Best JRPGs

[No Great Name]

When I went through Vagrant Story, I used 3 weapons I found early in the game exclusively for 2 enemy types each. I played through normally (I dislike grinding) and made sure to switch weapons for the proper enemy type. The amount of damage dealt was never issue and I didn't really use chains all that much.

 

[buru5]

Found it: http://www.gamespite.net/toastywiki/index.php/Games/HowRPGSLostTheirWay

Good read, although I don't think there's much difference in grinding for EXP and grinding for gold. It's essentially exactly the same thing, and because of this the "deepness" that's argued kind of falls flat. Yes, you have to make decisions like "should I go to the inn now? should I upgrade now?" but with enough grinding those decisions are trivial, and Dragon Quest 1 definitely promotes this sort of over-grinding. Not to mention this wasn't a new concept since the idea of gold management existed in RPGs that pre-date DQ1 (Wizardry, for example). I guess what I'm trying to say with that is that JRPGs have never really added anything "new" to the formula.

I would argue that the only thing DQ1 did for RPGs is make them more accessible to the masses (well the Japanese masses, I don't remember DQ1 or even FF1 doing too well in the states) and paving the way for a multitude of clone games that either improved upon the formula significantly or were just more of the same.

Per Wikipedia, the U.S. release was seen as a commercial failure, but when it was bundled with Nintendo Power subscriptions went up by 500,000 or something, so I think it probably did introduce a lot of people to the genre. It was the first RPG I played.

Grinding XP is a little different from grinding gold because there is no XP cost to grinding XP -- in other words, you aren't spending XP while grinding the way you're spending gold. (The possible exception to this might be the odd way leveling worked in Zelda 2.) I agree that you can outgrind any costs, but I can definitely say that I personally was always pushing things and enjoyed the thrill of trying to squeeze as many GP per rest as possible.

Death penalties certainly add a new twist on the grinding mechanic but since gold isn't limited I don't see how it's much different than exp. Some games actually penalize you by taking away EXP on death which effectively makes it the same (FFXI is the only game I've played that does this but I'm sure there are more).

Like you said, it's possible to simply grind more gold even if you use/lose your already existing gold. Since EXP and Gold are both just a number that increase your damage, defense and health (simplified) and there is an unlimited amount of both it's really kind of an arbitrary difference. You end up doing the same thing in the long run either way (grinding). Of course management is more thrilling, and I agree with that, but I feel like it's more of the "illusion" of management in older JRPGs instead of true resource management like you find in other genres (particularly survival games).

 

[MRY]

One dumb thought I've always wondered about -- something that jRPGs kind of do with how XP rewards and XP level thresholds scale, but in an indirect way -- is whether you could have a system where, upon reaching some checkpoint n, you automatically are raised to level L.n, with L.n being the level at which reaching checkpoint n (typically navigating a dungeon and beating its boss) would be easy to do without intelligent tactics/good luck. This would mean that the reward for completing the dungeon would increase the more efficiently you completed it, and decrease the more you grind. You'd never be leveled down at the threshold, so you could always overshoot the mark and start the next segment with a bit of a boost, but it would avoid the scenario where a player who skips grinding during segment n to n+1 will probably need to grind at least a little between n+1 and n+2.

I'm sure there is some reason why this is a bad idea, or perhaps it's already covered by the XP scaling point above, but it seemed kind of neat to me.

 

[CryptRat]

Like you said, it's possible to simply grind more gold even if you use/lose your already existing gold. Since EXP and Gold are both just a number that increase your damage, defense and health (simplified) and there is an unlimited amount of both it's really kind of an arbitrary difference. You end up doing the same thing in the long run either way (grinding). Of course management is more thrilling, and I agree with that, but I feel like it's more of the "illusion" of management in older JRPGs instead of true resource management like you find in other genres (particularly survival games).

No it's not an arbitraty difference nor an illusion. You can grind endlessly instead of playing cleverly but that's a really stupid way to play the game.

