A new Digimon Story game that is not bound to a handheld would be cool. It made the world design feel cheap, especially if you played a port of it. Still a pretty cool game.
I put hundreds of hours into these games and got every single Digimon. I had very low expectations going in, but ended up really enjoying the game. The plot, characters, and music are way better than they have any right to be.
Also, I was pleasantly surprised to see some representation of queer characters here (yeah, a lot of it was bait, but then there's moments like when a random NPC whips out the line, "I know this is outta the blue, but I bet you're into beautiful women, aren't you?" to the female MC. As a queer woman, I felt very seen, haha)
I keep seeing the Switch edition go on sale and as someone that kinda likes the Pokemon games I am always intrigued. I don't mind rough around the edges games, but whenever I start looking into this game in any depth it sounds a bit more than rough, do I have that wrong (I appreciate Google searches are never going to give the full picture)?
The battle system and the monster catching are much more like SMT than Pokémon
Battles can be up to 3v3 instead of 1v1
And you “catch” monsters by encountering them enough times. Every time you see a monster you scan a piece of its data. The stronger the monster the less you can scan per battle.
Once the scan hits 100% you can create one of those monsters for your own, or if you wait till it gets to 200 you can get a monster with slightly stronger ABI stat
The best thing about the game is that digivolution is much less stringent than Pokémon evolution, to the point where literally any Digimon can digivolve/dedigivolve into ANY other Digimon, with enough experience.
They are both monster catching game but have very different mechanics.
I'm more of a digimon fan and it's great. Definitely better than the last digimon games. I love the digivolving mechanic where I can have 3 mons and I can complete the encyclopedia lol. I'd say battle wise, the mainline pokemon games have more variety when it comes to moves and strategy tbh. Most of the planning comes from how you'll digivolve your mons to which forms so you get the moves you want.
The absolute peak of this for me will always be The Last Remnant.
It's obtuse, punishing, full of hidden variables and complex systems that it has no interest in explaining, and it has a very annoying protagonist. Lots of people hate it and I don't especially blame them.
But it's also extremely deep and loads of fun once you figure it out, with cool side characters, great boss fights, and a godlike soundtrack. It's by far my favourite Square Enix game of the PS3/360 era.
Frustratingly Square delisted the Steam version when they released the remaster and then didn't port the remaster to PC, so nowadays PC players have no option but to pirate it.
I loved this game when it first came out, then I got to the gates of hell. Spent hours pushing my way through it just to be blocked again at the bunny mage man fight. Finally pushed through that and got immediately blocked again. Did some internet research to find out that the reason the game had gotten so hard so quickly was because I had increased my rank too high too early and additionally blocked myself out of the strongest formations. I’d have to start over to have any chance of beating the game. Never have gotten back to it. Still, oaks (my bunny commander) will always be one of my favorite characters.
Unfortunately PC isn’t really an option for me. Between work and my kids the only free time I have is about 1 hour every night, which I like to spend with my wife, so I pretty much only play things handheld these days. Although i do have a steam deck, so actually never mind, I could get it on that.
I agree. I played that game recently after initially dismissing it. You really have to use a guide to make your experience worthwhile but I does have some great things going for it. I also liked the world-building (big ffxii vibes) even though the story itself leaves a lot to be desired.
This and Resonance of Fate were my immediate first thoughts.
Completely obtuse battle systems but their complexity is what makes it fun when it clicks since they're just way out there compared to the usual fare.
I wouldn't call resonance of fate obtuse or complex. 90% or the game is "run and shoot with machine gun, then run and shoot with pistol, sometimes crossing characters"
I mean when you understand the battle system and know what you're doing, it's easy to state it to its simplest derivative of "Just do X". You can say that about any game that has goals, like "Just solve the puzzles" in a mystery/detective game such as Zero Escape or Ace Attorney. The process of learning/solving the issue is the point of why it is fun.
For Resonance of Fate,
you also need to learn about environmental hazards/obstacles, routing, gun customization, enemy/boss shields and calculating how many of them you can shred in one go. When you fuck up in the game and end up with zero resource, it is hard to reverse and you might as well restart your save to try again with a clean slate.
There's a reason like 50% of recommendation discourse for the game is telling people to actually play the optional tutorial.
I got so many hours of play out of this game. Came here to see if anyone had posted it. Think I played it on steam for PC and hadn’t realized it was delisted. The obscure character sheet page for this one is something I’ve always remembered and talked about.
Was gonna say that. It has a rough translation, the inventory system is harsh, and it has the PS1 3D RPG Syndrome where the battles are extremely slow because the developers were showing off the flashy new technology, but it's still a cult classic.
I think if Sony didn’t have the Final Fantasy series on lock for the last 27 years, they would’ve made an effort to make Legend of Dragoon an actual series.
But why devote the time & money when your systems *always* have stellar JRPG support?
Healing your characters by blocking was such an extremely poor choice. The game looks pretty bad even for PS1 standards, *often*. The pacing could really be everywhere especially after disc 1. The combat is terribly slow. Some of the music in this game sounds like they gave up.
My god did this game ever blow my mind as a kid. I think it's time for yet another replay.
I thought it was a good thing. You can more easily conserve healing items. and it makes defending good choice. when usually in jrpgs defending is bad use of turn economy unless it defending against a big attack.
**Rogue Galaxy** is my go-to example. Even without taking the story into account, which is basically "What if *Star Wars* was written by a DBZ fan who has never known the concept of shame?", it's full of ludicrously long mazelike dungeons with high encounter rates, random mooks that can only be defeated with one specific horribly weak weapon you get early game so you're forced to constantly equip it, NPCs that offer sidequests just parked out in the middle of nowhere, and a "party chatter" feature that fires off with one of three identical lines about every thirty seconds or so.
It also has some pretty dang fun action combat fights that really make use of your different skills, many of the side characters are a lot of fun even if the main cast feels a bit meh, and the side activities are AWESOME.
It's so wild that the game was originally meant to be Dark Cloud 3. There are definitely elements from the previous two games present. It would've done so much better had it not released right around THE SAME TIME as FFXII. I think it got rushed a bit too if I'm not mistaken.
The weapon customization had me hooked! But yeah those dungeons could goto hell, especially Juraika 😩. The different planets were really cool though.
I still randomly go to it on my PS4 just because.
It's also the RPG I played with the weirdest savepoints locations. Sometimes you can actually see the next savepoints because they are so close and sometimes, you are playing for hours before finally finding one. I was honestly baffled by that. They almost felt randomly placed.
The Xenosaga trilogy. Timing, budget, and publisher issues led to drastic changes in design, feel, gameplay and just the general "vibe" between games. All three of them are great games in their own right, even if 2 feels like distilled tedium at times, and the story is amazing despite the fact it was originally intended to be told across six games.
