Playing too many JPRGs

I am playing a variety of JRPGs at the same time on different devices so I decided to talk a bit about how I'm doing on all of them.

Somehow this website has kind of turned into a gaming blog, but I’m here for it, I guess it can’t be helped so I may as well talk about some thoughts about games and all of that stuff.

So, JRPGs, I love them, they spark joy, so I play too many of them, especially right now, therefore, this post, where I talk about every single JRPG I have been playing this year—some of them across multiple years because I just procrastinate like that.

I think I could organize this in a variety of ways, like, chronological order, last played order, maybe time played, but—for no real reason to be honest—I will split the games I’m playing according to the platform I’m playing them on.

I have multiple things on queue that are outside the JRPG genre, such as Hollow Knight or Hades, but alas, I can’t write about everything.

On Nintendo Switch

There’s a lot of JRPGs on Switch, and I have a lot that I haven’t even started yet, like Xenoblade Chronicles 1 and 3—I don’t know why I don’t have 2—Live a Live or Pokemon Legends Arceus, but right now I’ve managed to stay focused on only two of them.

the epitome of turn based rpgs?

On the Switch, the clear focus right now is Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age, I have zero complaints about this game, everything it has done so far, it has done it really well, the Brittish dub acting is charming and adds lots of personality to the characters and a certain campiness that doesn’t detract from the serious moments of the game.

On the surface, it is the typical adventure of the chosen Hero with a destiny to fulfill, but it subverts expectations while keeping inline with them in the most elegant of ways, I don’t know how but it’s really like living a fairy tale. I can tell it will be a long one, but despite it all, I really want to see it all the way through. The game has managed to surpass all my expectations and somehow be like “of course that’s what was bound to happen next.”

Last time I played it was a boss fight that I wasn’t prepared for at all, I was in some caves under a city and I skipped over most of the enemy encounters because I was pressured by some friends to play something else. I didn’t want to exit the game since I was a bit far from a save point, so I tried to rush it and paid the consequences. I want to return to it soon, I just have played other things.

the not so perfect tactics one.

The second game that made a surprising comeback for me was Triangle Strategy, this one is a Tactics RPG that I started ages ago after a friend lent it to me.

I remember playing like 9 hours of it in a single session. However, it was really heavy on the story side of things, and I kind of expected to have more battles more often. I returned to it last week, played like 3 hours and went through dozens of cutscenes because why not.

I only played a couple of battles since then. However I have to admit that some of the new characters have managed to add some really nice variety to the gameplay and strategy, and I am excited for more fights to come.

What is stopping me right now from continuing the game is that each battles has a “Recommended Level” to play it as, and I am behind by 2 whole levels on most of my party. This is a game where you just go from battle to battle and there shouldn’t be that much of a focus on grinding. The game has mock battles that you can repeat to level up, but I can’t help but question why is it needed at all, and so convoluted to access too?

On my Anbernic SP

The games I play on my Anbernig RG35XX SP are of from the GBA, SNES and even PS1 era, there’s also a modern game with a retro style that runs of Python. This little handheld has managed to give me an awesome gaming experience for multiple systems! And very varied games within the spectrum of JRPGs.

tactics that just work

The SP has been pretty much relegated to Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade as of late. It’s a game I can play for a long while without worrying too much about losing the thread of the plot, and thanks to the form factor I can open the SP, play a couple of turns and then close it up to do something else.

The gameplay of Fire Emblem is simpler than Triangle’s, but the scale of the battles and the variety of the enemies is quite huge. The game is a strong showcase of why Fire Emblem has become such a defining name in the genre. The pixel art animations are a pleasure to witness everytime, especially those critial hits, they are so satisfying!

I was a bit stuck on chapter 26x, that introduced a status effect I didn’t know how to counter, but after changing some equipment I had no problems to beat it!

My biggest problem is usually choosing who to fight with and setting up all of the equipment for each character. I will sometimes forget to give them healing items and end up restarting a battle because of it. Also shops can only be accessed during actual battles in towns in the map. Despite the annoyance, I think it’s quite an interesting mechanic, and I’ve managed to make progress, so I’m fine with it, but the last few battles have been in areas without shops around, not great but manageable.

masterpieces of the genre

The game I have failed to make any advances on is of course Final Fantasy VI. At some point I started following a guide to get a character to join my party, and I read a couple of extra things and realized I could unlock some equipment, find some chests and that kind of stuff. I also realized there was this character who can unlock certain attacks by going to certain places, and my completionist side got the better of me and I ended up with decision paralysis.

At this point I think I will just not use that character and focus on my more traditional party instead. Like, I had already played the part where I’m at years ago, I should know what works and what to do next, but I keep worrying about missing out on this! I need to just keep playing and stop this madness.

