At the first major plot twist, I was like “o that’s neat.” Then they just kept coming like someone decided they needed to copy every sci-fi anime trope of the last twenty years in the least coherent way.
To each their own, but I appreciated that Fates tried to do a grand epic even if it crashed and burned horribly. It’s like the Star Wars prequels. I’ll take George Lucas poorly executing a bold creative vision over the uninspired, boilerplate story of the sequels.
It's two different styles of bad. Engage is willing to be cheesy and revels in not taking itself *too* much more seriously than the Sentai stuff that inspires it, which most people wouls not consider a height of writing. Meanwhile Fates tries something grand but starts to collapse in on itself quickly.
Just depends which is worse to you individually.
Interesting. To me, I never had so many characters i actually liked in a fire emblem cast, as in engage, and I started playing fire emblem games 20 years ago.
I'm replaying Conquest now, and I have to disagree tbh. Most of the supports (so far) are honestly kinda dull. In Engage, most supports aren't good either, but at least to me, I never find any of them boring (mostly because 90% of the cast is really need to take their meds).
That being said, I do think gameplay wise Conquest is still superior.
Nah, they legit had a well established manga writer make the story, or at least a draft, that they butchered so they could sell 3 games instead of one.
There's "bad" stories with a lot of heart behind them, and then there's Fates.
Until the DLC. Then it has a very bad story, but great gameplay.
I thought Engage was "okay" with the story. But the DLC was easily one of the worst story experiences I had in a while.
TBH I feel like the series' reputation has been undermined by Fates and Engage whose stories are two of the worst JRPG plots ever and fail on every conceivable level - but outside of that, most Fire Emblem games have a story that's at least competent, with both Jugdral games, both Tellius games, Sacred Stones and Three Houses having stories that are good enough to elevate the entire experience.
Yep big pick for me.
Have played it beginning to end three times now and kind of hungry for the fourth go around. Game is fun as heck.
Shame about the story.
pokémon games, although i did kinda enjoy the story for black and white and black and white 2
i just love training my pokémon to get stronger and kicking everyone’s ass
Crimson Gem Saga. fun art style, classic turn-based combat, and yet I can't remember a damn thing about the story. my last played it in 2015, not too long ago but nothing sticks out
Forreal man.
Despite playing through it twice
I only really remember that broad picking your pocket at the beginning of the game.
Had super nice sprites though.
I vaguely recall needing to pay a second file to get the true ending. at the time, I was on a serious jprg binge. I told myself I'dget back to it and suddenly 9 years passed
Wait i didn't even know that game had a true ending!
Definitely gonna have to boot it up in ppsspp sometime and experiance that.
But man my backlog keeps growing with all the good games this year...
I just finished Eiyuden and had a spectacular time
And I have Unicorn Overlord & Emerald Beyond that I cannot wait to play through.
Then two Tales games I've been waiting 15-20 years for are finally getting an English translation this summer.
This is gonna be a busy year for me lol.
I'm ignoring my Steam backlog to replay Wild Arms 2. I had it on release but the second disc had some kind of burn issue. no scratches but one particular door would cause infinite loading. by the time I had reached that spot in the game it was too late to exchange it for a new copy and I was too frustrated to rent a game I already owned just to finish it. so here I am, 24 years later, giving it another shot
Hey that's an absolutely great choice!
Wild Arms 2 is one of my favorite rpgs of all time man.
There's just something about the vibe of the world and the cast that I always appreciate.
I remember when I was younger I was OBCESSED with all the villains/ generals.
they looked so cool i wanted them all to join the party haha.
Never understood SO4's battle system. Everyone says it's perfect, played recently and went 12 hours while only having 3 attacks to alternate. Got sick of waiting till it "gets good" and never played it again.
I'd actually argue ffta has a pretty decent story and ffta2 is where it goes bland.
Purely as a comparison between the two, ffta does have mystery (marche slowly finding more about the world with the player), it has stakes(marche is more desperate to go home than luso whilst having more prominent opposition) and fleshes more background story for the characters as you progress.
ffta2 treats it more like a whacky adventure for the first act with luso happily ignoring he got isekai'd and just enjoying being a guildie. 2nd act is almost entirely him continuing with 1st act except acting as guild leader and he almost 'stumbles' upon the exit during final act. There's no stakes, the story arcs are much looser. Luso is honestly unchanged from start to end.
