multiplayer co-op.

If by fucked up you meant dodged a bullet then yes.
You totally dodged a bullet though, Zestria was fucking horrible, awful story even for a tales game, awful combat (seriously a 7 attack cap before your character just kind of sat there)

Cold Steel II is coming out here in September? Guessing I need to start squirreling away some more spending money.

The PSP version is just a port of the PS1 original, which a few tweaks here and there (such as adding a battery meter on the screen so you can keep tabs of whether the system needs to charge). I have heard rumor that the audio quality is a bit lessened compared to the PS1 original though, and there is NO local multiplayer option for the PSP version, unlike the PS1 release, though I suppose for most people that doesn't matter.

The PSP version also has an undub patch if you can't stand PS1 era JRPG dubs (Eternia's dub isn't exactly great, but I can still hear some effort there in spite of poor directing, and Reid's VA went on to voice Sly Cooper). Not sure if the PS1 version has one.

The game on the whole strikes me as one that would work well portable (admittedly I've only played the PS1 version). Particularly since the way the save system works is that you can save anywhere, but when you boot the game back up, you'll be at the last load point you visited, alleviating the issue of not being able to save and losing a lot of exp/gald/items progress if your battery dies in a long dungeon. Though of course, you'll still need to trek back to where you'd been.

finished moe chronicles and im now opening up all the sealed areas, going to do all 100% on this game.
changing party members from time to time makes this game a little bit challenging.

Playing through Final Fantasy 13, almost over thankfully. The whole reason I started is to see the shitshow for myself.

Also been playing through FF1 (gba remake) on my tablet when I'm elsewhere. Been enjoying it so far, but the random battle encounter rate can eat a dick.

Looking forward to playing through FF2, Breath of Fire, Fire Emblem, and Purse Owner 5

I'm only playing EOU2 because I've played every EO game before this.

How does Dawn of Souls compare with the original (and PSP versions, I suppose) of FFI and II?

Also, with Breath of Fire, the first is a decent introduction, but it is kind of bland (and that one tower with that bitch with time reversal can fuck right off) at the same time. Also, if you're aiming to follow it up with BoFII, make sure you use the fan retranslation. The official one is notoriously terrible (BoFI is somewhat better in that department; Square translated and published it for Capcom here in the west, while BoF II was done by Capcom themselves) and Capcom found it perfectly acceptable to reuse it for the GBA, even as other companies like Square were touching up their translations for ports at the time.

Really? I always turn the VA off whenever I can. I liked his acting in Sly Cooper, so I might turn it back on for a bit just to see if I can hear Sly in his voice.

etrian odyssey & purseowner 3

they're both pretty comfy albeit a little too simplistic. good games to play before falling asleep

resonance of fate looks cool
etrian odyssey v if they don't fuck it up. the music will be good at the very least

Yeah. Incidentally he's the only voice actor to have been credited for the dub, or at least identified. I think he was also in charge of picking the rest of the voices or something as well.

Again, I think the issue is more with bad voicing direction than poor voicing choices (at least for the main cast), but I suppose for the most part that was just a factor of PS1 JRPG English dubs. A few sound really damn good (like Koudelka), but most seem to range from mediocre-but-charming to poor. And from what I remember with Eternia, the voicing does get somewhat better as it goes on and the voice actors get more into it, but maybe that's just my thoughts. Been a few years since I last played it.

I do have to say that Meredy's English VA ought to have been given more credit, considering she both had to voice her character in English AND Melnics, which can't have been all that easy. Surprises me they didn't just reuse Japanese voice clips for those segments (the way I hear in Tales of the Abyss, Tear's Fonic hymns apparently use her Japanese audio, hence why they sound somewhat different from her normal voice in the west), but then again Melnics is complicated, and as far as I'm aware works differently in English and Japanese. Maybe reusing the audio simply wasn't an option with that.

Forgot my screenshot.

BoF1 and 3 are directly tied to each other. You can skip 2 altogether. It was also had a different creation team and it's why the message is so overwhelmingly bizarre compared to the rest of the series. There is a clear thematic rift between it and 1,3,and 4. There is also a translation so bad it isn't worth playing as is.

1 is a well executed by strictly by-the-numbers RPG. 2 had some good ideas but was hampered too much by whoever the psycho is who called the shots. Seriously the game feels like it belongs in another series.

3 bares special mention, because i think it's one of the finest JRPGs ever made. The story is unbelievably well written, the characters are great, the art is amazing, music is top notch (very jazzy). The dragon gene system is so cool I don't know why no one ever copied it. Really like the master system. Well paced. The combat is fast and doesn't get bogged down.

4 is also above-average. It's quite well done. It seemed like the series though was unsure where it was going though at this point, and it shows. Not much more to say about it. If you like 3, there is no reason you wouldn't like 4.