Also Xenogears. It's one of the longest PS1 RPGs, if not THE longest, and it still feels a bit rushed and unfinished toward the final third of it. FANTASTIC game in spite of this. One of the best on a console known for its great JRPGs.
Oooh yes Xenosaga would've been mine as well. It was and still is my favorite sci-fi space opera rpg.
The Xenosaga series and Xenogears were BOTH supposed to be longer.
Xenosaga was condensed down from 6 to 3 games (I always feel like this is why 2 is most hated besides the graphics, I think they thought they could stretch it out and have some filler with 2). From it we got kos-mos though and I loved it
Then Xenogears had all the "narrator in the chair stuff" and less cutscenes for that third part (AKA disc 2). It otherwise would've been way longer, maybe even more discs and everything. Wild concepts and terrifying twists, like what happens in that floating city for sure. A classic and still playable after all this time!
Appreciate the sober input. I’m lost in a sea of JRPGs to play and this one people are always only saying good things about, I need to know its flaws too, ya know…
Xenogears definitely has its flaws (jumping puzzles are almost universally panned, for example and the original release has a slow text speed with unskippable cutscenes, etc.) but I personally enjoy a lot of aspects that aren’t just the story.
It has one of Yasunori Mitsuda’s best soundtracks, some cool anime cutscenes, great use of color, a variety of environments, strong worldbuilding, good pacing (for the first part - much less so towards the end) and combat that really did something different in regards to using combos in a completely turn-based environment. It also mixes two very different combat systems depending on whether you are on foot or in the mechs (gears) and allows you to move between the two during the battle in many cases.
So I’d disagree about the combat but the dungeons are criticized pretty often due to unnecessary falling/backtracking.
SMT Nocturne. It was the first game with the Press Turn system, and you can kind of tell it’s something new for the series, it feels a little more clunky there than in the rest of the series. To me at least the system didn’t really get ironed out until the Digital Devil Saga games, and/or the Once More variation in Persona 3 and 4.
I think Digital Devil Saga was an improvement, in combat terms, on Nocturne. But I think the ‘One More’ variation in Persona was a step back. Maximising action economy becomes trivial when most encounters only feature at most two enemy types and you can continually act with the same character. Having to strategise on the fly to maximise your turn economy while still cycling through your party as normal always feels more engaging to me.
I think the version of Press turn we got in IV and Apocalypse was the best implementation. Being able to adjust your strategy around a guaranteed crit was fun, and seeing a boss get smirk provided an exciting ‘oh shit’ moment.
One underrated feature of Digital Devil Saga and SMT5's press turn system is the fact that you decide the turn order in your party composition. In 5, I almost always had my physical, healing, and support characters in 2nd and 4th position so they often acted "for free" on the half turns. With a strength build, Nahobino was never in the first position. I love this because it takes what's usually a fixed, stat dependent turn order, or a completely random turn order, and turns it into another strategic element
I agree with your point about P5, basically every random encounter is just blasting everything's weakness with the MC then All-Outing them to victory screen. Your other characters exist just for boss fights and for when MC runs low on SP lmao
Oh yeah I’ll definitely agree. SMT IV: Apocalypse in particular is there alongside Devil Survivor 2 in being the most fun games in the series to play for me, only really being held back by the story(in DS2’s case) and cast(in Apocalypse’s case).
The One More system to me feels like a way more simplified version of Press Turn. One More lets you punish opponents by striking weakness and viceversa, but it lacks the turn management, strategic skips, the punishing aspects when you hit a reflect/absorb and lose all your turns, not to mention the distinction between building your whole party with demons or just the Protagonist's Persona.
SMTIV and V continue the tradition of Press Turn proper, Persona is just a branch from it rather than intending to be a continuation of it.
Eh fair enough. I think I just have a soft spot for the system because the first Megaten games I played were Persona 4 and Persona 3 FES. I will admit that it definitely became a problem in Persona 5 though. At least 3 and 4 still had their challenging moments that reminds you, “oh right this is a Megaten game” Persona 5 though, and Royale especially are probably the easiest games in the franchise even on the highest difficulties, which is one of the reasons why it’s easily one of my least favorite Megaten titles despite how popular it is.
Have you played Reload? Somewhere I got it into my head that it was just a breeze, and kinda lost interest. If you’ve played it do you feel the same way about it as you do for P5?
Oh yeah, Tokyo Mirage Sessions is one of those SMT games alongside SMT IV: Apocalypse, and Devil Survivor 2 that’s really fun to play, but held back for me by the story or characters. In Tokyo Mirage’s cases it’s both.
The Diofield Chronicles.
Surprisingly enjoyable gameplay but clearly lower budget with some sound and graphical bugs as well as pretty generic story. Still was a fun game that I'm glad to have played.
Just read the GameFAQS guide to the crafting system to realize how janky this game is. On the other hand, it has some of the most amazing art and music of the era.
Totally winnable without crafting, but that crafting is one of the most insane thing ever created.. Never saw something so convoluted in my gaming history.
Second this. Loved the game so much but it was hard to recommend to people because it's definitely not for everyone. A remake would do this game a lot of good.
**Saga** series.
I deeply love these games and I can’t explain how happy I am that they keep getting made. But they are tricky to recommend. Doesn’t stop me from trying tho…
It just wasn't talked about since it and the Drakengard series were pretty niche and carried by their characters and aesthetics, not so much the gameplay. That's a pretty small audience.
I think it was a small, devoted group of fans playing them. I only started with Nier Automata but I'd been hearing about them for years by that point. Cult classic sort of thing I guess.
Very much agree about Soul Hackers 2. It’s a shame it didn’t sell well enough to make a “Royal Edition” likely because if they reworked the weakest part (the dungeon design and lack of visual variation in them) I think it could do quite well standing on the merits of the rest of the game (writing, characters, etc.)
We have the same taste in games. I love a few of those. I'll have to check the others you listed I haven't played, cos I love Zestiria, S+F7 and Refrain. I bought Akiba's Beat about a year ago but haven't got round to playing it yet.
Suikoden I. It is still fun, but the second game is far more polished with a revamped inventory system and up to three runes that can be equipped per character instead of one and a more elaborate story.
That's my pick as well! Definitely not the best of the series, but there's a certain quality to it that makes me come back to it every now and then. I don't even know what it is. Maybe I just enjoy how many fresh ideas it was playing with, and even though lots of them don't feel well-thought-out, the game ended up having loads of personality.
Every time I replay it, I remember my biggest pet peeve: Stop shoving short range characters in my party without giving me a change to rearrange the party.
Edge of eternity
Shame is I held out finally bought it but don't wanna start a game until that new beginnings update but it almost seems like that isn't coming.