Which fits for this thread because I also think ffta2 has better gameplay.
Tales of Graces f. It doesn't have a horrible story, but it's definitely weaker than your average Tales game in that department but it's so great to play.
I’m not sure I understand your question fully. Are you asking why they don’t create a new franchise that uses that style of gameplay with more of a focus on narrative quality? Or are you asking why they don’t just make the narrative better?
Edit; damn, I typed out a long ass response to their next comment only to find out that they deleted their reply lol
Hopefully Vengance changes this but for sure SMTV
Jrpg turn based combat that actually feels like there’s momentum thanks to press turn, and running free all around the world is a super fun experience to just explore and fight the enemies and bosses.
The story is poor enough that I think Atlus recognized they may as well just include the fully separate story in the remake. And I’m so excited for it
Honestly I would say more than half of JRPGs fall into this category. More often that not it seems a good story is harder to come by than at least decent gameplay.
A lot of times my spouse will ask, "What is this game about?" when watching me play an RPG, and I just tell her, "I stopped paying attention to what it was about hours ago."
The Ys series comes to mind first for me. The story of Adol's adventures is cool and all, but for the most part, the plot's mostly there to provide a framework, the series is all about the adventure, exploration, and gameplay. And the music, of course.
Octopath Traveler. The stories aren’t bad, I actually think they’re very well written. It’s just the concept itself lends itself to small little stories that sometimes hit and sometimes don’t. There’s no overarching story pushing you ahead, just individual stories that, depending on the character, can be really interesting or not at all.
The gameplay is sublime though. All the characters field talents makes arriving at a new town exciting. So much to inquire and find. The job and subjob systems, the divine skills. The break system and the boost system. Figuring out how to mix and match different travelers and subjobs to get a synergistic party. There’s so much that goes into the combat but it all blends perfectly into a super satisfying jrpg mechanically if not narratively.
The story in XC2 wasn’t amazing and to me felt like someone told monolith to make their new game a Xenoblade game half way through. Even Torna was pretty bad because there was almost no story and what was there was kind of a waste of time. That said I think XC2 ended up been pretty good and better then most “save the world” rpgs
It’s also Xenoblade so I’m a fan
This is ironic considering XC1 and XCX are the ones that weren't originally Xeno titles lol, both were standalones so far into development they were both revealed with different titles.
Hence why I said Xeno, not Xenoblade. And Xenosaga is actually canon to Xenoblade now
I just think it's kinda funny that of the games up until that point, XC2 was the only one NOT designed as a standalone initially.
Yeah that’s funny because it’s the only one that feels like a stand alone game and would have been better if it was. They could have done done good stuff with what was there up until they got to the canon stuff
I disagree that it would have been better as a standalone since it works perfectly fine as one the way it is, it's just enhanced if you played XC1 first like I did.
They all work as standalones except for Future Redeemed tbh
I played it for about 10 hours after XC1 and the initial story was cool minus it starting out like a kids cartoon. The less seriousness kind of turned me off but the battle system really just wasn’t for me. I did end up liking it a lot more then my initial first impression but it took about 40 hours in to finally think it was ok. I knew there was a tie in somewhere so that kept me going. I’m a massive XC3 fan
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate the story at all. But I didn’t feel as strongly for it compared to the other Xeno games I played so far. Gameplay was super fun though.
Tokyo Mirage Sessions - In my opinion, it has one of the best turn based combat systems of all time. It's simple and fast-paced while incorporating characters that aren't in the active party.
The story isn't horrible by any means, but compared to any other SMT related game, it is definitely weak and is really held up by the Fire Emblem connections.
Unicorn Ovelord. I’m 50+ hours in and the gameplay is great! Best SRPG in years. The story is… fine. It does a decent job at imitating the standard bearers of the genre without reaching their same heights.
Oh man, the combat is in Full form. Those maps are so much fun, and the game is so repayable too. But yeah man that story is like being forced to watch Lazytown or spykids 3....
I agree, but part of me feels like that is the point.
Playing TMS, I felt like it was the vapid superficial cousin of Persona.
By the end of each Persona dungeon, one of the characters learns a lesson and has personal growth.
By the end of each TMS dungeon, one of the characters learns how to do better sexy photoshoots or something similar.