DQ is the black sheep. If you wanted more of the traditional breath of fire, you will be disappointed. But it's very strange, and in hindsight, it's worth another examination to give it proper due. A very unique setting and ideas.

BoFII has a fan retranslation. So while the original translation certainly isn't worth sitting through anymore (unless one wants to see how much was missed the first time it was translated), the retranslation is certainly a valid option for playing it with.

Tokyo Mirage Sessions and Atelier Meruru. Playing TMS with the restoration patch on hard, pretty enjoyable so far. Game has lots of style and the gameplay is fairly close to standard SMT fare with a couple of unique twists to it. For all of the shit it's caught from just about everyone, it's a pretty decent JRPG underneath it all. It's helped me fill the hole in my heart that the P5 delay left a lot better than I expected it to.

Playing the Atelier Arland games in order, Meruru is definitely a step up from Totori in every department but character interaction. The presentation, music and voicework are leagues better. My only complaint with it so far is Meruru herself being an autistic, spoiled little shit. Probably the least likable protagonist of the series, but I already knew that going in.

Guessing that patch doesn't solve script translation related issues and just patches object files back to what they were?

No, it fixes just about everything, the chapter 2 butchering being their main focus. I wouldn't be playing it if it didn't. They got a little team together at NA launch (some of them apparently knowing nip) and did the bulk of the script changes over the 3-day weekend. They're still working on it to iron out any typos or unsubbed optional FMVs, but at a much slower rate. I speak highly of it because it's an impressive project coming from GBAtemp which is usually known for taking ages to produce anything of worth.

- Reverted costumes back to Bikinis, also changing the menu icons back and their original names and descriptions.
- Completely redid chapter 2 and a few other minor parts of other chapters to return references to Gravure Modelling, this also uses the original voice files instead of re-recorded ones.
- Fixed any map changes relating to pictures in dungeons that were changed.
- Swapped the English files out for Japanese versions for retranslated files.
- Healing points no longer come in envelopes. (Spelling error by the localisation team where envelops was spelled envelopes)
- Changed Profiles to reflect the character's real ages and change back references to Gravure Modeling.
- Reverted any censored prerendered Cutscene files.

gbatemp.net/threads/tokyo-mirage-sessions-fe-restoration.429651/

Jesus Christs, its 2016, how do you weeb mongoloids can still stand the same crap

Not real interested in playing it myself, but it's nice to see people dedicated to at least trying to unfuck the game back to its original state. Though in an ideal world that wouldn't be needed in the first place if these companies would actually want to bring stuff over as intact as possible, both in content and script.

cute girls doing cute things

what the fuck are you doing playing that game with a restoration patch? what about your western sensibilities?!

...

That's fine, this isn't the first time I've shilled for that patch here. Just explaining again in the event any other disgusting weeblords didn't care about the idolshit and still wanted to play the game properly. Yes, I'm happy to see there are people dedicated enough to pump out projects like these, but we can't expect it to happen for every game that gets butchered. I'd much rather it never be necessary in the first place.

Well, I'll certainly add it to my mental list of games that have have their translations/content unfucked by fans when I mention them. Mainly have known of it happening with BoF II, Ar Tonelico II, and Neptunia Rebirth Volumes 2 and 3 (are they done with 3 yet or still working on it? Seemed like Volume 2 got it's basic unfuck patch out fairly quickly after the effort began).

Never played the orginal, from what I can tell it's just updated graphics, name changes (ie Bolt2 is now Thundara), and some bonus dungeons. I'm not aware of any major discrepancies between the gba and PSP versions.

I've seen that said about BoF2 and kept in mind, but thanks for spreading the word.

I have some good memories of 1 from playing with a friend several years ago, but cannot remember too much.

2 has already been adressed.

3's twist has already been spoiled for me, but that should still make for an interesting first experience.

I'll take your recommendation for 4 into account.

I also played DQ as a child, but, unlike 1, I distictly remember what little I had played and that it was shit.

One could say the same about shit posting you faggot.

My dick is ready. I hope the soundtrack for Persona 5 is good as well.

It's nice that at least someone wants to actually talk about the gameplay of TMS. I don't want it myself but too many people on Holla Forums focus on the drama around the games instead of the game its self. Saying that, the alterations is what cause the drama in the first place, making no one want to play it.

Isn't it more a combination of both that, and that the game, even unaltered, is what SMT x FE turned out to be (or am I thinking of a different game)?

I expect that had it been a straight up original IP, people would have minded much. I didn't see a huge amount of complaints about that Omega Quintet idol JRPG for the PS4 from anons (though to be fair, I never see much discussion of it anyhow), possibly because it didn't have two fanbases angry over it.

