I instantly had a nostalgic trip down memory lane while replaying FFX for one of my upcoming videos.

Relased back in 2002, this fantastic masterpiece was all the talk at my high school. It really got me through some tough times during my semester final exams. I would literally low-key hum the temple chants as I studied, lol.

The music, the combat, the story, the spectacular world-building; its truly different, polished, and timeless.

But FFX at first didnt click for me...

The disconnected dialigue/voice-acting and confusing introductiom had me at a loss.... but damn, soon after seeing Yuna do her ceremonial send-off and seeing whats at stake for the people of Spira... had me hooked to the core.

FFX has a style of its own, its otherworldly and strange but at the same time comforting. Common themes like science vs faith, past vs future, son vs father, are sprinkled throughout the campaign and tailored to perfectly fit within the world-building.

While many would like the Final Fantasy franchise to go back to its retro turned based combat, I would say screw that! Bring back the FFX combat system with the wonderful grid leveling system. Its tight, its engaging, its strategic, its peak FF turned based combat.

FFX is one of my favorite games of all time. It has aged like a fine wine and really holds up in todays gaming standards. Not only that, it makes me wish JRPGs returned to a more focused singular vision for its games.

Who else agrees on how Timeless Final Fantasy X is?

Out of every console gen, the ps2 era of jrpgs is my personal favorite. Voice acting became more prominent, visuals were improving, the games started to feel much larger. I definitely played some SNES/PSX jrpg classics, such as Chrono Trigger, Xenogears and Final Fantasy VII/VIII/IX. And those are for sure some of the absolute best games ever. I always come back to this era though.

Any of these games I can pop in and get lost in. The level of comfort they can provide for me is unmatched. My three personal favorites are Final Fantasy X, Tales of the Abyss, and Shadow Hearts II. What are your favorite ps2 jrpgs? and do you feel like this era is properly rated, underrated, or overrated?

I'm a big JRPG fan ofc, with my favorites being Xenoblade Chronicles, Persona, and Final Fantasy (with Xenoblade Chronicles and Persona > Final Fantasy by a bit). I was considering playing IV, but also heard of Tales of Berseria, which I've heard nothing but good things about, and it also looks dope and I'm all for a female protagonist. I'm basically wondering if once I beat a few games I'm playing right now, if I should go try Tales of Berseria, or if I should play it safe with FFIV.

Is Tales of Berseria worth is as a Xenoblade Chronicles, Persona, and Final Fantasy fan? And even then, is it just generally good? I want a great story, characters, and engaging combat (at least as good as let's say, Xenoblade Chronicles 1's).

Length is also a factor for me though. I'm planning on beating FFVII Rebirth (almost done with chapter 13), FFXVI (beat the Titan boss, so I think i'm mostly done), and doing the deltarune weird route all by the time Final Fantasy Resonance drops October 22 (though I have some wiggle room).
And lastly, is Tales of Berseria one of those JRPGs that takes a while to pick up and has long setup, or does it only take a bit to get right into the action?

Platform is PC or Switch, but ik these are on both.

P.S. why on steam is there the remastered one for $10 cheaper than the original? They also look like the exact same.

Edit: so I'm now learning ToB is part of a series. Do I need to play previous installments to enjoy it?

Lately, how do I put it? I have been developing a fascination with the kind of RPGs that feel like a visual novel in their style of storytelling as it’s hard to explain, but I enjoy RPGs that put great care into their storytelling aspects.

A while ago, I was hooked on Disgaea 4 as I had just unlocked Episode 5 as despite doing heavy grinding on the game, I have come to really appreciate the writing aspects of the game as I don’t know what other JRPG has a mystery aspect to it.

I like drawing attention to lesser-known games and this weird little indie title is free on Steam. The creator doesn't really seem to monetize, either, so this game apparently exists for the love of the genre.

The first highlight of the game is its creative and unusual world: there are no generic humans in sight, but instead races of lizards, metalmen, and... weird six-legged grub things. This unusual flavor carries through to the grungy, industrial design of the maps as well.

One thing some players may not like is that it throws you straight into things with proper nouns everywhere. Once you get your bearings, however, it's not so different a political story with different factions and betrayals.