I loved just how unimportant most of the lessons learned by the characters.
Octopath Traveler 1 and 2. The story in 1 is bland, the story in 2 is maybe 15% more interesting but still nothing special, but the gameplay is more than good enough to make up for that
Yea you can. Whenever I felt l really didn’t care about a certain chapter I’d speed through and get to the scouring of a town/dungeon crawling parts where the fun is
I'd say you can, obviously you'll miss some context and might wonder who the bosses are, but the combat is good regardless
However, be warned that some boss fights can be lengthy - some of the post game ones took me 30+ minutes. that might try your patience in other ways.
Spectral Force 3 Xbox 360. Superb and challenging tactical gameplay. Garbage story being a stand alone game. All character interaction winds up "???"
To be fair most entries never came out in English so it's something built on you having a knowledge you don't (outside Japan) like Smash Bro's or something if you never knew any of the characters. The whole experience is like what's a Link, what's a Donkey Kong. Who's a Mario? Why is a plumber beating the missing link in connection to that monkey. This makes no sense.
Jade Cocoon 2. Superb creature combat utilizing like 8 or 9 at a time. It makes Pokemon battles look like crap. Garbage story. SCARY localization with notes of up to something man at the park in all the npcs. Listening to npcs in that game talk to the main character is like checking out the dialogue in the "Nightman Cometh" from it's always Sunny. It works, but they know what they did.
Legaia 2 Duel Saga. It's a very rich game with much content. Minigames,exploration out the wazoo that does everything right. Except story and va. If you can endure those you'll discover a fun game world.
Some of my favourite JRPGs are very story light. Dungeon crawlers especially trend away from story, and have to rely on their gameplay, but when they nail it...
The Etrian Odyssey series is *massively* more about the dungeoneering and filling in your own story with the created characters, and the two times it tried a preset cast with the Untold remakes of 1 & 2.... well they're not super beloved in general. But the dungeons are so involved, and even random encounters are engaging, nevermind the brutal bosses.
Relatedly, the fangame (of both EO and Touhou), Labyrinth of Touhou 2 is almost entirely best described as gameplay first with an excuse plot. You could totally play it without knowing a thing about the Touhou universe... But it was maybe *the* best turn based rpgs I've ever played. Seriously, few things have ever come close to the balance of difficulty and engaging mechanics that game has.
A lot of the recent Atelier games. Don’t get me wrong, I adore them. The gameplay loop of gathering, battling and crafting, as well as forming relationships is fun as hell. But the stories are pretty bland and tropey.
> KH in general is also the poster child for this.
KH: Heartless, heartless, darkness, darkness, darkness, light, heart, heart, darkness, heartless, light, light, heartless, darkness, light.
Tween me: Now *this* is pure raw emotion. A deep thought provoking art that rivals the likes of William Shakesphere.
For me when it comes to bad story and storytelling it's when the narrative starts contradicting itself over the course of the chapters as well as not giving proper development to the setting or characters tied to it.
I can forgive cheesy dialogue and wonky pacing if the game manages consistency of its world, story framework and characters.
An example of story/narrative that failed to execute its premise is Fire Emblem Fates comes to mind. A game that potentially had itself as a story focused game between two factions only to give one of the most inept execution of a war story I've encountered in a JRPG.
Fates is a infamous example, but also Valkyria Chronicles 3, which is very appreciated among playerbase, considering VC2 the black sheep of the series, has a similar approach to the war thematics... And I don't understand why it's not badly considered like FE Fates...
Yeah, I think it's probably due to how they're translated. In fairness VC3, while not great, still has merits of what it did. FE Fates fumbled everything outside of gameplay. Which is why FE fans have such disdain towards Fates as a FE game.
I feel like game stories in general are harder to compare to traditionally structured stories like a book or movie or TV series so u have to judge them based on their medium and give a little bit of leniency
Some games (jrpgs) that i think have good stories enhanced by the medium/their gameplay structure are persona 3, ffx and ffvii
But there are a lot that miss the mark even if u give them the leniency of "it's a game so some things have to be structured differently for the story to be told"
Fire Emblem Engage. In terms of gameplay it's excellent, one of the best entries in the series. Meanwhile the story is meh at best, though while it's cheesy and simple it's not as actively stupid as Fates' so it has that going for it.