I'm ready. Take my money.

I don't know why people hold onto the SMTxFE thing so much. They changed the name of it as soon as they showed the trailer. They made it clear that it would be its own game but with homages to those series. People should have treated it as its own game and took it at face value because it's obviously not a SMT or FE game.

I agree that it wouldn't have caused so much anger if it was its own IP. I say this as a FE fan. This game was the exact opposite of what I wanted and looking at it at face value, it doesn't seem like a game for me. Despite me actually getting Omega Quintet for very cheap during the last PSN sale. I don't mind idols, and I like turn based combat. However, there are games which do both things better.

I would guess that people don't like getting hyped over the idea of a crossover, and then seeing it mutate into something completely different that pleases neither fanbase. I mean, if they had wanted to make an idol JRPG anyhow, why not make one from the start rather than repurposing an existing idea?

I think it's the usual case of execs thinking the IP would be ignored if it wasn't a part of X. Just like how Square Soft labeled everything Final Fantasy when localizing it to the west. They don't realize that a move like this could piss off people who were looking for a similar experience that IP provides. People wanted either FE or SMT, they got neither. Especially bad for SMT fans because they know their favorite series is being replaced by the spinoff which is, in general, more casual than their series. FE has effectively been replaced by a new beast which most fans pre-Awakening don't care for one bit.

I think the game would have done decent if they didn't censor and made it nothing about the other IPs. They advertised the shit out of it and it still sold abysmally because all potential buyers wanted nothing to do with it due to the drama around it.

At least we got cute girls out of it…right?

With Mana and SaGa though those were always their own things from the start in Japan (perhaps with some cameos here and there, but that doesn't prevent a game from being its own thing), at least to my knowledge.

Reminds me that "The Dark Souls of Persona Games" was an phrase used about SMT IV, completely ignoring that Persona is the spinoff.

As stupid as that term is, I like using it ironically.

Speaking of which, Natural Doctrine was advertised as "The Dark Souls of TRPGs". In reality it's more like the God Hand of TRPGs.

As you can see here. Everyone who hated it couldn't figure out the combat and died like a bitch. People don't want cookie cutter games or to be treated like children. But actually give them something complex and most of them will crumble.
metacritic.com/game/playstation-4/natural-doctrine/user-reviews

It's that neat huh? I see a lot of references to guns in that image, and I sure want another JRPG to shoot through ala Resonance of Fate.

I remember seeing people back in the day on halfchan calling The Last Remnant "The Dwarf Fortress of JRPGs." Not sure how accurate that is.

Well, they both don't explain anything about their underlying stat systems at all, and you really wish they would.

Watch some gameplay videos and decide for yourself. It's a game that relies mainly on gameplay and not story. If the gameplay doesn't interest you, then there's no motivation to push through the game. But if you like crazy odds stacked against you, using all your tools to push through, and a glutton for punishment, you might want to check it out. PS4 and Vita version are both fine IMO.

It's not like RoF though. Think Valkyria Chronicles with a emphasis on group momentum and positioning to chain together attacks and advance upon your enemy. Also, magic in this game is a tactical nuke with a limited resource. And by limited, I mean it carries over through the whole game. Some maps give you more resources to use magic, but don't be afraid to nuke any faggot that's giving you a hard time.

Good, I hate relying on magic.

The PSP and GBA versions of FFI are super casualised dogshit. Super easy enemies and broken magic balanced due to introducing MP into a game never intended to have it.

Play either the orginal NES, the WSC or the PSX version.

FFII was dogshit to begin with so it doesn't really matter.

Has that version even been fan-translated (I assume nothing Wonderswan was ever officially brought west)?

Playing Suikoden 2, when that's done Ar tonelico qoga is up.

Yeah I know I should play Overwatch like a normalfag and stream it on twitch and scream like an idiot.

By Sithis I hate modern gaming.

Can't say that I've heard a lot of good from series fans about Qoga. Didn't it not have the same guy behind it as AT1 and 2?

Right now I'm playing Legend of Mana on my vita, but I'm not looking forward to anything currently. I'd really like more settings that are light and fluffy like that game, though. Games where it just felt comfy when you were in towns and like an actual adventure when you were out in dungeons. Anyone know of anything like that?

Music was good and the design of the tower was neat but the combat and characters were painful

Ar Nosurge was much better.

Do yourself a kindness and pin a map of the Clustania District to your wall

Oh and it also has Akiko Shikata's worst song ever of all time

You'll know it when you hear it

The Wild Arms series tend to have comfy towns, with a nice sense of adventure and exploration for the world and dungeons. Also helps that the series likes having Legend of Zelda style dungeon items for exploring.