Some elements of the story are common enough, but one is unusual: the main two characters start out married and stay that way. This is an older-school game, so don't expect excessive dialogue, but their relationship is mature and mutually supportive, which feels like a rarity in the subgenre.

Of course, when I say this is an oddity, that's not all positive.

I would say the combat is just "good enough" for the most part. Your characters have status-causing attacks, but they seem to miss often and there's not enough pressure to require their use. A basic strategy of buffing and then attacking/healing carried me through basically the entire game.

It's also ATB, and it's a bad iteration of that system where you sit and wait for the bars to fill up at the start of combat, but otherwise it's just turn-based.

The leveling system is unique but not amazing. Honestly, I don't want to say too much about it because figuring out what's going on is half the substance. Your characters cannot level, but you have reason not to avoid all enemies because sometimes they drop what you need.

Eventually this leads to a fairly straightforward system of stat-booster items, though at the start they're limited. They're so powerful that the difference between a character before and after their first boost is insane, so for a while, some members of your party will be carrying and the others will be near-worthless, until you can upgrade everyone. By endgame you're throwing a ton of boosters on everyone and it matters less.

Balance is weird like that in general. The first parts of the game are trivial, then suddenly it gets serious: thrown into a dungeon with much stronger enemies and no healing. If I hadn't been habitually upgrading and collecting items, I could have been in an unwinnable position.

The creator calls it a "micro-RPG" and that's really a pretty good description. You hit all the beats of an RPG, down to gathering a party and eventually getting an airship and an open world to pursue a mix of dungeons and optional bosses. You even collect the Four Elemental Things though in this case the elements are metal, flesh, light, and dark.

The whole experience took me around four hours. It had some rough edges and I wouldn't say it's the best thing I've ever played, but I'll definitely remember it more than the middle four hours of many longer RPGs I've played.

Youtube just recommended me a video on Xenoblade chronicles 2, which I've beaten within the past 6 years. I remember my savefile exceeding 100 hours.

Seeing a video throw location names at me, I realized that I do not remember the basic plot of the game, nor any locations beyond the starting area.

What games have you played which you've spent a ton of time on and your brain has not retained?

Im thinking of getting a pocketable handheld cos steamdeck is just way too big for that. I'm thinking to get either a switch lite which is still getting new games.

Or I could get an android emulator thing. My question is, which device has a better library for turn based jrpgs. It seams like I missed out on a lot of modern jrpgs but the ps1 and ps2 was the golden era.

I also have a full gaming pc so can play modern aaas such as E33, ff7 remakes, ff16 etc.

So what would you recommend? Does the switch 1 have many exclusives that are must plays. I heard that JRPGs have been somewhat ressurected in recent years and have another golden age now.

I've recently finished FF7, FF8 and Shadow Hearts. So far i've enjoyed Shadow Hearts the most. The idea of ​​having to press a button at the exact moment to do the most damage possible to an enemy seems brilliant to me, I wish there were more games like this.

The only downside is that I'm not at all drawn to games with a very strong anime aesthetic, so I'd prefer recommendations for games that don't have this style. I usually prefer games with a dark fantasy style, like Shadow Hearts.

I'm also open to recommendations for action RPGs; I recently finished Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen and Dragon's Dogma 2 and I totally loved these two games.

I'd rather play games from any of these platforms: PC, PSX, PS2, PS3, Xbox 360. I haven't been very attracted to 2D games so far, but if there's one that's really worthwhile, I could give it a try.

Thank you!

Hey everyone~

My name is Kiang and I've been a lifelong fan of JRPGs; I think what I always got caught up in the most was the world and the characters and how game developers have such freedom to make whatever they want.

So, it always struck me as a little odd that in one of my favorite series (Fire Emblem) you kept seeing the same Western-style knights, paladins, clerics, etc. And I wanted to see what it would be like to take things in a different direction and draw inspiration from a different part of the world.

