JRPG Catch-All

garion333 wrote:

Someone explain to me why Yo-Kai Watch is blowing up in Japan? Level-5 seems to have a huge hit on their hands and an original IP, so is it simply that it's a Pokémon-clone and therefore incredibly popular there?

Shoptroll and Demyx are the only two people I can find even mentioning the game on the forums.

Since playing Ni no Kuni, the idea of a Level 5 Pokemon-esque game appeals to me.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

It's a good-looking, well-made monster collecting game

SOLD

ClockworkHouse wrote:
PeterS wrote:
beeporama wrote:

tri-Ace made the Valkyrie Profile games as well, which lets me forgive many of their missteps.

I keep wishing for Valkyrie Profile: Hrist. Still, I'm glad that at least bits and pieces of VP live on in Child of Light.

If there's any game that's a modern Valkyrie Profile, it's Lightning Returns. I've seen more than one player comment that it feels like a Valkyrie Profile game that got rebranded as a Final Fantasy game mid-production for better sales numbers.

Son of a gun, I thought I was going to be able to give the whole FF13 franchise a miss and wait for FF15. You're tempting me!

Although the original Valkyrie Profile is a little dated and mechanically challenging, and VP2 was a little disappointing, there's much to be said for VP: Covenant of the Plume if you have a DS. A fairly light strategy/tactics (can never remember the difference) game with tons of replayability and that epic melancholy-but-hopeful tone of the other games in the series.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

If there's any game that's a modern Valkyrie Profile, it's Lightning Returns. I've seen more than one player comment that it feels like a Valkyrie Profile game that got rebranded as a Final Fantasy game mid-production for better sales numbers.

Mm, I almost mentioned Lightning Returns in my original post, and the game has been on my radar ever since I saw Jeremy Parish draw the comparison. But does it capture VP's magic in terms of world and atmosphere? The reviews have left me a little cautious.

beeporama wrote:

Although the original Valkyrie Profile is a little dated and mechanically challenging, and VP2 was a little disappointing, there's much to be said for VP: Covenant of the Plume if you have a DS. A fairly light strategy/tactics (can never remember the difference) game with tons of replayability and that epic melancholy-but-hopeful tone of the other games in the series.

After replaying the original VP last year, I think it holds up very well. The 2D graphics have aged far more gracefully than those of 3D games from the same generation (looking at you, Final Fantasy). The einherjar brim with personality, from their sprites to the cheesy but memorable voice clips. Where I think it does feel dated is in its obfuscation - requiring a FAQ to unlock the A ending (and most of the plot) is the infamous example, but the game mechanics are rife with the likes of "use item A to transmute item B into ultimate weapon X".

I've always been dismayed by the fanbase's rejection of VP2 - it's possibly my favourite out of the three. I agree that it's far more conventional than VP1, but I remember being a big fan of the battle system, and it has some of my favourite worldbuilding in any game (I wrote an article about it several years ago). The settings are lovely to explore, and this time around Motoi Sakuraba did a much better job of tailoring the music to each location's mood (vs the ubiquitous rock in the original). But the really unique and cool thing about the worldbuilding was the way the einherjar backstories interwove, both with the locations and with one another, to tell the history of Midgard. Even better was that the stated backstories weren't always true! It left a big impression on me that's remained to this day.

I thought Covenant of the Plume was mechanically iffy, but its story explored a theme badly underused by video games - the futility of revenge.

All three games have a special place in my heart, and the "epic melancholy-but-hopeful tone" mentioned by beeporamais a big reason why.

Great article, Peter, thanks.

Hm... I've never played a Valkyrie Profile game. I am a 16 bit era JRPG nut and lately have been preferring them to newer efforts. I was going to jump into Persona 3 after I finish FFX HD, but VP might be more my cup of tea. Is it similar to SNES era FF games? For some reason I always had it in my mind that VP was an action platformer RPG.