Michiko Naruke (composer for Wild Arms 1, 2, 3, and ACF) was a master of making comfy town themes (embed related), adventurous dungeon themes, and some really well done battle and boss themes.

I still need to get to the Ar Tonelico series (And AnS) myself, but I don't have a good way to play the downloaded retranslation of AT2 that I have yet, which has made me keep on putting them off for the time being.

I really liked Natural Doctrine and the last boss really had me exploiting the combat system to its fullest to keep everyone alive. I hope Project Code Daten ends up being something similar.

Overwatch isn't even bad. Just some casual fun.

You know people keep talking about the game being too complex when the tutorial teaches you everything you need to know in order to win. I haven't beaten the game myself but I'm still enjoying the part I'm at. Even after the tutorial, I couldn't grasp everything and it took some time to make it so I know why I should do X instead of Y according to the situation. Most of my deaths were from playing very defensively. Something that really helped me in Disgaea and Fire Emblem.

That song is so good. I used to head over to the shaman town just to listen to it.

I even downloaded the soundtrack just to grab it, something I just about never do.

Same here.

Ar Tonelico 2 is supposed to be one of the best JRPGs ever that nobody has played.

But apperently NISA localised the game terribly and NISA actually managed to INTRODUCE bugs that weren't in the Japanese version.

NISA doesn't care.

Yeah Ar Nosurge is one of my GOAT games.

Which is the reason why I want to play Ar Tonelico 3.

the only super gamebreaking bug NISA added aside from a shittier translation is the bonus boss crashes on turn 3.
Funnily enough it's quite possible to kill it before then

Fuck NISA though

NISA added random crashing to the The Witch and the Hundred Knight and someone eventually made a patch that fixed it and sent it to NISA and of course they just ignored it. They might have used it when they worked on the PS4 rehash though.

Fuck NISA.

So… It's bad. It's a turn off your brain and let fly kind of bad.

We need more Naruke out here. Unfortunately, a fair amount of the games she's composed for outside Wild Arms didn't wind up being brought west. Embed related was from a game she worked on that was a collaboration between Atlus and Gust that Atlus apparently didn't deem was worth the effort to bring into English.

Checked.

Really just need to get my PS2 set up to play downloaded games from a hard drive, I suppose.

Do you actually have a reason to why you think it's bad?

Persona 5 looks fuckin' cash.

Berseria is shaping up nicely.

and I'm hoping Dragon Quest XI does the same.

Feels pretty good being a jrpg fan right now. :)

I wanted to put FFXV here, but I feel so conflicted about it at this point, I'm just hoping it will turn out at least passable, especially after everything it's been through.

Mah nigga, Eternia is one of my fav Tales game.

Looking somewhat forward to I am Setsuna, not sure how bad the localization will be, so am somewhat skeptical about it.

Other than that, I'm hoping Berseria delivers more than Zestria

It's not even just the bug. If it was that, I think people might have continued to deal with it, or at least just simply patched the game for use with emulation (which I'm pretty sure they have at this point; it's the Raki bug, right?). But NISA also removed Japanese audio from the Japanese dub to fit it all on one disc with both languages (sadly they apparently only bothered with doing 2 disc, separate audio release for Sakura Wars 5), as well as fucking around with the script and changing the tone of the game. While they'd had some bugginess with various earlier games they'd brought over, to my knowledge AT2 has wound up being their first all-around fuckup. Thankfully the fans have decided the game didn't deserve that shit, and have been working to unfuck it, and have even found unused (and thus, untranslated) content that has now been implemented and translated.

Site for progress if anyone wants to keep tabs on it that hasn't known about it at this point.
at2.metalbat.com

I don't have a PS4 yet at this point and Namco has opted against bringing the PS3 version west, but I do hope that Berseria indeed turns out good for when I do get around to picking the system up.

Shame the trend towards how games are brought west seems to have gotten worse than it was in the last two generations. Honest feels like we've gone back to Gen 3/4 in terms of unnecessary changes being made and stuff being censored or outright removed, but I suppose that's just my take on it.

Always nice to see more love for Eternia form various anons.

At the moment, I'm rather leery of how Square's been handling what games they deem to bring west, especially given Type-0's localization induced tumblr pronouns for the moogles.

You just told me it was casual trash.

Well surprisingly I also play games for fun. And for me jrpgs are fun.

I'd say we shouldn't judge or ridicule each other for the games we play but this IS Holla Forums ha ha.

Was Nora to Toki ever fantranslated or anything or should I work my way through it with my pisspoor Nip, given I decide to do so?

Hell, before that, is the game even cool in the first place?

Oh yeah "The witch and hundred knights" fiasco is actually WORSE. On the PS2 fixing a mistake was almost impossible. That's why you actually had to playtest games on those old consoles.

Nowadays you can ship a broken game and just put out a day one patch.

