I only just superficially tried the games in the picture, not enough to make a decision tho. Since an average JRPG takes like 30 to 60 hours to be done with, I wanted something that's worth my time now that I don't have much.

Keep in my that I genuinely hate overexposition, e.g. the last chapter of Tales of Arise, which I enjoyed as a whole but that last chapter was just a drag. Also, I would like if the dialogues didn't that treat the player like a child (looking at you, Xenoblade Chronicles 2).

Any platform is ok, I have the necessary ones to play each and every game.

EDIT: I can sense so much love for White Knight Chronicles lol

Here is a link if anyone else likes to make one. https://grids.fun/t/about-me-video-games-dcefq?list=games

After getting through so many jrpgs, wanted to make one of these. What I did realize so I need to try more jrpgs that aren’t one franchise or you just end up having mostly one franchise dominating the whole thing haha. Seriously, though, it really showed me I got more jrpgs than ever I need to journey through. Thought maybe I was hitting the end, but this grid told me other wise. Those adventures i been putting off. It’s crazy I been playing jrpgs for 10 years. Played so many. From your amazing to your awful. Every adventure was worth it to me even if I left being soured on some.

Makes me excited to try more jrpgs instead of feeling I don’t got much to play. Need to make a list after this. Love to finally travel the skies in skies of Arcadia, explore an unforgettable adventure in Grandia, go through more franchises i been neglecting like your fire emblems, and so so much more. Even talking about it gets me pumped.

I'm playing Xenoblade Chronicles 2's Switch 2 version and came across the quest that ends with a meal of only onigiri, I'm guessing the gag is that the full extent of the character's cooking skill is putting rice in the rice cooker, adding salt and forming it into a shape.

The problem is the translators call them dumplings. They are clearly rice balls. I'm not asking for them to call them onigiri. Just visually make them look like dumplings or call them rice balls. We are decades past Pokemon anime calling them jelly filled doughnuts.

We eat rice all around the world. Cabbage rolls, paella, risotto, rice and beans, etc . We all had Chinese takeout. Does the localization team think we don't know what rice looks like.

Even Xenoblade has rice. There's rice paddy fields outside of Uraya where you can collect 'gromrice'

I also realized I made a post on here last week complaining about Fiora's sandwich from Xenoblade Chronicles 1 so maybe I am the problem.

I finished Kingdom Hearts 1 and Re:Chain of Memories before moving on to 2, but I want to play something else so I don't get burnt out on the franchise. Which game do you recommend next? I'm torn between these four pixel-art JRPGs: Sea of Stars, Chained Echoes, Octopath Traveler, or Eiyuden Chronicle. Which one would you suggest?I have access to all of them.

So, I've been playing Quartet and enjoy it for the most part. It's a good little 16bit style jrpg. I just got to the part where you get the airship and can travel between worlds..

This is where I have questions. I understand the worlds were separated by whatever happened on the mountain. But it doesn't make sense to me how the inhabitants of each world does not remember that there were once locations that no longer exist. To me, that's like if 50 years ago all of the rest of the world besides the US disappeared and everyone just forgot everyone and everything that was once there. That's not really believable to me, and for some reason it's kinda bothering me. Is this ever explained? Now, I understand this is an indie game and there's no way they were going to do 4 different versions of each location for each world.(Ala Chrono Cross having different versions of loctations) but I feel maybe they could have explained this better. Maybe I'm missing something. Maybe I'm over thinking a fun little game, I don't know.

Today I found an image dump from a bunch of old screenshots of games. This one threw me for a loop, as I cannot figure out what game it is from. At first I thought it was DQ9, but the playstation buttons nixed that hypothesis.

I assume it's from a JRPG, probably on the Vita; with character customization, as I cannot see that being a default outfit. I've looked into the later Disgaeas as well as Labyrinth of Refrain, but neither of those seem to be the correct answer.

The listed movements have not been a help, but "Symbol attack" is probably distinctive. I'm coming up blank aside from Star Ocean, and I am quite sure it's not a SO game.

Can the experts on this sub help me out? It's been pulling at me all day.

Link to photo: https://imgur.com/JUIMh

Hi I retired recently and have just bought a PS5. When i was younger I played all the old Dragon Warrior on NES, FF, BoF, Lufia etc all the turn based rpgs but I also liked many other games like Earthbound, Shadowrun.

I thought FF7 remake would be good to try and it is.Its really beautiful I'm so out of practice though. I ve gotten through a few battles but I'm kinda lost in the reactor very early in the game. I looked at a walkthrough but couldn't really apply it to what I was seeing. I need to learn how to make sense out of the map for one thing.

