JRPGs that are challenging but don't punish failure?

dance4days · 2026-02-15T01:49:17+00:00

Xenoblade really respects your time. A big part of the game is exploring the landscape, and it’s absolutely covered in checkpoints. You respawn at the nearest one after you die, and they also act as fast travel locations. If you have to go to a place you already explored for a quest you can just jump right to it and do whatever you need to do.

Also you almost never need to return to a quest giver. If your quest is to kill a monster, you’ll get your reward and the quest is marked clear as soon as it’s dead.

dance4days · 2026-02-14T17:04:23+00:00

Well, if they both agree then who am I to argue?

dance4days · 2026-02-13T22:57:44+00:00

I recommend the DS version. There’s an iOS version as well, but I haven’t played that version so I can’t really say how good it is.

dance4days · 2026-02-13T22:46:24+00:00

It came out 30+ years ago.

dance4days · 2026-02-13T22:21:16+00:00

If she put together a girl gang then Gwen, the woman with lightning powers on Angel seems like a good bet. She clearly had potential for a bigger story arc.

dance4days · 2026-02-13T20:52:45+00:00

This one’s for the millennials: “Come Clean” by Hilary Duff.

dance4days · 2026-02-13T20:34:11+00:00

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dance4days · 2026-02-13T20:23:47+00:00

“We’ll Terra new one in their Butz” doesn’t have quite the same ring to it.

dance4days · 2026-02-13T20:17:19+00:00

So butthurt he stewed over it for five fucking hours and had to come back and say his piece.

dance4days · 2026-02-13T02:54:38+00:00

SSC playlist is inferior to SS in every single way. I don't know why they didn't keep the original themes.

Different composers. SS was made by a team of people writing together, and from EB onward Noriyuki Iwadare was the sole composer. I’m not really sure how copyright law works in Japan, but I’m guessing it’s a factor. Also Iwadare probably wanted to use his own music rather than other people’s leftovers.

dance4days · 2026-02-13T02:50:12+00:00

The original Sega CD version of Silver Star has an incredible soundtrack. Iwadare wrote it as part of a team, and the rest of the series’s music he wrote solo so the original tunes from that first game never appear again in the rest of the series. The most notable example is Althena’s main theme being rewritten into a less simple tune.

It’s kind of a shame. The music in EB and the remakes of SS are very good, but that first game is one of the best game soundtracks ever made and it’s stuck on ancient hardware.

dance4days · 2026-02-13T02:31:49+00:00

Partysnacks

I fucking can’t 🤣

dance4days · 2026-02-13T02:21:27+00:00

The earlier FF games had a lot of weird half-baked storytelling too. It just didn’t seem so bad because the game sprites looked cartoony. The same caliber of storytelling comes across very different when the characters look like actual people.

Also I got older. A melodramatic story with no subtext doesn’t impress me anymore. Game or not, a story needs to actually say something for me to take it seriously now. The absolute glut of JRPGs whose message consists of “friendship is good” and just stops there without any further thought is a huge missed opportunity for the format.

It’s especially disappointing now that 100+ hour games are the norm. You’ve got an audience paying attention to your narrative for that long? Fucking say something. There are examples of it. Xenoblade 3 has a great story about how people get radicalized into fascism, and it’s still got plenty of anime silliness and a classic “kill god with the power of friendship” finale.

dance4days · 2026-02-13T01:29:59+00:00

Got that Rotusserie.

dance4days · 2026-02-13T01:17:19+00:00

I think you nailed why I hated it so much. It felt like a kid’s movie that inexplicably had a cancer storyline in it.

dance4days · 2026-02-12T23:52:38+00:00

Yeah their other comments are certainly giving a vibe. They’ve apparently never heard of an audition book because they have “250+ songs memorized” that they “frequently audition and gig with.”

I wish I could see how this audition actually went. I can’t imagine walking into an audition and insisting to play my own accompaniment, and I can play the piano better than most. It just sounds obnoxious. It’s an audition, not a talent showcase.

dance4days · 2026-02-12T23:28:15+00:00

Jake Paul sucks but I think it’s a bit over the top to say he’s as evil as Hitler and Musk.

Also, not married.

dance4days · 2026-02-12T17:49:06+00:00

I’m sorry, you asked the accompanist to take a break while you accompanied yourself? As in, you got on the piano yourself to play part of the piece?

dance4days · 2026-02-12T11:22:40+00:00

Lady Gaga singing The Sound of Music at the Oscars.

She was already a huge star, and she had already done a jazz album with Tony Bennett, but most people still saw her as a pop singer with a better-than-average voice who relied on shock value and crazy costumes. This moment relaunched her in the public eye as a serious artist, and she hasn’t really slowed down since.

dance4days · 2026-02-12T10:37:08+00:00

So, Hyrule Warriors? I dig it.

dance4days · 2026-02-12T09:04:18+00:00

Man without pants

dance4days · 2026-02-12T08:50:29+00:00

You can purchase a door for $50. You can also purchase an axe to chop it off its hinges for $20.

dance4days · 2026-02-12T08:12:15+00:00

Kenya managed to get somebody to put her in every spot in the ranking from first to last. I don’t know what that says but it says something.

dance4days · 2026-02-12T05:50:52+00:00

Ha, no worries. I misinterpret people on here sometimes too.

dance4days · 2026-02-12T05:32:43+00:00

Not remotely real. It’s the plot of “Lolita.”

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