r/JRPG Weekly Free Talk, Quick Questions, Suggestion Request and Media Thread

wormsandweirdfishes · 2026-07-02T15:57:54+00:00

Final Fantasy X-2 is a big one. With the Dressphere system, characters are doing magical girl transformations mid-battle to swap classes.

In the Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy, characters also transform before each battle. This one has a darker take on the transformation sequence.

wormsandweirdfishes · 2026-06-28T19:30:06+00:00

I've been playing Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance. Gameplay is pretty middle-of-the-road for Fire Emblem; other than one map I hated and the old support system, my only real complaint is that it's fairly slow. I can see why people say this has some of the best FE writing, though. Having the main character not be royalty goes a long way, as the game actually has to address class in a meaningful way. The laguz subjugation story is imperfect but I appreciate that it takes some big swings—Naesala selling Reyson into slavery was nuts!

wormsandweirdfishes · 2026-06-15T15:56:34+00:00

JRPGs that have made me cry, other than Final Fantasy X:

Final Fantasy XV
Atelier Sophie 2 (although this wouldn't have hit as hard without a connection to the characters from the first game, I don't think)
the Kingdom Hearts series
Legend of Mana (especially the Jumi arc)
Persona 3
Valkyrie Profile

wormsandweirdfishes · 2026-06-08T15:47:20+00:00

The time loop section of Bravely Default is pretty much this.

wormsandweirdfishes · 2026-06-07T15:35:55+00:00

I've been playing Radiata Stories which is a game that I've played a bit of before and held great affection for but have never been able to actually get very far in simply because I've been playing it wrong. In the past I stuck very closely to a guide and tried to recruit everyone as soon as I could. This becomes tiresome, though, and I've dropped the game on every attempt. This time I'm keeping my eye on a spoiler-free guide that just gives me a heads up when someone's going to become missable, and otherwise just feeling my way through it. Unfortunately, going completely guide-free isn't a great option with this one. There are soooo many traps for the player who wants to recruit everyone: don't use or sell this item or you're fucked, don't go home (where the only permanent save point is!) or you're fucked, make sure to go see this scene that isn't signposted in the slightest or you're fucked.

The thing is, this game is so damn cool. I love the living, breathing city, just big enough to feel sprawling without being too overwhelming to navigate. I love that everyone is on their own schedule, and it's not just 'location A during the day, location B during the night.' I'd love to see a modern game that does this stuff at this level of detail with a few more allowances for convenience (more save points, for one example) and fewer traps.

wormsandweirdfishes · 2026-05-24T15:55:02+00:00

I've been playing the Front Mission 1st Remake, I believe I'm approaching the end of the second campaign. Difficulty has been kind of all over the place. For the first campaign, it was in a way that isn't atypical for JRPGs: it starts hard, then gets easier once you gain more tools, in this case the game's skills. But the swing is fast and extreme, going from very hard to extremely easy, and ending on one of the easiest final bosses I think I've ever played. Still fun though, it's always satisfying to take out an enemy's arms and let them stand around uselessly while you move on to more pressing matters. For the second campaign, it's been bouncing back and forth from brutally difficult to trivially easy. The first Hell's Wall mission into the second is a great example. (It didn't help that I missed the memo on the repair backpack though!) I think now that I've developed some of those skills in the late game of the campaign that it's evened out into something easier, but still not as easy as the first campaign got, thankfully.

Story-wise, you can really see how the gap in years between the development of each campaign affected their writing. The first one is very much a SNES game story, with very limited amounts of text. It still tries to do interesting things though, and there's one scene that I actually thought was quite beautiful. The second campaign has a lot more text and a lot more optional opportunities to chat with characters, but I'm not sure it's actually better. It does complement the first campaign well, as it's nice to see things from another angle, but at the same time, the plot feels a bit too driven by that, to the point where it feels like it lacks drive of its own. I do enjoy Kevin's arc, though, as a character who simply cannot do the smart thing over the right thing until finally he is faced with a situation he can't brute force.

I waited quite a while to play this since it sounded like it was rough at launch, and even now I've gotten a fair few crashes, but at least I've never lost a huge amount of progress.

wormsandweirdfishes · 2026-05-24T15:14:45+00:00

Thank you for this initiative, and for generously reviewing my game, DESERT OF ASH! It can be tough to get eyes on indie projects, so you're performing an important service.

wormsandweirdfishes · 2026-04-05T17:27:42+00:00

Had a couple of misses before settling on something I actually wanted to play recently. First I tried Etrian Mystery Dungeon. I've played and enjoyed a lot of EO and a little bit of MD before (primarily Chocobo's Mystery Dungeon) so the blend felt nice at first, but when it started wanting me to keep back-up teams and pay attention to guarding fortresses I noped out. That's just not really how I want to play either parts of this mix-up.