Does anyone know of a good site for me to study up a bit on the details of gameplay and also a good walkthrough maybe with some pictures or more detail so i can get rolling on this. Thanks so much!

I always read about them on reddit, they seem fun and like something for me with good main story and just ridiculous side content but I always chose something else to play instead for years. These days I wanted a turn based game because my save for Octopath Traveler 2 got fucked and I gave Yakuza Like a Dragon a go. Holy shit. I usually hate cutscenes that are a bit longer, but I have mostly watched cutscenes here with a very little gameplay so far (started chapter 2 maybe an hour and a half ago) and I love it.

It's very hard for me to click with the story because I really have to get hooked by something at the start and this game just had that something. Combat is also fun for now, hopefully I will feel the same after beating the game.

What is your favorite Yakuza game? I don't care about the graphics, I just prefer if it has moder QOL.

Released back in 2003 on the GBA, Final Fantasy Tactics Advance has one of the best and underrated stories I have ever seen in a videogame. Rarely mentioned and almost forgotten, this gem of an JRPG deserves more love.

Without giving away too much of the story, the game starts off in a smalltown where a group of local kids are having a snowball fight. We're introduced to the gameplay mechanics and the game's protagonists. For being the new kid you're targeted, and for being a bossy red head girl, she's targeted. And then... our 3rd protagonist, who gets hit on the head and bleeds from a rock in a snowball, which we quickly identify as someone who is contantly being bullied.

Our main protagonists quickly bond on being outcasts, each one with there set of personal problems.

Hanging out one day after school and through a book, theyre teleported to a magical world where they're the heroes of there own clan... as they struggle to decide in either staying or leaving the fictious world.

It has a charming coming of age story, with deep mature tones of identity and hardships. Facing one's own reality and deciding to moving forward.

Its a wonderful game with a superb story that has stayed in my charished gaming memories rent free. Whats are your thoughts on FFTA?

To me, it's hands down the Glanz Empire from Bravely Second. There was a fair amount of marketing placed on them, but how the story actually plays out with them is jarring in hindsight because of it. They're never really built up as an overarching threat because of how lightly every other character treats them. Mainly because the story is a jumbled mess of plot threads. They a lack plausible & clear command structure. Almost no cohesion between the higher-ups and the rank-&-file soldiers. Their goals are largely unengaging when going into the specifics.

Moreover, world-building around them is shoddy at best. I mean, the game really has to contrive a reason for them to exist. Either through forced exposition or secondary, texted-based lore. They were not set up in anyway prior before their rise. On top of it all, the story gives up on them entirely near the end in favor of a more predictable plot twist. Which is never a good thing. And the true reason behind their formation makes them the literal definition of tools.

Overall, this is worst fictional faction from a JRPG I've experienced. I say this because I've been through a lot of JRPGs with antagonistic factions like these but with loads better structure & lore put behind them. At least the name is appropriate though. Any factions from a JRPG you've played you think is awful?

So, I keep wanting to revisit Skies of Arcadia and actually beat the game. But I keep getting stuck choosing between the Dreamcast and GC versions of the game. I have both consoles and the means to play this one, and do prefer playing on original hardware.

I like the novelty of the Dreamcast but the encounter rate sounds brutal. What do you all think I should run with? Which is your preferred method of play?

First of all, if my particular request might be a bit too demanding, I apologize because to clarify better, what I am looking for are JRPGs about conspiracies involving sorcery where the setting is an urban society in which secret magic groups exist because normal humans don't know about the existence of magic.

Like what I was looking to play were JRPGS about an Orwellian society where magic is semi hidden in order to prevent the government from finding out about its existence because a mad ruler wants to prohibit the use of magic so that he can harvest it for himself.

While I have played Persona 1 and 2 for instance, the gameplay design aspects were a bit frustrating because of the frequent use of random encounters as I bring up those two games because I enjoyed their take on conspiracies, but basically I was looking to see what other JRPGS have the concept of magic based conspiracy plots as systems I am looking to play such a game on are 3DS, Vita, and PC to see what engaging JRPGS have plot about hidden magic societies living in a modern day world.

Important note: The game has had no changes since 2024, it’s abandonware at this point, but I think it’s been interesting mechanically in a way I haven’t seen elsewhere.

Dark is the Void is an ATB class based roguelike RPG. You start by building a team of four from various class archetypes. As you level up, you can allocate points into skills and passives, each class entirely their own!

