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Instruct me in the way of the cuddly JRPG

laclongquan

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Cozy, cuddly of a jRPG huh?

1. Legends of Mana~ It's cuddly as fuck and slightly lean into the art style of Ni No Kuni than anything~
2. Vakyria Chronicles. Cozy and cuddly is its middle names.
 

Mustawd

Guest
Yuna's summoner costume is much more lewd (Black bra) than the X-2 version. In X-2 she's just being embarrassing to have your parents walk in while you're playing.

Yah that’s a damn lie. Her original outfit was a wholesome young priestess outfit. Basically wife material. X-2 was thot-lite.
 

Jacob

Pronouns: Nick/Her
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Grab the Codex by the pussy
Yuna's summoner costume is much more lewd (Black bra) than the X-2 version. In X-2 she's just being embarrassing to have your parents walk in while you're playing.

Yah that’s a damn lie. Her original outfit was a wholesome young priestess outfit. Basically wife material. X-2 was thot-lite.
kTl1EnD.png

*blows in your ear*
 

Hyperion

Arcane
Joined
Jul 2, 2016
Messages
2,120
Legend in the Heroes: Trails in the Sky (Very slow start, try not to be turned off by this)
Final Fantasy Tactics Advance
Final Fantasy IX
Earthbound
Secret of Mana
Eternal Sonata
Grandia II
I Am Setsuna
Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars
Tales of Symphonia
Chrono Cross
Breath of Fire III
SaGa Frontier II

No Chrono Trigger.

:hmmm:
Thought about it, but don't know if I'd classify it as cozy or childish tbh. Especially not since
Crono fucking dies
Chrono Cross's Carribbean Isles artstyle at least lends itself to the cozy theme the OP is looking. Plus, the story became such a convoluted load of bullshit by the time you hit Chronopolis it didn't matter anymore.
 

Curratum

Guest
Played or at least tried a good portion of those. Thanks for the recommendations!

Legend of Mana is probably closest to what I'm after. I was hoping for something more current but I suppose DQXI and Ni No Kuni are the only ones that fit the bill and came out in the last 5 or so years.
 

Theldaran

Liturgist
Joined
Oct 10, 2015
Messages
1,772
Tales of Berseria, I mean, you can grab it for 12 bucks at Humble Bundle alongside Sniper Elite 4 and Staxel this month, and you can never ever return to paying the monthly fee if you wish.

Zanki Zero releases 2019 and it looks interesting.

FF15 if you can stand popamole, and you can run it, it's comparable to NNK2 but with Japanese singers instead of Ghibli characters.
 

Reinhardt

Arcane
Joined
Sep 4, 2015
Messages
29,771
Actually Atelier is far from children's fairy tale. It's one of the very few mature jrpgs. Series heroines are not murderhobos or edgy kids saving world, they are responsible individuals with clear goals in life, house and thriving buisness owners. They have to work hard to pay bills. They have to deal with retarded customers whose requests are often downright trolling and they do it with smile and without complaints.
If i have to compare Atelier girls to real world it would be hardworking christian bakers forced to work in gay satanist community.
 

L'Montes

Educated
Joined
May 6, 2018
Messages
160
Most of the Tales series qualifies, and at least some portion of it is Steam or PC-available. Lots of implied relationship-interest instead of actual romance, garish colors, goofy items (your healing items are candies, as I understand it), most games have an amusement park, gags, skits, etc. There is usually a more serious villain/plot underlying the action of the plot, but the games themselves are usually pretty light. The "dark elements" tend to be on par with what you'd find in a shonen anime at worst.

Tales of Symphonia has a side element where the whole cast practices/levels up their cooking skills on various dishes. There are character titles for things like greeting all the pets in all the villages, hitting on every girl, or stubbornly using the starting wooden sword for a really long time. Most of the games have alt-costumes including Namco mascot outfits, accessories, etc. Most of the games have gag weapons, like over-sized hammers that make squeaky noises. Symphonia, Abyss, and Vesperia are probably the better-regarded entries, more generally speaking. Of the ones I've played, only Zestiria and Legendia became real chores to complete, the sequel/spinoff to Tales of Symphonia was also "not great" though (imho).

I thought about this for a bit actually, but most of the more modern JRPGs like ladle in a bit of grim-dark to cut up their anime elements. So, it's like Xenogears where you might have references to experimentation and cannibalism, but also a pink fluff-ball that speaks like a pokemon. There's a bit of the grim in Tales too, but I think it's on-balance *mostly* on the lighter side (maybe Berseria is less-so). It depends on your threshold for the mixing of tone in JRPG/anime sorts of material. If you don't mind a bit of that shonen-anime sort of mix, then stuff like Xenoblade Chronicles (which looks much better running in Dolphin on PC anyway) would probably work too.
 
Self-Ejected

aweigh

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jungl

Augur
Joined
Mar 30, 2016
Messages
1,427
steambot chronicles. Not a rpg in the traditional sense with numbers n shit. It has more C&C then most jrpgs.
 

HoboForEternity

sunset tequila
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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Trails in the sky series, followed by trails of cold steel series.

To sum up the best i can trails series is an expansive story about the continent zemuria, its people, and events happening around it.