Found it: http://www.gamespite.net/toastywiki/index.php/Games/HowRPGSLostTheirWay

Very good article by the way, some of the reasons why (both japanese and western) old RPGs are better than modern ones are there.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Vagrant Story has straight up the worst gameplay of anything with equipment I've ever seen. It's basically Dance Dance Revolution if it only had a single button to press. There is no incentive at all to upgrade equipment

No... no incentive at all. Except, you know, getting the opponents killed much faster, and actually surviving the post-game bosses.

And if your game strategy is to keep chaining up attacks over and over again, I'll be the first to tell you that you play like a retard.

Yeah clearly your method of farming enemies for 20 hours to speed up killing them by 10% until you get to the next tier of enemies 20 minutes later makes FAR more sense.

There's literally nothing in the game you can't kill this way. End boss could one shot me and I dealt zero damage with normal attacks. Only had to block like 2 attacks from him to win the battle anyways. Incredibly retarded mechanics. Upgrading equipment required either like 4 copies of the previous tier or farming incredibly rare drops. You'd have to be a compulsive autist to actually do that shit.

That's rather like saying that it's autistic to get party members in Baldur's Gate because it's possible to solo the game, or to upgrade weapons or collect items in Dark Souls because you can kill every boss with an unupgraded weapon, or to level your character in Fallout because you can savescum all the skill checks you really need. You can do all those things, but it's not a very interesting way to play any of those games. The chain attacks are, to some extent, a crutch mechanic, not unlike using consumables in many games - something you resort to abusing if you've otherwise dug yourself in a hole. Vagrant Story's crafting and weapon upgrading system is there precisely as a way to make fights fast and relatively effortless to get through, and much of the rest is there so you can force your way through if for one reason or another your weapons are inadequate.

The difference is that buying equipment is a painless experience, while upgrading weapons in vagrant story requires spamming attacks on enemies that offer no reward except making you do more damage to other enemies of the same type (while weakening your power vs other types of enemies.) Baldurs Gate doesn't get easier or faster to play if you skip buying gear or recruiting party members. A better comparison would be saying that it's autistic to loot every scrap broken sword in Baldur's Gate to sell for gold (while playing on the easiest difficulty setting to boot)- and it is. Vagrant Story's fights are already relatively effortless to get through, as that speedrun showed. That guy wasn't some kind of combo guru that never missed a timing, he basically got mostly 10-15 hit combos and that was enough to kill the majority of bosses before they could move. The normal enemies he mostly just walked past like they weren't even there. The real crutch in that game are the dummies for crafting your weapons to deal 100 damage a hit, and that shit takes forever and has to be done separately for multiple enemy types. Saying it's enjoyable and a good system is a bad joke.

One dumb thought I've always wondered about -- something that jRPGs kind of do with how XP rewards and XP level thresholds scale, but in an indirect way -- is whether you could have a system where, upon reaching some checkpoint n, you automatically are raised to level L.n, with L.n being the level at which reaching checkpoint n (typically navigating a dungeon and beating its boss) would be easy to do without intelligent tactics/good luck. This would mean that the reward for completing the dungeon would increase the more efficiently you completed it, and decrease the more you grind. You'd never be leveled down at the threshold, so you could always overshoot the mark and start the next segment with a bit of a boost, but it would avoid the scenario where a player who skips grinding during segment n to n+1 will probably need to grind at least a little between n+1 and n+2.

I'm sure there is some reason why this is a bad idea, or perhaps it's already covered by the XP scaling point above, but it seemed kind of neat to me.

That is pretty much how the better games handle things with XP scaling, or alternately, by making the levels mostly window dressing and the equipment be the real game changers. In particular, some games give you massive amounts of xp for killing bosses, which was basically enough to ensure that you could handle whatever came afterward. FF series notably gives zero experience for killing bosses, probably as a nod to the low level challengers that try to beat the game with as weak a party as possible. As a specific example, in Lufia 2, the enemies before the first boss give between 2 and 10 xp a piece, while the boss himself gives 100 xp. Even if you avoided 75% of the combat and only fought the boss at like level 2 or something without the best gear possible, you can still win, and you'll get enough xp to get straight to level 4 or 5 or whatever and handle the next group of enemies without being forced to grind up to avoid dying from a random encounter. As far as I'm concerned the reward for not grinding is not grinding. Grinding isn't meant to be fun, it's meant to be a cost you mitigate by playing well, by discovering secret treasures, exploiting weaknesses, and managing resources.