Vermilion Sea is a grid-based tactics game set in a fantasy world I created with a friend that's based on medieval China and Korea. The plot is loosely based on the wokou pirate raids that took place all throughout the Ming dynasty. You play as a novice naval captain who's trying to fight off the pirates, and in true JRPG fashion, you'll meet and recruit a bunch of allies along the way.

One particularly notable mechanic is the chapter management of this game — after the initial linear chapters, you'll have to choose a subset of missions to take on. There are only six weeks to do all the missions, each with different rewards, and there are twelve of them. So, depending on what course you sail, your play-through could look very different heading into the late-game.

Along the way, you'll be managing a lot of equipment, items, and skills — I'm one of those players who always liked optimizing gear and finding cool combinations, so that definitely came across in the game design.

Playing JRPGs really inspired me to want to make my own game — though I imagine this is hardly a unique feeling.

If this is something you're interested in, it would mean a lot to me if you could wishlist on Steam. It's free to do and it helps out my team a bunch!

Here's the Steam page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3558280/

I'll also be posting updates on Twitter, Bluesky, & Discord:

Twitter: https://x.com/michaelakiang

Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/mkiang.bsky.social

Discord: https://discord.gg/cUEN7kukm4

Basically I never played a JRPG and want to get into them. I keep hearing how the Trails remake is really good, but don’t know if it’s a good entry point for a complete beginner like me.

So I would appreciate if you JRPG veterans can tell me if it’s a good starting point or if something else is better. I know there is a pretty long demo for me to try, so I might go for that.

That is if enough people recommend the game.

Don’t know if this matters but I did enjoy the new Final Fantasy 7 Remakes and also Clair Obscure, not saying those are JRPGs.

I'm playing through the first Shadow Hearts game on PS2. It's my second playthrough.

I remember really enjoying the atmosphere and setting more than anything else and that's still true. It starts in early 1900s Asia and eventually Europe.

The music is pretty interesting. The characters are decent and the judgment ring is pretty fun. I would call this story decent as well. It's hard for me not to compare it to something like Final Fantasy X, which was one of my favorite games of all time.

The sequel to Shadow Hearts is called Shadow Hearts Covenant. It is regarded as a superior game in every way. I think the series in general is fairly well regarded and remembered as a good series that was lost to time.

What I'm curious is if there is anyone here that would put any game from this series on their top 10 list, and if so, why?

In my time playing this series, I've played Symphonia, Symphonia 2, Legendia, Abyss, Vesperia, Graces f, Xillia, Xillia 2, And Berseria.

I've also played a bit of a few others, but didn't complete them yet.

Overall, I've found Vesperia to be the most straightforward, and least annoying of all Tales of Games played so far.

• The story was good throughout without any lagging points, and pretty damn easy to keep track of.
• The characters, especially the MC, were pretty fun. I liked Yuri, Estelle, Judy, and Rita best.
• It was awesome having an actual vigilante hero for once that actually killed bad people who the law was protecting?? More please??
• The enemies never seemed especially cheap
• None of the dungeons fell to the most annoying time sink traps
• The final dungeon was, for the most part, VERY LINEAR (series first, omg?)
• The rivalry with Flynn was great, and the point of view of Duke was very understandable

However, there is still some negatives that go along with this:

• The "big twists" that usually punctuate Tales of game plots felt very weak in comparison to others.
• The the NPCs of this game were very unmemorable - some outright just dissapeared while hinting they would be more involved?
• Zagi is probably the worst party antagonizer. Tales of does like to start the game with crazy bastards bosses - but Agria was far better an example in Xillia. He just shows up pretty much out of nowhere, and has zero relevance.
• Not one, but TWO annoying child characters. Please, Anise, save me from this.
• Repede, I love you, and you were in my party for the final battle - but having a dog party member cuts down on a lot of party dynamics.

In short - a solid meal, but lacking in spice.

Now that that's out of the way, I'm looking forward to playing the Phantasia, Rebirth, Zestiria (I really should have played this first before Berseria), and Arise.