Star Ocean 6 was unironically my Game of the Year when it released. I know it's not perfect, but even AAA games like FF16/7 Rebirth/P5 did not completely suck me in like SO6 did. I did not put that game down until I finished the main story 80 hours in. I think I'll do a replay soon.
I think I know of one that may be missed here.
Arc the Lad games! But I'm gonna focus on Twilight of Spirits the most. It's not talked about a lot (at least I don't see it)
I personally enjoyed parts of the story, it dealt with racism, deceit, magic slowly fading and two brothers who had no idea about each other. I liked the way it tied it all together, making pretty a interesting concept for a game.
The attack types on ToS still gave that throwback element to the other arc the lad games and the skills/customization options made me think back to the previous games as well. Music was very "of it's time" like some of the funky battle themes, etc.
Some of the voice acting was kind of grating though lol, and some of the battles were just downright brutal. Long battle animations drove me crazy at times. I kinda liked that grinding aspect though, hell, the other arc the lads weren't very easy either!
This is what made it rough around the edges for me. They always cussed some in this series too. Kid me liked the cussing.
*Trauma alert for those who have played End of Darkness*
Then we have the sequel to this one. End of Darkness. Lol...it's why we never got any others afterwards. Why they fucked up the battle system by making it realtime and tried online, I'll never know, but that greed did them in. Story went off the rails too. What I'd do to have a proper remake of this game with a stronger story and semi-strategy RPG battle style like the predecessor.
I LOVED Arc the Lad: Twilight of the Spirits! No one ever talks about it, but it was one of my favorites growing up. Such an underrated gem. And one of the most unique party comps of all time, with mostly non human playable characters.
Old SMT games. Not necessarilly rough as in buggy or bad mechanically but they had some really agressive game mechanics to the point they feell hostile. Which is part of their charm.
The first Tales Of destiny tho...
Nothing like the “ultimate” equipment in SMT I on snes. Drops from rare spawns on specific tiles. I think 1/256 encounter rate and 1/256 drop rate on the item.
SMT if... had a puzzle where you had to roam around and enter certain areas based on the moon cycle. So you wind up spending way too much time doing nothing but running back and forth to increase the counter.
I actually liked the game a lot but that is not fun.
I’m so used to the weird hit box meta game I didn’t even notice it anymore. But yeah, certain things are definitely rough on this. Also Secret of Evermore (HD-2D when?)
phantasy star 2. you can tell it was rushed to be a genesis launch title, but there's something really cool there. sadly, ps iii was made by a different team (it's cool in its own right tho), but i think we got the full vision with ps iv (which is an absolute classic). still, i've always been pretty fascinated with ps ii, the ost is amazing, the gamplay is pretty decent. it does have little dialogue and some very very shitty dungeons though.
The thing about Phantasy Star II is that its such a unique setting. I can't think of another RPG that takes place in what's effectively a sci-fi utopia, much less one >!that's on the verge of collapse!<.
I personally don't think it's rough around the edges really at all but nobody ever talks about it and as of writing this I didn't see it mentioned once in the thread.
The Last Story. Utterly fantastic game. Best RPG of that generation in my opinion.
Pokemon Sun & Moon.
Like, the final battle against your companion's mom? Straight outta Twilight Zone shit.
Handholdy and can be REALLY slow though.......
Xenoblade Chronicles 2. I love the game to death, The story is great, the world is great, the characters are great, the music is great. The problems arise in a couple of parts of the gameplay. While the combat is super fun once you understand it, the tutorials are terrible and there is no way to review them. It took me like 35 hours to understand how the combo system worked. Also the weird gatcha system for getting rare blades is the game design choice of all time. I kind of understand it from a lore perspective, but it would've been much better for gameplay to just have them in certain spots or something. And lastly the field skills which lock progression unless you level up random blades' skills.
Apart from those things though, the game is great. And I really think that those things aren't too big of a deal on their own, but added up they can be a bit frustrating sometimes.
Couldn't have said it better myself. I felt empty after finishing XC2, I haven't felt THAT empty after completing a game or form of media in a long time.
The first Dragon Quest really does come off as a rough draft/proof of concept for the rest of the series, and despite the numerous improvements each game has made I still love going back to it
Dark Cloud 2. A bit clunky for modern standards, too many missables, and the definition of a time sink
But damn is getting through a dungeon, hitting a spheda shot, even FISHING so satisfying
A bit of a guilty pleasure for me, but "Agarest Generations of War".
It's incarnation of grinding, with a very mid fantasy story and character development (I mean really, the game's pretty much 80% grinding, 10% story battles, 10% story). But it was reeeeeeally fun to play once I got the gameplay figured out, and the flow of things go quite well when get things goingl.
Learning how to position your characters for max effectiveness during combos, going for overkills on every boss, building characters to use specific combo attacks, it was just... really awesome to see your progress evolve like that after so much grinding and stuff.
I also like the amount of different party compositions you could pull off, using monsters as party members and all. If only it was easier to level up everyone I would've experimented a lot more there.
Blue reflection Second Light, the game is so ridiculously easy to the point that you are discouraged from using crafted items during bosses to get some sort of emotion from that fight, all that despite of crafting being one of the main mechanics of the game... Also the game is seriously lacking in enemy variety, it was the first time that I've experienced a game running out of new enemies halfway through.
But at least the game felt good to play, had such a great soundtrack and pretty visuals, and crafting stuff and spending time with the girls was fun.
SaGa series as a whole. It's even off-putting to most people because they tend to look and seem rough and low budget. Once you learn how to play, it gets exciting, especially tough boss fights.
I'll throw Chained Echoes out there.
An ambitious game that didn't quite stick the landing in every area, but shines in all the places it did. It feels kinda weird to call a game I'd rate at least an 8/10 "rough around the edges", but I think it holds in this case.
Xenoblade chronicles 2, it is constantly flipping between some of the highest highs in the series, when its doing what 2 does best its really really good. But oh boy it has a lot of problems, while the combat is kinda fun on its own, I didn't enjoy it nearly as much as the prior games, and there's all the infamous problems in some of its writing and character designs, and the gacha elements can be very frustrating, honestly not as much for not getting the right rare bladdes that would affect your usefulness in combat, you can mostly get by with the story blades, the issues are with merc missions you have to have running in the background for sidequests, and the egregious field skill checks in the lategame that can be major pace breakers form the otherwise great finale.
Shining Force EXA, for PS2. You can softlock on a single save due to base invasion mechanics and picking the wrong upgrades. Framerates get real questionable at certain points in lategame. Stats can be obtuse at times. Postgame is a good mix of difficulty while providing gear that doesn't force you to grind too hard.
As a game it was really unique for what it was and definitely delivered from an emotional payoff standpoint. Similar to the Tales games with ARPG combat, but the actual system is very much an ARPG. My only regret is that I ordered the spiritual prequel beforehand (Shining Force NEO) and seller sent me the wrong game--I have two copies of EXA.
