what are your favorites? what should I play next? what games am I missing on the backlog? thoughts appreciated, this era/genre is my comfy zone.played:>ffvii/viii/ix/tactics>suikoden 1/2>legend of dragoon>tales of eternia>star ocean 2>parasite eve>vagrant story>breath of fire iv>dragon quest vii>chrono cross>threads of fatebacklog:>azure dreams>bomberman wars>brave fencer musashi>breath of fire iii>brave prove>ecsaform>front mission 2/3>guardians crusade>jade cocoon>koudelka>legend of legaia>legend of mana>linda cubed>lunar 1/2>grandia (saturn version)>moon>parasite eve 2>persona 1/2>popolocrois monogotari>racing lagoon>saga frontier 1/2>tales of destiny 1/2>tales of phantasia remake>thousand arms>valkyrie profile>vandal hearts>wild arms 1/2>xenogears
>>12081676Koudelka is short and fairly unique
>>12081676I think I want to replay Breath of Fire 4
dont fall for the valkyrie profile and xenogears hype. pure style, zero substance, and xenogears is literally half finished. not totally unworth playing but theres much better games on the log. Id go for grandia, breath of fire III or PE2 next (its not much of an rpg sadly but a lot of fun)
>>12081716I really really tried to like this because the sprites and music are so good but god damn does the story and battle system go absolutely nowhere in the 25 hours I sank into it before giving up.
the style of some ps1 games are just too comfy. like digimon world and harvest moon.
>>12081907I need upscaling now to preserve the comfy feel. Im sure they looked better on my crt back in the day but nowadays emulating hoo boy native res is rough.
>>12081676Beyond the Beyond
>>12081676>wild arms 1/2Wild Arms 1 is probably the best JRPG that I'd never recommend to anyone. Despite the obvious western/cowboy theme, it still ends up feeling like generic fantasy more often than not, and being stuck with the same three party members for the whole damn game is a real drag. It also drops the ball on some emotional beats and ultimately goes on for too long, but it did just enough things right that I remember it fondly.The end of the prologue where the heroes watch the endless parade of caskets go by is quite possibly one of the most motivating intro sequences I've ever seen. And the music is GOAT:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djS-1t-dUA4
>>12082249>the music is GOATI should stress that overall, most of the music is fairly meh. But there are a few songs that are legitimately among my favorite JRPG OSTs of all time.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDEUduW9hPAAlso the ability to customize spell names was fun.
>>12081676Barely anyone remembers Guardian's Crusade but it is a comfy RPGIt's obviously not some 10/10 game (otherwise it'd be way more popular) but the aesthetics are comfy.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmnTjIBbBSs
>>12082249>>12082254I still remember the Gamefan review that claimed this would have been JRPG of the year if not for FF7, and if that's true it doesn't really say much about the state of JRPGs before FF7, lol.
I really enjoy the first SaGa Frontier. Many different starting characters with their own stories and final bosses, and four different races that develop differently. Some scenarios are easier to know where to go next, others just dump you in and allow you to explore the worlds at your own leisure. SaGa is a polarizing series, but it's very worth trying out because when it clicks, it clicks.
>>12082249>and being stuck with the same three party members for the whole damn game is a real dragI disagree, especially when more than half of mainline WA titles have "fixed" party for the entire game (1, 3 and 4) - I tend to hate JRPGs that throw way too many party members at me because I end up neglecting most of them for the rest of my playthrough (especially when the game does nothing to make me use other party members, which is why JRPGs like FFVIII and FFXII are some of the easiest examples for this issue).Only 2, 5 and remake of 1 were "6 party members but you can only use 3 at a time" (2 does force you to use all of them in order to beat final and optional bosses, 5 does it okay with new HEX system (especially compared to 4 that is just Raquel2Win) and remake of 1 is just ehhhh because most of new party members are added way too late into the game and they're mostly for optional content aka fucking redesigned Abyss that is one of the worst postgame dungeons in JRPGs, on par with Tactics Ogre's Palace of the Dead)>It also drops the ball on some emotional beatsI'd say the main issue here is silent protagonist aka Rudy. Cecilia and Jack are fine so they have to carry Rudy's weight in the plot (especially during Disc 2).>>12082254>I should stress that overall, most of the music is fairly meh.Once again, i disagree. Maybe if you were talking about later games (WA 3-5) I'd agree but both WA1 and WA2 have fantastic soundtracks, way better than some overrated JRPG soundtracks that mostly consist of okay-ish tracks and few god tier ones (looking at you, Secret of Mana). Like, there are so many tracks from both games I enjoy listening to that it might be easier to find few average tracks I don't really care about.