 

[buru5]

If I understand you correctly... you're saying that after a certain point you would be automatically leveled up and this would deter grinding? It's an interesting idea and maybe that's where the whole "level scaling" thing actually came from.

Final Fantasy 8, for example, had a level scaling system but it was poorly implemented and could be easily abused (don't grind, try to stay at the lowest level possible). This mechanic leads to monsters potentially getting tougher as you level. Oblivion had this problem in abundance. It would be interesting to see an auto-level mechanic or something similar.

Have you played Bravely Defualt? I think it tried to do something different, since you could auto-battle and increase the battle speed to such a point where grinding went by extremely quickly. Seems more like a bandaid to the problem instead of an actual solution but it was interesting nonetheless.

 

[MRY]

If I understand you correctly... you're saying that after a certain point you would be automatically leveled up and this would deter grinding? It's an interesting idea and maybe that's where the whole "level scaling" thing actually came from.

No, the goal is not to "deter grinding." The goal is to reward ~grinding. The two are not necessarily linked. Level scaling makes grinding less rewarding. This doesn't make grinding less rewarding, but rather makes ~grinding more rewarding. I realize the two things can be equated, but they're not -- my approach would leave the traditional jRPG approach of scouring every dungeon, never running from fights, and grinding until you can buy everything at the shop a viable one: it would make everything easy between checkpoints n and n+1. But upon reaching checkpoint n+1, the advantage the grinder has vis-a-vis the ~grinder would evaporate because the ~grinder would be caught up to the grinder. In other words, the player's goal would simply be "Reach checkpoint n, in whatever way you feel is best, and be confident that we won't penalize you if you get there by finding the shortest path and defeating the boss with tactics rather than brute force."

Have you played Bravely Defualt? I think it tried to do something different, since you could auto-battle and increase the battle speed to such a point where grinding went by extremely quickly. Seems more like a bandaid to the problem instead of an actual solution but it was interesting nonetheless.

Yes, this seems like the exact opposite: "You must grind, but grinding is trivial." Mine is, "You needn't grind, but by taking the time to grind you can make obstacles easier."

 

[Karellen]

Yeah clearly your method of farming enemies for 20 hours to speed up killing them by 10% until you get to the next tier of enemies 20 minutes later makes FAR more sense.

There's literally nothing in the game you can't kill this way. End boss could one shot me and I dealt zero damage with normal attacks. Only had to block like 2 attacks from him to win the battle anyways. Incredibly retarded mechanics. Upgrading equipment required either like 4 copies of the previous tier or farming incredibly rare drops. You'd have to be a compulsive autist to actually do that shit.

That's rather like saying that it's autistic to get party members in Baldur's Gate because it's possible to solo the game, or to upgrade weapons or collect items in Dark Souls because you can kill every boss with an unupgraded weapon, or to level your character in Fallout because you can savescum all the skill checks you really need. You can do all those things, but it's not a very interesting way to play any of those games. The chain attacks are, to some extent, a crutch mechanic, not unlike using consumables in many games - something you resort to abusing if you've otherwise dug yourself in a hole. Vagrant Story's crafting and weapon upgrading system is there precisely as a way to make fights fast and relatively effortless to get through, and much of the rest is there so you can force your way through if for one reason or another your weapons are inadequate.

