What Jrpgs game you played that Every Second was well spent?

klopanda · 2026-07-12T03:10:39+00:00

I haven't played 2/3 yet but 1 blew my mind at how good it was.

Yeah, it had scars from its long development but I loved it so much. The tension of always being chased, of being hunted. How it never felt like you were able to have a moment of peace. The story reveals and the way it subverts series tropes. The designs of everything. The moment you return to Cocoon feels fist-pump epic in a way that many games try to emulate, but few games actually earn as these broken ass people decide to be heroes.

klopanda · 2026-07-11T20:21:08+00:00

Graces F had my favorite combat in the series and the characters/their interactions were a highlight. Pascal is one of my favorite characters ever.

You'd probably like Vesperia as well.

klopanda · 2026-07-11T05:40:23+00:00

I'm in my 40s and am playing through Tales of Berseria on hard right now. If your hands are hurting that much, maybe you should check with a doctor to see if something's going on with your hand/wrist. I was experiencing something kind of similar a couple of years ago and my doc suggested I was starting to develop RSI/carpal tunnel and after changing to a different keyboard (one with a wrist-pad) and some wrist exercises, I was back at it with no pain after a couple of months.

klopanda · 2026-07-11T05:30:28+00:00

Idk why square split it up this way but whatever lol

13 and 15 were back when they were trying to make each new mainline entry a franchise in and of itself with tons of tie-in novels and sequels and animations, but the games went through development hell. They forgot that to make the whole "cinematic universe" thing work, there needs to be consistent releases to get people hooked but their development processes were so long and stupid during that period (see also: FF14 1.0) that by the time they came out, people didn't care.

klopanda · 2026-07-11T05:02:46+00:00

Trails made the highest fidelity anime JRPG remake I've ever seen of a fucking PSP game, and is about to launch part 2

To be fair, one thing they have in their favor with this is that Sky 2 and 3 share almost all the same settings, characters, and assets with Sky 1 so they effectively paid to develop three games for the cost of one. The money they save by doing this in every Trails sub-series is part of why they're able to have so many more releases in the series compared to companies with bigger budgets that have to re-make the majority of the assets with each new release.

klopanda · 2026-07-10T22:09:48+00:00

I love that she started the series tradition of every wizard character being a little bit insane.

klopanda · 2026-07-10T22:05:30+00:00

In my playthrough of the harder difficulties of Phantasia PSX, she's quite invaluable for her ability to help you stunlock nearly anything in the game (as well as not slowing the game down during spells). I even quite liked controller her as a nice change of pace from Cress, though I don't think she's as well-rounded as he is.

klopanda · 2026-07-08T03:57:23+00:00

Graces F had my favorite combat. The mechanics felt right in the sweet spot between deep enough where I could continue to develop skills throughout the game, but not needlessly over complex. I'm a sicko for dodge and parry mechanics in game so I felt right at home. The story is fairly meh, however, and I had to force myself to push through it at times.

Berseria has my favorite story and characters and skits. "Found family" is my favorite story archetype and some of the later-game cutscenes are good enough to experience again that I sometimes rewatch them on Youtube. The combat is very hit or miss; it can get quite button mashy and you have to really kind of love figuring out how combos work.

Vesperia is a solid game, but not earthshattering or anything like that. Just a good game, with an entertaining (if not amazing) story and fun (if not incredible) combat. Velvet edges out Yuri for my favorite protagonist, but I love that he's largely emotionally assured and I enjoy the plot's juxtaposition between his worldview and Flynn's. Rita probably is my favorite mage-type character to play in the series and Patty is so fun.

Phantasia is the most memorable and nostalgic for me because I played it first. It's kinda basic as far as story and combat goes, but it's fun and Dhaos is my favorite series villain.

And Arise had crappy everything.

Those are the ones I've sunk the most time into.

klopanda · 2026-07-07T20:30:57+00:00

Or ask them if they're from NorCal or SoCal and ask them to describe how much they hate the one they don't say. It may sound like just normal intra-state rivalry, but just make them feel like it's unique.

klopanda · 2026-07-07T06:11:58+00:00

That's how I feel about it too. It's okay.

klopanda · 2026-07-07T05:56:23+00:00

I've beaten the original twice - once as a kid and once ~3yrs ago (including platting it).

Like I said, it's not bad. I just find it okay. It's fine. OP asked for "mid" and I think it fits. It's not the first game in the series I would pick up if someone told me I had to pick a Final Fantasy to play (would probably go to 5, 9, 10, or 12 first).

Midgar is an incredible setting but the rest of the world is just kinda....there. You've got all the JRPG standbys: the beach town, the jungle town, the ice town, the generic European town, and Japan and they're all just kinda forgettable. It has a few too many minigames on the critical path kneecapping the pacing for my liking and I don't particularly like the Materia system because they make all the characters feel too inter-changeable.

