JRPG Catch-All

I know this is now a few pages back now, but the X in that Monolith teaser trailer looked a lot more like the Xenogears logo than the Xenosaga or Xenoblade one. Sure, the gameplay itself looks like Xenoblade 2, and there's a flash of what looks like the main character from Xenoblade, but still.

Just sayin'.

zeroKFE wrote:

I know this is now a few pages back now, but the X in that Monolith teaser trailer looked a lot more like the Xenogears logo than the Xenosaga or Xenoblade one.

From what I can tell, the lower left of the X is pretty much the same as the one Xenoblade. Xenogears looks like spraypaint/airbrush while Xenoblade looks more like a brush stroke.

shoptroll wrote:
zeroKFE wrote:

I know this is now a few pages back now, but the X in that Monolith teaser trailer looked a lot more like the Xenogears logo than the Xenosaga or Xenoblade one.

From what I can tell, the lower left of the X is pretty much the same as the one Xenoblade. Xenogears looks like spraypaint/airbrush while Xenoblade looks more like a brush stroke.

A guy can dream, can't he?

F*cking hell, Xenogears was an awesome game.

I would expect it to be Xenoblade and not Xenogears if only for the fact that Nintendo owns the former and not the latter.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

I would expect it to be Xenoblade and not Xenogears if only for the fact that Nintendo owns the former and not the latter.

Oh, I know it will be Xenoblade. I'm just having a nostalgic daydream based on the font of the X.

zeroKFE wrote:

A guy can dream, can't he?

F*cking hell, Xenogears was an awesome game.

I still need to play Xenogears, and finish Xenoblade

Hopefully you also don't feel the need to choke me for this transgression.

Nah, everyone has their failings.

Actually, I never finished Xenoblade either. Stalled out about 80 hours in after getting way too OCD about doing all the side quests. Then I came back for another 10 hours, and stalled out for the exact same reason. I kept hoping I might accidentally play past the point of no return and no longer have the chance to do side quests anymore, but nope!

shoptroll wrote:
zeroKFE wrote:

A guy can dream, can't he?

F*cking hell, Xenogears was an awesome game.

I still need to play Xenogears, and finish Xenoblade

Hopefully you also don't feel the need to choke me for this transgression.

What amazes me about Xenogears and Xenosaga is that Xenogears looks and feels like it was programmed in Visual Basic, and yet the combat is a lot better than the bigger budget Xenosaga.

Also, they went the whole anime route and had to take shortcuts near the end due to running out of budget.

Also also, in the US version of Xenogears, the guy that voiced Leonardo the Ninja Turtle did the voice for the protagonist (Fei?) in animated cut-scenes.

I've tried both Persona 3 and 4 and I love everything outside of the rpg bits. The rpg stuff bored me to tears but man was the wrapper around it fun. Sadly I never finished either as the fun stuff is only the minority of the game. Really love what they did overall though.

master0 wrote:

I've tried both Persona 3 and 4 and I love everything outside of the rpg bits. The rpg stuff bored me to tears but man was the wrapper around it fun. Sadly I never finished either as the fun stuff is only the minority of the game. Really love what they did overall though.

Well, then you could always look into dating sims.

Minarchist wrote:
master0 wrote:

I've tried both Persona 3 and 4 and I love everything outside of the rpg bits. The rpg stuff bored me to tears but man was the wrapper around it fun. Sadly I never finished either as the fun stuff is only the minority of the game. Really love what they did overall though.

Well, then you could always look into dating sims. :)

I've actually tried a few of those. They are actually much, much worse then Persona. I think I just wanted more interesting, shorter, and faster rpg bits. Overall I just think the whole setting and everything just was so refreshing that I still enjoyed myself a lot.

Due note the last rpg I ever finished and enjoyed was the world ends with you. So it's been a while.

Shoptroll, you should really try to get 'round to Xenogears. It's got a lot of moments that haven't been matched in the genre.

I agree with most of what master0 is saying about Persona 3 and 4. Love the characters and narrative, can't bring myself to stick with it due to the gameplay.

Playing FFVI, early on there's this part where they do a cool thing to a castle, I was struck by how it was just this sound and cool little sprite, probably took two guys a couple days to make it. That scene today would be a five minute fully rendered cgi clip that cost an arm and a leg. I'm not enjoying the game any less for the lack of visuals, I wonder if pouring resources into graphics is starving or at least undercutting today's RPGs in the areas of writing and gameplay.

I feel like the pacing of Persona 4, how fast the battles move, etc. has spoiled me for future JRPGs. It's made me realize that for non-SRPGs I really don't love how long it takes to execute during a fight. But even at that I've hit a wall at around 75 hours on Persona 4. I need my games to be a scoch shorter as well.