The difference is that buying equipment is a painless experience, while upgrading weapons in vagrant story requires spamming attacks on enemies that offer no reward except making you do more damage to other enemies of the same type (while weakening your power vs other types of enemies.) Baldurs Gate doesn't get easier or faster to play if you skip buying gear or recruiting party members. A better comparison would be saying that it's autistic to loot every scrap broken sword in Baldur's Gate to sell for gold (while playing on the easiest difficulty setting to boot)- and it is. Vagrant Story's fights are already relatively effortless to get through, as that speedrun showed. That guy wasn't some kind of combo guru that never missed a timing, he basically got mostly 10-15 hit combos and that was enough to kill the majority of bosses before they could move. The normal enemies he mostly just walked past like they weren't even there. The real crutch in that game are the dummies for crafting your weapons to deal 100 damage a hit, and that shit takes forever and has to be done separately for multiple enemy types. Saying it's enjoyable and a good system is a bad joke.

The primary game mechanic of Vagrant Story is switching weapons to suit the foe you are fighting, and correspondingly that said weapons evolve to better suit those situations. The notion that you need to deliberately grind for this to happen is simply not correct, unless you consider not running away from every enemy you meet to be grinding, in which case I am happy to agree to disagree, much the same way that I don't think that Fallout 1 is a ten-minute game. Just the equipment you find in the normal game, without any drops at all, allow for plenty of interesting crafting options, and just a few random drops allow for a lot more options. Similarly, the normal growth you get in the game just by fighting enemies with the right weapons while you're exploring is perfectly sufficient to make a very substantial difference in how effective your weapons and, by extension, you are, by which I mean is that your weapons actually do damage instead of dinking 1 HP with each attack against this or that boss.

I should point out that you can indeed grind in Vagrant Story to build things like Damascus Holy Win blades with 100 in all stats. This is broadly equivalent to, say, grinding Deathclaws in Fallout to get to level 21 and get the highest-level perks, that is to say, entirely unnecessary for any normal playthrough. The fact that you don't consider getting Slayer to be worth the effort spent in Fallout (as, indeed, it is not) does not mean that developing your character was entirely pointless. I think it's entirely fair to criticise Vagrant Story's crafting system for being needlessly opaque and complex, but to say that it requires grinding is a misunderstanding.

 

[Sigourn]

You've got no need to grind in FF1 unless you're using a party of nothing but white mages or thieves or something. Any half decent party will always have worthwhile places to explore for useful treasure. At most I might have purposely gotten into 3 or 4 fights that should have been out of my league but could be handled early by solid use of magic to get an early level and open up the next tier of spells before going into a dungeon. You were probably just shit at managing resources. Baldurs Gate has no need to grind because you can just savescum through any encounter and 90% of combat is just having a good piece of armour equipped anyways.

The only jrpgs I recall needing to grind in to progress were Dragon Quest 1 (and only for the final boss) Inindo (pretty much the same) and Seventh Saga (depends on which character you are, some are OP.) Pretty much all others are fine if you do things like use your spells efficiently instead of casting them randomly like a retard, and equip your party properly instead of dumping platemail on the monk and giving the fighter a sledgehammer he can't hit with because the damage number went up. 99% of the time I hear people whine about grinding they have no grasp of the game mechanics.

I'm trying not to think of you as a retard, but when you say shit like

YBaldurs Gate has no need to grind because you can just savescum through any encounter and 90% of combat is just having a good piece of armour equipped anyways.

"Breaking news: savescumming makes games easy"

you live me little to no choice.

Also, color me surprised when I see that your opinion is the diametrical opposite of that of most JRPG fans I've ever read on the Internet: that Final Fantasy is some miracle of difficulty and game design, and Vagrant Story is piss easy and easily abused. Because what I keep reading is that people are unable to make it through the game because of how hard it is.

Granted, I'm not claiming Vagrant Story is the hardest game ever made. It's actually funny how simple it is after playing western RPGs like Gothic. But it's your opinion, against countless of opinions from dedicated JRPG fans, as well as my own, so...