Each respective arc (which represented by one series) covers the event of one particular country, with new protagonist and team, with sometimes characters occurin multiple times across series.there are 3 arc with 2 completed and 1 ongoing.
The first arc, teh sky series is available all on steam. It covers and kickstart the whole overarching story of the series by covering a small buffer country called liberl and a guild of some kind of freelance police called bracers.

The second arc isnt available in english now and probably will never see official release, but fan translation is ongoing very strong ( 75% complete) plus tweaks so it run with 60 fps + high res on PC.

The third arc tells the story of a military superpower erebonia and its politics. Thereare 4 games in which 2 of them are avaiable in english on steam and ps3/vita

Each arc covers a different country and lots of them are self contained with the most recent arc (trails of cold steel 3 and 4) being an "avengers" kind of deal that require knowledge of the previous series.

The story basically is about an ancient mystery of old, collapsed civilization and how it affect the developing current civilization of zemuria which just achieved its industrial age.

The main appeal of the series is its story that is absolutely one of the best if not the best written jrpg series ever. From extensive worldbuilding from mundane aspect of the world like government structure, economies, human conflict to the more fantastical aspect like ancient artifacts with immeasurable power all tie up neatly and made such a massive breadth of believeable yet fantastic setting.

There are alot of factions involved with their own group agenda, individual clashing agendaz and ideals inside factions, from religious institutions to political parties and secret societies all are fleshed out in such natural way.

99% of characters in the series are named, developed and have their story and personality often told trough optional dialogues by speaking trough them. From the item store clerk to a major character in the main story undergo personal develpment in a way, gets affected by events in the main story and form their opinions about rhe world and events happening around them.

The npcs arent just encyclopedia for players hints and occasional little worldbuilding tidbits and trivia like in most jrpg or even crpg. Because of their well written dialogues, you feel they are just people, living in that world, surviving, as a part of its world.

This is the game that makes you care about random store clerk, invested even in their lifes as they go trough life. No game series has ever made me feel bad for weapon store owner because of provincial army raising their taxes to fund a rebellion army to throw central government in a nationwide conspiracy by old noble faction trying to hold on their influence as the commoners starting to rise in power and influence by the economic opportunity brought by industrial revolution and increasingly diverse govermental positions that has started to be filled by commoners.


Tl;dr: play trails series you wont regret it.
 

HoboForEternity

sunset tequila
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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Oh yea, while what i described feels like totally serious grimdark heavy political stories, trails is pretty cozy, with lovable characters and their friendship, especially the first game in each arc are usually filled with low level, low to medium level conflict that serve as an introduction to the characters and the setting.

Trails in thr sky 1 for example is cute roadtrip / training story about 2 young bracers trainee in their test becoming adults. You visit places, solve its problem while the low level, contained conflict plants a seed snd foreshadow of the big conflcit that happened in later games or arc.
 

L'Montes

Educated
Joined
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Messages
160
Oh yea, while what i described feels like totally serious grimdark heavy political stories, trails is pretty cozy, with lovable characters and their friendship, especially the first game in each arc are usually filled with low level, low to medium level conflict that serve as an introduction to the characters and the setting.

Trails in thr sky 1 for example is cute roadtrip / training story about 2 young bracers trainee in their test becoming adults. You visit places, solve its problem while the low level, contained conflict plants a seed snd foreshadow of the big conflcit that happened in later games or arc.

Trails series is pretty well-regarded, the only caveat I'd have on that point is that they can start a bit slow. Trails 1 is a bit infamous for this I think. It takes awhile to really get "interesting".... like, hours imho.
 

HoboForEternity

sunset tequila
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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Yea. The barrier of entry is the slow beginning because they arent fucking around in how much they want you to familiarize yourself in tje world.

But if you are looking for soft warm cuddly rpgs the intros might be your favorite part instead of the grimdark events happened in the later games
 

HoboForEternity

sunset tequila
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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Also what i loved about traisl series is how well they handle power scaling. It is similar to hunter x hunter in regards how its protagonist grow at belieable rate.

In trails 1 by the beginning we are introduced a character that acts a sort of power ceiling in the series. The main characters are dust by comparison because they are teenagers just starting out.

By the end of the sky series over 3 games, tje main characters are at most A or B class, which are better than your average fighters, but still outclassed by truly beastly array of characters that can end their life in an instant if they want to.

The conflict even the fantastical part still have alot of restraints that there are not (yet so far) a character so powerful that cN blow up a planet or those ridiculous power scales in anime shit.
 

jungl

Augur
Joined
Mar 30, 2016
Messages
1,427
Digimon world. In fact managing your digimon shits is more interesting then the trails games. You can even get a digimon that eats shit and throws it up at other digimon as a attack in battle. You can go to any watch anime website and a watch bad anime that got cancelled that has a better plot then trails games.

https://youtu.be/ONJ9m27dZ-I
 

Raghar

Arcane
Vatnik
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Jul 16, 2009
Messages
22,710
Is this that thread where everyone recommends every Japan made RPG?
 

Abu Antar

Turn-based Poster
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Enjoy the Revolution! Another revolution around the sun that is. Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Cozy and cuddly? First Ni No Kuni. Drippy is my flippin' bro, mun.
azkVPLe.gif

Secret of Mana and Seiken Densetsu 3.

Costume Quest games are cozy and cuddly.

Dwarf run is a fun game.

Final Fantasy IX and older Dragon Quest games.

The first Grandia fits the bill.
 

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