So on the PS4 NISA has the ability to patch their games. But they won't cause they already have the money.

And companies like NISA keep in business because gamers enable them.

Fixed. Please do not even dare imply that 'gamers' would gleefully support that shitshow company.

There are like 3 of us Eternia fans around these parts. A dying breed for sure.

Not exactly sure what you're trying to say. But I enjoyed Overwatch for what it was. It's casual fun so it's easy to play with friends, but it being so casual is what makes it hard for me to keep playing it. If I'm not playing with friends, it's collecting dust.

NISA also imports anime. And they can do some good collector's editions for anime and games from time to time. It's most likely the anime part of NISA that's keeping them healthy.

I had heard it was the final boss that crashed if you couldn't beat it in 1 turn. I might actually buy the game(my PC isn't nearly powerful enough to emulate PS2 games decently, it can barely handle PS1 games.) if it's like you say. I enjoyed Ar Tonelico 1, and everyone says 2 is far better.

Spoiler; their anime division is just as dogshit as their video games. The only ones who would buy them despite that are garbage-people.

I don't know what that show has to do with any of this but I think I'm getting your message.

It's not finished yet, but it has a fan-translation in progress.

Here's a link:
gbatemp.net/threads/nora-and-the-time-studio-the-witch-of-the-misty-forest-–-english-translation.393130/

I don't see much discussion of it, but I've heard decent things about it from time to time. brief description from that thread there:
Worth noting that the translator has since decided to follow the advice of some other posters in the thread and change "Chrono Magic" to "Chronomancy" which has a better ring to it and carries the same idea.

Honestly, if NISA would ONLY do distribution instead of touching a game's script or code, they wouldn't be too bad, barring perhaps pricing things a bit too high.

You might want to look into how to run PS2 games digitally on a PS2, if you have a fat model with the expansion bay for an IDE drive. That's what I've been considering.

That said, from what I know, Ar Tonelico 1 and 2, as well as various other turn-based 2D sprited PS2 games shouldn't be too hard to run. I know I've seen things like Ar Tonelico, Atelier Iris 1-3, and MK1 and 2 listed on a "low end PC PS2 emulation" image.

Might as well bump with some JRPG related fan-translation news:

Revolsin's apparently still working on proofreading the fan translation script for SCS3. Seems like once he's done (he's also got to properly order some lines still), it's going to just be up to their hacker to get the patch actually made. Apparently one of the older people on the project also popped back in with the last extracted text graphics. Hopefully they can get it finished soon.

Absolute Zero's also now working on translating the Demeter's Mansion part of the Tales of Phantasia X script. Apparently after that is going to be Alvanista, which has a shit load of text to sift through (might be remembering wrong, but I think that city is in both the past and and future sections).

Bump

To be fair, Eternia's not all that available in the west to begin with sadly. While emulation is certainly a valid option (especially at current prices), for those that opt to not do so, the game is the most expensive Tales in the west at $90-120 (complete), and Namco for whatever reason hasn't deemed it worth a PSN rerelease either (same with Destiny). And even back in the day, it didn't get much of a chance to do well in sales; as far as I know, marketing for it and Destiny were rather poor, and compared with Symphonia (which saw much better marketing here), both Destiny and Eternia had a LOT of competition as far as JRPGs went on the PS1, and are now among the highest priced JRPGs on the system alongside the likes of Suikoden II and Persona 1 and 2. Honestly wouldn't surprise me if, had it not been for Nintendo convincing Namco to clear it to be brought over with Nintendo handling the marketing for them, Namco had chosen not to bring further entries west since the early ones couldn't compete saleswise. Meanwhile, Symphonia did excellent in sales, even getting a Player's Choice release, and for many fans was their gateway into the series. Destiny and Eternia are sadly more than a bit forgotten here.

I suppose that the amount of discussion it sees these days is limited to the number of fans who played it back in the day (or EU fans that played the EU/JP only PSP port and hopefully didn't get the print with the gameruining bug), or those actually willing to go back to entries earlier than Symphonia (of the earlier entires, Phantasia seems to be the one people are most apt to play, probably between the connection to Symphonia and wanting to see what the characters/story of the first game in the series was like). Eternia still holds up pretty well though since, while not as refined as the entries after it, still manages a good fluidity to the combat.

Thanks, I've only got a slim model PS2, but I'll look into emulation for the game.

The only Tales games I ever played was Symphonia on the GameCube, and that was so long ago I don't even remember if I liked it, and Tales of the Abyss on my 3DS, that I played for like 2 hours
What Tales game should I play? Is there any that let me be an authoritarian military man?