 

[Sigourn]

The primary game mechanic of Vagrant Story is switching weapons to suit the foe you are fighting, and correspondingly that said weapons evolve to better suit those situations. The notion that you need to deliberately grind for this to happen is simply not correct, unless you consider not running away from every enemy you meet to be grinding, in which case I am happy to agree to disagree, much the same way that I don't think that Fallout 1 is a ten-minute game. Just the equipment you find in the normal game, without any drops at all, allow for plenty of interesting crafting options, and just a few random drops allow for a lot more options. Similarly, the normal growth you get in the game just by fighting enemies with the right weapons while you're exploring is perfectly sufficient to make a very substantial difference in how effective your weapons and, by extension, you are, by which I mean is that your weapons actually do damage instead of dinking 1 HP with each attack against this or that boss.

I should point out that you can indeed grind in Vagrant Story to build things like Damascus Holy Win blades with 100 in all stats. This is broadly equivalent to, say, grinding Deathclaws in Fallout to get to level 21 and get the highest-level perks, that is to say, entirely unnecessary for any normal playthrough. The fact that you don't consider getting Slayer to be worth the effort spent in Fallout (as, indeed, it is not) does not mean that developing your character was entirely pointless. I think it's entirely fair to criticise Vagrant Story's crafting system for being needlessly opaque and complex, but to say that it requires grinding is a misunderstanding.

Bravo. This is my exact opinion on VS' combat system.

The game throws grinding out of the fucking window from the get go. If you want to have a more enjoyable time with the game, you will switch your weapons to make battles easier. Sure, I can quicksave my way through King's Field and then laugh at how pathetic the game is, OR I could play the game how it was intended to, and see how as I get stronger by failing and then beating enemies, stronger enemies get progressively easier to deal with.

Lastly, for my good friend Damned Registrations : grinding for Vagrant Story's ultimate weapons was more fun than I ever had playing any other jRPG. I must have got like 40 Holy Wins. Few things felt as exciting as getting a Holy Win in the first 10 minutes of killing Last Crusaders. And the reason it is fun and exciting is because there's no developer telling me "you need to grind these Last Crusaders to progress through the game", it is a personal challenge that I love doing.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Lastly, for my good friend Damned Registrations : grinding for Vagrant Story's ultimate weapons was more fun than I ever had playing any other jRPG. I must have got like 40 Holy Wins. Few things felt as exciting as getting a Holy Win in the first 10 minutes of killing Last Crusaders.

See, this tells me all I need to know about your opinion of the game. That isn't a normal reaction, that's some autistic compulsive shit. Normal people don't like killing the same enemy over and over for a 1 in 80 drop chance on an item they don't need. This would be like if I said I enjoyed farming enemies to hit level 99 in some jrpg, and I did it multiple times because it's just so fun.

 

[Sigourn]

See, this tells me all I need to know about your opinion of the game. That isn't a normal reaction, that's some autistic compulsive shit. Normal people don't like killing the same enemy over and over for a 1 in 80 drop chance on an item they don't need. This would be like if I said I enjoyed farming enemies to hit level 99 in some jrpg, and I did it multiple times because it's just so fun.

Well, normal people don't like chaining enemies over and over again in order to kill them. One is optional content placed there by the devs meant to be accessed by the player. The other is... I don't know what it is. Guess who's the autist.

Here's a hint

Spoiler

Spoiler

kys faggot

 

[buru5]

Lastly, for my good friend Damned Registrations : grinding for Vagrant Story's ultimate weapons was more fun than I ever had playing any other jRPG. I must have got like 40 Holy Wins. Few things felt as exciting as getting a Holy Win in the first 10 minutes of killing Last Crusaders.

See, this tells me all I need to know about your opinion of the game. That isn't a normal reaction, that's some autistic compulsive shit. Normal people don't like killing the same enemy over and over for a 1 in 80 drop chance on an item they don't need. This would be like if I said I enjoyed farming enemies to hit level 99 in some jrpg, and I did it multiple times because it's just so fun.

Do you not play many RPGs or are you just pretending to be retarded or what?

It's like you're shitting all over JRPGs without even realizing it. I can name several JRPGs that feature low drop rates for several items.

