The GWJ JRPG Club Version 2.5 HD Remaster: Announcing our Q2 2024 Game!

And Persona 5 finished!

Mr GT Chris wrote:

And Persona 5 finished!

Congratulations!

Congratulations, and welcome to Level 3!

Hooray! Level 4 may not be far away...

If you’ve finished Chapter 6, I think it’s pretty close! You’ll beat me to it. I haven’t gone back to Persona in at least a week, and I’m still on 12/4 or so.

And The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel done!

And congrats on being the first to reach level 4! This reminds me of the podcast a few weeks ago, when they were talking about video game super powers and someone mentioned wishing that we had real-life skill trees.

I know I didn't finish during the gameclub but I wish it counts. Level 1 status would be nice.

Persona 5 is down. Woo

Congratulations! Leveling you up now.

... and, leveled myself up too.

We've entered the month of June, which means one month left for anyone playing Persona 5! Anyone out there still playing? Who's within striking distance of the end?

We'll open nominations for the new JRPG Club pick on or around June 10. I'd love to hear if there's anything folks are really excited to play! Personally, after a couple of super-long, dialogue-heavy games, I'm in the mood for something more action-oriented, and something that can be finished in about 30 hours.

Nier Automata

Trails in Cold Steel 2

There have been a few newer titles recently, FFXV, Persona 5, but, if possible, I'd like us to steer the course back to more older titles. This is selfish desire on my part, if we ever go PS4/XB1/Switch only I'm pretty much out, at least for the medium term. Persona 5 was a lucky case for me because it had a (very competent) PS3 version even though it's a relatively new game. Alternatively, would there be any interest in running a parallel retro JRPG every 3 months, say one game 2-5 years old and one game 6+ years old? I can't be the only one with tons of older games that I just need an excuse to play.

I'm still trucking along in Persona 5, hoping to kill it before June's done.

Mr GT Chris wrote:

Alternatively, would there be any interest in running a parallel retro JRPG every 3 months, say one game 2-5 years old and one game 6+ years old? I can't be the only one with tons of older games that I just need an excuse to play.

I would personally like that, but I'm not sure participation would warrant it. I know Godzilla Blitz sometimes uses themes to restrict the range of potential games for the CRPG club, and I could see this as something LastSurprise and I could try in the future. I certainly have a boatload of older games in my backlog, and there are quite a few games I would like to play or replay that are from the SNES or PS1 era.

However, access to those older games is not necessarily easy (unless you're willing to go down the less legal route), which I think would restrict participation (which is certainly something that the CRPG club doesn't face as much, thanks to GOG and Steam).

As for what I want for the next game club: something that is about 40 hours long

I definitely see it as being restricted to only games that are still available for purchase, PS1/2 classics, snes classic games, those available through rereleases, anything on the various eshops. Anyway, we’ve seen a few old games show up in the votes, BOFIV for example, that are never going to win the overall vote but would be good candidates for a retro game.

I do think it's an interesting idea, but in addition to bobbywatson's concerns, I'm also concerned about diluting overall participation.

We already play games for the JRPG Club that are longer than many other games, and I think most of us are not just playing the JRPG Club selection at any given time. And, while there are often a whole bunch of people who sign on at the start, the crowd often thins out pretty quickly. With the past few selections, I've noticed that the conversation eventually boils down to 3-4 people. There's nothing wrong with that necessarily, though I'd love for more people to participate. But I don't think we have enough players to really support dual selections. In fact, IIRC, it was tried in the past and it didn't really work.

My other concern with trying to run something retro is that people might choose games that they think they want to play, but then they start playing and quickly realize that they don't actually want to. I think this happened with Kingdom Hearts Final Mix and Chain of Memories. Not too many people even finished the first game, and as it turned out no one wanted to play the second.

But on the other hand, if going more retro could help participation, I'd be all for it. I'm going to throw something out there, though I'm not sure if it's a good idea: we could pick a category of game and then each person could choose their own game within the category. Like if "tactical JRPG" was selected one month, each person could pick their own tactical game. But it might get difficult to follow a thread where people are playing a bunch of different games.

LastSurprise wrote:

But on the other hand, if going more retro could help participation, I'd be all for it. I'm going to throw something out there, though I'm not sure if it's a good idea: we could pick a category of game and then each person could choose their own game within the category. Like if "tactical JRPG" was selected one month, each person could pick their own tactical game. But it might get difficult to follow a thread where people are playing a bunch of different games.

I'm interested in the "pick your own game" idea as a change of pace. I've been doing some thinking about ways to re-structure the CRPG Club into a hybrid "Parties of Six" (not sure on the number, maybe 10 would be better) type of experience, where the main thread serves as a digital Tavern of sorts, a place where people can find other adventurers to play the same game. Once you have the required number in a party, you can "launch an adventure". The challenge, I think, comes with getting enough people for it to feel like a shared experience, not polluting the board with a dozen RPG Club threads, and making sure that people who are opting in to the adventure are actually committed to giving the game a legitimate try. Some sort of a pick-your-own game round with parties all in one thread might be a good way to test this. You could ask people to start each post with the game they are playing in bold as a way to organize things.

bobbywatson wrote:

As for what I want for the next game club: something that is about 40 hours long

That'd be awesome. I've been hoping to participate more over here but playing two epic RPGs at the same time is usually beyond me.