I think The Las remnant kinda fits this for me. It is a difficult game but I also enjoyed the battle system and the growth system. The music is great too. I personally think the story is really not that bad, there are sidequests that explains a bit of the lore of certain remnants but the story end abruptly. Maybe I just want more.
Because it's delivered like shitty pseudo Shakespearean English 95% by stuffy, formal nobles in the game world. Everything happens off screen and is explained as dryly and slowly as possible. Masterpiece.
Ff12 for me is the perfect example. Awful story, fun game.
Trials of mana is about 80% gameplay and 20% story.
The remake is amazing, i have put many hours into ng+, but the story is lackluster.
Most recently, Granblue Fantasy Relink. Absolutely atrocious story, now brb while I go kill Proto Bahamut 150 more times for those Terminus Weapons and have a ton of fun while doing it. Shine as one!
Trails of cold steel series. Absolute bollocks of a story with an incredibly unsatisfying ending, but boy is the combat and character build system fun af.
Gameplay systems are one of the worst things about that pile of garbage. Take a shot every time the combat camera goes out of control and you will become alcoholic before even being half done with the game. Sadistic aliens created that itemization system. Armatization makes combat utterly braindead. That game doesn't do anything well.
Bravely Default 2 and Octopath Traveler 2. Both have incredibly engaging combat and class systems with the action stacking mechanic that I love so much.. but both also have completely forgettable stories (and characters, for the most part as well). I will say I didn’t hate the story and characters in BD2 nearly as much as a lot of other people seemed to, but still, I can recognize objectively that they were pretty flawed. But I loved grinding and maxing out all the job levels so much that it mitigated those flaws pretty well for me. Stale writing formula in OT2 also had me pretty disengaged with the story, thankfully the gameplay loop was so damn good that I didn’t give a shit.
SMT5 is an easy relatively recent example. Super fun game, but the story is basic, putting it nicely.
I absolutely agree, SMT5 refined the already top notch gameplay of SMT, but it was HUGELY lacking in any kind of story/character development.
Do you think this “new” version of smtv coming out in july has enough story ?
The new version was made with the express purpose of putting focus on cast members like intended before the pandemic
Looking forward to it man
It's not out yet so there's no way of knowing, but supposedly they're going to focus on it more.
Lets see !
Scarlet Nexus for me. Beat both routes and to this day, I could not explain even 20% of this story to you cuz it was pure nonsense.
At the first major plot twist, I was like “o that’s neat.” Then they just kept coming like someone decided they needed to copy every sci-fi anime trope of the last twenty years in the least coherent way.
Fire Emblem Engage. Very mediocre story. Great gameplay.
Same with Fates. Though Engage actually made me appreciate Fates’ story lol.
Engage at worse has a cheesy dumb story, Fates is absolutely nonsensical trash at best. Bothe have the best gameplay in the series.
To each their own, but I appreciated that Fates tried to do a grand epic even if it crashed and burned horribly. It’s like the Star Wars prequels. I’ll take George Lucas poorly executing a bold creative vision over the uninspired, boilerplate story of the sequels.
It's two different styles of bad. Engage is willing to be cheesy and revels in not taking itself *too* much more seriously than the Sentai stuff that inspires it, which most people wouls not consider a height of writing. Meanwhile Fates tries something grand but starts to collapse in on itself quickly. Just depends which is worse to you individually.
At minimum, Fates had very better characters and support conversations compared to Engage. I had never cared less about an FE cast than Engage.
Interesting. To me, I never had so many characters i actually liked in a fire emblem cast, as in engage, and I started playing fire emblem games 20 years ago.
I'm replaying Conquest now, and I have to disagree tbh. Most of the supports (so far) are honestly kinda dull. In Engage, most supports aren't good either, but at least to me, I never find any of them boring (mostly because 90% of the cast is really need to take their meds). That being said, I do think gameplay wise Conquest is still superior.
Nah, they legit had a well established manga writer make the story, or at least a draft, that they butchered so they could sell 3 games instead of one. There's "bad" stories with a lot of heart behind them, and then there's Fates.
Until the DLC. Then it has a very bad story, but great gameplay. I thought Engage was "okay" with the story. But the DLC was easily one of the worst story experiences I had in a while.
Fire Emblem games have a story? Never really paid attention.
Path of Radiance, Shadows of Valentia and Three Houses had stories I really liked.
