JRPG Catch-All

shoptroll wrote:
ClockworkHouse wrote:

I know that for a lot of you, your early experiences with JRPGs were on the SNES: Chrono Trigger, Earthbound, Final Fantasy VI. But for me, mine were on the Playstation, and that generation stands out in my mind as one of the best for the balance games often struck between intricacy and immediacy. I remember that time really fondly as one highlighted by a different, more lighthearted range of emotions than settled in later with the PS2.

I still maintain that the golden era of JRPGs was the SNES/PS1 era (more specifically 1992 - 2000). Or at least in terms of Square + Enix's output. A lot of what came out on the PS1 was largely extensions of the series that grew into their own during the SNES, just with better graphics (which were often 3D), a lot more storage capacity, and a few years more experience in terms of usability and design.

Don't forget soundtracks! CDs helped them immensely!

shoppy wrote:
Vector wrote:

Don’t tempt me, Clock. I’m willing to wait on Lost Sphear but PSOne RPGs were my first RPGs. I’ll still rep hard for Chrono Cross.

Fun fact: Chrono Cross and Xenogears were handled by the same team. Once Chrono Cross was completed the team was tasked with Final Fantasy XI. At some point in XI's development many key members of that team would leave Squaresoft to form Monolithsoft.

No sh*t? Never knew this. Neat!

garion333 wrote:

Don't forget soundtracks! CDs helped them immensely!

I dunno. Seiken Densetsu 3's OST clocks in at around 3.5 hours while VII is about 4.5. The additional capacity helps but I think most JRPGs were still using synthisized/MIDI music and not Redbook for music, so it didn't help as much as you're suggesting.

shoppy wrote:

No sh*t? Never knew this. Neat!

Credit to Jeremy Parish for mentioning the Xeno/Chrono Cross connection in an article about Xenoblade 2, but Wikipedia is where I found the Final Fantasy XI connection. Although after double-checking it looks like MonolithSoft formed (Oct. 1999) right before XI went into development (Nov. 1999) so I'm guessing whoever was left from the Chrono Cross team is who ended up working on XI. For example, Masato Kato (who worked on Trigger, Xenogears, and Cross) is credited as a writer on XI even though he had gone freelance instead of joining MonolithSoft.

I swear one of these days I'm going to get bored and attempt to map out the family tree of Square's RPGs. There's some other interesting connections and observations to be made I'm sure.

Oh I shouldn’t be looking at loose copies of Wild Arms.
I got it already on PSN.

JohnKillo wrote:

Oh I shouldn’t be looking at loose copies of Wild Arms.
I got it already on PSN.

Same.

Actually, I keep looking at the PS2 remake, Wild Arms: Alter Code F, which is waaaay too expensive. It still looks really cool and reminds me constantly that it's one of the games I overlooked at the time that I really wish I had bought back then.

MrMetonymy wrote:
JohnKillo wrote:

Oh I shouldn’t be looking at loose copies of Wild Arms.
I got it already on PSN.

Same.

Actually, I keep looking at the PS2 remake, Wild Arms: Alter Code F, which is waaaay too expensive. It still looks really cool and reminds me constantly that it's one of the games I overlooked at the time that I really wish I had bought back then.

Oh that one is unreasonable expensive.

NISA did a good job on the re-localization of Ys VIII. I've played through a little past where I was before and while you get some of the same inane tropey Falcom dialog, it's not cringe worthy anymore.

MrMetonymy wrote:
JohnKillo wrote:

Oh I shouldn’t be looking at loose copies of Wild Arms.
I got it already on PSN.

Same.

Actually, I keep looking at the PS2 remake, Wild Arms: Alter Code F, which is waaaay too expensive. It still looks really cool and reminds me constantly that it's one of the games I overlooked at the time that I really wish I had bought back then.

I still have a near-mint copy of it. Managed to snag it for $30 not too long after it released. Reminds me I should either get a PS2 or a fat PS3 to play it again.

brokenclavicle wrote:
MrMetonymy wrote:
JohnKillo wrote:

Oh I shouldn’t be looking at loose copies of Wild Arms.
I got it already on PSN.

Same.

Actually, I keep looking at the PS2 remake, Wild Arms: Alter Code F, which is waaaay too expensive. It still looks really cool and reminds me constantly that it's one of the games I overlooked at the time that I really wish I had bought back then.

I still have a near-mint copy of it. Managed to snag it for $30 not too long after it released. Reminds me I should either get a PS2 or a fat PS3 to play it again.

Sweet! Very jealous on this end. Maybe one day I’ll bite the bullet and search out a used copy.

As far as playing PS2 games go, I’ve been having a lot of fun with the pc emulator, PCSX2. It’s kinda fiddly to get set up, but it plays all of my old, niche JRPGs very well. Plus, save states really help mitigate some of the more frustrating bits that I just don’t have the time or patience for anymore.

There’s not much in the way of new releases that I’m looking forward to this year, so I’m diving back into some retro titles in 2018.

MrMetonymy wrote:
brokenclavicle wrote:
MrMetonymy wrote:
JohnKillo wrote:

Oh I shouldn’t be looking at loose copies of Wild Arms.
I got it already on PSN.

Same.