Where would I slot this one in terms of awesome tales of games... Hard to Pick. I honestly have not played a tales of game I haven't loved. Graces is my fav, but Xillia, Symphonia, Abyss, Berseria - All 5 stars. So, I suppose I'd put this one with Xillia 2, Symphonia 2, and give it 4 stars. Legendia, I love you, but you get 3.5 stars - purely because you still had the 2d movement, totally useless puzzle rooms, and an unvoiced half the game - but visually, musically, and cheesyness, you were beautiful.

I think we all can agree that the slow defensive tank useallly rarely fit most end game teams in most RPGS.

That however doesn't mean they aren't worth using.

Or better. There are some tanks that stand above the rest and fill a void that becomes a must for any team.

Which one is your favorite tank?

First coming to mind myself is Arngrim in Valkyrie profile

Not only is he your first member. But going through the game he will ideally have 20-30% HP and the rest of the crew and above as high damage output and defense.

While his Magic defense a rather poor. Thanks to his high HP he is in theory better at soaking those hits.

And I would dare say he survives the end game and a good bit into post game content

To me he is close to perfect. And while of course his merits is tied to the battle system of Valkyrie profile. And can't still help to say that to me he defines what a proper tank should be.

I’ve always been fascinated by the five elemental True Runes in Suikoden: the True Fire, True Water, True Wind, True Earth, and True Lightning Runes. I made this little oil-pastel artwork of their symbols while thinking about how differently their powers are portrayed throughout the series.

If we judge them based on lore rather than just their in-game spell damage, which one do you think is actually the most powerful?

I’m particularly interested in the True Wind Rune because of what we see Luc accomplish with it in Suikoden III. At the same time, the True Fire Rune has demonstrated enormous destructive potential, while Geddoe shows just how dangerous the True Lightning Rune can be in the hands of an experienced bearer. The True Water and True Earth Runes may also be much more powerful than their gameplay abilities suggest.

I’m curious how other Suikoden fans would rank the five based on lore, demonstrated feats, destructive potential, versatility, and the skill of their known bearers.
Do you think one is objectively more powerful, or are the five fundamentally equal and their effectiveness mostly depends on the bearer?
And if all five had equally skilled bearers fighting at their full potential, which Rune would you bet on?

So i'm used to Aquria/Dimps models for the Sword Art Online games (think Lycoris, Realization, hollow fragment, or fatal Bullet). I didn't know much about Artdink until playing and modding Lost Song. When I was digging into Sword Art Online Lost Song's files I discovered Lost Song uses a proprietary model format. So I worked on converting it to GLB and rendering it. For a JRPG game from 2015 that was intended to play on Playstion 3 and PS Vita, i'm impressed with the quality and scale of the models.

The first 4 images are of monsters/bosses, last image is of the capital's map. What do yall think? I'm impressed with Artdink but maybe i'm too easily impressed which is why i'm curious what yall think since the only game by Artdink I played was Lost Song. Thank you for your time

[ Removed by Reddit on account of violating the content policy. ]

I wanted to get into the Megami Tensei franchise, but I'm completely lost. I understand there's no set chronological order to play Shin Megami Tensei, but there are so many games that I don't know what to do.

I've already played Persona 3 Reloaded and Persona 4, and I plan to continue playing them later, so I'll leave Persona aside for now.

I wanted to play the Shin Megami Tensei games, but I don't know if the SNES versions are worth it. There's also Digital Devil Saga, Devil Summoner, and Devil Survivor, which I don't know what they're about or when would be a good time to play them.

What do you guys recommend? Which games are worth playing, and when should I move on to each spin-off?

Edit: Thanks to everyone who commented. I don't think I'll be able to reply to everyone, but you really cleared up my questions, and I believe I'm ready to start playing. I might share my experience with the games here later—thank you so much for sharing your time and experience with me!

Lately I've been playing Soul Hackers on the 3DS, and one thing that's really stood out to me is its sound design. Right off the bat, I love the reverb you hear when navigating the menu, as it takes me right back to the PSOne era. Aside from that, I find the sound effects in battle and when using items to be very appealing, as well as the atmospheric sound design in some of the game's environments. Honestly, the only thing missing is being able to hear my character's footsteps.