 

[Damned Registrations]

See, this tells me all I need to know about your opinion of the game. That isn't a normal reaction, that's some autistic compulsive shit. Normal people don't like killing the same enemy over and over for a 1 in 80 drop chance on an item they don't need. This would be like if I said I enjoyed farming enemies to hit level 99 in some jrpg, and I did it multiple times because it's just so fun.

Well, normal people don't like chaining enemies over and over again in order to kill them. One is optional content placed there by the devs meant to be accessed by the player. The other is... I don't know what it is. Guess who's the autist.

Here's a hint

Spoiler

Spoiler

kys faggot

So it's better to attack 1000 times to kill 500 enemies (and open the menu to swap weapons about 100 times) than to attack 300 times to kill like 30 enemies? Sure thing buddy.

It's like you're shitting all over JRPGs without even realizing it. I can name several JRPGs that feature low drop rates for several items.

Thats cool, I could name dozens, but the people who spend hours (or days...) trying to get those items are insane. It's meant to be a rare event not everyone gets, not a requirement everyone gets after sinking hours into a pointless trivial task. There's a huge difference between finding a hidden cave with a powerful weapon off the beaten path and getting excited, and sitting in a room for 5 hours fighting the same shit so your invincible character can had another fucking inventory slot filled.

 

[Sigourn]

So it's better to attack 1000 times to kill 500 enemies (and open the menu to swap weapons about 100 times) than to attack 300 times to kill like 30 enemies? Sure thing buddy.

You actually save time that way. Of course, assuming you are one of those people that are content with starting chains from 0 damage.

 

[buru5]

Most JRPGs require you to grind for the best equipment if you want to experience and beat any post-game content. So you'd say ANYONE who wants to experience post-game is insane?

Seems like you should be taking your anger out on the shitty developers (mostly japanese rpg devs) who started this entire concept. Send a letter to SquareEnix or something, I don't know. It's not the player's fault that the games are shit. The more you post the more flaws with JRPGs are revealed. Keep going, this is fun.

 

[The Anti-Santa]

I'm currently playing Vagrant Story at the moment.

This is my 3rd attempted play-through of the game since I bought the game on launch day oh so many years ago. First time I gave up at the Dragon in the sanctum as I wasn't getting any damage at all from it and I was shit at chaining. Didn't really understand the weapon mechanics at the time.
Second time, many years later, I got as far as the Snowfly forest but got stuck or lost or both.

This third play-through I approach the battles as mentioned by a few of you above. 3 different weapons of the 3 types (Edged/Piercing/Blunt). Usually pair them as Edged for Humans & Phantoms, Piercing for Beasts & Dragons, and Blunt for Undead & Evil. This works so affinity gained from fighting eg. Beast won't dock points from Dragon affinity. Elemental affinity scan be changed with gems if they're available. There is no need to grind at all and I've been breezing through the game, currently finished the second abandoned mines. I understand there are areas unaccessible for the first play-through so your weapons will improve their affinity anyhow through the NewGame+ (I think) But it all depends on the weapon type more than the enemy affinity it seems.

Chaining is really more for inflicting extra damage bonuses and status effects then for spamming for maximum damage. But your RISK meter increases faster with each chain so fucking up can have serious consequences and vera bulbs are hard to come by in some areas. I f you're inflicting zero damage you're RISK is either too high or you're doing something else wrong. Some enemies are resistant to chains as well and have to be attacked in single blows.

There might actually be far too many variables at play here to make sense and the game doesn't really tell you this clearly unless your read the menus and the manual. (And a F.A.Q.)

But I seem to be enjoying the game more now I know what I'm doing.

 

[Damned Registrations]

1000 attacks take less time to perform than 300 attacks.

 

[Sigourn]

1000 attacks take less time to perform than 300 attacks.

There was a misunderstanding, as I was talking about effectiveness. Hence, attacking 1000 times to kill 500 enemies means you only attack twice per enemy, whereas you would attack ten times per enemy according to your scenario (300 for 30).

Anyways: you seem to play with a mindset of using the same weapon for every enemy. Sure, you can beat the game like that. But if you switch your weapons around, they will level without the need to grind them repeatedly on dummies. Dummy grinding is done because it is the FASTEST way to level up your weapons, but it is only necessary if you want to get the ultimate weapons. Otherwise, yes: switching your weapons around is faster than using the same weapon over and over again.