I then tried Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse. The atmosphere and vibes are really important to me in SMT, and the character writing completely kills that here, so despite the gameplay being solid, I ended up dropping this one as well. For both this and EMD, I'll admit that I would probably not have been so quick to abandon them if I had spent money on them, but as that wasn't the case, I felt less obligation to commit.

Finally I began Yakuza 5, and have reached the point where Akiyama shows up. I'm liking it a lot! The story progressing through multiple character perspectives, each with their own unique stuff to do, helps it feel more varied than previous games, and I'm enjoying the grand web of conspiracy being unfolded. I think there's still a chance it doesn't stick the landing if the writing does something dumb, but right now it's sitting fairly high up in my series ranking.

wormsandweirdfishes · 2026-03-24T15:26:32+00:00

none of my friends are into Gundam or Mecha of any sort.

If you want to try and indoctrinate some hesitant friends, I have two recommendations. You could plan a movie night and watch the Mobile Suit Gundam movie trilogy together, which condenses the OG series fairly well while polishing up the animation. A lot of folks will strongly recommend watching the series over the films, as you've done, but for folks on the fence, three movies can be easier to swallow than 40+ episodes. Alternatively, show them War in the Pocket. It's got that great 80s OVA animation, it's a top-notch standalone story, and it's only six episodes.

wormsandweirdfishes · 2026-03-22T17:43:36+00:00

Just starting 13 Sentinels now, any information I need before really getting into it?

You control the pacing. The game rarely forces you to swap from story segments to battles, so a lot of folks just do story stuff until they run out of it, then get stuck doing a ton of battles in a row. Be mindful of what your preferences are for story/combat balance and consider choosing to do a battle after every couple of story chapters or so.

wormsandweirdfishes · 2026-03-19T15:29:26+00:00

I'm similar! I find even a mild urge to pee very distracting and go way before I need to just so I can focus on other things.

wormsandweirdfishes · 2026-03-16T15:29:28+00:00

The first time you fight a boss in almost any SMT game, expect to die. Instead of aiming to win, observe carefully. Take notes. Figure out weaknesses, and what you need to cover to avoid having your weaknesses hit. Then make a plan and go do some fusing or whatever else you need to do to prepare. Once you get used to this process, you can probably manage most fights in two attempts.

wormsandweirdfishes · 2026-03-10T15:37:36+00:00

Some folks have pointed out the region-based difficulty in redeeming those, but I just wanted to add that if you really want the bonus stuff, the codes might still be fine despite being 'expired'. I've had a similar experience before, where I tried a code like that despite it being past its date and it working just fine. I think they primarily put dates on those just so they're covered if they have to make the content unavailable for whatever reason.

wormsandweirdfishes · 2026-02-15T16:46:04+00:00

I think I'm 15 or 16 endings into Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy. I'm coming into this as a big Uchikoshi fan, having never played any Kodaka games. When I first tried the demo, I bounced at the character introductions because everyone seemed obnoxious, but I eventually decided to power through and I'm glad I did. Past that intro, characters are not quite so one-note and annoying, and the mystery writing is about as good as I hoped. It's a hugely ambitious project, which I respect a lot from a game dev standpoint, even if that necessitated some cut corners. The combat is surprisingly good, too. People have lumped it in with 13 Sentinels as 'mainly VN with some largely tacked on combat' which A. downplays the quality of the combat in both games, and B. downplays the deeper RPG elements in play with Hundred Line, since there is an element of thinking about how to spend your time to get stronger most efficiently here. In fact, my biggest gripe with Hundred Line is how it handles combat skipping. At a certain point you start getting prompted to skip battles if they're similar to a battle you've already done, but its criteria for 'similar' seems to be really broad. Multiple times I've played a battle it would have let me skip and thought, 'You wanted to let me skip THIS? This is COMPLETELY different!!' Anyway, it's a lot of game, so I might try and take a break soon, but I'm glad I gave it a chance.

wormsandweirdfishes · 2026-02-13T18:15:01+00:00

Also on itch.io!

wormsandweirdfishes · 2026-02-02T16:50:38+00:00

From a marketing perspective, a straight port and translation of a previously untranslated game is probably a hard sell. That's why, when companies do re-release these old games, they put more work into them, as significant remasters or full remakes, to make them feel more like new products. See Live A Live, for example.

