JRPGs that Aren't Final Fantasy Catch-All 2.0

I picked up Star Ocean The Divine Force, and I've been having a good time. It's pretty standard JRPG stuff, but the pacing is very quick and there is a ton of mobility in the game, both in exploration and in combat.

Yeah I'm enjoying the new Star Ocean. Love the new mechanic for zipping around the open world quickly.

Ys X officially coming in 2023, and other info. Nintendo Life added a bit about a rerelease of Ys: Oath in Felghana in their article.

I just finished Ys VIII, my first Ys game, and enjoyed it quite a bit. Ran a little long by the end (finished at 56 hours) but that's the genre. I probably enjoyed the island survival storyline in the first half more than the ancient civilization mystery and resolution in the back half. But overall a really fun time with a breezy sense of adventure. Not sure I'll bother checking out Ys IX anytime soon, so I may just skip ahead to Ys X next time I get the itch for the series.

beanman101283 wrote:

I just finished Ys VIII, my first Ys game, and enjoyed it quite a bit. Ran a little long by the end (finished at 56 hours) but that's the genre. I probably enjoyed the island survival storyline in the first half more than the ancient civilization mystery and resolution in the back half. But overall a really fun time with a breezy sense of adventure. Not sure I'll bother checking out Ys IX anytime soon, so I may just skip ahead to Ys X next time I get the itch for the series.

Ys IX is the current JRPG game, and I was able to knock it out in maybe 50 hours in a month when it was free on Amazon Luna. If you are unsure on the game, go check out the game club thread.

I've been lurking in the Ys IX club thread and the discussion there has made me think that I don't need to check it out right away. Certainly not right after finishing VIII, anyway. I'm sure I would enjoy it, but it doesn't sound like a must-play right now for me. And the little info in that Ys X announcement has me more excited about the tone and setting than IX's.

I started playing it with the club at the beginning of the quarter, then fell hard into Persona 5 Royal and stopped. I recently picked it back up again. It's good, and fun, but takes a while to hit its stride. In the first few hours, it felt like "oh, this is Ys VIII, but less good."

LastSurprise wrote:

I started playing it with the club at the beginning of the quarter, then fell hard into Persona 5 Royal and stopped. I recently picked it back up again. It's good, and fun, but takes a while to hit its stride. In the first few hours, it felt like "oh, this is Ys VIII, but less good."

And I think "like Ys VIII but less good" was the conclusion of several of us that finished it with the club. It had some fun traversal stuff, but the setting and story of VIII just really worked better. But it's not bad by any means.

The mechanics fit much better into Ys 9 than Ys 8 thematically, but the characters, story, and themes of 8 were better in my opinion. The whole rampage system in Ys 8 never really made sense, and the invisible yet implied time progression kind of threw me for a loop.

Sundown wrote:
LastSurprise wrote:

I started playing it with the club at the beginning of the quarter, then fell hard into Persona 5 Royal and stopped. I recently picked it back up again. It's good, and fun, but takes a while to hit its stride. In the first few hours, it felt like "oh, this is Ys VIII, but less good."

And I think "like Ys VIII but less good" was the conclusion of several of us that finished it with the club. It had some fun traversal stuff, but the setting and story of VIII just really worked better. But it's not bad by any means.

Exactly my feelings. It's not a bad game, but it's tough to follow Ys VIII. Mechanically, it's all very nice and probably the most refined this style of Ys has been. The bosses are fantastic and there are a lot of cool things you can do.

But the pacing and storytelling just didn't work for me. The mystery of the island in VIII kept me hooked, whereas sidequests about mundane city life in IX bored me. The strange gating in IX also bugged me, it was quite literally invisible walls until you completex X side-quests which never made thematic sense.

I'll finish IX because it's still a very solid entry, but it's just a bit rough trying to play through it after adoring VIII.

Ys X: Nordics details - Adol is 17 years old, only two playable characters, more

Get the key tidbits below.

“‘Nordics’ is a term that means ‘people of the north.'”
“The time period goes way back—after the events of Ys I and II. Adol is 17 years old and on his way to Celceta (which is brought up in the manual preface of Ys I!).”
“Dr. Flair Rall is traveling with you.”
“It’s a story of boys and girls. Since this is the first time we’re releasing on Switch, the main characters are younger, and part of that was considering the userbase.”
“There are only two playable characters (Adol and the axe girl). That being said, the action is dense and there are all sorts of things you can do.”
“There are town(s), but your base will always be your ship.”
“Solo Mode offers the usual high-speed battles [of the Ys series]. Combination Mode lets you pull off more powerful attacks, but the overall speed of battle is slower so you can fight more carefully. (The speed only changes on Adol’s side.) You can only switch to Combination Mode when holding down a certain button, and it switches back to Solo Mode when said button is released.”
“Defense carries major weight. Guarding builds up your Revenge Gauge, which can increase your attack power.”
“We’ve taken considerable care to adjust the difficulty level so that a wide range of users can enjoy the game.”
“There are special actions called ‘Mana Actions.’ There’s more freedom when performing mid-air actions.”
“About 20 percent of the game is sailing your ship. There are maps dedicated to ship and naval battles occur when you encounter enemies. There is also a growth (i.e. character development) element to the ship.”
“We’ll release new footage(s) either in the early New Year or in the spring.”
“Hopefully the release date will be around the same time as usual. (Laughs.)”
“We’re quite aware of the challenge we’re undertaking in the new field that is Switch. Production is currently underway with the intention of making a game that both series newcomers and fans alike can enjoy.”
Ys X: Nordics is due out for PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, and Switch in 2023 in Japan.

farley3k wrote:
“About 20 percent of the game is sailing your ship. There are maps dedicated to ship and naval battles occur when you encounter enemies. There is also a growth (i.e. character development) element to the ship.”

