Topic: General JRPG Thread

I love the JRPG genre, but I've grown to really dislike how many of them feel the need to be massive. Like with a Xenoblade or a Persona once in a while, ok, but when every other game in the genre seems to take forever, its hard to justify playing a lot of them, even though I want to. I've thought about this especially since I beat Mother 3 again, making it arguably the first JRPG I've ever beaten a 2nd time (depending on how you look at hidden secret endings and remakes at least). I don't have time for them. It makes me wish more of them would look at the 15-20 hour games in the genre like Mario RPGs or your average SNES JRPG. It says something that all the JRPGs I've wanted to buy on Switch for years might be put to the side, again, for me to buy Live a Live (and maybe Chrono Cross too).

Started up Ys: Memories of Celceta the other day. Action is just as slick & fun as the other Ys games I've played. Recently arrived at the riverside village.

Oh, you should like that one, @RR529 .... Please do keep me updated on it

I was a bit disappointed that Tales of Arise was so short when it came out like 4-5 years after Berseria.
They had many years of development time.

@TommyTendo Eh, it’s pretty high quality though.

@VoidofLight Yeah, that's true. But I wanted to play it longer lol
I think I spent about 40 hours.

Arise didn't seem so short to me. Granted, I haven't compared my play time with other games in the series yet, but it didn't feel any particularly shorter.

We counting 40 hours as a short game these days? You guys have too much free time, lol!

@RR529 Might be because I played 4-8 hours every day, so I feel like I beat it very fast.
I used a lot more time on previous entries since me and my friend played them together, and we only got to play every other weekend-ish. But Berseria was about 15 hours longer still.

@CactusMan, as for more major optional content, I know it has three optional bosses (you can fight before the final boss), a bunch of owls to find throughout the game world, a series of little dungeons you can take on in post game (I think the insinuation is that you're visiting other Tales worlds, though the only cameo boss fights are against Zestiria & Berseria characters), and a bunch of arena challenges. Then you have the usual standard side quests as well.

Thinking more about it there are:

• 4 "Elemental" type bosses. One you fight during the story, but the other three are optional.
• 20 other optional bosses (souped up versions of previous bosses or large regular enemies). Can't remember what they're specifically called, but most of them wander the environment & you have to avoid them until you're strong enough for them. A few don't show up until you activate a specific side quest though.
• The previously mentioned cameo boss fights (post game).
• All the arena fights/challenges.

EDIT: looking it up there are at least 2 more optional bosses (one of which being the level 100 superboss) that I wasn't even aware of. This is even before getting to the DLC, which offers Sword Art Online boss fights & such.

Just played the 3 hour timed Octopath Traveler demo. I'm...mixed about it TBH. The art style is pretty decent, as is the music. Combat is fun once everything gets going, and path actions thrown into the mix are pretty interesting too. Thing is...It's not really grabbing me. I started with Cyrus, recruited Tressa, and just started on Ophilia's prologue when my time ended. Tressa's story was mildly interesting overall, but for the most part the storytelling is ho-hum and meh. So far, I feel like I'm playing a slightly watered down, albeit more beautiful version of the 3DS Bravely games (Haven't played BD II on Switch yet). I want to like the game, and I don't dislike it, but...I'm on the fence and am not sure if I want to take the plunge for the full package.

The only thing I ever disliked about the game was the fact that you had to grind a lot, but that seems to be a huge trait of that team's games. Bravely Default II was mostly grinding as well.

Well, if that's how you feel after the demo, @Tyranexx .... I'd recommend not getting the full game! Perhaps try the Triangle Strategy demo instead? I liked OT but it's a good 100 hours of game, so you'd want to be fully sold on it

The Bravely series does have some grinding, but it was modernized with the encounter slider to the point where it rarely felt like a chore to me. At least in the 3DS entries. I don't mind some grinding in JRPGs, but I do draw the line when it becomes excessive and/or unfun.

@BruceCM I read somewhere on Reddit that OT's demo is a very good showcase of what the player will do for those 80-100 hours. I think it isn't so much that I dislike it, it just didn't quite grab me enough to make me wanna invest more time.

Triangle Strategy is still a maybe. I do want to try the demo, but I'll wait until near a time I could sink 50ish hours into a game like that if I do end up liking it.

Having a quick go through Chrono Trigger on Steam.... Should be done in time for Chrono Cross Remastered

So, KH4 is a thing now. I've played KHIII & I don't really know how Sora got to the "real world", if that's indeed where he is (granted, I think they locked the real ending behind the paid DLC, which I never bought. IIRC base KHIII ends with Sora going through the "darkness doors/paths" in order to look for Kairi, so they're both missing currently.).

EDIT: If he is indeed in the real world I hope they go completely meta with it & he goes to Tokyo Disneyland and learns that him & all his pals exist only as fictional characters here. Can't be any worse than the story already is, lol.

Well, they didn't show much, anyway, @RR529 Sora just disappears .... So, they'd have to cover how he gets into the 'real world' in IV! I usually find it best not trying to make much sense out of the story in KH, though

Just read an article over on Eurogamer that speculated that the KH4 trailer may have accidentally leaked a Star Wars world.

Apparently during the portion of the trailer that shows off a forest area, you can briefly see something mechanical in the upper right portion of the screen which people think they've identified as the foot of an AT-ST (meaning it might be Endor). Take with a massive pinch of salt of course.

Hmm, well, that would make sense, so it's certainly plausible, @RR529 ....

Big JRPG fan, playing through Dark Cloud 2.