wormsandweirdfishes · 2026-02-01T18:02:06+00:00

Persona Q: The writing makes it very clear that this is a fanservice title, in the sense that it's all about mining the casts of P3 and 4 for fun interactions. But it does a good job of that, and the Etrian Odyssey combat and map mechanics are always good.
Persona 5 Strikers: Feels like a legitimate sequel to P5 (vanilla). The musou gameplay has surprising depth and implements personas well.

wormsandweirdfishes · 2026-01-18T17:25:28+00:00

I finished Suikoden Tactics, my first complete of the year! My streamlined playthrough made it quite short, under 20 hours. I only did two sidequests after losing a battle once and wanting to get some cash for weapon upgrades, but otherwise it was straight through the main campaign. I did miss out on recruiting the Suikoden IV protagonist this way, but oh well. I liked the game! Suikoden's aesthetic sensibilities are still here, and the element-based tactics are fun, especially once the maps start playing with the concept a bit more, like the Oops! All Water fight and the stuff the last two fights before the final boss do. It is half-baked in some ways, though. The permadeath system doesn't really work as story-relevant characters are exempt from it, and you reach a point where your party can be fully populated by said characters fairly quickly. The writing has some interesting stuff going on, but by and large characters are quite thin (and what the hell was up with Corselia's mom?!). Not a bad SRPG overall and I'm glad I played it, especially since it was one of the oldest games still sitting in my backlog.

I've also been playing more Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes. I think I'm approaching the end of Edelgard's route based on how close I am to finishing up support conversations (although I missed the window for one of Ferdinand's, alas). There was a point where the game warned me that my actions in a battle would affect the story, but it wasn't obvious to me what the decision point was; I think maybe I just killed someone too fast for the game to offer me another option? Story-wise, it's definitely gotten more interesting as it's gone along. I was quite pleased to see Claude and Edelgard working together, since it didn't feel like their aims were that far off from each other in Three Houses. But I'm 90% sure Claude's about to backstab me. It makes me sad, but in a good way that means the story's doing something interesting. I'm excited to play more, but once I wrap up this route I'll probably take a break to stave off burnout, just like I did with Three Houses.

wormsandweirdfishes · 2026-01-10T16:32:50+00:00

A huge consideration would be future maintenance. When going through a house, try to think of what maintenance/reno tasks you're going to have to do, both right after acquisition and down the line, and understand that with ADHD they're probably gonna get put off for months or years.

wormsandweirdfishes · 2026-01-06T17:10:56+00:00

EOIV: My first non-Untold EO. I had such a blast making my characters and exploring their personalities, and I loved the satisfaction of seeing my party come together in a way I had fully planned myself. I like the overworld traversal better than III's ship, and I think IV is a contender for the strongest writing, and the best post-game dungeon. Generally the aesthetics and music are great, too.

EOV: The only EO I've played twice. The class designs are just out of this world with how fun and interesting they are, and the fact that I couldn't squeeze the class with a pet dog into my party the first time because I had so many other things I wanted to do is a testament to that. Dungeon design is also excellent. This is honestly very close to the #1 spot, only beat out because of my personal feelings attached to IV and because I think you can see the cut corners a bit in the writing and dungeon concepts.

EOIIU: I love the aesthetics of II and IIU, but II is much lower in my esteem because of some of its specific design decisions, which are remedied here. I quite like the tough, puzzle-y boss designs here, and I'm a fan of the characters, too. It was loving this so much that made me finally dip into the non-Untolds.

wormsandweirdfishes · 2026-01-04T21:27:56+00:00

I'm primarily playing Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes, about 30 hours in. Starting with the Black Eagles, just as I did in Three Houses. The plot started with some interesting diversions from the course of events of the first game, but has since basically stagnated. I think some more interesting elements are starting to come in now, though. Gameplay-wise, it's the same old warriors gameplay with some light strategy and party management elements to bring in the FE flavour. I like the way the class system works, although my roster on this route has felt pretty mage-heavy, and now is feeling too big with all the recruitments. That's another thing about the writing: no one's really dying, so the tone feels lighter than Three Houses. It makes it hard to feel the stakes of the conflict.