Of course, a speedrun means you have to minimize how much time you spend on a playthrough. It's only logical that speedruns are done with the bare minimum required when it comes to stats, exp, equipment, and the like. Why are you implying that Vagrant Story is somehow different than other games (not even jRPGs, but GAMES as a whole) is beyond me.

The combo system is useful for inflicting extra damage, but it is a fairly shitty way to play the game, unless you are into the whole "deal 0 damage and work your way up" gameplay.

But I wouldn't expect a SaGa fan to understand that.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Speedrunning other games doesn't involve the bare minimum of xp or equipment though- that would be stupid since it would make the fights take forever. Speedrunning other games involves making a strategy on which equipment and xp is worth getting. VS has no such strategy because none of the equipment or xp matters (to be fair they probably routed out which enemies to fight early on to unlock the attacks you need, but it's pretty trivial.)

Obviously I don't speedrun games by default, but if a game offers me no benefit to doing a thing, I'm going to lose interest in doing the thing pretty fucking quickly. Like, why would I try to get 100% of coins in an old mario game or sell broken swords in baldurs gate? Or searching every tile in FFT to find every single hidden item. It's a waste of time. Just because the developers put it in doesn't make it worthwhile. Sadly that applies to basically every non boss enemy in VS. The benefit of fighting them is zero. You're spending time to save less time then you just spent down the road. It's like taking out a load to repay debt you didn't have until you took out the loan. Same for bothering with armour or opening chests. I mean, if killing some random enemy the first time for no benefit is a good thing, why not just keep respawning and killing it forever? Oh wait, that's exactly what you did to farm some stupid sword.

 

[Hobo Elf]

Most JRPGs require you to grind for the best equipment if you want to experience and beat any post-game content. So you'd say ANYONE who wants to experience post-game is insane?

Seems like you should be taking your anger out on the shitty developers (mostly japanese rpg devs) who started this entire concept. Send a letter to SquareEnix or something, I don't know. It's not the player's fault that the games are shit. The more you post the more flaws with JRPGs are revealed. Keep going, this is fun.

I'm pretty sure the low drop chance of good items was started by Wizardry. Also your understanding of jRPGs seems to be limited to Square Enix only.

 

[buru5]

I'm pretty sure the low drop chance of good items was started by Wizardry. Also your understanding of jRPGs seems to be limited to Square Enix only.

Yeah, I think you're right.

I've played most of the Final Fantasy games, Dragon Quest games (5 and 9 are my favorites), SMT games (Nocturne, SJ, Persona 2-4) and some other Atlus series. Tales is ok but I've never finished one. I've played some more off-beat ones too but listing them off would be a chore.


Most recent I've played is Fantasy Life for 3DS which I actually enjoyed. I replayed Valkyrie Profile on PSP a few months ago, liked that a lot too except for some of the long-winded and overly dramatic cutscenes. The combat was great though. None of these games I haven't had to grind in at one point or other except for Fantasy Life, iirc. I also enjoyed Radiata Stories on PS2 way more than I should have. I'm partial to the Tri-Ace team I guess but never really liked Star Ocean.

I've played a lot of JRPGs in my life so far (probably more than western if I'm being honest). I pick on Square, Enix and combined the most because they did kick off the genre and establish a lot of bullshit tropes. Don't get me wrong, they've also created some good games in their heyday, especially those with job systems. But at this point I'd rather play a role playing game that lets you actually role play how you want, instead of how the developer wants you too. This is where some western RPGs shine and where JRPGs fall flat (most of the time).

 

[Hobo Elf]

I'm pretty sure the low drop chance of good items was started by Wizardry. Also your understanding of jRPGs seems to be limited to Square Enix only.

Yeah, I think you're right.