The Tales Games that I look forward to:

Tales of Rebirth
Tales of Innocence R
Tales of Re–The Abyss
Tales of Fr–Graces
Tales of Hearts R

Pay no attention whatsoever to this faggot, they have no clue what they're talking about.

BoF 1 - 3 are more than thematically linked—they're direct sequels to one another. It's not so thick that it threatens to lose you in backstory if you skip around (for example I started with BoF3, then went back for the other two), but the overlaying story is good to know for that extra flavoring. Not to mention gameplay-wise and storywise, BoF 2 is vastly superior to BoF. BOTH titles suffer badly from route translations (I believe it was some of Woosley's first bits of work. The man had no time to do it and was also working solo). As other anons mentioned, BoF2 has a perfectly serviceable fan translation available.

You'd be selling yourself short if you skip out on any BoF installment. They all have something excellent about them. Fishing, fighting, fusions, magic, dragon attacks and, in 3, genetics systems. Reserving judgment on Dragon Quarter, as I've yet to sit and seriously play it.

Bottom line: Pick a BoF title and run with it. You won't likely be disappointed.

Warnings on BoF 4: Capcom rushed this title, and several minor and major plot bits hit the cutting room floor for the western release. You can hit up Censored Gaming for the details.

Yuri in Vesperia kills corrupt government officials with no fucks given

Is there a fan translation of the Japanese version fo BoF4 with all of the cut stuff put back in?

None that I can recall seeing. The major hubs to ask have withered into nothing.

Vesperia has its main character as a former knight who became disillusioned with the way things work in the Empire he served. Said character also has no real qualms about outright killing the people making everyone's lives worse that other characters (and JRPG protagonists in general) are more prone to letting live.

None that I'm aware. Honestly, it seems a bit strange that Capcom would cut some of those scenes. Even with the fanservicey ones, it's not as if BoF III hadn't had Deis flirting with Ryu while nude. Or did soccer moms bitch about that?

WHAT DOES IT MEAN!?

I swear though, everything about Milla seemed like it was making fun of Lightning, even down to how the two games where pretty much parallel F13's story in sequel in many aspects.

Didn't the U.S. version of BoF4 start with Ryu fully naked as well?

Yeah, the cage he's in falls off the train and he reverts (converts?) to human form, and naturally has no clothes. I suppose it's not exactly considered fan-service though since he's looks like a kid, rather than Deis being some adult woman.

Here's what Baba says Xillia meant.

Haven't given Final Fantasy XIII a go (and I'm really not sure if I want to), but I've heard some people make the claim that the Xillia games ragged on them some, if perhaps unintentionally.

I never really took Xillia to be about false gods, more along the lines of Milla having to decide what she wanted to do with her life when she realized she'd essentially had her consciousness filled with lies about what she was, but ultimately assuming the role of Maxwell when the time came as a means of protecting what was important to her, both in terms of people and the world. Also, it's not as if Maxwell is even the supreme summon spirit throughout the series, as usually Origin takes that role when he deigns to show up, perhaps with Maxwell tied for second strongest with Sekundes/Kronos, with both representing Matter and Time respectively. Milla isn't all powerful, whether it's god form or an avatar either, especially considering she herself is subject to the laws of the universe, such as getting trapped in the Dimensional Abyss in X2.

Macchu Pichu's light puzzles in FtNW are reminding me of how annoying Sandshroud Ruins was in Tales of Graces f.

If anything, I'd generally heard that of the first four games, BoF IV was the disconnected one since people apparently couldn't figure out where to place it in the timeline (whether it's a distant prequel or sequel), provided it wasn't meant as a standalone entry to begin with.

Hope you know moon, because I'm betting at this point it's sadly not coming out here in English.

Why has no one said anything about the new Star Ocean?

STAR OCEAN

I assume that the changes made for the western audience (which were done worldwide; even the Japan players have reason to be angry about that) probably killed much demand from anons here to play and discuss it much. Seems to happen a fair bit for most upcoming games people discover are being censored/fucked with.

Still need to give Star Ocean 1 and 2 a go myself. Not entirely sure on whether to go with the SFC original of SO1 or the PSP remake.

the game is great and the battle system is easy. i even managed to kill the super skeleton wizard and steal his chests (before going to the final zone of course)

it took me about 6 hours, SIX HOURS, to realize that Geoff can equip guns, after that the game becomes super easy because you have 2 gun users in the party and hence you can fuck everything up from a distance without getting counterattacked, melee is for cleaning the floor with really small enemies (ie, theres 4 goblins or 4 baby insect monsters in the same square, you go there with Zeke and do a tornado

trying to force myself through this.

im on Disk 2, in Douan, though to be honest i'm already bored of it.

why is it called ps4
because only 4 people have one

Apparently it's worse than SO4, not even considering the censorship

What are some great JRPG's that are not Souls games that don't need a lot of grinding and have engaging gameplay, which means that it doesn't mainly involve going through menus to do something or easy button mashing combat?