Actually, I keep looking at the PS2 remake, Wild Arms: Alter Code F, which is waaaay too expensive. It still looks really cool and reminds me constantly that it's one of the games I overlooked at the time that I really wish I had bought back then.

I still have a near-mint copy of it. Managed to snag it for $30 not too long after it released. Reminds me I should either get a PS2 or a fat PS3 to play it again.

Sweet! Very jealous on this end. Maybe one day I’ll bite the bullet and search out a used copy.

As far as playing PS2 games go, I’ve been having a lot of fun with the pc emulator, PCSX2. It’s kinda fiddly to get set up, but it plays all of my old, niche JRPGs very well. Plus, save states really help mitigate some of the more frustrating bits that I just don’t have the time or patience for anymore.

There’s not much in the way of new releases that I’m looking forward to this year, so I’m diving back into some retro titles in 2018.

Ni No Kuni 2 and Ys 8 on the Switch. And maybe the New Valkyria Chronicles

JohnKillo wrote:

Ni No Kuni 2 and Ys 8 on the Switch. And maybe the New Valkyria Chronicles

Honestly, I’m only excited for the last one, but I hope the other two live up to people’s expectations.

The Ys series never grabbed me and I found the battle system of Ni No Kuni to be insufferable (sadly, given how big a fan I am of Studio Ghibli).

They completely rebuilt the battle system for NNK II, so who knows what we'll get?

ClockworkHouse wrote:

They completely rebuilt the battle system for NNK II, so who knows what we'll get?

That’s good news. I wrote off the series after my disappointment with the first one, so I’ll keep my fingers crossed for #2.

From the gameplay videos, it's more like a Tales game than a quasi-Pokemon system, but no one has played it, so grain of sand and all.

MrMetonymy wrote:
JohnKillo wrote:

Ni No Kuni 2 and Ys 8 on the Switch. And maybe the New Valkyria Chronicles

Honestly, I’m only excited for the last one, but I hope the other two live up to people’s expectations.

The Ys series never grabbed me and I found the battle system of Ni No Kuni to be insufferable (sadly, given how big a fan I am of Studio Ghibli).

I’m hopeful for Valkyria. It’s Sega so for track record they don’t have a lot of faith in the series for some odd reason. (Give it to Atlus).

Come on, Sega. Just port Resonance of Fate to literally anything current that's not a smart phone. [/port begging]

ClockworkHouse wrote:

Come on, Sega. Just port Resonance of Fate to literally anything current that's not a smart phone. [/port begging]

Yes please. That's one of my regretful misses from last gen.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

Come on, Sega. Just port Resonance of Fate to literally anything current that's not a smart phone. [/port begging]

This. Yes, please. I am way too lazy to hook up my PS3 again.

They mentioned the white whale! DQXI does exist outside of Japan! Or will...

I don't think anyone was expecting surprise announcements and releases of Dragon Quest or Octopath between now and March 31.

Yeah, it was a stop the presses comment.

I expect they'll be marquee releases in the Fall/Winter. I mean, what else do they have coming up?

garion333 wrote:

I mean, what else do they have coming up?

GERD.

I mean, Kingdom Hearts.

I meant before 2020, duh.

D23 Japan is this weekend and they're giving KH3 the center stage. Between that and E3 I expect we'll get a release date this year.

Not a JRPG but isn't a new Tomb Raider game believed to be in development?

shoptroll wrote:

Not a JRPG but isn't a new Tomb Raider game believed to be in development?

Maybe, but I'd be surprised. Last I saw, Square-Enix had Crystal Dynamics and Eidos Montreal both working full-time on their Avengers project(s).

ClockworkHouse wrote:

Last I saw, Square-Enix had Crystal Dynamics and Eidos Montreal both working full-time on their Avengers project(s).

*notsureifserious.jpg*

tuffalobuffalo wrote:
ClockworkHouse wrote:

Last I saw, Square-Enix had Crystal Dynamics and Eidos Montreal both working full-time on their Avengers project(s).

*notsureifserious.jpg*

https://crystald.com/projects/the-av...

garion333 wrote:
tuffalobuffalo wrote:
ClockworkHouse wrote:

Last I saw, Square-Enix had Crystal Dynamics and Eidos Montreal both working full-time on their Avengers project(s).

*notsureifserious.jpg*

https://crystald.com/projects/the-av...

Bleeeeehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. BleeeeehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhHHH...

Edit: I assume this has everything to do with Teddy Dief leaving Square Enix Montreal.

You had a erroneous "]" at the end of the url.

tuffalobuffalo wrote:

I assume this has everything to do with Teddy Dief leaving Square Enix Montreal.

Maybe, but probably not. Square-Enix Montreal is their mobile development branch, and had not yet been announced to be working on anything related to the Avengers project. Teddy Dief left because they canceled whatever it was he was working on there, but it doesn't seem to have been cancelled for Avengers stuff.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

Come on, Sega. Just port Resonance of Fate to literally anything current that's not a smart phone. [/port begging]

I don't know what makes you bring this up, but having played it through twice, I'm ready for a third go at an HD version. There's not enough love for the game, though; I have zero optimism for such a thing.

The game requires too much precision control for a small screen. It might work on a tablet, but you're still missing a lot of effect, at best. It would be a money-losing waste to do a mobile port, I think.