Do JRPG's do anything well?

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Well, he lacks the lipstick and the bondage-daddy looking vest

Well, the first time i played vagrant story i was pretty surprised they gave the obviously gay creative director complete freedom, but i rolled with it. What broke the suspension was the other, clothed people. Clothed like medieval nobility of Europe, that in turn lead me to use my brain (dangerous activity that in a game) and notice that yes, this wasn't supposed to be a generic kingdom setting 147, or if it was, it was clearly inspired on France or somewhere there in the middle.

So why were there were assless chaps and chemises de nuit coexisting in that setting?
Even worse, I seem to recall some religion somewhere. I don't recall exactly.

It's CREATIVITE!!!

I guess i'm nitpicking. If i accepted the assless chap, and the generic medieval kingdom, i should be able to reconcile that with a stronger ideification of the ideal generic kingdom with the original Charlesmagne.
But i couldn't - as soon as i made that strong association, the setting seemed kinda ridiculous.

Probably for the same reason people in Arcanum still bother with heavy armor even though generic bank robbers can get guns

Ah! Let go of my leg!

No i mean if the society is so relaxed it their bodies (not the women sigh - i can't recall the last time i saw a setting where it was perfectly normal for women to walk with the breasts out, though it's normal now in some place on earth - oh wait, albion... hummm celtic tales ... and King of the dragon pass ? ), why would you use a chemise de nuit or pajamas ? It can't be too cold. Imagine the sequence. You get up, take off your pajamas, and put on your assless chaps.

But now that i recall some more i think i know. The character in the chemise was a kid. But i seem to recall some other person in a cutscene.
Well passing to other nitpicks. The religion - is represented by a big ol' christian cross. The religious organization are called Inquisitors (i went to the wiki). There was a cardinal (no prizes for guessing one of the villains - i can't even recall anything substantial, and i know this). Well using Christianity and expecting relaxation with the body is unnatural, to say the least.

I could actually kinda see that working, in an alternate history what-if sense. It would require thoughtful treatment and good writing, though, which jRPGs aren't really known for. Pity.

99% of video game settings and stories hardly make any sense when you start thinking about it.

Eh depends on the setting, tabletop wise, you've got things like Cthulhutech(Setting is awesome, gameplay and devs, not so much,) Where society is said to have evolved to the point of sex parties and orgies becoming a normal way to MEET someone. It's common to see a chick walk up completely nude and start sucking a guy off in a club. And the age most people(I wanna say they said something like 60%) end up pregnant is 12. And nWoD, where white wolf, particularly for the VtR series, seems to have implemented a 1 exposed rack per 100 pages. Staying with whitewolf for a moment, you also have the scion universe(once again interesting setting, but shitty mechanics.) where god's are said to masquerade as porn stars and have masses of promiscuous secksy secks, resulting in your siring. There's also the Titans of the Earth proto-titan, if you've read the books, nuff said.. There's probably allot more than that.

One of my colleagues gave me a Playstation 2, and a number of assorted games that he isn't interested in anymore.

After going through them, I have spotted a few JRPG's.

Lucifers Call.
Shin Megami Tensei Digital Devil Saga 1 and 2
" " Persona 3.

The characters on the front and back of the cases look like something walking into a Soho nightclub. When I get the chance, I will try them out and evaluate them.

This is basicaly Nocturne's first special edition, with an extra optional dungeon that's pretty massive, an extra ending you can only access if you clear that bonus dungeon, what someone in the Codex already described as the most gratituous crossover ever, and a bunch of really hardcore new bosses related to the new dungeon.

Those use the same combat system than Nocturne but party mechanics closer to the old Persona games. They are also a single game with a single narrative, divided into two parts. I believe Nocturne to be the best game, so play that one first. If you like the gameplay, then move to DDS. The setting, though, is more focused and serious-business on DDS, where Nocturne has all the classical Megami Tensei weirdness.

You crawl a truly huge dungeon each night. Then you go back to the real world and your life as a normal student and play a mixture of Dating Sim and Visual Novel on school and with your character's friends. Then you go back to keep crawling the huge dungeon, etc. Of those you mentioned is the more, say, weaboo. Also, it gets really Emo on the last third or so, and you also will be hoping most of the characters die horrible deaths. Problem is, those same characters you have to visit a lot and talk to them a lot, etc, to activate their social links and obtain new personas and powers.

Leave it for last.

Cheers, I will give Lucifers a shot and see how we go from there.

BA if you stick with it let us know how it is. I've been thinking about giving JRPGs a try (past FF7) and I would like to hear your thoughts.

I will give it a shot when time permits. Not sure about the last game in the list. Black Cats description does not sound overly promising for that one.

After a quick scan through the Lucifers Call manual, it seems a bit like a puzzle system for battles. Use this Demon for this, and ingest this magical property to negate X effect and so on.

Fucking avoid Persona 3. The dungeon is like a Roguelike dungeon that someone's gone through and methodically and surgically removed absolutely every interesting aspect, and the day elements are even gayer than you'd expect. It's literally a dating sim with ridiculous grimdark overtones, a bad dungeon minigame and simplified combat.

Nocturne's good, though.

Persona 4 actually did this allot better. I disliked Persona 3, by a large amount, but liked Persona 4. Still the persona series has always been, eh, "High School" if that's the proper way of saying it.

Persona 3, grimed-fark day time, Persona 4, less grim dark, more slice of life.

Yes, thats how you should look at it.

Pretty much. Your relationship with bosses will probably be like this: bump into a boss -> die horrible while taking notes of what it was exactly that killed you -> fuse/recruit a party designed specifically to counter what killed you -> steamroll the bastard with a huge grin on your face. You can use guides (or read my amazingly cool LP) to learn what's coming in advance, but it will kill all the fun.

Also, when going into new territories or fighting bosses first time it might be a good idea to have maybe a slightly weeker party but with various types of attack so you could quickly find out what certain demons are afraid of and shit.

That's what Analyze is for.

I don`t remember Lucifer/Nocturne well, but did it allow to analyze demons without fighting them few times?

It did. Although unlike Persona 3 and 4, Analyze was a spell that you had to cast.

Meh, it got all messed up in my head, probably Strange Journey`s fault.

Sounds like deep tactical combat.

Beats 95% of western tactical combats, sadly.