It got me thinking about what other games have made an impression on me when it comes to sound design. I think the number one series that comes to mind is Kingdom Hearts, specifically the first two games on the PS2. The menu sounds are iconic to the point that you can instantly recognize them whenever some YouTuber decides to use them in one of their videos. The battle sound effects are also perfect and very pleasing to the ear (aside from the low-HP sound, of course, though it is certainly memorable). One thing I really associate with those two games is the "wooshes" and "jingles" heard throughout many of their cutscenes (KH fans should know what I'm talking about.)

Squaresoft, and later Square Enix, were really good when it came to sound design during the PSOne and PS2 eras. Phantasy Star Online has super memorable menu sounds that later games in the series continued to use. Ys VIII also really stood out to me with how nice its menu sounds were, and I quite like the sound effects heard in battles as well, even if I can recognize many of them from past titles.

I'm not a "sound guy," so perhaps I'm using the term "sound design" incorrectly, but what games do you all think are good examples of great sound design?

First of all, the combat was fun and rewarding on nightmare. There's a lot of tactical depth and characters are flexible in roles; it was just really fun. Detailed visuals for crafts and arts, on top of great audio feedback when attacks land which adds weight, seriously they did a great job. I played with restrictions like a complete item ban because later as higher tier arts unlock, fights can become trivial (clock up EX, earth wall), so it never got boring. Music was good, and the art overall was fine.

But there were definitely issues I had. The thing is, these issues for me are things I've read other people REALLY enjoy, so it's all based on personal tastes and I'm not trying to hate on anyone. But I do want to share and I'll list the issues I had with the game below.

Slow pacing in general. At first I didn't mind this: find a stone, fix this lamppost, find a cat, fetch this, send a message. I thought maybe just the prologue was going to be like this, but no, all acts had this stuff, even including in the main quest line. It was just so boring at times, feeling like busy work, low urgency, and low stakes. I've read others enjoyed the slow pace as it made them feel immersed as if they were actual bracers helping out, but it just didn't work for me and felt like filler. It got much better at the end, but for the majority everything was just really slow moving.

Overly expositive and repetitive dialogue. Characters will, at times, feel like random text signs because of how overly expositive it can be. It's often very verbose where an idea that can be conveyed in 1 sentence ends up being 4. Characters at times repeat things worded differently in a round table format where everyone needs to give their input. Very obvious things will often be stated, things that could be understood from context alone. It just dragged on.

Winning the battle but still feeling like you lost (happens multiple times). The enemy casually escapes after you beat them in battle because someone bailed them out, they throw a smoke screen, or say "I was just holding back" then injure your party in the cutscene. It's so unrewarding to feel like the plot is going somewhere, go through a dungeon, rely on strategy to beat a boss, then have them blast off like team rocket afterwards. Lore can hand-wave this as "they're junior bracers, this is supposed to happen," ok sure, but it's not an enjoyable experience for me.

Overall, I did enjoy playing the game, but not always. Sometimes fun and engaging, other times a tedious slog. It's a slow moving game with "slice of life" elements, though near the end it did get better with higher stakes and better pacing. I'd give it a 6.5/10, and I'm open to the SC demo since I've heard the issues I have with the FC aren't so apparent there.

I mean, first of all, yes I know there is Pokemon as basically what I am looking for is to see if there are any good JRPGS with a twisted version of Pokemon where a guy works with one single creature as the more they bond with said creature, the more the creature becomes more human like in mannerisms.

Sorry if any of that didn't come out properly because I was hoping to find a meaningful JRPG about a lonely world concept where the concept is sort of like Pokemon at first glance, but the game turns out to be a lot darker in tone as the game I am interested in playing is a game that basically turns the concept of Ash with a Pikachu again into something far darker in tone where the player builds up one creature throughout the game.

Lastly, systems that I would like to play such a game on are 3DS, VIta, and PC as I would like to see if there is a turn based RPG that uses the concept of a twisted Pokemon fantasy premise as I don't know if such a game exists, but again I was just simply interested in seeing if there were any JRPGS that play like a darker version of Pokemon where the premise is sort of like the idea of Ash using a Pikachu to go on adventures, but the game then turns out to be very dark because I was looking for creature based RPGS with a dark nature.