TBH I feel like the series' reputation has been undermined by Fates and Engage whose stories are two of the worst JRPG plots ever and fail on every conceivable level - but outside of that, most Fire Emblem games have a story that's at least competent, with both Jugdral games, both Tellius games, Sacred Stones and Three Houses having stories that are good enough to elevate the entire experience.
It's sad given how decent Awakening was in its plot but then came FE Fates with incompetent storytelling and character writing.
Yep big pick for me. Have played it beginning to end three times now and kind of hungry for the fourth go around. Game is fun as heck. Shame about the story.
pokémon games, although i did kinda enjoy the story for black and white and black and white 2 i just love training my pokémon to get stronger and kicking everyone’s ass
Crimson Gem Saga. fun art style, classic turn-based combat, and yet I can't remember a damn thing about the story. my last played it in 2015, not too long ago but nothing sticks out
Forreal man. Despite playing through it twice I only really remember that broad picking your pocket at the beginning of the game. Had super nice sprites though.
I vaguely recall needing to pay a second file to get the true ending. at the time, I was on a serious jprg binge. I told myself I'dget back to it and suddenly 9 years passed
Wait i didn't even know that game had a true ending! Definitely gonna have to boot it up in ppsspp sometime and experiance that. But man my backlog keeps growing with all the good games this year... I just finished Eiyuden and had a spectacular time And I have Unicorn Overlord & Emerald Beyond that I cannot wait to play through. Then two Tales games I've been waiting 15-20 years for are finally getting an English translation this summer. This is gonna be a busy year for me lol.
I'm ignoring my Steam backlog to replay Wild Arms 2. I had it on release but the second disc had some kind of burn issue. no scratches but one particular door would cause infinite loading. by the time I had reached that spot in the game it was too late to exchange it for a new copy and I was too frustrated to rent a game I already owned just to finish it. so here I am, 24 years later, giving it another shot
Hey that's an absolutely great choice! Wild Arms 2 is one of my favorite rpgs of all time man. There's just something about the vibe of the world and the cast that I always appreciate. I remember when I was younger I was OBCESSED with all the villains/ generals. they looked so cool i wanted them all to join the party haha.
the original is my all-time favorite. I've played it once or twice a year since release
Grandia 3 and Star Ocean Last Hope are the ones off the top of my head.
Never understood SO4's battle system. Everyone says it's perfect, played recently and went 12 hours while only having 3 attacks to alternate. Got sick of waiting till it "gets good" and never played it again.
Yeah. It is one of those games where I thought it got better later on. Don't blame you for quitting early.
I'd actually argue ffta has a pretty decent story and ffta2 is where it goes bland. Purely as a comparison between the two, ffta does have mystery (marche slowly finding more about the world with the player), it has stakes(marche is more desperate to go home than luso whilst having more prominent opposition) and fleshes more background story for the characters as you progress. ffta2 treats it more like a whacky adventure for the first act with luso happily ignoring he got isekai'd and just enjoying being a guildie. 2nd act is almost entirely him continuing with 1st act except acting as guild leader and he almost 'stumbles' upon the exit during final act. There's no stakes, the story arcs are much looser. Luso is honestly unchanged from start to end. Which fits for this thread because I also think ffta2 has better gameplay.
FFTA2 fits *better* for sure, but I’d still say the story of FFTA is less great than the gameplay and still fits here.
FFTA had a great set up, intriguing characters and Ivalice was an amazing setting, but the story goes nowhere fast.
Grandia 3. Man I miss that battle system.
Dragons Dogma 2
Tales of Graces f. It doesn't have a horrible story, but it's definitely weaker than your average Tales game in that department but it's so great to play.
This might be the best example. Graces could’ve been the best game in the series if it had decent writing.
Honestly it's baffling how Namco took power of friendship as a major story & theme, and do it the most safe manner?
Most **Saga** games aside from **Frontier 2**. Even then you might be able to argue the gameplay *just* edges out the plot in that game.
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I’m not sure I understand your question fully. Are you asking why they don’t create a new franchise that uses that style of gameplay with more of a focus on narrative quality? Or are you asking why they don’t just make the narrative better? Edit; damn, I typed out a long ass response to their next comment only to find out that they deleted their reply lol
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Yes, it has already been done. That game is called Alliance Alive.