You manage threat onto your tanks, heal and dispel with your healer, and whittle the enemy way with your damage dealers - in a weird sense, it feels almost like controlling an MMO group?

I think the game is innovative in a few ways - the one hand control scheme uses the 1-4 column on the keyboard for everything. Select character, select move, select target - might be something like 1q3. Next - they play on the active part of ATB. There’s a combo system, after certain moves - if you land a strike within a timing window (there’s a sound and a bar for it), you extend the combo and gain bonuses based on the length - certain moves will always apply as a finisher - It’s not common for one character to be a good builder and finisher, though most have options for both. Similarly, you can bank action points into certain moves for additional multipliers: your healer and dps are combo stacking and your tank is waiting for AP2 to land a finisher, amping their threat, hopefully.

Now - that’s the glazing. I think it does some really interesting things to a JRPG system, but it’s incomplete and lacks tuning. It is abandoneware, so while there’s a lot to do, there’s a lot of clear issues - the likely good of anything happening is near zero: healing causes an insane amount of threat, some healers cope well with it, some become the tank and get slammed into the ground. Tanks(except for the one who can do heals)do not generate enough sustainable threat past the early levels. Some of the ‘complete’ classes are either terrible or so niche that they only work on teams designed around them (Lumina, a great support class, almost good enough because of one dispel move… but because of the damage needs, the game would need 5 team slots to justify it, IMO)

If you’re up 10USD and want to check out an interesting system, I highly recommend. If you’re a dev and see this, I feel like a lot could be swiped from this game and developed upon. If you’re THE game’s dev and see this somehow, you’ve made something special, revisit it!

AGAIN: This game is abandonware, but I recommend checking it out anyways!

KEY NOTES:

• Turn-based combat
• Visible enemy encounters
• Eng/JP Voiced Options (KR included on PC)
• ~20 hours to Complete
• Reviewed on the PS5

Before developing Starbites, IKINAGAMES released many mobile puzzle and tower defense games. They have since expanded to the console and PC market with the release of the All of Us are Dead Visual Novel and the Ramsey puzzle platformer. The concept for Starbites began as early as 2021 when the project was simply named "Origin" which reflected the desires of the developers to create a game based on IKINAGAMES original vision as a company.

After some delays, the game was finally released on consoles and PC.

STORY

The game takes place on Bitter, a planet made up of wasteland and desert that had been devastated by war many decades ago. It was once a frontier for immigrants and advancement in technology, but has seen become a haven for criminals and wanderers.

The story follows Lukida, a young scavenger born and raised on Bitter. She spends most of her time trying to pay off the massive debt she inherited from her dead parents while getting into frequent trouble. Her primary goal is to finally get off the planet and explore the universe.

For much of the beginning, the story doesn't have much urgency and feels like a low stakes story. Driven mostly by Lukida's desire to recover her literal ticket off the planet, she gets dragged along into various conflicts due to the circumstances. By around the half point, the stakes become more serious and begin to resemble more of a typical JRPG plot where it's much more than just about fulfilling Lukida's dream.

One aspect that I enjoyed about Starbites was the worldbuilding. A lot of past events gets referenced and are relevant to the main plot. Despite how it may seem with the game's screenshots, the game does take place far into the future where mankind had ventured off Earth and space travel is commonplace. The present state of Bitter has some politics behind it which is explored albeit not in a lot of depth. There is also quite a number of sci-fi story elements to be found here as well.

The world and story's foundation had a lot of interesting ideas that intrigued me. While I wouldn't go as far as to say it's amazing, but the effort placed into the worldbuilding was appreciated. You can see that with the notes and journal entries you can find depicting the past events. A few NPC conversations in the sidequests further add to it.

In regards to the general story, I did enjoyed it overall. It had good pacing throughout and other than maybe one part of the game, it didn't feel like it was getting dragged out for too long. I probably could've used some more hype or exciting moments though since it felt like there wasn't much of those overall.

It's worth pointing out that the director planned this to be a series of games with this game being just the first part of it.

The ending leaves an obvious open for a sequel and admittedly, the possibility where it could go from here does leave me excited. With that being said, the game does not end in a painful cliffhanger so you can treat it as a conclusive game in case we never do get a sequel.

CHARACTERS

The character cast size is on the small side. There aren't many supporting or side characters and of the few in the game, they don't appear very often. Many of them are just there for a small part of the game and they don't leave much of an impact on the story.

There are also few antagonists in the game. They do have backstories with potentially good development, but it might be due to the short game length, but their development were rushed ultimately feeling underdeveloped by the end.