I can't play JRPGs anymore

I just can't, tried a lot of them and get bored in an hour of gameplay. I used to love the genre more than anything, what do I do? I don't wanna feel this feel anymore

Have you tried the Ys games?

I've yet to download Oath in Felghana. Anything else?

Follow-up: Do Tales of Symphonia and Abyss require a lot of grinding?

no, but it's super easy button mashing combat for the most part

They made the garbage one have diaper panties instead of proper panties. Big deal.
25yr old MILF and Anne are untouched so I don't care.

And the only people who think SO4 is better than SO5 are absolute delusional idiots who completely forgot how WHINY FAGGOT PROTAG LITERALLY GAVE FEMHITLER (in alternate reality earth where Stalin and the bolsheviks don't exist apparently) SPACE NUKES

EVEN WHEN IT WAS OBVIOUSLY A BAD IDEA BECAUSE BITCH WAS CRAZY

AND EVERYONE, LITERALLY EVERYONE TOLD HIM NOT TO

AND THEN WHEN THE ENTIRE EARTH IS BLOWN TO HELL BY CRAZY SPACE NUKE HITLER, THE WHINY FAGGOT PROTAG SPENDS A GOOD CHUNK OF THE GAME SULKING LIKE A FAGGOT

>YOU DON'T get to shut that living porcelain doll up BECAUSE OKAAAAAAY~~

SO4 WAS SUCH A PIECE OF FILTH! UNHOLY HELL, LET IT BURN FOREVER!

…Sorry, but just come on, man. No one but the most uppity idiot would remotely dare to say SO4 is better than ANYTHING.

SO5, as mediocre and unoriginal (for a Star Ocean game, anyway) and as rather…cheap…as it is in many areas is lightyears beyond the FILTH DREK GARBAGE HOLE that is SO4.

I hear SO2 is really the best of the lot.
No franchise raping retcons like SO3 and the characters are likable unlike SO4.
Also just a general lack of SO4 at all, with a genuinely good plot.

I should give it a throw, too.

I was on board with making fun of it, but if you can get the game for cheap it's just fine. The good characters aren't censored as I recall, and Tile user's waifu is exactly as it looks on the tin: pretty much naked the whole game.

No idea myself, but I'd imagine the PSP remake could only be better. It's the rule of thumb that led me to get Persona 2 on PSP instead of just emulating it.

...

lol

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So they're both shit, but the last one was even shittier?

What am I? A marketer? Buy it or don't, mate. I'm just not tolerating anyone dumbing down how bad SO4 was by comparing to anything other than an EAware title or some other garbage equivalence.
user asked a question and I answered.

I guess you could put it that way.

But you don't know what "shit" truly is unless you've played SO4.

If you want to check out SO5 for yourself I'd say get it at a solid $30-$40 or wait until it's inevitably $25+
Not even for $5 is SO4 worth it
but for $30 SO5 isn't half bad.

Not really, just be warned about Abyss's abyssmal loading times. They're not PS3 bad, but they're not snappy at all.

Hey I liked SO4, it was like a very silly animu version of Star Trek okaaay. Keep in mind that I never played the prior titles, though I can understand why the older fans hate it okaaay.

SO5 just seem very mediocre as you said so it doesn't even have anything going for it.

No, I'm pretty sure I'll give it a hefty $0 for being mediocre censored garbage.

Why does Japan keep doing this?

SO5 missed the point of SO which is actually having space shit to do. As much as I hate SO4, there were tons of different planets to go to which is what I think they nailed right. Also your star treak allegory really hits home because they do go to another dimension in SO4 which really adds on to the crazy situations a spacefaring crew should go on. There was also more interaction with characters in SO4 than 5, Characters just pop up like victor "Hey I'm a friend of your dad" and fiore "I happen to be working with the army victor is in for the moment" and never really go that much into details. SO4 characters were generic anime shit so the interactions(which turned out to be generic shit from every anime, who wouldda thunk) didn't add to it's favor but learning about different characters is what makes RPGs great. we have no Idea why fiore has tile tits and a cat getup while every other sorceress on the planet looks like a normal ass witch, that was some bullshit.

Yup. And it's not addressed—the sprite as I recall is there in full glory. Same in BoF3—Ryu appears naked as a child after the mining rampage, and then later in the game, Deis appears nude once she's unsealed underneath the temple, and also actively flirts with Ryu while nude.

Meanwhile, what was cut in BoF IV fanservice-wise wasn't impactful. Nina & Ursula are bathing off-screen and are given naked portraits (neck up). Ryu peeks and gets nailed with a rock. There's also the boat scene where the sailors harass Ursula about proving herself, and she drops trough and taunts them. Barely anything of significance, but Capcom's localizers have double standards.