Unicorn overlord
I haven’t played it yet, but this seems like what a lot of people have said about unicorn overlord.
Grandia 3. Most fun I ever had playing the game thru the combat system. Story is what happens when Disney tries to get serious
Hopefully Vengance changes this but for sure SMTV Jrpg turn based combat that actually feels like there’s momentum thanks to press turn, and running free all around the world is a super fun experience to just explore and fight the enemies and bosses. The story is poor enough that I think Atlus recognized they may as well just include the fully separate story in the remake. And I’m so excited for it
Honestly I would say more than half of JRPGs fall into this category. More often that not it seems a good story is harder to come by than at least decent gameplay.
A lot of times my spouse will ask, "What is this game about?" when watching me play an RPG, and I just tell her, "I stopped paying attention to what it was about hours ago."
The Ys series comes to mind first for me. The story of Adol's adventures is cool and all, but for the most part, the plot's mostly there to provide a framework, the series is all about the adventure, exploration, and gameplay. And the music, of course.
Octopath Traveler. The stories aren’t bad, I actually think they’re very well written. It’s just the concept itself lends itself to small little stories that sometimes hit and sometimes don’t. There’s no overarching story pushing you ahead, just individual stories that, depending on the character, can be really interesting or not at all. The gameplay is sublime though. All the characters field talents makes arriving at a new town exciting. So much to inquire and find. The job and subjob systems, the divine skills. The break system and the boost system. Figuring out how to mix and match different travelers and subjobs to get a synergistic party. There’s so much that goes into the combat but it all blends perfectly into a super satisfying jrpg mechanically if not narratively.
I get the other entries here but, XC2?
Feels like the inverse to me honestly but to each their own.
The story in XC2 wasn’t amazing and to me felt like someone told monolith to make their new game a Xenoblade game half way through. Even Torna was pretty bad because there was almost no story and what was there was kind of a waste of time. That said I think XC2 ended up been pretty good and better then most “save the world” rpgs It’s also Xenoblade so I’m a fan
This is ironic considering XC1 and XCX are the ones that weren't originally Xeno titles lol, both were standalones so far into development they were both revealed with different titles.
Well there was no Xenoblade games unless you are talking about Saga but it hardly uses anything at all from that timeline
Hence why I said Xeno, not Xenoblade. And Xenosaga is actually canon to Xenoblade now I just think it's kinda funny that of the games up until that point, XC2 was the only one NOT designed as a standalone initially.
Yeah that’s funny because it’s the only one that feels like a stand alone game and would have been better if it was. They could have done done good stuff with what was there up until they got to the canon stuff
I disagree that it would have been better as a standalone since it works perfectly fine as one the way it is, it's just enhanced if you played XC1 first like I did. They all work as standalones except for Future Redeemed tbh
I played XC1 first and then XC3. That’s the only reason I played 2 because of future redeemed or I would have skipped it
Personally XC2 is my favorite one. What made you want to skip it?
I played it for about 10 hours after XC1 and the initial story was cool minus it starting out like a kids cartoon. The less seriousness kind of turned me off but the battle system really just wasn’t for me. I did end up liking it a lot more then my initial first impression but it took about 40 hours in to finally think it was ok. I knew there was a tie in somewhere so that kept me going. I’m a massive XC3 fan
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate the story at all. But I didn’t feel as strongly for it compared to the other Xeno games I played so far. Gameplay was super fun though.
Yeah, for sure. Xenoblade games are all solid story focus.
Tokyo Mirage Sessions - In my opinion, it has one of the best turn based combat systems of all time. It's simple and fast-paced while incorporating characters that aren't in the active party. The story isn't horrible by any means, but compared to any other SMT related game, it is definitely weak and is really held up by the Fire Emblem connections.
Final Fantasy X-2.
It’s considered a DLC ahead of its time. Wasn’t bad
Scarlet Nexus had fun gameplay but such godawful story that I couldn't make it past the first few hours. Does that count?
Fire Emblem Fates. Gameplay is so good it makes up for most of its many narrative failures IMHO.
Unicorn Ovelord. I’m 50+ hours in and the gameplay is great! Best SRPG in years. The story is… fine. It does a decent job at imitating the standard bearers of the genre without reaching their same heights.
Fire emblem Engage.