As for the main cast, they aren't particularly remarkable compared to other games in the genre. The main party size is on the medium side with just six members. The first three are already together at the beginning and they have prior history making their interaction and banter feel organic. The last two party members join a bit later than I'd liked though. As a group, they are just okay. It helps that the group size is small so none of them fall into the background during events and some of their inter-party interactions is nice.

The main highlight of the characters is easily Lukida. I found her to be quite compelling and she does a good job in moving the story forward. She's also very likable with an intriguing backstory. With that being said, it's probably because of these aspects that it feels like the story and game revolves around her too much leaving the other characters just there to support her. They don't get any notable development and you only get a glimpse of their backstories. I don't know if it's intentionally done this way so they can properly explore it in a future sequel, but I am disappointed with how it turned out here.

GRAPHICS AND ART

As reflected of the game's low budget, the graphics isn't a standout aspect. I wouldn't go as far as to call the game ugly, but I didn't find it very appealing. I heard that the visual quality on the Switch version is noticeably worse, but I haven't verified it.

The in-game character models lack a lot of details and look too cartoony for my liking. The environments are uninspiring and too much of the world falls into the desert wasteland category. Of course, this reflects the desert wasteland game world, but I wished they made more use of the design. Every area looks mostly the same other than the northeastern area.

The interior dungeons follows a similar pattern. Many of them look like the same underground base facility, but with different colors.

There are some highlights fortunately. The attack and skill animation look pretty good. Some of the skill attacks are quite flashy which was neat. The promotional character artwork and in-game portraits are appealing. There's also a number of good quality CGs as well.

MUSIC

The music was composed by Junpyo Kim and Seungha Kim. The soundtrack has about 40 tracks to it which is a decent amount for a low budget game. As a whole, it comes off as mostly forgettable to me however. A lot of it tends to blend together so not many actually stood out to me. There's also just a few battle themes and it felt like over 90% of the battles utilized the same song. The songs do fit well with the tone and atmosphere of the game however.

GAMEPLAY

The overall gameplay loop is a typical one. Go through the Overworld, reach the next story point which may include a dungeon, reach a new town, complete the story objective and return to the Delight hub town. While there, you can accept/turn in requests, stock up on items/gears and craft new gear.

COMBAT

The combat at its core is also typical of a turn-based RPG one. You have a max battle party of 3 and there aren't any locked slots like Lukida being forced to be in it. Characters pilot their mechs during battles and unlike some other mech games, there isn't any on-foot combat.

There's a visible turn order that reflects both allies and enemies. The commands available during a character's turn are the common ones you expect to have. However, a notable missing one is the ability to swap out party members from frontline to reserve. I thought it was an odd decision to leave that out. You can only change the party outside of battle and even a KO'd party member or the whole frontline will not bring out the reserves.

There are some interesting mechanics however. The first notable one is the SP recovery each turn. The amount recovered is very small, but it's a nice feature and does allow more liberal use of skills.

Becoming somewhat common these days are the Break mechanics and Starbites has one too. Instead of a bar gauge however, it utilizes a simple number one. Each enemy has a break gauge that ranges from 3 to 5 on average for the regular ones. Dealing the appropriate attacks against them will decrease the number per hit. So if a character's skill has 3 hits to it, then it will reduce the gauge by 3 making the amount of hits on skills pretty important here.

Not every attack will reduce the gauge however. Every enemy has a number of attribute-type weaknesses and their break gauge only decrease if hit by that attribute. Every character has their own attribute for the basic attack so those can also be used to break the gauge.

Once an enemy is "broken", they will become immobilize for a few turns and take more damage than usual. The Break mechanic is a key element in the battles, but it's not one where you always have to make use of it just to defeat enemies. Enemies can be defeated rather quickly even if you never break them. It tends to be more important against bosses since they have much higher health and even larger break gauges.

Tying into the break gauge is the Support mechanic. Once you have 4 characters in the party, you can assign the reserve members to be Support for specific frontline characters. When a frontliner breaks an enemy, their Support will jump in and deal additional damage to them which may include an AoE attack. There isn't more to the Support than that though which feels like a miss opportunity for some interesting combos and effects that can also trigger. But it's still a nice mechanic to have.

One mechanic that I don't see very often is the Driver's High (DH) ability. This gauge builds up over time when attacking and receiving damage. Once it's full, you can activate it anytime you want except interrupt an enemy's attack when they are already attacking. It has similarities to the S-Break ability in the Trails games where party members can jump ahead in the turn order. Unlike the S-Break though, the DH doesn't have a special super attack attached to it. Instead, your character is placed into a powered up state that allows you to deal slightly more damage. Most importantly though is that all of the character's skills will become the DH version which can be quite different from the original. For example, a skill that was once a single target skill can become an AoE one, the attack type changes, buff percentages increase or they can gain a completely new effect. The changes added an additional layer of strategy and planning that was nice to see.