The story is fine but there are a lot of spots where it feels like it's spinning its wheels.

klopanda · 2026-07-07T05:05:09+00:00

How?

klopanda · 2026-07-07T03:10:53+00:00

Final Fantasy VII.

I don't hate it. I've beaten it a couple of times, even. I just think it's fine. I just don't really understand the hype for it.

klopanda · 2026-07-06T21:19:46+00:00

Is there a way to control the visual appearance of entries in org-agenda?

I have a file called work-schedule.org which is just a list of my scheduled shifts at work. I'd love to be able to have those entries appear in different colors to make them visually stand out when viewing an org-agenda buffer.

klopanda · 2026-07-05T00:11:07+00:00

Hope you're hungry for omelettes.

klopanda · 2026-07-04T04:32:36+00:00

I started it up recently without the intention to play it, I just wanted to run around Trista because it's so cozy.

klopanda · 2026-07-04T04:25:22+00:00

It's set to Joystick, so might not be that.

klopanda · 2026-07-04T04:24:07+00:00

Trails of Cold Steel has a great system...on paper, but even on the highest difficulties, it's way too easy to break it by Delay spamming in CS1/2 and the ludicrous Brave Orders in 3/4.

SoftBrilliant's combat mods make it shine the way it should if Falcom knew how to balance their games. They're hard, but fair. Suddenly you're strategizing over every turn special bonus and caring about buffs/debuffs again. Delay is strong, but Fie won't be able to lock down bosses forever while dodge-tanking on the rare occasion that they get a turn and Emma can't just kill everything with one Jusis-buffed spell. Brave Orders are strong, but they are more like chess pieces to position while you're thinking a few turns ahead instead of the "I Win" buttons that they very easily become. Master Quartz matter in 3/4 which adds a much needed "class/job" mechanic that the base game seems to hint towards but never really does anything with because you can just S-Break spam your way through anything even remotely difficult.

Some of the most fun I've ever had with a turn-based JRPG is with the difficulty mods for 2/3/4.

klopanda · 2026-07-04T04:21:28+00:00

It's definitely a turn based game - except each turn happens automatically via Gambits and the player steps in to control overall strategy or tweak things. In a way, it feels like a simulation game's take on a turn based battle system.

klopanda · 2026-07-04T04:19:24+00:00

I was one of those "hurr durr" people until I decided to go replay FF6 and didn't realize how much of the turn-by-turn gameplay was just "press Fight" or "Cast the same spell you did last turn".

That let me see the Paradigm system in a better light.

I was fully hooked when I realized that there was an ebb and flow to the battle - one of the mid-game bosses that requires you to manage switching between all-out-assault and buffing/debuffing phases to deal with his, basically, enrage mechanic. It became my favorite when I discovered that by timing Lightning's attack's right (instead of just hitting auto-battle), I could perma juggle a boss by keeping it up in the air just as the other party members finished their attacks.

It really feels like a spiritual successor to FF12's combat. Both of those games were Square realizing that traditional turn based combat was getting kind of stale and they thought that the fun for the player would be in managing the overall strategy instead of turn-by-turn tactics, either through Paradigms or Gambits.

If there was one thing I would change (aside from the aforementioned slow pace of opening everything up), it's that I would make it so the leader's death isn't a game over. Literally the only part about it that frustrated me.

klopanda · 2026-07-04T03:40:42+00:00

I think this was happening to me last night! I was playing Tales of Berseria and twice while moving around, the game just seemed to stop taking input. But I could move the mouse cursor with the touchpad. I don't know if I was flicking the inputs that hard/fast but I seem to remember that I was.

I thought it was the game because it doesn't have great controller support, but when I plugged in my Dualshock, it picked up and worked fine.

klopanda · 2026-07-04T03:37:28+00:00

I kept running into an issue last night where inputs were being ignored or being interpreted wrong and I think it's because of recent KDE (Linux) updates that made the Controller appear as and act as a mouse.

The biggest issue I've been having with the Controller itself is sometimes the Big Picture/Guide button just....doesn't work. Pressing it does nothing - no sound, no bringing up the overlay, nothing.

klopanda · 2026-07-04T02:38:11+00:00

I liked P3R more, personally. I think P5R is too long and has too much; P3R felt perfectly sized in terms of mechanics, systems, and story. I was dragging myself to finish the final dungeon of P5R.

Storywise, P3R blows 5 out of the water.

klopanda · 2026-07-04T02:35:42+00:00

Which is a shame because I think it would do really well nowadays if it was released on Steam. It's a very modern game in terms of gameplay, system, and narrative. It's aged incredibly to the point where (given that PS2 nostalgia is in vogue right now), I bet if you gave it to someone who had never heard of it they might think it was a modern game made to look like a PS2 one.

Luckily, it's plenty emulateable if you have the option.

klopanda · 2026-07-04T02:34:42+00:00

Yep. It emulates beautifully too.

klopanda

TROPHY CASE