I've always felt that jrpgs as a whole are unnecessary long. 40 hours for a jrpg would be considered average or short. I personally think they should be more along the lines of fps with 20 hours average. As I have yet to see a jrpg which had more then 20 good hours of game play. Basically too much fluff and padding in them. Which is too bad because as whole I really like the genre because it can tell really good stories and do really creative things.

Maybe I'm just getting old. Bah humbug.

Older JRPGs didn't crack the 40 hour mark often unless you really wanted them to, for the most part. FF6 could be finished in 20-25 hours by an average player, I think. Chrono Trigger is shorter.

The Last Story can be finished in 20-25 hours. It just so happens to be the best JRPG of the last ten years.

Spoiler:

Come at me.

Blind_Evil wrote:

Older JRPGs didn't crack the 40 hour mark often unless you really wanted them to, for the most part. FF6 could be finished in 20-25 hours by an average player, I think. Chrono Trigger is shorter.

The Last Story can be finished in 20-25 hours. It just so happens to be the best JRPG of the last ten years.

Spoiler:

Come at me.

I should play that, then. That sounds just about right. The yarn-based technology that Nintendo has developed for Yoshi has already guaranteed I'll buy a Wii U at some point. I'll probably play Last Story then. I *do* plan on finishing Persona 4. After that I don't think I'll play a game that long for a while.

I think Final Fantasy 6 is closer to the 40 hour mark, actually, though that's also if you bother with all the content after the World of Ruin. Final Fantasy 4, Chrono Trigger and Secret of Mana were all roughly 20-25 hours, though. I think EarthBound and Secret of Evermore may have been on the longer side?

Or maybe I just spent too much time grinding in Secret of Evermore.

I think part of the issue is the move into 3D, and moving around a 3D environment takes more time than a 2D environment. So once 3D environments became the norm in Playstation years games got longer...and they never stopped. In terms of JRPGs at least.

Blind_Evil wrote:

Older JRPGs didn't crack the 40 hour mark often unless you really wanted them to, for the most part. FF6 could be finished in 20-25 hours by an average player, I think. Chrono Trigger is shorter.

The Last Story can be finished in 20-25 hours. It just so happens to be the best JRPG of the last ten years.

Spoiler:

Come at me.

Alright confession time, I never beat ff6 or chrono trigger. About half way for both I got bored and stopped. FF6 I never cared much for but I did enjoy chrono trigger quite a bit before I stopped. While I'm losing all cred, I'm a big ff8 fan and never could stand ff7.

Also I found a giant list of how long it takes to complete a game on average (ff6 was 33 hours, and last story averages 30). It was really interesting as your right that the older games were a lot shorter. That may explain why I lost interest in the newer rpgs. They just tend to take an extra 10-20 or so hours then normal. Also it probable doesn't help that I like to do all the side quests and stuff. Bit ocd and that can burn you out on a game fast. It killed xenoblade for me, which was sad. Well that and how mmoish xenoblade was.

Edit: Last story does look real good, don't really have access to a wii anymore sadly.

Don't make me run FFVI at 20 hours and Chrono Trigger at 10, ccesarano. I'll do it. I'll do it!

ccesarano wrote:

I think Final Fantasy 6 is closer to the 40 hour mark, actually, though that's also if you bother with all the content after the World of Ruin. Final Fantasy 4, Chrono Trigger and Secret of Mana were all roughly 20-25 hours, though. I think EarthBound and Secret of Evermore may have been on the longer side?

Or maybe I just spent too much time grinding in Secret of Evermore.

I think part of the issue is the move into 3D, and moving around a 3D environment takes more time than a 2D environment. So once 3D environments became the norm in Playstation years games got longer...and they never stopped. In terms of JRPGs at least.

Here's that list I mentioned earlier: http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread.php?id=80065

Also I love you for mentioning secret of evermore. Probable one of my favorite rpgs to date. I beat that least 2-3 times, which is damn impressive. I don't think I ever beat an rpg twice. Well I suppose it was an action rpg so maybe that doesn't count. Never got anywhere in secret of mana.

My favorite rpg would probable have to be live a live. That one was fantastic.

And now you got me searching for wallpapers for them.

IMAGE(http://onlyhdwallpapers.com/wallpaper/secret_of_evermore_bug_fight_by_tonikop_high_desktop_1000x600_hd-wallpaper-815164.jpg)

IMAGE(http://fantasyanime.com/legacy2/images/livewlpr04-1024x768.jpg)

IMAGE(http://fantasyanime.com/legacy2/images/livewlpr11-1920x1200.jpg)

Blind_Evil wrote:

Older JRPGs didn't crack the 40 hour mark often unless you really wanted them to, for the most part. FF6 could be finished in 20-25 hours by an average player, I think. Chrono Trigger is shorter.

The Last Story can be finished in 20-25 hours. It just so happens to be the best JRPG of the last ten years.

Spoiler:

Come at me.