Warriorpoet897 wrote:

Hm... I've never played a Valkyrie Profile game. I am a 16 bit era JRPG nut and lately have been preferring them to newer efforts. I was going to jump into Persona 3 after I finish FFX HD, but VP might be more my cup of tea. Is it similar to SNES era FF games? For some reason I always had it in my mind that VP was an action platformer RPG.

There is some light platforming in the 2D side-perspective (instead of top-down) dungeon exploration, but I really wouldn't think of it as a platformer. The battle system isn't "action" but it lets you trigger your party's attacks in a certain order that let you juggle or knock down enemies for more damage. It is not at all twitchy; it's just that some foresight and timing lets you do more damage.

It has a lot of mechanics that I don't think have ever been tried anywhere else, which I think is a shame. (Regularly sending characters to Midgaard, and getting back reports on how they are doing that vary depending who you send, is pretty dang cool.) Its tone and characters are really unique. It makes it hard to make comparisons and determine whether you would like it. However, I'd definitely say it is mechanically much more like a classic turn-based RPG than any kind of action game.

PeterS wrote:
ClockworkHouse wrote:

If there's any game that's a modern Valkyrie Profile, it's Lightning Returns. I've seen more than one player comment that it feels like a Valkyrie Profile game that got rebranded as a Final Fantasy game mid-production for better sales numbers.

Mm, I almost mentioned Lightning Returns in my original post, and the game has been on my radar ever since I saw Jeremy Parish draw the comparison. But does it capture VP's magic in terms of world and atmosphere? The reviews have left me a little cautious.

beeporama wrote:

Although the original Valkyrie Profile is a little dated and mechanically challenging, and VP2 was a little disappointing, there's much to be said for VP: Covenant of the Plume if you have a DS. A fairly light strategy/tactics (can never remember the difference) game with tons of replayability and that epic melancholy-but-hopeful tone of the other games in the series.

After replaying the original VP last year, I think it holds up very well. The 2D graphics have aged far more gracefully than those of 3D games from the same generation (looking at you, Final Fantasy). The einherjar brim with personality, from their sprites to the cheesy but memorable voice clips. Where I think it does feel dated is in its obfuscation - requiring a FAQ to unlock the A ending (and most of the plot) is the infamous example, but the game mechanics are rife with the likes of "use item A to transmute item B into ultimate weapon X".

I've always been dismayed by the fanbase's rejection of VP2 - it's possibly my favourite out of the three. I agree that it's far more conventional than VP1, but I remember being a big fan of the battle system, and it has some of my favourite worldbuilding in any game (I wrote an article about it several years ago). The settings are lovely to explore, and this time around Motoi Sakuraba did a much better job of tailoring the music to each location's mood (vs the ubiquitous rock in the original). But the really unique and cool thing about the worldbuilding was the way the einherjar backstories interwove, both with the locations and with one another, to tell the history of Midgard. Even better was that the stated backstories weren't always true! It left a big impression on me that's remained to this day.

I thought Covenant of the Plume was mechanically iffy, but its story explored a theme badly underused by video games - the futility of revenge.

All three games have a special place in my heart, and the "epic melancholy-but-hopeful tone" mentioned by beeporamais a big reason why. :)

I'm not sure what you do for your day job or what sort of exposure your site has, but I'd suggest considering writing for the front page here when the call for writers goes back up.

Thanks, grobstein and garion333! You're very kind.

Warriorpoet897, to elaborate on what beeporama said, I think VP's main resemblance to a SNES-era game is the use of 2D sprites. I would say there are some action elements (timing matters in combat), and some platforming elements, but IMHO it's an RPG first and foremost.

Persona 2: Eternal Punishment, Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner, and Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner 2 are discounted at $3.99 each on the US PSN Store. Dunno if it had been posted already and I'm guessing it's about to expire since these "silent" discounts appear to be valid for only a week at a time.

I've put about 35 hours into Suikoden Tierkreis and while it's not my favorite Suikoden game by any means it's still a fantastic game and one of my favorite handheld rpgs.

Better or worse than Suikoden IV?