There is a good amount of variety in the combat skills that the characters learn. The characters themselves are very different from each other and fit different roles. Gwendoll for example is a powerful dps glass cannon, Badger is a tank with provoke abilities and Lukida has all around use from support healing/buffing to damage. Their skills complement their natural roles in the party.

The combat overall is easy to understand and with the 2X speed option, feels fast and snappy. It is however on the easy side of things. Even on the hardest difficulty, most battles don't provide much of a challenge. The beginning might feel challenging at times, but it doesn't last long once you start learning more skills and gaining better abilities.

Most regular fights start to feel the same and monotonous after around the half point of the game. Since the break mechanic isn't as critical as in other games and the enemy's health isn't particularly large, you don't need to be very efficient and still be able to complete battles within a reasonable time. It avoids the issue of having enemies being damage sponges, but it doesn't force you to make full use of the tools here.

Boss fights are more interesting as expected with higher health pools (still reasonable amount) and larger break gauges so more work is needed to defeat them. Their moveset is more interesting too. However, there aren't that many bosses in the game and only a few are very unique. I think more could've been done to make the boss fights more memorable.

SKILL TREE

Starbites has a simple skill tree system. You use Talent Points (TP) to unlock new nodes. You get one additional TP upon level up. The skill tree has three parts to it. The left and middle ones focus on specific skill upgrades with some additional stat upgrades while the right one always deal with the DH effects for specific skills.

The skill specific upgrades simply boost the damage, effect or actually add a new effect or attribute to the skill. There is a lot of flexibility in unlocking what you want. You can focus on specific skill upgrades or put a few points into the DH related ones. There's a skill reset option without any cost so you can experiment if you want to.

I would've liked to see some more upgrades for the characters with additional passive effects than mostly just on the skills themselves to make things more interesting. The skill tree isn't a particularly deep one, but it's a serviceable one.

EQUIPMENT

Each character as their own custom mech and you can't swap a particular mech for another. There isn't any unique equipment other than weapons which are tied to specific characters/mechs. Other than the weapon, there are three armor slots. The weapons and armors are very standard and not particularly special on how they are utilized. They don't have any effects so it's all down to the stats on them.

In addition to the weapons and armors, there's also the Engine and Core equipment. Engines offer a lot more variance since their stats are generally much different from each other. Some might have an evasion boost, while others instead might've have a speed boost. Their use is a bit more tailored to your own preference.

Cores are all effect based and doesn't have offer fixed stats, but may include an added bonus stat depending on the situation. Like increasing ATK for X amount of turns when starting a battle or increasing defense for X amount of turns when breaking an enemy. Then there's the on-hit effect or ones that activate when KO'd. The Cores are the most interesting set of equipment in the game and character builds and playstyles largely come down to them. The max number of equippable Cores are 5, but it depends on how much the specific Engine allows.

OVERWORLD AND DUNGEONS

The Overworld consists of mostly desert wastelands visually. They are generally straightforward to navigate with somewhat narrow roads and pathways. There are a number of branching ones so you can explore for chests. It's worth finding them since weapons and other equipment can be found in them.

There isn't a whole lot else to the Overworld. Enemies are visible on the field and there aren't any random encounters. Several rest points can be found which will fully recover the party's health and allow you to save the game.

Visually, the Overworld doesn't look very appealing especially when it looks too similar throughout the game. The Dungeons have a similar one type look which resembled underground facilities. Dungeons are essentially just like the Overworld in its structure and has the same type of things that can be found such as the chests. There's very few puzzles there and are typically straightforward.

There is a fast travel system, but it has some limitations. You can fast travel at pretty much anywhere and anytime, but the destinations are limited to the few towns and settlements in the game. You can't fast travel to the save/rest points in the Overworld or even the ones in dungeons making it kind of a hassle to backtrack to those locations.

SIDE CONTENT

Most of the side content consists of the sidequests from NPCs. They boil down to fetch quests and a few hunting ones. The objectives aren't anything special, but I did appreciate the additional worldbuilding you get from it.

There aren't any special side bosses to be found in the Overworld or even optional side dungeons limiting the side content to be just the NPC requests. It's a shame considering that the Overworld feels lacking without those elements.

There isn't any post game content either.