Another game that is pretty much dead right now is Final Fantasy VII—It really is the most abandoned one. I was having a a really nice run, months ago, where I got to Rocket Town and saw lots of story bits that I enjoyed, then I had to escape, and now I am once again in the overworld with no idea of where to go. I tried a certain route where I was handicapped in a pretty negative way, I reloaded a save file and went a different direction, except that I don’t know what direction was that and I have been a little confused. Decision paralysis fell upon me yet again.

that one indie dungeon crawler

One last, slightly unexpected surprise to add here was Dungeon Antiqua. This is a game I acquired on Steam for a super cheap price, and I saw recommended as an introduction ino the Dungeon Crawler genre, merging Wizardry and Final Fantasy, featuring that classic 8-bit style and gameplay. Still, it’s filled with QOL features like auto-save after every battle and the like, but still being somewhat challenging and interesting to play.

I love how simple it is, I just go down a dungeon, find treasures and fight until I can’t anymore, maybe level up a couple times, go back, heal, revive dead party members, buy better equipment, go down again and keep on exploring!

It’s a super simple gameplay loop but the only reason I haven’t played more of it is because I have chosen Fire Emblem more often than it. Since it’s a python game for PC, shutdown and resume is not available like on emulated games, so I have to boot up the game everytime, it’s super fast, but it’s enough friction for me to not choose it first.

On my PSP

My PSP has seen a lot of action lately thanks to it being the focus right now in my favorite podcast Into The Aether, I keep discovering gem after gem, especially on the JRPG side of things. I had already played masterpieces like Ys Seven and Jeanne D’Arc, but there are many more!

the ideal action rpg

One of my favorites of the year so far is Ys: The Oath in Felghana, the Ys franchise in general won my respect with Ys Seven a couple years back, and playing this entry, a remake of the 3rd Ys game, has been a complete joy. The game simply does everything right, it is an action RPG with simple sword combat and magic attacks, with a moveset that borrows some elements from the Metroidvania genre, but with a simpler progression where it’s hard to get lost.

It has all of the quality of life features one might need, like teleports to save points, loading saves, lowering boss battle difficulty and a decent journal function to know what you were doing last time and where to go next. I can hardly find any flaws with it.

Maybe the biggest annoyance right now, is the slight amount of grinding that might be needed to beat a boss fight. You can of course change the difficulty, but if you do it much then the regular enemies will become too strong later on, and changing the overall difficulty of the game is not an option, so that’s a bit annoying.

This is actually the reason I’m having a slightly hard time right now, I am in the final dungeon and the enemies deal and absorb a ton of damage, but it really is not a big deal, there’s plenty of areas to farm a bit and level up, and money to be made to upgrade the equipment I got! I’ll beat it eventually.

the beginnings of a legend

The second JRPG I’m playing on PSP is another all-timer, The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky is a game I returned to last week and that has been a complete joy to play for the most part, I love that all enemies are visible in the map so I can avoid conflicts by being careful on where I move, the story is great and all the characters are fantastic and fun, the quest system is pretty good too and saving and loading can be done at any point during gameplay, which is amazing.

The only thing I’m having some problems with is the same as FFVI’s, I decided to look up stuff on the web, realized I missed some things and kinda want to go back and do it all. Everything was going so well but I had to disrupt my flow like that… I will eventually move on and keep playing, it’s still super fun after all.

the unknown one that’s actually great?

Finally, out of nowhere as mentioned in my last week notes, I started Brave Story: New Traveler, it got a small shout out in one episode of Into The Aether and I couldn’t help myself, I installed it and played like 1 hour and a half that day. It uses a traditional turn based combat system but it does a couple neat things like team combo attacks and hitting twice in a single turn, those two additions have proven to be pretty fun to pull off and I am also liking the story and writing, it’s kinda charming and a bit campy, but it’s fun.

The animations are quite awesome too, that’s something I like about PSP games in general, they have a certain look to them that I have started to appreciate more even now that I have a Nintendo Switch to compare it to.

Other games I’ll probably just start from scratch

Pokemon Unbound is fun, but has proven to be a bit too much for what I want, I plan to instead play Pokemon Emerald Legacy, probably once I’m done with Blazing Blade.

Every other PS1 JRPG I’ve played, like Parasite Eve or Xenogears or anything I haven’t mentioned here, I’ll probably start over, I either forgot the story, lost the save file or don’t mind restarting and making better choices on them! The only one I feel conflicted about is Suikoden II, since I played quite a bit of it, but the remakes coming soon will probably get me to starting over anyway.

So, that’s about it I guess, lots of games I tell you, will I finish at least one of them this year? Yeah, probably Ys and one other, who knows at this point!

This is day 24 of #100DaysToOffload.

https://fosstodon.org/@joel/114091161797517017

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