Preach!

Blind_Evil wrote:

Shoptroll, you should really try to get 'round to Xenogears. It's got a lot of moments that haven't been matched in the genre.

Xenogears is in the pile, and something I definitely want to get around to. My current focus with older JRPGs is to catch up on Final Fantasy and then start peeling away at the rest of the Squaresoft catalog I've got kicking around.

ccesarano wrote:

I think Final Fantasy 6 is closer to the 40 hour mark, actually, though that's also if you bother with all the content after the World of Ruin. Final Fantasy 4, Chrono Trigger and Secret of Mana were all roughly 20-25 hours, though. I think EarthBound and Secret of Evermore may have been on the longer side?

Yeah, VI has a bunch of optional content you can do in WoR, and that'll easily bump you out of the 20-30 window depending on what you do. Chrono, FFIV, and SoM are all very linear (well Chrono is about 80% linear) and without a lot of side stuff to do. Earthbound is just long but also linear. I think that's closer to the 30-40 window, but it's been ages. Don't remember how long SoE took me, although I think that was in the 20-25 range unless you were spending a lot of time finding all the recipes and leveling them.

EDIT:

master0 wrote:

Also I love you for mentioning secret of evermore. Probable one of my favorite rpgs to date. I beat that least 2-3 times, which is damn impressive. I don't think I ever beat an rpg twice. Well I suppose it was an action rpg so maybe that doesn't count. Never got anywhere in secret of mana.

My favorite rpg would probable have to be live a live. That one was fantastic.

I vastly preferred Evermore to Mana as far as single-player experiences went. A lot of that was due to the simple fact the combat in Evermore was significantly more fluid and responsive than Mana. I'm not sure what on earth the Evermore team did with the Mana engine, but I really didn't like how sluggish Mana's combat was, and the ability to stack damage on stunned targets was kinda b.s.

Plus Mana had some grating music choices, while Evermore's soundtrack was a bit more atmospheric which was cool for the time.

I'm telling you guys, I can finish everything in FFVI in under 20 hours.

Secret of Mana has jarring music at times, but in the best way. I love how experimental the composer got for that soundtrack.

ccesarano wrote:

I think Final Fantasy 6 is closer to the 40 hour mark, actually, though that's also if you bother with all the content after the World of Ruin. Final Fantasy 4, Chrono Trigger and Secret of Mana were all roughly 20-25 hours, though. I think EarthBound and Secret of Evermore may have been on the longer side?

You technically don't need to farm anything in FF6, because all bosses scale to your current level, so the total playtime is pretty short.

Blind_Evil wrote:

I'm telling you guys, I can finish everything in FFVI in under 20 hours.

Secret of Mana has jarring music at times, but in the best way. I love how experimental the composer got for that soundtrack.

Apparently you can speed run the game in 7 or so I read. I just think they need more gameplay and less fluff. Disgaea was another one I loved. You could probable beat it normally in 10 hours (probable 1 if you break the system). That said you get so distracted with fun stuff to do and explore by the time you reach the last boss your three times his level and spent 40 hours or more.

cube wrote:
ccesarano wrote:

I think Final Fantasy 6 is closer to the 40 hour mark, actually, though that's also if you bother with all the content after the World of Ruin. Final Fantasy 4, Chrono Trigger and Secret of Mana were all roughly 20-25 hours, though. I think EarthBound and Secret of Evermore may have been on the longer side?

You technically don't need to farm anything in FF6, because all bosses scale to your current level, so the total playtime is pretty short.

...that's a f*cking lie. It has to be.

Here's a question. Does anyone else have fond memories of the original Wild Arms? I feel like I need to find more time for that series. The first one was one of my first Playstation games and actually surprised me with the quality of its story and dungeons. The combat, on the other hand, was incredibly low budget.

I skipped Wild Arms 2, and never got to complete Wild Arms 3. However, 3 also had really awesome dungeons and a fantastic method of doing "naval" battles (and by "naval" I mean a boat going across a sand sea), but the combat itself was still lackluster. Ever since then I've wanted more RPG's to take dungeon design hints from the Wild Arms series.

I tried pretty hard to like Wild Arms but couldn't. I mean when you're 13 you can't afford any misses. I didn't like the puzzly dungeons IIRC.

Random Encounters did make the puzzle filled dungeons annoying on occasion, in the first game at least. Wild Arms 3 seemed to hit a perfect balance, where every other room would have a puzzle that was just hard enough, but not too hard as to stop you in your tracks. A dungeon could also take anywhere from 10 minutes to 30, which gave the game a great "Just one more dungeon..." feel. The first game was a lot more traditional in length of a dungeon, but the puzzles still managed to set it apart.

Did anyone ever play that Wild Arms XF game for the PSP? It's only ten bucks, was considering it but have never played a Wild Arms game either.