>>12082340>I tend to hate JRPGs that throw way too many party members at me because I end up neglecting most of them for the rest of my playthrough (especially when the game does nothing to make me use other party membersWell I think that's kind of the point. The extra characters are there for people who want to use them, but not forced onto you for people who'd prefer to stick with their favorites. I just found Rudy, Jack, and Cecilia's movesets to be incredibly linear and stale by the end of the game, and judging by the fact that they added more characters to the remake, I'm certain I wasn't the only one. I've played plenty of other JRPGs with more quantity AND quality in terms of party members, and for 1997, Wild Arms' approach just seemed woefully under-ambitious.>I'd say the main issue here is silent protagonist aka Rudy.I agree. For someone who was supposed to be some sort of pariah, giving him at least SOME emotion about that would have helped. My other big issue was the sacrifice of the Earth Golem. Given that was a Cecila-centric moment, I think they could have built it up a bit better.>both WA1 and WA2 have fantastic soundtracksMaybe I just don't remember them well enough. I only played the game the one time and they didn't really stick with me, but flipping through the OST on youtube is reminding me of some winners. I think my issue is that I found all the omnipresent music like battle/town themes to be just okay, while my favorite stuff only played once or twice in the whole game:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43tVMUtzyH8https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCxiu3qVmsUhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQlhfU7ojj4Anyway, thanks for the passionate response. I always appreciate hearing comprehensive opinions.
>>12082370>The extra characters are there for people who want to use them, but not forced onto you for people who'd prefer to stick with their favorites.I'm more of a person who still tries to level every character equally even if there aren't enough party slots for all of them AND the gameplay isn't designed in a way that a) allows you to bruteforce everything with the same party or b) it's so bad that you don't even care about party aspect in the first place.and want to enjoy whatever else game provides.To this day Mana Khemia series is one of the best examples where you're unable to slot all characters into the party but you can still shuffle between them during the fights and thus benefit from using all of their unique abilities (plus the game makes it comfortable to level all of them without extra grinding).>I just found Rudy, Jack, and Cecilia's movesets to be incredibly linear and stale by the end of the gameEh, I was okay with them because each had different role and progression>Rudy = damage dealer, ARMs are locked behind plot progress, upgrades are available whenever but you need Gella for that>Jack = jack-of-all-trades (heh), Techs are locked behind plot progress>Cecilia = support, first 16 spells are available right off the bat (while next 16 spell batch becomes available later on) and each spell requires the same limited item to be learnedThe pace of progress was good enough for me to never get tired of WA1's gameplay (until postgame where Black Market breaks the game)Meanwhile I was disappointed with addition of PSS in WA2 (some PS are too good, some are never good) and removal of unique skill progression in WA3 (and then WA4 even dared to remove Tools).
>>12082370>>12082545>spoilerI like the fact that Asgard moved by itself and protected the group at the cost of its own life - unlike other golems that were made purely for destruction, Asgard was made for protection and dude was just tired of non-stopping wars so he went to sleep. Sacrificing himself to protect others (and out of his own volition) is probably the best way for him to end it all, but I agree that Cecilia could've gotten more inner dialogues with him.If there's an issue I have with WA1's story it's how Alhazad and Boomerang just go along with Siegfried's sudden change of plans (who dropped conquest for destruction because his body is occupied by Mother) and don't bat an eye about it. It also kills all the momentum Sieg had prior to Disc 2 - maybe if he kept flipping between two personalities it'd look better but otherwise he just turned into Mother Round 2 until the final boss fight where it's him being himself again.>while my favorite stuff only played once or twice in the whole gameOkay, this is fair - a bunch of great tracks pop up only once or twice during entire game.>I found all the omnipresent music like battle/town themes to be just okayI dunno, I found all of them to be memorable during my first playthrough and that was in late 90s>Hope>Alone in the World>Abbey>After the Chaos and Destruction>Waterside Where Migratory Birds Gather>Village of the Elw>Town>What You're Looking For is on the Calm BeachWhat I can totally agree upon is that some themes get remixes (even one-time remixes in some cases) that weren't really required (how many versions of Mother's theme are there? Five or something? Same for Cecilia's theme, I think) and some tracks are just... okay for me, be they one-time or reoccuring (I don't think I really cared about Jane's theme, that one track for fake marriage on the ship and most of 20-30 second tracks that play only once during the game)
>>12082254>burninating the countryside
racing lagoon is amazing if you can get used to the janky racing mechanics or just grind enough for it to not matter anymore.
>>12081676go straight for grandia. Absolute peak adventure feel. Jade cocoon is... special, a bit rough around the edge but definitively worth playing. For info: the length of the animation to catch a monster decrease as your hunter level increase so it gets less tedious.I have good memories of breath of fire III but it's been a long time.parasite eve 2 is whelming, it's more resident evil than parasite eve.Don't know if galerians can be considered rpg but give it a try, it's pretty short anyway.