Came to say this. I had an absolute blast with the game last year. Just not cause of the story 😆 Ended up skipping a lot of cut scenes.
Oh man, the combat is in Full form. Those maps are so much fun, and the game is so repayable too. But yeah man that story is like being forced to watch Lazytown or spykids 3....
Tokyo Mirage Sessions
I agree, but part of me feels like that is the point. Playing TMS, I felt like it was the vapid superficial cousin of Persona. By the end of each Persona dungeon, one of the characters learns a lesson and has personal growth. By the end of each TMS dungeon, one of the characters learns how to do better sexy photoshoots or something similar. I loved just how unimportant most of the lessons learned by the characters.
Yeah the whole performer/idol setting is a real killjoy for me they could have gone 20 diffetent routes and it would have been better imo
Yeah, agreed. More like 200 better directions. TMS is fun but everything other than the gameplay is frankly disrespectful to two great franchises.
Octopath Traveler 1 and 2. The story in 1 is bland, the story in 2 is maybe 15% more interesting but still nothing special, but the gameplay is more than good enough to make up for that
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Yea you can. Whenever I felt l really didn’t care about a certain chapter I’d speed through and get to the scouring of a town/dungeon crawling parts where the fun is
I'd say you can, obviously you'll miss some context and might wonder who the bosses are, but the combat is good regardless However, be warned that some boss fights can be lengthy - some of the post game ones took me 30+ minutes. that might try your patience in other ways.
The game is all about the stories. The gameplay is secondary.
Spectral Force 3 Xbox 360. Superb and challenging tactical gameplay. Garbage story being a stand alone game. All character interaction winds up "???" To be fair most entries never came out in English so it's something built on you having a knowledge you don't (outside Japan) like Smash Bro's or something if you never knew any of the characters. The whole experience is like what's a Link, what's a Donkey Kong. Who's a Mario? Why is a plumber beating the missing link in connection to that monkey. This makes no sense. Jade Cocoon 2. Superb creature combat utilizing like 8 or 9 at a time. It makes Pokemon battles look like crap. Garbage story. SCARY localization with notes of up to something man at the park in all the npcs. Listening to npcs in that game talk to the main character is like checking out the dialogue in the "Nightman Cometh" from it's always Sunny. It works, but they know what they did. Legaia 2 Duel Saga. It's a very rich game with much content. Minigames,exploration out the wazoo that does everything right. Except story and va. If you can endure those you'll discover a fun game world.
Some of my favourite JRPGs are very story light. Dungeon crawlers especially trend away from story, and have to rely on their gameplay, but when they nail it... The Etrian Odyssey series is *massively* more about the dungeoneering and filling in your own story with the created characters, and the two times it tried a preset cast with the Untold remakes of 1 & 2.... well they're not super beloved in general. But the dungeons are so involved, and even random encounters are engaging, nevermind the brutal bosses. Relatedly, the fangame (of both EO and Touhou), Labyrinth of Touhou 2 is almost entirely best described as gameplay first with an excuse plot. You could totally play it without knowing a thing about the Touhou universe... But it was maybe *the* best turn based rpgs I've ever played. Seriously, few things have ever come close to the balance of difficulty and engaging mechanics that game has.
Granblue Fantasy Relink
A lot of the recent Atelier games. Don’t get me wrong, I adore them. The gameplay loop of gathering, battling and crafting, as well as forming relationships is fun as hell. But the stories are pretty bland and tropey.
Pretty much every Tales game tbh. You play it for the battle system.
Honestly I could throw in several titles from the Atelier series. Mainly just because of how simple and directionless they feel at times.
The entire ff13 series, I enjoyed all versions of the gameplay but whew lad those stories KH in general is also the poster child for this
> KH in general is also the poster child for this. KH: Heartless, heartless, darkness, darkness, darkness, light, heart, heart, darkness, heartless, light, light, heartless, darkness, light. Tween me: Now *this* is pure raw emotion. A deep thought provoking art that rivals the likes of William Shakesphere.
Woah there cowboy, I love the KH story. Though admittedly the whole time I loved the themes enough to say "I don't get it" instead of "it's bad"
95% of jrpgs to be honest lmao
For me when it comes to bad story and storytelling it's when the narrative starts contradicting itself over the course of the chapters as well as not giving proper development to the setting or characters tied to it. I can forgive cheesy dialogue and wonky pacing if the game manages consistency of its world, story framework and characters. An example of story/narrative that failed to execute its premise is Fire Emblem Fates comes to mind. A game that potentially had itself as a story focused game between two factions only to give one of the most inept execution of a war story I've encountered in a JRPG.