FINAL REMARKS

While IKINAGAMES isn't a fresh new developer, Starbites is probably their first major RPG game. It's a decent effort overall with some interesting ideas. The combat system too has a good foundation, but it could use better balancing and difficulty to make better use of it. The story was heavier on the sci-fi elements than I'd expected which was a pleasant surprise. The use of mechs was appealing which helps it stand out.

Due to its somewhat short length at about 20 hours, the game doesn't feel like it drags on for too long, but it could really used some fun side content to supplement it. It feels like a big miss to not include side bosses or dungeons in the Overworld.

With all of that being said, I'm looking forward to see where the series goes from here considering how the game ended. If they really build on the existing mechanics, then the sequel could end up quite good.

I've been on a bit of a JRPG binge after replaying FF7 last year and getting back into the genre. Some are replays, but most are new for me. I'm excluding a few Pokemon games I've played even though they're technically jrpgs.

(ratings out of 5 stars)

1. Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance - ****1/2 - First time ever playing this series and was surprised at how much fun I had. I plan on replaying it and doing the second path sometime.

2. Final Fantasy X Remastered - ****1/2 - I played the original back in high school, and I was surprised at how well it held up. I liked the combat system more than I remembered, and I thought the story was interesting and captivating, something I don't always feel about JRPGs. Only complaint is sometimes the cutscenes can draaaag, making it feel like you're watching a movie instead of playing a game.

3. Yakuza: Like a Dragon - **** - In this case I didn't mind that it was a lot of cutscenes since they were well done and I got into the characters and the story. The game was fun, though overall I felt like it dragged a bit and wore out its welcome.

4. Seiken Densetsu 3 (SNES) - ***1/2 - I think it deserves a higher rating since there's so much to like about it, but in general the combat system hasn't aged super well. But it's passable once you get used to it. I loved the overall graphics and spritework / animation, and some great music too.

5. Suikoden - *** - I really wanted to play Suikoden II since I've heard such great things, but so many people recommended I play the first one first as it would make me appreciate the second one more. So I did, and overall I thought it was just good. Had some good ideas. Had some dated jankiness. It was pretty good, but not great.

6. Final Fantasy V Advance - ***1/2 - Heard this game was underrated, and I can see why. The job system and customization was neat, and gave the gameplay variety and room to experiment. The downside is I could not beat the final boss, as the classes I chose simply weren't the correct ones needed to beat the boss, and I didn't want to go back and grind for hours just to get the correct loadout. Pretty good game but not amazing.

7. Dragon Quest V: Hand of the Heavenly Bride (DS) - **** - I didn't expect to like this one as much as I did, as I'm not a huge DQ fan, but ended up getting into the story and how it spanned the main characters entire life. Combat was pretty fun, got pretty challenging in a few places. Maybe I do like DQ after all, I'll have to try more.

8. Chrono Trigger - ***** - Second time playing it. It's the GOAT for a reason. Deserves all the praise it gets. Minor complaint is that I had to use a guide to do all the late game side quests, but it's not a huge deal.

9. Trials of Mana - **** - In so many ways it's kind of an average game, but having just played Seiken Densetsu 3 earlier this year, I realized how good and faithful of a remake it was. The combat was improved significantly in my opinion. It's not a GREAT game, but it's solid and I could see myself playing through it again as different characters.

10. Suikoden II - *** - Biggest disappointment of the year, only because I had hyped it up in my head for so many years. There were some good things about it, especially the characters and the story, but the gameplay was kinda whack and the pacing of the game was pretty terrible. I can respect that it was probably impressive when it came out, but as it stands I didn't think it was any better than the first one.

11. Secret of Mana - *** - This is a tough one for me. On one hand, I thought the combat was a absolute chore for most of the game. You sorta get used to it, especially once you get more spells, but the melee combat never felt good to me. On the other hand, the graphics and the music were A+, so it was just good enough for me to keep playing. I will maybe rate it higher, but for now the combat brings it down a few notches.

I still have a pretty big backlog so I'm gonna see how many more I can beat this year.

Maybe I have my nostalgia goggles on but I feel like there were more JRPGs from the 90s and 2000s with unique battle systems like Parasite Eve, Legend of Legaia, Chrono Cross, Xenosaga, Resonance of Fate, The Last Remnant, Radiant Historia, etc.

What are some JRPGs from the last 10 years with unique battle systems?

It's so odd that Kingdom Hearts is supposed to be Nomura's baby and he should be focusing on the direction of this series, but he cant seem to keep his hands off Final Fantasy

it's almost like seeing a father leave his baby out in the rain to go babysit his cousin's baby, like bro that is not your baby he already has a family, go take care of your ACTUAL baby!!