Pick your own game... Parties... interesting. The idea is worth exploring, I think.

I'm definitely into the 40hours or less games. Or action titles. I can't think of too many non-turnbased rpgs off the top of my head. Final Fantasy XV jumps off first. Maybe Resonance of Fate. As for shorter games, I'd love to be "forced" into Final Fantasy 6...the one that is probably better than 7 but didn't release on ps1 with 3d graphics so it got no love (same with suikoden 1 and 2).

I'd also love for the group to play Final Fantasy Tactics or Tactics Ogre: Let us Cling Together - but the latter is only legally on PSP I believe, while you can get FFT on everything except PC at this point. Oh, there's Final Fantasy Type-0 that fits both shorter and actiony-er. If there is a way for the group to play Vagrant Story, that would be the best.

Tactics Ogre looks great on Vita btw.

I’d love a shot at this category thing as a way to be able to keep involved. But I’ll leave it to the big bosses to decide :).

KozmoOchez wrote:

I'd also love for the group to play Final Fantasy Tactics or Tactics Ogre: Let us Cling Together - but the latter is only legally on PSP I believe, while you can get FFT on everything except PC at this point. Oh, there's Final Fantasy Type-0 that fits both shorter and actiony-er. If there is a way for the group to play Vagrant Story, that would be the best.

Technically, you can also play Tactics Ogre: LuCT on the VITA - and PSTV, I would surmise - if you purchase it from the PS Store. I actually have it, but have yet to even install it.

KozmoOchez wrote:

I'm definitely into the 40hours or less games. Or action titles. I can't think of too many non-turnbased rpgs off the top of my head. Final Fantasy XV jumps off first. Maybe Resonance of Fate. As for shorter games, I'd love to be "forced" into Final Fantasy 6...the one that is probably better than 7 but didn't release on ps1 with 3d graphics so it got no love (same with suikoden 1 and 2).

I'd also love for the group to play Final Fantasy Tactics or Tactics Ogre: Let us Cling Together - but the latter is only legally on PSP I believe, while you can get FFT on everything except PC at this point. Oh, there's Final Fantasy Type-0 that fits both shorter and actiony-er. If there is a way for the group to play Vagrant Story, that would be the best.

Yeah, I’d play FF6 again for sure, and I’ve always wanted an opportunity to play Tactics Ogre (but don’t have a way to play it).

There are plenty of more action-y JRPGs out there. The first one that comes to mind — Nier Automata — almost won last time. I can also think of the Ys series, Ni No Kuni 2, the Kingdom Hearts series, the Tales series, etc.

As I was thinking about this, I went over to Wikipedia’s list of best-selling JRPG franchises and saw that Wikipedia, at least, considers the Dark Souls games to be JRPGs. I’ve never thought of them that way. But what do you all think?

In much the same way that Ellen in Pete & Pete was a girl, and a friend, but not a girlfriend, Dark Souls is Japanese, and an RPG, but not a JRPG.

hbi2k wrote:

In much the same way that Ellen in Pete & Pete was a girl, and a friend, but not a girlfriend, Dark Souls is Japanese, and an RPG, but not a JRPG.

lol gold

Also with the Tactics Ogre thing, I was under the impression that mobile games were not in the running. So it would have to be PSP/Vita/PSTV or some emulator for SNES or PSP. I've played it on every single one of those devices and it works well on any screen. I'm excited for whatever game is next. With the move and the incoming baby, I'm probably not going to be able to finish Trails of Cold Steel. I did finish Persona 5 though, but prior to the event here. I did replay it to keep up with the discussions, but didn't finish a second time. Someone mentioned Ni No Kuni 2, I finished that game at 80+ hours. It does not take long, but most of my play time was this:

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/iBTwIul.jpg)
Playing remote to keep up with the kingdom building.

I always try to participate, but after doing a hard bounce of the Kingdom Hearts games, the last couple picks I already have finished prior to the club, and despite them being one of my most favorite games I wasn't ready to do another trek through them.

hbi2k wrote:

In much the same way that Ellen in Pete & Pete was a girl, and a friend, but not a girlfriend, Dark Souls is Japanese, and an RPG, but not a JRPG.

hbi2k and I agree about once every other never, but he's spot-on here. Dark Souls isn't a JRPG despite being an RPG from Japan.

ClockworkHouse wrote:
hbi2k wrote:

In much the same way that Ellen in Pete & Pete was a girl, and a friend, but not a girlfriend, Dark Souls is Japanese, and an RPG, but not a JRPG.

hbi2k and I agree about once every other never, but he's spot-on here. Dark Souls isn't a JRPG despite being an RPG from Japan.

Definitely not a JRPG.

Also, loved the Pete & Pete reference. Going to try and insert it into my vernacular as much as possible hehehe.

Pete & Pete references truly do transcend all differences between people.