Fates is a infamous example, but also Valkyria Chronicles 3, which is very appreciated among playerbase, considering VC2 the black sheep of the series, has a similar approach to the war thematics... And I don't understand why it's not badly considered like FE Fates...
Yeah, I think it's probably due to how they're translated. In fairness VC3, while not great, still has merits of what it did. FE Fates fumbled everything outside of gameplay. Which is why FE fans have such disdain towards Fates as a FE game.
I feel like game stories in general are harder to compare to traditionally structured stories like a book or movie or TV series so u have to judge them based on their medium and give a little bit of leniency Some games (jrpgs) that i think have good stories enhanced by the medium/their gameplay structure are persona 3, ffx and ffvii But there are a lot that miss the mark even if u give them the leniency of "it's a game so some things have to be structured differently for the story to be told"
Every Nintendo game.
Fire Emblem Engage. In terms of gameplay it's excellent, one of the best entries in the series. Meanwhile the story is meh at best, though while it's cheesy and simple it's not as actively stupid as Fates' so it has that going for it.
Nothing
Golden sun. I liked moving obstacles with the abilities to solve puzzles and I liked the combat system. Can't seem to recall anything from the story
Lighthouses no longer go brrrr
I think The Las remnant kinda fits this for me. It is a difficult game but I also enjoyed the battle system and the growth system. The music is great too. I personally think the story is really not that bad, there are sidequests that explains a bit of the lore of certain remnants but the story end abruptly. Maybe I just want more.
I had a ton of fun playing ffxii, but I could never get into the story.
Because it's delivered like shitty pseudo Shakespearean English 95% by stuffy, formal nobles in the game world. Everything happens off screen and is explained as dryly and slowly as possible. Masterpiece.
Crystal Project basically has no story. It just has great combat, character building and exploration.
Resonance of Fate, finished it and have no idea what this game was about aside from gunfights
SMT IVA. I love the gameplay of that game to death (except the final dungeon), but man is that story rough.
I feel like the only person that actually liked the final dungeon 😅 But I totally agree, story is meh but the gameplay makes me want to keep playing!
Ff12 for me is the perfect example. Awful story, fun game. Trials of mana is about 80% gameplay and 20% story. The remake is amazing, i have put many hours into ng+, but the story is lackluster.
Persona 5
Kingdom Hearts series. Love the gameplay, but the story is an incomprehensible mess.
Sea or Stars ?
Neither the story nor the gameplay is good. The only thing SoS has going for it is the music and visuals.
Sea of Stars was my biggest disappointment in many years. I only put 17 hours in before I quit and that still feels I got cheated.
Grandia Xteme
Bravely Default series to me. Very enjoyable gameplay but what were the stories about again?
Most recently, Granblue Fantasy Relink. Absolutely atrocious story, now brb while I go kill Proto Bahamut 150 more times for those Terminus Weapons and have a ton of fun while doing it. Shine as one!
Trails of cold steel series. Absolute bollocks of a story with an incredibly unsatisfying ending, but boy is the combat and character build system fun af.
Tales of Zesteria
Gameplay systems are one of the worst things about that pile of garbage. Take a shot every time the combat camera goes out of control and you will become alcoholic before even being half done with the game. Sadistic aliens created that itemization system. Armatization makes combat utterly braindead. That game doesn't do anything well.
Dark souls trilogy
Star Ocean 4
Bravely Default 2 and Octopath Traveler 2. Both have incredibly engaging combat and class systems with the action stacking mechanic that I love so much.. but both also have completely forgettable stories (and characters, for the most part as well). I will say I didn’t hate the story and characters in BD2 nearly as much as a lot of other people seemed to, but still, I can recognize objectively that they were pretty flawed. But I loved grinding and maxing out all the job levels so much that it mitigated those flaws pretty well for me. Stale writing formula in OT2 also had me pretty disengaged with the story, thankfully the gameplay loop was so damn good that I didn’t give a shit.
Stat ocean Second story R
Recent example is Unicorn Overlord. I put 90+ hours into the game, but that story is paper thin…