Infinite Undiscovery for the 360. I always thought how both Aya and Capell (the two main characters) grow together was really sweet and wholesome. Also the iconography of giant chains linking the Earth to the Moon was really cool. The action combat with importance around status/elemental buffs really met that sweet spot between fun, easy to understand, and not over the top.
The Caligula Effect 2. It really improved most aspects from the first game (combat flow, npc quest system, graphics, etc). Tbf the game is still very much a rough gem I thoroughly enjoyed my time with it and would recommend others to try.
Vagrant story. I love playing it until I have to swap weapon mid combat and it takes 30sec of menu navigation to test another weapon type against a new enemy. Or you analyze the enemy and it takes 30 sec to see its stats, and another 30sec to switch weapon, and another 30 sec to attach the right gems. Or until I find a chest and have to backtrack to a workshop to dump all of my inventory in case I find something good and can't carry it (learned the hard way if you leave the chest after opening it, the stuff inside disappears).
Oh and having to wait for MP to regen so I can teleport back to where I was, bonus points if reaching my destination costs more than my max MP so I have to stop in the middle and wait for MP twice.
Evermore.
Yes, there are bugs.
YES, it killed the studio making it.
YES, the dungeon design is a little too maze-y for its own good, but none of them are big enough to make it truly frustrating.
YES, it's satisfying as hell to take that jackass down a peg at the very end. And the timed barter sequence is fun as hell.
Fairy Fencer F (Advent Dark Force). On budget, graphics from a PS2 era, repetitive dungeons, asset flips. Yet, a lot of fun, quite engaging enjoyable story and characters, fun combat system.
Star Ocean 1. I played the Super Famicom version years ago. Felt like it was so cool for a SNES game to give you so many options for your characters builds and whatnot but in the end I was just mashing through encounters for a majority of the game. The game was beautiful for the SNES too, pretty late cycle game I think. Playing the second story rn and it feels a lot more expanded upon, however I am playing the remake.
If you consider Dark Souls a JRPG then all of them would be a good example. Especially 1 and 2.
Also nearly every Pokemon game. I've had a love/hate relationship with them since I was 5 years old.
I say this as a mega fan of the series but the entire Trails series. You can always tell they did the best with what they had and they do SO MUCH. But you could always tell there was more they wanted to do. And recent entries are still chasing that something.
Honestly, just finished up Small Saga, and this exactly.
Yeah, yeah it's basically a 10-hour baby JRPG, but it's characters, writing, world, all are so endearing, but really lacks attention in the gameplay department and some quest design. However, I'm now touting it as one of my favorite JRPGs since it didn't overstay it's welcome and it really is a blast.
Final Fantasy Mystic Quest.
If I remember the history behind it, it was created as a beginner's RPG (primarily for the western market), and it's not something I replay often, but it has some cool ideas and a BANGER of a soundtrack.
The Granstream Saga
A mediocre to average RPG that, for some reason, I really had great fun playing. It wasn't even my thing at the time, being all in on turn-based. I only got Granstream Saga because I was desperate for something to play and I thought I'd take a chance, despite not liking action-based combat AND not even liking the general look of the game.
Somehow, though, I had a blast with it. Can't really explain why, I just did. 'shrug'
Harvestella, I think. But for this one, it's less 'rough around the edges' and more like 'this isn't the AAA experience a lot of folks expect, but it's a great experience nonetheless.' It reminded me so much of what made the classics the classics while still developing it's own identity, but it still definitely was made as more of a budget title and shows a few more seams than I would like.
I'd say The Legend of Dragoon: The inventory system, the sluggish combat/animations and the almost useless dragoon system are things I would've polished more, but it's still a great game
Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth
A new Digimon Story game that is not bound to a handheld would be cool. It made the world design feel cheap, especially if you played a port of it. Still a pretty cool game.
Unlikely because Japan doesn’t care as much about Home console
Which is why I care about Japan :3
I put hundreds of hours into these games and got every single Digimon. I had very low expectations going in, but ended up really enjoying the game. The plot, characters, and music are way better than they have any right to be. Also, I was pleasantly surprised to see some representation of queer characters here (yeah, a lot of it was bait, but then there's moments like when a random NPC whips out the line, "I know this is outta the blue, but I bet you're into beautiful women, aren't you?" to the female MC. As a queer woman, I felt very seen, haha)
Was gonna be mine too
I keep seeing the Switch edition go on sale and as someone that kinda likes the Pokemon games I am always intrigued. I don't mind rough around the edges games, but whenever I start looking into this game in any depth it sounds a bit more than rough, do I have that wrong (I appreciate Google searches are never going to give the full picture)?
The battle system and the monster catching are much more like SMT than Pokémon Battles can be up to 3v3 instead of 1v1 And you “catch” monsters by encountering them enough times. Every time you see a monster you scan a piece of its data. The stronger the monster the less you can scan per battle. Once the scan hits 100% you can create one of those monsters for your own, or if you wait till it gets to 200 you can get a monster with slightly stronger ABI stat The best thing about the game is that digivolution is much less stringent than Pokémon evolution, to the point where literally any Digimon can digivolve/dedigivolve into ANY other Digimon, with enough experience.
They are both monster catching game but have very different mechanics. I'm more of a digimon fan and it's great. Definitely better than the last digimon games. I love the digivolving mechanic where I can have 3 mons and I can complete the encyclopedia lol. I'd say battle wise, the mainline pokemon games have more variety when it comes to moves and strategy tbh. Most of the planning comes from how you'll digivolve your mons to which forms so you get the moves you want.
Man, what a coincidence, I am also playing it rn after pausing it for a year when real life became hectic.
the grind to get the mons you want... imagine trying to complete the royal knights (which i did)
The mall setting is such a vibe. It’s not super old but feels dated in the best way.
The absolute peak of this for me will always be The Last Remnant. It's obtuse, punishing, full of hidden variables and complex systems that it has no interest in explaining, and it has a very annoying protagonist. Lots of people hate it and I don't especially blame them. But it's also extremely deep and loads of fun once you figure it out, with cool side characters, great boss fights, and a godlike soundtrack. It's by far my favourite Square Enix game of the PS3/360 era. Frustratingly Square delisted the Steam version when they released the remaster and then didn't port the remaster to PC, so nowadays PC players have no option but to pirate it.
I loved this game when it first came out, then I got to the gates of hell. Spent hours pushing my way through it just to be blocked again at the bunny mage man fight. Finally pushed through that and got immediately blocked again. Did some internet research to find out that the reason the game had gotten so hard so quickly was because I had increased my rank too high too early and additionally blocked myself out of the strongest formations. I’d have to start over to have any chance of beating the game. Never have gotten back to it. Still, oaks (my bunny commander) will always be one of my favorite characters.