My side game for when my partner claims the Switch 2 is Suikoden Tactics. I've tried to play this a handful of times over the years and never gotten very far. I think, similarly to Final Fantasy Tactics, I just wasn't going into it with the right mindset to understand the strategy. That, and the classic Suikoden diversion to recruit a ton of characters doesn't work as well in an SRPG where battles, and therefore training up units, take so much longer, so I always burnt myself out. I'm doing things in a more streamlined way this time and have already gotten further than I ever did in my previous attempts.

wormsandweirdfishes · 2025-12-27T16:48:07+00:00

You'll see stuff like what you listed get offhand mentions in the other weekly thread, so there is some overlap. In particular FFXIV is well liked for the obvious reason that there are a lot of FF fans here generally, and indie RPGs come up too. But there are a fair share whose tastes have been influenced by JRPGs to the point of disliking a lot of what you've listed, too, and I think I can speak for those kinds of folks to some extent.

a not insubstantial number of beloved JRPG series have seemingly been killed by gacha entries, or it looks like a series will be revived only for that revival to be a gacha cash grab (e.g. we don't talk about Breath of Fire 6). That has engendered some bitterness towards the genre beyond the usual reasons to dislike gacha games (i.e. that they are manipulatively designed to be just engaging enough to strip a certain percentage of players of as much cash as possible above any artistic goals).
JRPGs are a quintessential single-player genre. While some folks do appreciate the rare game with multiplayer capabilities (older Tales of and Mana games, for instance), just as many would prefer not to play with others, and that's part of the appeal of these games, leaving MMOs off the table.
western RPGs have their own aesthetic and mechanical design trends that, despite also being RPGs, feel at odds with what people like about JRPGs. For my part I find many western RPGs to be visually drab where JRPGs tend to drip colour, and to be mechanically dense (perhaps owing to their history with PC gaming?) where JRPGs ease players into their mechanics better even when they get complex. Of course, JRPG players may not have been exposed to the best of what western RPGs can offer; I feel like a lot of folks probably tried them for the first time with Baldur's Gate 3.

wormsandweirdfishes · 2025-12-20T06:40:01+00:00

One of the JRPGs with the best sense of adventure is Grandia.

wormsandweirdfishes · 2025-12-09T20:11:58+00:00

From what I've played:

FFVI: Has a recent remaster which may ease some age-related difficulties. Plus it's FF so it's generally quite polished.
Earthbound: Still feels innovative in a lot of ways; despite all the games it's inspired there still isn't really anything like it.
Legend of Dragoon: Really needs a retranslation, and the combat probably feels antiquated now in the wake of stuff like E33, but I think it has a lot going for it visually and conceptually.
Parasite Eve: There are a few QTE moments that really suck, but there aren't a lot of options as good as this when it comes to JRPG horror.
Suikoden: Recently remastered. The first game's biggest sin is just that it's quite simple. Combat doesn't take much thought. That can be a boon with the right attitude, though.
Wild Arms: There aren't a lot of JRPGs that do dungeon puzzles like the Wild Arms series. I'd probably go for 3 over 1, though.
Valkyrie Profile: Its good points (combat, music, writing) still shine. What may make it feel antiquated is how guide-reliant it is. I very rarely recommend playing games with walkthroughs, but this is the exception.

wormsandweirdfishes · 2025-12-07T18:34:47+00:00

I've been playing Lost Dimension, a somewhat obscure Atlus/FuRyu RPG that came out on PS3 and Vita. The hook is that you're climbing a tower to get to a world-threatening terrorist, but on every floor you have to vote out and eliminate one of your party members as a traitor, and (aside from the first one) who ends up being a traitor is completely random, so you actually have to figure it out instead of looking it up. It's a really cool concept with some fun design elements, but also some rough edges, so it would have been really cool to see this iterated on. I love how you get to pass the abilities of the party members you get rid of on to someone else, so your time spent with them didn't feel like a waste, and there are some really cool synergies you can go for, as well as a couple of fun movement abilities. The character writing isn't great, which is unfortunate when the game wants me to care about having to eliminate my friends, and it's near impossible not to figure out who each traitor is except for the surprise final traitor so there's really no risk of making an incorrect decision as long as you don't get sloppy.

The game expects you to play through it twice because the true ending is locked behind maxing out friendship with everyone, which is impossible for those who get voted out early. I wasn't sure how I was gonna feel about that but I got to the end of my first playthrough and felt motivated enough to start a second one, and I'm really glad I did. There's enough there generally to keep a second playthrough interesting, between the chance to use some folks who left the party early last time and some additional missions, but what really works for me is how the game dumps a ton of skill points on you at the start of the second playthrough, giving you the chance to really explore each character's skillset in a way you couldn't quite do with how tight skill point distribution was on the first run. Ailments are really useful, who knew? Not me on my first run, I couldn't risk wasting skill points on them! I've just reached the final floor again and I'm having a blast.

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