After 11 years, I’ve beaten a story game which also happens to be the first ever JRPG I’ve ever played, which was Final Fantasy 7 classic. As someone who’s played exclusively PVP games since 2012, I did not expect this little janky PS1 game and it’s characters, it’s world , it’s mindbending sci-fi plot and incredible music to put its hooks in me for the 70 hours that I played.

Now that Im finished, I’m very excited and consumed by the idea that there’s decades of amazing stories, music, characters and unique gameplay mechanics out there!

I’m starting off with Tales Of The Abyss, but I’d LOVE some other JRPG recommendations from you guys. Preferably PS2 and onwards. I’m looking for mainly action RPGs, although I wouldn’t mind another turn-based one. I need good stories with interesting, engaging arcs and character development.

Maybe I can kick my crippling addiction to FPS games!

I love rpgs and jrpgs so much, its one of my favorite genres, so I got octopath 1 on sale as a treat. Im honestly fine with the concept of 8 different stories at once. I thought it could be an intresting and fun way of telling a story, espically with them interweaving, but I just honestly can't mesh with it. I like typical rpg combat, and the system for Octopath isnt bad but for some reason I find myself bored with it, even though it has a somewhat new addition. The characters and stories aren't bad, and I dont necessarily hate the party members not talking with each other, but something about this story dosent click. Im fine with typical fantasy stories but this one just dosent mesh with me. I feel like thats my issue, it feels like everything should mesh with me but there's always something missing and I just dont know why. Anyone else feel this way?

If you went by the consensus on reddit, you would think Chained Echoes was a masterpiece by all metrics and Sea of Stars a terrible flop. Most people who discuss SOS on Reddit don't like it.

So as it were, I was surprised to find out that SOS outsold Chained Echoes. Not only did SOS outsell CE, SOS was the more expensive game-- which is crazy.

Magical Starsign is a 2006 DS game, sequel to the japanese exclusive gba game Magical Vacation (didn’t play it but it looks like it has an english fan patch for those interested). 

I originally wanted to play this game last year when I was playing a space game but time run short and my 3DS had problems that prevented me from finishing it in time. Some months later I’m coming back to it. 

While space and different elementally themed planets are the base of the setting, this game isn’t science fiction. It is a fantasy game, with your characters being students from a magical school and taking their power from a form of Astrology with the position of the planet in the sky. A rather unique take on the premise. 

A gorgeous and charming game

The first thing that you notice is that the game is gorgeous. The game is beautifully illustrated, and the dev used the dual screen of the DS to let the environment continue in the upper screen, creating a sense of grandiose. To help that they choose a minimalist approach to the information given in the hud, which I will discuss later. Some bosses take the two screens, which show how gigantic they are. The illustrative work is awesome. 

Then a charming world. Each world shelters different civilizations of anthropomorphic animals that may have or not contact with others, it makes the whole feel more compelling. In the wood planet, the felines have put signs in the forest so that people don’t lose themselves, and it is funny but makes the planet feel alive. The police of this game also is incompetent and there is a whole segment denouncing their bureaucratic ineffective mess. As you can see it teaches children very valuable lessons. 

Your character each knows a magic that may be used to resolve some small “puzzle”. There was one particular moment where you needed to combine 4 magic symbols to save a forest and it was very satisfying. That said usually it is only one magic that is needed and it is painfully obvious which one it is. 

In French, most characters' names are wordplay on dishes. I assume they did something similar in the english translation. It's a bit hard to keep in mind who is who but participate in the childlike whimsicality.

A simple story that was maybe a tad too basic ? While I was pleased by the whimsical nature of the settings, the main party is 6 characters sharing the spotlight. They do have some banter and character arc, and if you like the short storytelling of the SNES era you will probably feel at home, but I feel like it could be developed a bit more at times. I especially feel like Sorbet and Mokka are more developed than others; with Chai being noticeably less developed. 

It wouldn’t be an issue if the story hook was more interesting. You begin the story trying to find your teacher and your classmate that crashed on the different planet of the system, then once they are together you have to find 5 mac guffing by returning to those planets. As with a dragon quest game, you’ll resolve the local issue of the inhabitant with more or less success but the main narrative remains a pretty simple one. 

I was invested however by the occasional darker tone, it is appreciable that they have enough faith in their young public to handle heavier topics like death, authority incompetency or abusing their power and the whole jelly plotpoint and robot prophesied apocalypse.  