Definitely better.

My ranking(with Tierkreis not fully finished yet): Suik 2 > Suik 5 > Suik 3 > Suik Tierkreis > Suik 1 > Suik Tactics > Suik 4

It took me a bit of contemplating to put it over Suik 1, but while that was the game that introduced me to the series, it had a lot of weird quirks that have been fixed in the updated games that make them better. Tierkreis in particular has a full equipment system that goes against the franchise a bit but allows you to equip bows and swords on your characters to change their formation positioning(Long, Medium, Short). Looking forward to getting all 108 and seeing where the story goes.

Yeah, I definitely feel like Tierkreis never got its due. Too many bitter fans by that point I guess. I never did finish Tierkreis as my cart started crashing randomly close to the end.

My order of preference would be 2 > 3 > Tierkreis > 5 > 1 >>> 4. Never did play Tactics. Sad that the franchise is all but dead at this point.

I think I'd rather it be dead that some free to play mobile thing.

The Vita release of Disgaea 4 comes out August 12th. It's the base game plus all the DLC from the PS3 version.

Trails in the Sky will be hitting PCs next Tuesday for $19.99.

b12n11w00t wrote:

I think I'd rather it be dead that some free to play mobile thing. ;)

Yeah...

For anyone needing a JRPG fix for PSP/Vita:
Growlanser: Wayfarer of Time - $5 on the current PSN sale, a steal.

Persona Q got a release date, November 25, 2014

So far away!

I was hoping it would be August. What a fool I was!

Yeah I wish it was before Smash Bros. Maybe the excitement will have died down enough for me to get another 3DS game...

Persona 4 Golden is finally done, it is probably the best game I played this year and also the longest, I really enjoyed the little stories for every character, it brought personalilties to the people in the world. The combat was well done but towards the end of the game started to get stale. To me personally 85 hours for a single playthrough is a bit long, I also think the whole "love" interest was an after thought as it was pretty shallow and did not really effect game play/conversations besides the few days. In all I really enjoyed the game and definatelly got my 20 dollars worth.

(also I am happy to be able to finally remove this cart from my vita)

I am still in what feels like the tutorial section of Persona 4 Golden. About 4 hours in and just starting my first couple battles. They have introduced a number of concepts but the combat feels like just use normal attack or, if the monster is bigger, use one of the Personas. I am looking forward to finally being able to do something other than read blocks of text and when the combat gets deeper/more interesting.

The combat was never really what I loved about P3/4. And, yeah, 85 hours is a long time to spend in one game these days! When I was a kid I lapped that kind of stuff right up.

Mr GT Chris wrote:

The combat was never really what I loved about P3/4. And, yeah, 85 hours is a long time to spend in one game these days! When I was a kid I lapped that kind of stuff right up.

back then I had more time then money, now its the other way around

Are there any hints that P5 is coming to PS4? I'm trying to pack away the PS3, and this is the only game that is preventing that.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say it'll be for both. The PS4 isn't doing terribly well in Japan so I fully expect Atlus will need to release it on both platforms.

garion333 wrote:

I'm going to go out on a limb and say it'll be for both. The PS4 isn't doing terribly well in Japan so I fully expect Atlus will need to release it on both platforms.

If the PS4 is doing poorly in Japan there's no reason to make a port for the platform. At launch. Atlus traditionally lags behind the rest of the pack with developing for new consoles, so I really think it's going to be PS3 exclusive for a while.

shoptroll wrote:
garion333 wrote:

I'm going to go out on a limb and say it'll be for both. The PS4 isn't doing terribly well in Japan so I fully expect Atlus will need to release it on both platforms.

If the PS4 is doing poorly in Japan there's no reason to make a port for the platform. At launch. Atlus traditionally lags behind the rest of the pack with developing for new consoles, so I really think it's going to be PS3 exclusive for a while.

I say Sega wants all the moneys and sees how well the PS4 is doing worldwide.

PS4 version will launch at release or very soon thereafter.

/gauntlet