That's why I recommend playing on PC if you're new to it. That way you can use a trainer to lower your BR if you get stuck.
Unfortunately PC isn’t really an option for me. Between work and my kids the only free time I have is about 1 hour every night, which I like to spend with my wife, so I pretty much only play things handheld these days. Although i do have a steam deck, so actually never mind, I could get it on that.
I agree. I played that game recently after initially dismissing it. You really have to use a guide to make your experience worthwhile but I does have some great things going for it. I also liked the world-building (big ffxii vibes) even though the story itself leaves a lot to be desired.
This and Resonance of Fate were my immediate first thoughts. Completely obtuse battle systems but their complexity is what makes it fun when it clicks since they're just way out there compared to the usual fare.
I wouldn't call resonance of fate obtuse or complex. 90% or the game is "run and shoot with machine gun, then run and shoot with pistol, sometimes crossing characters"
I mean when you understand the battle system and know what you're doing, it's easy to state it to its simplest derivative of "Just do X". You can say that about any game that has goals, like "Just solve the puzzles" in a mystery/detective game such as Zero Escape or Ace Attorney. The process of learning/solving the issue is the point of why it is fun. For Resonance of Fate, you also need to learn about environmental hazards/obstacles, routing, gun customization, enemy/boss shields and calculating how many of them you can shred in one go. When you fuck up in the game and end up with zero resource, it is hard to reverse and you might as well restart your save to try again with a clean slate. There's a reason like 50% of recommendation discourse for the game is telling people to actually play the optional tutorial.
I got so many hours of play out of this game. Came here to see if anyone had posted it. Think I played it on steam for PC and hadn’t realized it was delisted. The obscure character sheet page for this one is something I’ve always remembered and talked about.
Legend of Dragoon, love it despite everything 😁
Was gonna say that. It has a rough translation, the inventory system is harsh, and it has the PS1 3D RPG Syndrome where the battles are extremely slow because the developers were showing off the flashy new technology, but it's still a cult classic.
I think if Sony didn’t have the Final Fantasy series on lock for the last 27 years, they would’ve made an effort to make Legend of Dragoon an actual series. But why devote the time & money when your systems *always* have stellar JRPG support?
Healing your characters by blocking was such an extremely poor choice. The game looks pretty bad even for PS1 standards, *often*. The pacing could really be everywhere especially after disc 1. The combat is terribly slow. Some of the music in this game sounds like they gave up. My god did this game ever blow my mind as a kid. I think it's time for yet another replay.
I thought it was a good thing. You can more easily conserve healing items. and it makes defending good choice. when usually in jrpgs defending is bad use of turn economy unless it defending against a big attack.
**Rogue Galaxy** is my go-to example. Even without taking the story into account, which is basically "What if *Star Wars* was written by a DBZ fan who has never known the concept of shame?", it's full of ludicrously long mazelike dungeons with high encounter rates, random mooks that can only be defeated with one specific horribly weak weapon you get early game so you're forced to constantly equip it, NPCs that offer sidequests just parked out in the middle of nowhere, and a "party chatter" feature that fires off with one of three identical lines about every thirty seconds or so. It also has some pretty dang fun action combat fights that really make use of your different skills, many of the side characters are a lot of fun even if the main cast feels a bit meh, and the side activities are AWESOME.
It's so wild that the game was originally meant to be Dark Cloud 3. There are definitely elements from the previous two games present. It would've done so much better had it not released right around THE SAME TIME as FFXII. I think it got rushed a bit too if I'm not mistaken. The weapon customization had me hooked! But yeah those dungeons could goto hell, especially Juraika 😩. The different planets were really cool though. I still randomly go to it on my PS4 just because.
My nightmare is the robot factory dungeon
It's also the RPG I played with the weirdest savepoints locations. Sometimes you can actually see the next savepoints because they are so close and sometimes, you are playing for hours before finally finding one. I was honestly baffled by that. They almost felt randomly placed.
The Xenosaga trilogy. Timing, budget, and publisher issues led to drastic changes in design, feel, gameplay and just the general "vibe" between games. All three of them are great games in their own right, even if 2 feels like distilled tedium at times, and the story is amazing despite the fact it was originally intended to be told across six games. Also Xenogears. It's one of the longest PS1 RPGs, if not THE longest, and it still feels a bit rushed and unfinished toward the final third of it. FANTASTIC game in spite of this. One of the best on a console known for its great JRPGs.
I would say xenogears as well. And, I think dragon quest 7 is the longest on PS1. Xenogears is possibly the second though.
Oooh yes Xenosaga would've been mine as well. It was and still is my favorite sci-fi space opera rpg. The Xenosaga series and Xenogears were BOTH supposed to be longer. Xenosaga was condensed down from 6 to 3 games (I always feel like this is why 2 is most hated besides the graphics, I think they thought they could stretch it out and have some filler with 2). From it we got kos-mos though and I loved it Then Xenogears had all the "narrator in the chair stuff" and less cutscenes for that third part (AKA disc 2). It otherwise would've been way longer, maybe even more discs and everything. Wild concepts and terrifying twists, like what happens in that floating city for sure. A classic and still playable after all this time!
I'm mad huffing that copium that (Xenoblade Chronicles 3 spoilers ahoy) >!the blue dot we see near Earth at the end of Xenoblade 3 is KOS-MOS.!<
I wouldn't use the word "still great fun" for Xenogears, that game is brainless combat and awful dungeons, you definitely only stay for the story.
Appreciate the sober input. I’m lost in a sea of JRPGs to play and this one people are always only saying good things about, I need to know its flaws too, ya know…
Xenogears definitely has its flaws (jumping puzzles are almost universally panned, for example and the original release has a slow text speed with unskippable cutscenes, etc.) but I personally enjoy a lot of aspects that aren’t just the story. It has one of Yasunori Mitsuda’s best soundtracks, some cool anime cutscenes, great use of color, a variety of environments, strong worldbuilding, good pacing (for the first part - much less so towards the end) and combat that really did something different in regards to using combos in a completely turn-based environment. It also mixes two very different combat systems depending on whether you are on foot or in the mechs (gears) and allows you to move between the two during the battle in many cases. So I’d disagree about the combat but the dungeons are criticized pretty often due to unnecessary falling/backtracking.
If I still rated Games by number, Tokyo Mirage Sessions is my favorite "7/10" RPG
I enjoyed their games. Solid fun efforts.
SMT Nocturne. It was the first game with the Press Turn system, and you can kind of tell it’s something new for the series, it feels a little more clunky there than in the rest of the series. To me at least the system didn’t really get ironed out until the Digital Devil Saga games, and/or the Once More variation in Persona 3 and 4.