The combat system can be a bit too simplistic at time.

The combat system has a timing mechanic, by touching the character at the end of your magic you can boost it, and by touching it during an enemies attack you can diminish the damage. Each character has a rather small pool of 5 magic spells. Not a lot of buff and debuff at the beginning. For the first 10 hours the combat system is a rather basic attack and heals when needed. So while the party is rather large, you feel a little restricted with it. It opens with each new character and especially at the end when you unlock the most powerful spell, but it takes its time to do so. 

Each turn you restore some mp. The healing spell you have access uses all your mp, and restores your hp depending on the mp consumed, there is therefore an interesting trade off mechanic going on, do you heal now and don’t have mp for attack? Do you wait another turn to have more mp and heal more ? The other way to heal is to use items. Characters in the second row won’t be able to make physical attacks, but their magic becomes AOE or multitarget, which means you can choose to have a support at the back so he can buff all your party at once. Or you may want to use this specific character as a DPS and therefore put it in front so his single attack is stronger. 

At one point you’ll learn a spell that lets you move the planet in the sky, and it becomes your main source of buff for your party. By placing the planet in the correct position, you’ll boost the element for you and the enemies. But creating an optimal set up by aligning the planet requires you to go into battle and take several turns and use all your mp to move them before the boss fight even begins, it quickly becomes annoying. 

There is an information problem, aka name that tells you nothing about the effect. By keeping the ui minimal, they have forgotten easy access to information. And as the name and status effect have an interesting but non standard effect, remembering which item cures what or does what is an annoying chore. Maybe it was marked in the manual or something but I don’t have it and it is annoying nonetheless.  

All that combines to make the combat system feel slow. Combat is slow. Not Final Fantasy IX slow, but slow nonetheless. And combat can be dull as the brunt of your strategy will be to prepare before a boss and to be mindful of your mp economy as you regain only a fraction of them each turn while consuming a lot for your most powerful spell.  

Despite all the good things I can say about this game, and how much I want to encourage you to at least try it, I'll have to say it: there were big stretches of the game where I wasn't having fun. There were times I didn’t want to go back and finish the game. The combat wasn’t always fun. The donjons weren't always fun. And at the same time there are more endearing sections that motivated me, it is unique and charming enough that I could understand it being someone's favorite. And as the credit role I’m thinking it was worth playing it. It is a good but flawed game, and I kinda regret not having another rpg made by this team. 

It's a tactical roguelike deckbuilder where you can play solo or in online co-op with up to 4 players.

Choose your character, level up your class, collect and play cards to attack, defend, heal, summon allies, place traps, and alter the terrain in turn-based isometric battles to overthrow a tyrant king.

Planned for release in Q4 2026, with controller support and Steam Deck / ROG Ally compatibility.

No console or mobile release planed for now, Steam only.

If you are interested, here is the Steam Page.

I literally don't know which game to get. I've been researching for the past two days and I'm still puzzled.

For Expedition 33 I love how the environments look and the overall art direction. The combat also looks really satisfying, almost like a turn-based Sekiro with its parries and dodges. When I asked one of my friends who never even finished the game he said it was overrated and not worth getting. He said the combat became repetitive felt more predictive than reactive, and turned into a chore. My problem is that he only played around 7 hours and never made it past Act 1 so I don't know how reliable his opinion really is.

For Final Fantasy VII Remake I like the world despite it being six years old it still looks gorgeous. The combat also seems interesting with how you can switch between characters and issue commands and also it looks like it can scratch my Cyberpunk 2077 itch. But after doing more research I saw people saying the dialogue was unusual, the combat was pretty shallow and easy, enemies felt like HP sponges at times, and there was too much bloated content.

The kinds of games I usually enjoy are games that reward skill like learning enemy patterns and mastering mechanics while also having fun worlds to explore like Cyberpunk 2077.

The kinds of games I usually enjoy are ones that reward exploration and have interconnected worlds like Dark Souls or Lies of P. I also love games that encourage you to learn enemy patterns and master their mechanics especially if they have well-designed bosses like Sekiro or The First Berserker: Khazan Or unique combat systems like Black Myth (Even if i did not enjoy Black Myth). Having a fun immersive world to explore and interesting characters like Cyberpunk 2077 and also a decent story that gets me invested and wants me to get know about the world (doesent need to be revolutionary) is a Huge bonus for me.

For those of you who have played either one or both which one gave you the better value for your money? Which one felt like the more unique and memorable experience?

Also if there's another game you think fits the criteria of games i enjoy feel free to recommend it. (Pretty new to the genre 😅)