I've played most of the Final Fantasy games, Dragon Quest games (5 and 9 are my favorites), SMT games (Nocturne, SJ, Persona 2-4) and some other Atlus series. Tales is ok but I've never finished one. I've played some more off-beat ones too but listing them off would be a chore.


Most recent I've played is Fantasy Life for 3DS which I actually enjoyed. I replayed Valkyrie Profile on PSP a few months ago, liked that a lot too except for some of the long-winded and overly dramatic cutscenes. The combat was great though. None of these games I haven't had to grind in at one point or other except for Fantasy Life, iirc. I also enjoyed Radiata Stories on PS2 way more than I should have. I'm partial to the Tri-Ace team I guess but never really liked Star Ocean.

I've played a lot of JRPGs in my life so far (probably more than western if I'm being honest). I pick on Square, Enix and combined the most because they did kick off the genre and establish a lot of bullshit tropes. Don't get me wrong, they've also created some good games in their heyday, especially those with job systems. But at this point I'd rather play a role playing game that lets you actually role play how you want, instead of how the developer wants you too. This is where some western RPGs shine and where JRPGs fall flat (most of the time).

You're right that Square is quite synonymous with jRPGs, especially back in the day. However I think it's important to point out that while they were one of the few companies who did consistently release their games in the west, a lot of their more unusual releases saw very limited or no western releases at all. I guess that's why it's easy to view jRPGs as generic when it was (usually) only the most generic titles got released. And even when something more unique *was* released here, games like Vagrant Story, they remained niche as hell. VS sports Square's name on the box, was released when Square was at the height of its popularity, yet it is pretty obscure even among fans of the genre.

Anyway, back to the matter of grind and loot farming, I think it's quite unfair to say that jRPGs mostly rely on these concepts. The genre is pretty diverse and the Japanese people love to create strange and gimmicky, very gamey, systems. It's not unusual to see powerful stuff hidden behind mini games, for example. To be honest I struggle to think of post-S/NES era jRPGs that are very grindy and force grind upon you. Even games like SMT / Persona or the Atelier games which are usually viewed as grindy as shit aren't necessarily grindy. What I mean is that if you master their systems, they become the opposite of grind, but if you actively avoid learning how to fuse good demons or craft good items (in Atelier's case) then they are quite grindy. Actually, these games kinda punish you for trying to strong arm your way through the game via grinding by making the power creep you gain through normal leveling quite insignificant. (Etrian Odyssey does it as well. It's going to take you a long time to over power a boss via grind, or you can just fix your party composition and then you're good to go.) Of course that doesn't stop Atlus for adding in some mega grindy bonus objectives like Demi Fiend or Satan in the Digital Devil Saga series, but those are there specifically for the most hardcore neet completitionists; to give them a goal for maxing out all their skills and stats. It's more of a courtesy than actual game content in my opinion, and shouldn't bother normal players that they can't tackle these challenges. Anyways, these are just a couple of examples.

 

[Gruncheon]

It's too bad I found Vagrant Story's gameplay so impenetrable back in the day; I'm sure I couldn't stand it now. To be honest, the main character's look was pretty ridiculous, too...

It's a great game, you should give it a go at some stage if you get the chance. It was quite proto-Dark Soulsy. Levelling up was irrelevant and minimal for the most part, what mattered was that you combined the right weapons and armour for the bosses, which is an approach I'd love more games to follow and sort of solves the problem with grinding and skill required of the player levelling off as you get more powerful. It's just a shame that the interface was so clunky and the stats were so complicated. Having played it through 3 or 4 times, I'm still not sure if my DARK 50 weapon is really good against dark or really bad against dark. Still, it was a solid pioneering effort a lot like Final Fantasy Tactics, which should've driven the genre forward a lot more than it did.

The assless chaps were regrettable.

 

[Zetor]

I loved the idea of what Vagrant Story was *trying* to do, but the affinity system (esp having to maintain separate weapons for different enemy types) finally broke me while going through some repetitive forest area... it's probably the only jrpg that I stopped playing because "it's not you, it's me". Great atmosphere, though -- and yea, I was immediately reminded of it when I played Dark Souls 10 years later.