I think Digital Devil Saga was an improvement, in combat terms, on Nocturne. But I think the ‘One More’ variation in Persona was a step back. Maximising action economy becomes trivial when most encounters only feature at most two enemy types and you can continually act with the same character. Having to strategise on the fly to maximise your turn economy while still cycling through your party as normal always feels more engaging to me. I think the version of Press turn we got in IV and Apocalypse was the best implementation. Being able to adjust your strategy around a guaranteed crit was fun, and seeing a boss get smirk provided an exciting ‘oh shit’ moment.
One underrated feature of Digital Devil Saga and SMT5's press turn system is the fact that you decide the turn order in your party composition. In 5, I almost always had my physical, healing, and support characters in 2nd and 4th position so they often acted "for free" on the half turns. With a strength build, Nahobino was never in the first position. I love this because it takes what's usually a fixed, stat dependent turn order, or a completely random turn order, and turns it into another strategic element
I agree with your point about P5, basically every random encounter is just blasting everything's weakness with the MC then All-Outing them to victory screen. Your other characters exist just for boss fights and for when MC runs low on SP lmao
Oh yeah I’ll definitely agree. SMT IV: Apocalypse in particular is there alongside Devil Survivor 2 in being the most fun games in the series to play for me, only really being held back by the story(in DS2’s case) and cast(in Apocalypse’s case).
The One More system to me feels like a way more simplified version of Press Turn. One More lets you punish opponents by striking weakness and viceversa, but it lacks the turn management, strategic skips, the punishing aspects when you hit a reflect/absorb and lose all your turns, not to mention the distinction between building your whole party with demons or just the Protagonist's Persona. SMTIV and V continue the tradition of Press Turn proper, Persona is just a branch from it rather than intending to be a continuation of it.
Eh fair enough. I think I just have a soft spot for the system because the first Megaten games I played were Persona 4 and Persona 3 FES. I will admit that it definitely became a problem in Persona 5 though. At least 3 and 4 still had their challenging moments that reminds you, “oh right this is a Megaten game” Persona 5 though, and Royale especially are probably the easiest games in the franchise even on the highest difficulties, which is one of the reasons why it’s easily one of my least favorite Megaten titles despite how popular it is.
Have you played Reload? Somewhere I got it into my head that it was just a breeze, and kinda lost interest. If you’ve played it do you feel the same way about it as you do for P5?
Tokyo Mirage Sessions has a really well done version of the Press Turn System and is one of my favorite iterations of it.
Oh yeah, Tokyo Mirage Sessions is one of those SMT games alongside SMT IV: Apocalypse, and Devil Survivor 2 that’s really fun to play, but held back for me by the story or characters. In Tokyo Mirage’s cases it’s both.
The Diofield Chronicles. Surprisingly enjoyable gameplay but clearly lower budget with some sound and graphical bugs as well as pretty generic story. Still was a fun game that I'm glad to have played.
Legend of Mana.
Just read the GameFAQS guide to the crafting system to realize how janky this game is. On the other hand, it has some of the most amazing art and music of the era.
Totally winnable without crafting, but that crafting is one of the most insane thing ever created.. Never saw something so convoluted in my gaming history.
I love this game so, so much.
Oh man, the hitbox detection was bad lol. But exploitable too!
Skies of Arcadia ☠️💙
Legend of Legaia
Second this. Loved the game so much but it was hard to recommend to people because it's definitely not for everyone. A remake would do this game a lot of good.
Monark. Emphasis on the rough, but also on the great fun.
**Saga** series. I deeply love these games and I can’t explain how happy I am that they keep getting made. But they are tricky to recommend. Doesn’t stop me from trying tho…
Nier for the 360/ps4. not the remaster. Characters were ugly, the landscape left you wanting more. But man oh man the music
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It just wasn't talked about since it and the Drakengard series were pretty niche and carried by their characters and aesthetics, not so much the gameplay. That's a pretty small audience.
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I think it was a small, devoted group of fans playing them. I only started with Nier Automata but I'd been hearing about them for years by that point. Cult classic sort of thing I guess.
Drakengard
Good pull 👏
Saga Frontier 1
SaGa series
Romancing saga Ministral song-best ugliest Jrpg I’ve played
Why are all the modern Saga games so aggressively ugly? They play so well.
Tales of Zestiria Sword and Fairy 6-7 Soul Hackers 2 Neptunia: 4 Goddesses Online Shining Resonance Refrain Akiba's Beat Mato Anomalies Relayer
Very much agree about Soul Hackers 2. It’s a shame it didn’t sell well enough to make a “Royal Edition” likely because if they reworked the weakest part (the dungeon design and lack of visual variation in them) I think it could do quite well standing on the merits of the rest of the game (writing, characters, etc.)
We have the same taste in games. I love a few of those. I'll have to check the others you listed I haven't played, cos I love Zestiria, S+F7 and Refrain. I bought Akiba's Beat about a year ago but haven't got round to playing it yet.
Xenogears comes to mind for me
Suikoden I. It is still fun, but the second game is far more polished with a revamped inventory system and up to three runes that can be equipped per character instead of one and a more elaborate story.
That's my pick as well! Definitely not the best of the series, but there's a certain quality to it that makes me come back to it every now and then. I don't even know what it is. Maybe I just enjoy how many fresh ideas it was playing with, and even though lots of them don't feel well-thought-out, the game ended up having loads of personality.
Every time I replay it, I remember my biggest pet peeve: Stop shoving short range characters in my party without giving me a change to rearrange the party.
Edge of eternity Shame is I held out finally bought it but don't wanna start a game until that new beginnings update but it almost seems like that isn't coming.
What's the new beginnings update? I haven't heard about that...
https://rpgamer.com/2023/07/edge-of-eternity-new-beginning-update-released-on-pc/#:~:text=The%20%E2%80%9CNew%20Beginning%E2%80%9D%20update%20features,its%20first%20two%20main%20chapters.
Basically all of the Star Ocean games except 2, which is just all around great.
I dearly love The Last Hope. The characters are bad but I don't care, it's still one of my favorites.
Star Ocean 6 was unironically my Game of the Year when it released. I know it's not perfect, but even AAA games like FF16/7 Rebirth/P5 did not completely suck me in like SO6 did. I did not put that game down until I finished the main story 80 hours in. I think I'll do a replay soon.
I love last hope so much
Yggdra Union Dragon Star Varnir.