This went from probably going to play to almost definitely not going to play right here. Ever since I played Zelda: Wind Waker and Phantom Hourglass, I've not wanted to see sailing on open waters in games.

It may be that most people here are also checking out the JRPG Club threads, but in case you aren't: we're playing Tales of Arise over there! I just started, today.

I started Kingdom Hearts 2 Final Mix for the first time. While the opening few hours were pretty rough (it’s fairly dull, and in Proud mode the first couple bosses are pretty aggravating), after fifteen hours I’m really enjoying it. It’s just a really fun game to beat up enemies. Each world you visit takes about an hour to 90 minutes to complete, so they don’t wear out their welcome. Some of the worlds have really surprised me in terms of setting and what you do while you’re there.

My only real disappointment, and it’s pretty minor, is that compared to Kingdom Hearts 1 the levels are extremely linear and simple. In KH1 the levels were full of secrets and items you couldn’t access until you’d gained several new abilities. From what I can tell here I just need to be able to jump higher.

KH1 felt like a proof of concept in terms of presentation, levels and combat. KH2 feels like the polished confident sequel now that they know what game they’re making. There were things in KH1 I could appreciate, but overall it hasn’t aged well. KH2 I’m thoroughly enjoying.

Tragic news today: Lost Odyssey is being delisted from the Xbox 360 marketplace on February 7th.

Blue Dragon is also getting delisted, but this one is not as fondly remembered. My unplayed copy is giving me the eyes right now.

bobbywatson wrote:

Tragic news today: Lost Odyssey is being delisted from the Xbox 360 marketplace on February 7th.

Blue Dragon is also getting delisted, but this one is not as fondly remembered. My unplayed copy is giving me the eyes right now.

Well, that's sad. I enjoyed both and would like to own them both once more... but have no system to play them on. Never did finish Lost Odyssey, but it's on the bucketlist. Blue Dragon I played with my kid when she was quite small, meaning it took way longer than it should have since she insisted on taking over to grind battles and would suddenly leave the game running so she could try to sketch some of the monsters... Fond memories, these. Really wish Mistwalker would do something about re-releasing their back catalog.

I have physical copies of both, nothing to play them on. Maybe in 10 years I’ll have a handheld that does 360 games :).

bobbywatson wrote:

Tragic news today: Lost Odyssey is being delisted from the Xbox 360 marketplace on February 7th.

Blue Dragon is also getting delisted, but this one is not as fondly remembered. My unplayed copy is giving me the eyes right now.

This is still confusing because it says " “These titles will no longer be purchasable on the Xbox 360 Store only, and titles that are available to be purchased on the Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S Stores will remain purchasable."

So this reads to me that if you have a Xbox One / Series X you can still buy the games, but if you have a 360 only you won't. Am I not understanding clearly?

Basically what this Reddit post is saying is how I understand the situation.

So Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey are safe as long as you have an Xbox One or a Series X|S.

Oh, great, best news I’ve heard today! Would be better if it was followed by ‘and they will be added to the Microsoft Store on PC and Steam so everyone can enjoy them’, but hey, I’ll take it

bobbywatson wrote:

Oh, great, best news I’ve heard today! Would be better if it was followed by ‘and they will be added to the Microsoft Store on PC and Steam so everyone can enjoy them’, but hey, I’ll take it :)

This would be ideal. One can still dream and hope, eh?

Is this where we talk about the Etrian Odyssey 1-3 remakes that just got announced for Switch yesterday?

I know some people were trying to pick the old ones up for 3DS before the shop closed but this seems pretty cool.

They look great. I wonder how the map making will feel.

They'll also be available on Steam.

It sure doesn't feel like fifteen years since the debut of the series, though. Time has flown by.

Edit. I dun goofed.

JohnKillo wrote:
Aristophan wrote:

They look great. I wonder how the map making will feel.

I’ve read somewhere that it will auto map. It would be cool if they had also a touch screen map mode too.

I’m glad for the Prime announcement. I could show my coworker the trailer and he was excited.

Another video from the Nintendo Direct of interest here:

Hot on the heels of Chained Echoes, more DEEP Chrono Trigger homage coming this summer.

I never played the Messenger, but from what I heard it was pretty much the best possible homage you could have wanted for the NES Ninja Garden games, so between the developer pedigree and what was shown in that trailer, I'm quite interested.

Looks like it will also be on Steam and Playstation, but the official site doesn't list Xbox, so maybe don't expect this one to show up on Game Pass.

zeroKFE wrote:

Another video from the Nintendo Direct of interest here:

Hot on the heels of Chained Echoes, more DEEP Chrono Trigger homage coming this summer.

And there's a demo on Switch! I need to get into this.

Can't resist a demo.

Aristophan wrote:

They look great.

Yeah, don't they?

I like that Atlus took this direction: update the visuals to HD, add in all the ergonomic lessons learned over the years, adapt things as best they can to a single screen, and call it good.

The 3D modeling and animation of the enemies was fine in the Untold installments but the static artwork is gorgeous as-is and I like the mystery and tension of FOEs as floating blobs.

JohnKillo wrote:
Aristophan wrote:

I wonder how the map making will feel.

I’ve read somewhere that it will auto map. It would be cool if they had also a touch screen map mode too.

Watching the announcement trailer in slo-mo gives me the impression that mapping can be accomplished by both controller and/or touch screen.

I'll pick up all three HD installments at some point (but not this year). I don't particularly enjoy exploring party builds but I'm all in on making maps, so I think I'll be opting for "picnic" difficulty next time around.

Looks like it's a 33% discount for buying all 3 as a package.

And for PC that bundle is on sale at fanatical for $9 more off or so.

Figured I would want on a Switch but money...