IV's themes, setting, and concepts about dragons places it squarely in an alternate/unconnected telling category. Nothing about the nations or even the dragons mesh coherently with what we understand of BoF I - III. There are no dragon clans, dragons are merely a physical representation of nature from a higher plane of existence. There's no Myria, so no blessings or curses throughout the land of her make. The biggest deity about is Fou-Lu, and even Deis iirc is dragon nature related, instead of being a goddess.

The only thing from the trilogy set connecting the trilogy to 4 is Momo, who is there because of a science experiment gone wrong.

Not if you're playing on the non "enemies get tremendous stat boosts" difficulties (and if you do, doing them on NG+ with EXP multipliers makes them more manageable).

The only loading issues I've had with Abyss were mainly in regards to overworld combat. Thankfully there's more than enough monsters in dungeons you don't get underleveled avoiding fighting on the overworld.

It is annoying that the game has to save two sets of data every time you save though.

Maybe you're just burned out? Try playing something of a different style than you have in the past (different setting, gameplay, etc).

Reminds me of what I heard about with Tales of Zestiria, that somehow not only Jade shows up from Abyss, but he's got Sophie from Graces with him for some reason as well (and since Namco apparently made a somewhat big deal over it, I'm guessing it's beyond the usual cameo). Granted, I'm not sure of the circumstances there, but given it's Jade, I can only imagine it has to do with science.

What are you gonna do, steal it?

If that's what it was, which is what it looked like it would be in the beginning, I would have enjoyed it. It's crap.

I hate you

I…what? user that's self-contradictoru

Last I checked we never had an adaquate reason for why midgetdoll wouldn't shut her mouth so I see it as fair.

Though I do agree that SO5 should have and could have been much better, the characters are much better than SO4.

…Probably that and the combat that's the only real selling point.
Also it looks pretty. Mostly.

Even if I could, I wouldn't. Why would I pirate something I know is bad?

It has been a long time but was SO3 any good? The plot twist was complete shit but I don't remember much besides that.

Can anyone recommend a good game that is relatively recent?

I do remember hearing some people state that at least with SO4 being the earliest game in the series chronologically, that all the rules and protocols for interacting with the different alien worlds the prior games apparently had made a lot more sense after the sort of stuff Edge got up to. Not that excuses a bad game, but apparently some fans had found those elements annoying before, and suddenly found them a lot more acceptable after SO4 if it meant the space program not creating more Edge Mavericks in the long run, or something. Just what I've heard though.

I've heard decent things about SO3 aside from the twist, but anons in general seem to have been pretty mixed about it. Granted, I haven't played it yet, so take that as you will. I'm hoping I can at least get my $8 worth from it.

I found the Xillia games in the Tales series pretty enjoyable, but it's worth noting that series fans seem to consider them a bit hit or miss too. I've generally liked all the main series Tales games I've played, so maybe I just have lower standards (my main gripes with the Xillia games being the lack of a true overworld and how they have a ton of costume DLC). Still, you might want to give them a try, especially since physical copies aren't that much at this point due to fairly high availability and they get into PSN sales somewhat often.

Also worth keeping in mind that while X2 does have something of a synopsis of the prior game, if you play it before X1 you're going to miss out on a lot of characterization.

What I was trying to say that they had the right idea with implementing character interactions with SO4, but because they were all generic anime stereotypes, they would do generic anime things which didn't add much to the story and brought SO4 down in general.

Honestly think so many people love that game due to nostalgia. Paper Mario does what this combat set out to do much better while also being faster. Story isn't anything to write home about either. Not only that but it's a pretty linear game and you can't even customize your party much.

Move on to other genres. You don't like it, so replace it. Forcing yourself to feel passion for something you don't like will never work.

Play SRPGs? If you want something different but similar anyhow. It's how I played Devil Survivor, familiar SMT battle system with SRPG movement and actual strategy. Otherwise, play games you don't normally play. Arcade racers, RTS, fightans, shmups, light gun games. There's a ton to try out.

It's alright. The only real problem with it, aside form the plot twist, is that you die if you run of HP or MP. If you can get past that, you might want to give it a try. The story actually has some good ideas, they were just executed very poorly, in my opinion.

Throughout the whole game, I really thought they were going to say she had some illness, and use that as the reason why she talked so strange. But then… nothing. No explanation.

But I was still convinced that she was in the late stages of terminal Space Cancer.

I've heard some rumor that the writing for SO4 was so bad because the guy doing it had been declined being allowed to write eroge and shat it up in revenge, but I have no idea how accurate that notion is.

Was it even the same guy as the one that had written for prior entries in the series?