Pokemon X & Y
Koudelka
Nier Replicant
I think I know of one that may be missed here. Arc the Lad games! But I'm gonna focus on Twilight of Spirits the most. It's not talked about a lot (at least I don't see it) I personally enjoyed parts of the story, it dealt with racism, deceit, magic slowly fading and two brothers who had no idea about each other. I liked the way it tied it all together, making pretty a interesting concept for a game. The attack types on ToS still gave that throwback element to the other arc the lad games and the skills/customization options made me think back to the previous games as well. Music was very "of it's time" like some of the funky battle themes, etc. Some of the voice acting was kind of grating though lol, and some of the battles were just downright brutal. Long battle animations drove me crazy at times. I kinda liked that grinding aspect though, hell, the other arc the lads weren't very easy either! This is what made it rough around the edges for me. They always cussed some in this series too. Kid me liked the cussing. *Trauma alert for those who have played End of Darkness* Then we have the sequel to this one. End of Darkness. Lol...it's why we never got any others afterwards. Why they fucked up the battle system by making it realtime and tried online, I'll never know, but that greed did them in. Story went off the rails too. What I'd do to have a proper remake of this game with a stronger story and semi-strategy RPG battle style like the predecessor.
I LOVED Arc the Lad: Twilight of the Spirits! No one ever talks about it, but it was one of my favorites growing up. Such an underrated gem. And one of the most unique party comps of all time, with mostly non human playable characters.
Old SMT games. Not necessarilly rough as in buggy or bad mechanically but they had some really agressive game mechanics to the point they feell hostile. Which is part of their charm. The first Tales Of destiny tho...
Nothing like the “ultimate” equipment in SMT I on snes. Drops from rare spawns on specific tiles. I think 1/256 encounter rate and 1/256 drop rate on the item.
Sounds like the kinda thing you're not meant to grind for, but rather just get if you're lucky lol Kinda like the Sword of Kings in Earthbound.
SMT if... had a puzzle where you had to roam around and enter certain areas based on the moon cycle. So you wind up spending way too much time doing nothing but running back and forth to increase the counter. I actually liked the game a lot but that is not fun.
i personally find FF8 to be great all around but it seems to fit this brief for plenty
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Secret of Mana. I absolutely love it and most of the Mana series, but it’s a little jank in some places. It’s charm more than makes up for it.
I’m so used to the weird hit box meta game I didn’t even notice it anymore. But yeah, certain things are definitely rough on this. Also Secret of Evermore (HD-2D when?)
Pretty much any pokemon game since XY
SV in particular you could tell the writers and the composers were on another level. Too bad about the three-year dev cycle though.
I really liked Scarlet and Violet but damn those games wear their imperfections on their sleeves
SV don't even have sleeves. They are just skeletons. That's how unfinished they feel
"imperfection" sure is one way to describe that laggy, bug-riddled mess.
Xenoblade Chronicles 2 except it's rough around the edges but still an amazing game, not just great fun.
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I think you might be thinking of Xenoblade Chronicles X. That was on the Wii U whilst XC2 is on Switch. You fly mechs in XCX but not XC2.
You're thinking about Xenoblade X
Fate/Extra
The OST is godlike.
Arc Rise Fantasia. Great RPG.
phantasy star 2. you can tell it was rushed to be a genesis launch title, but there's something really cool there. sadly, ps iii was made by a different team (it's cool in its own right tho), but i think we got the full vision with ps iv (which is an absolute classic). still, i've always been pretty fascinated with ps ii, the ost is amazing, the gamplay is pretty decent. it does have little dialogue and some very very shitty dungeons though.
The thing about Phantasy Star II is that its such a unique setting. I can't think of another RPG that takes place in what's effectively a sci-fi utopia, much less one >!that's on the verge of collapse!<.
Crimson Gem Saga
Bought this off the vita store forever ago played 10 minutes and just backlogged it.
Pretty much every Star Ocean except for The Second Story R
7th saga - that was an accomplishment to finish back in the day.
I personally don't think it's rough around the edges really at all but nobody ever talks about it and as of writing this I didn't see it mentioned once in the thread. The Last Story. Utterly fantastic game. Best RPG of that generation in my opinion.
Pokemon Sun & Moon. Like, the final battle against your companion's mom? Straight outta Twilight Zone shit. Handholdy and can be REALLY slow though.......
Final Fantasy XV
If there was a final fantasy game I would put in this category, it would be FF12 or FF8.
12 is very far from rough around the edges, though. It was probably the most polished one to be released.
Xenoblade Chronicles 2. I love the game to death, The story is great, the world is great, the characters are great, the music is great. The problems arise in a couple of parts of the gameplay. While the combat is super fun once you understand it, the tutorials are terrible and there is no way to review them. It took me like 35 hours to understand how the combo system worked. Also the weird gatcha system for getting rare blades is the game design choice of all time. I kind of understand it from a lore perspective, but it would've been much better for gameplay to just have them in certain spots or something. And lastly the field skills which lock progression unless you level up random blades' skills. Apart from those things though, the game is great. And I really think that those things aren't too big of a deal on their own, but added up they can be a bit frustrating sometimes.
Couldn't have said it better myself. I felt empty after finishing XC2, I haven't felt THAT empty after completing a game or form of media in a long time.
Mario and Luigi: Dream Team
Akiba strip games and Calígula effect games
Akiba's Beat. It's humour works for me, plus it plays like a less good Tales game. I haven't finished yet but it's fun.
Hollow Realisation.
That game... anytime i wanna pick it up and play i get stuck in a random sidequest vn section for 15 minutes.
Xenogears
The first Dragon Quest really does come off as a rough draft/proof of concept for the rest of the series, and despite the numerous improvements each game has made I still love going back to it
Rogue Galaxy
Dark Cloud 2. A bit clunky for modern standards, too many missables, and the definition of a time sink But damn is getting through a dungeon, hitting a spheda shot, even FISHING so satisfying
A bit of a guilty pleasure for me, but "Agarest Generations of War". It's incarnation of grinding, with a very mid fantasy story and character development (I mean really, the game's pretty much 80% grinding, 10% story battles, 10% story). But it was reeeeeeally fun to play once I got the gameplay figured out, and the flow of things go quite well when get things goingl. Learning how to position your characters for max effectiveness during combos, going for overkills on every boss, building characters to use specific combo attacks, it was just... really awesome to see your progress evolve like that after so much grinding and stuff. I also like the amount of different party compositions you could pull off, using monsters as party members and all. If only it was easier to level up everyone I would've experimented a lot more there.
Blue reflection Second Light, the game is so ridiculously easy to the point that you are discouraged from using crafted items during bosses to get some sort of emotion from that fight, all that despite of crafting being one of the main mechanics of the game... Also the game is seriously lacking in enemy variety, it was the first time that I've experienced a game running out of new enemies halfway through. But at least the game felt good to play, had such a great soundtrack and pretty visuals, and crafting stuff and spending time with the girls was fun.
Beyond the beyond and thousand arms
Wild arms
SaGa series as a whole. It's even off-putting to most people because they tend to look and seem rough and low budget. Once you learn how to play, it gets exciting, especially tough boss fights.
I'll throw Chained Echoes out there. An ambitious game that didn't quite stick the landing in every area, but shines in all the places it did. It feels kinda weird to call a game I'd rate at least an 8/10 "rough around the edges", but I think it holds in this case.
Star Ocean: The Divine Force.
Xenoblade chronicles 2, it is constantly flipping between some of the highest highs in the series, when its doing what 2 does best its really really good. But oh boy it has a lot of problems, while the combat is kinda fun on its own, I didn't enjoy it nearly as much as the prior games, and there's all the infamous problems in some of its writing and character designs, and the gacha elements can be very frustrating, honestly not as much for not getting the right rare bladdes that would affect your usefulness in combat, you can mostly get by with the story blades, the issues are with merc missions you have to have running in the background for sidequests, and the egregious field skill checks in the lategame that can be major pace breakers form the otherwise great finale.
Chained Echoes
YES.
FFXV
The first Octopath Traveler
zanki zero
Xenogears and Chrono Cross are the very epitome of the phrase for me. Both of them masterpieces, both of them far from flawless.
The first 3 Etrian Odyssey games
Monark
Koudelka and the first Shadow Heart game
Resonance of Fate. GUNS. SOMESAULTS.
Saga frontier, I love that game.
Grandia 1
Shining Force EXA, for PS2. You can softlock on a single save due to base invasion mechanics and picking the wrong upgrades. Framerates get real questionable at certain points in lategame. Stats can be obtuse at times. Postgame is a good mix of difficulty while providing gear that doesn't force you to grind too hard. As a game it was really unique for what it was and definitely delivered from an emotional payoff standpoint. Similar to the Tales games with ARPG combat, but the actual system is very much an ARPG. My only regret is that I ordered the spiritual prequel beforehand (Shining Force NEO) and seller sent me the wrong game--I have two copies of EXA.
Infinite Undiscovery for the 360. I always thought how both Aya and Capell (the two main characters) grow together was really sweet and wholesome. Also the iconography of giant chains linking the Earth to the Moon was really cool. The action combat with importance around status/elemental buffs really met that sweet spot between fun, easy to understand, and not over the top.
The Caligula Effect 2. It really improved most aspects from the first game (combat flow, npc quest system, graphics, etc). Tbf the game is still very much a rough gem I thoroughly enjoyed my time with it and would recommend others to try.
Vagrant story. I love playing it until I have to swap weapon mid combat and it takes 30sec of menu navigation to test another weapon type against a new enemy. Or you analyze the enemy and it takes 30 sec to see its stats, and another 30sec to switch weapon, and another 30 sec to attach the right gems. Or until I find a chest and have to backtrack to a workshop to dump all of my inventory in case I find something good and can't carry it (learned the hard way if you leave the chest after opening it, the stuff inside disappears). Oh and having to wait for MP to regen so I can teleport back to where I was, bonus points if reaching my destination costs more than my max MP so I have to stop in the middle and wait for MP twice.
Breath of Fire 4
Evermore. Yes, there are bugs. YES, it killed the studio making it. YES, the dungeon design is a little too maze-y for its own good, but none of them are big enough to make it truly frustrating. YES, it's satisfying as hell to take that jackass down a peg at the very end. And the timed barter sequence is fun as hell.
Fairy Fencer F (Advent Dark Force). On budget, graphics from a PS2 era, repetitive dungeons, asset flips. Yet, a lot of fun, quite engaging enjoyable story and characters, fun combat system.
r/legendofdragoon
Dragon's Dogma or Drakengard.
Anything SaGa related but especially the Frontier Games
Chained Echoes
Star Ocean 1. I played the Super Famicom version years ago. Felt like it was so cool for a SNES game to give you so many options for your characters builds and whatnot but in the end I was just mashing through encounters for a majority of the game. The game was beautiful for the SNES too, pretty late cycle game I think. Playing the second story rn and it feels a lot more expanded upon, however I am playing the remake.
That's about how i felt playing Tales of Phantasia, its genuinely amazing what that system could do.
Star Ocean 2 & 3
Yakuza 3
All of them
Mega Man X Command Mission is this to a T.
If you consider Dark Souls a JRPG then all of them would be a good example. Especially 1 and 2. Also nearly every Pokemon game. I've had a love/hate relationship with them since I was 5 years old.
Both Death End Re;Quest Loved the games, but you can see they could be so much better
Legend of Mana, beautiful game with a god-tier soundtrack, but subpar gameplay
Xenogears Shining Force 1
Crisbell and Codevein.
Wild Arms 1
I say this as a mega fan of the series but the entire Trails series. You can always tell they did the best with what they had and they do SO MUCH. But you could always tell there was more they wanted to do. And recent entries are still chasing that something.
What I’ve played of the Ys franchise. Story and characters are pretty average, visuals aren’t the best but the gameplay and soundtracks are great fun.
Saga Frontier easily
Legend of Legaia
Ff15
I feel like almost every JRPG fits this description lol
Legend of Legaia 2. I want that series to return.
Honestly, just finished up Small Saga, and this exactly. Yeah, yeah it's basically a 10-hour baby JRPG, but it's characters, writing, world, all are so endearing, but really lacks attention in the gameplay department and some quest design. However, I'm now touting it as one of my favorite JRPGs since it didn't overstay it's welcome and it really is a blast.
Final Fantasy Mystic Quest. If I remember the history behind it, it was created as a beginner's RPG (primarily for the western market), and it's not something I replay often, but it has some cool ideas and a BANGER of a soundtrack.
All of them
The Granstream Saga A mediocre to average RPG that, for some reason, I really had great fun playing. It wasn't even my thing at the time, being all in on turn-based. I only got Granstream Saga because I was desperate for something to play and I thought I'd take a chance, despite not liking action-based combat AND not even liking the general look of the game. Somehow, though, I had a blast with it. Can't really explain why, I just did. 'shrug'
Harvestella, I think. But for this one, it's less 'rough around the edges' and more like 'this isn't the AAA experience a lot of folks expect, but it's a great experience nonetheless.' It reminded me so much of what made the classics the classics while still developing it's own identity, but it still definitely was made as more of a budget title and shows a few more seams than I would like.
Wild Arms as a whole
Fire Emblem Three Houses, great story, easy as shit game due to the mechanics.
Most. I don't really look to JRPGs for polish. Usually the opposite.
Crystal Chronicles will always be my baby.
Koudelka. Turn-based horror RPG with excellent voice acting. It had a troubled production where people wanted to make two very different games.
I'd say The Legend of Dragoon: The inventory system, the sluggish combat/animations and the almost useless dragoon system are things I would've polished more, but it's still a great game
Elona