General JRPG topic

Finished Cyrus's and Tressa's stories.

Cyrus's final boss is really lacking in build up. Cyrus just enters the town, learn how to open a door, and heads straight to the dungeon. The ending is standard for what it is. More like a taste for the True Final Boss.

Tressa's conflict is as unengaging as always. At least this time the finale introduces new likeable supporting characters. That said, Captain Leon is still more engaging than Noa. One thing I will give to the ending is that the conclusion of the auction is surprising and heartwarming.

Lucia took me 1 try. The 30 shield may look scary at first, but she is weak to both bow and spear, the two best Spam Attack weapons out there.

Crow thigh lady took me 3 tries. At first I didn't know how to deal with her quintuple attack, but then I learned to use Sealticge's Seduction + Mole Dance combo to help the squishier characters survive. Tressa's Cover + Side Step combo is also incredibly helpful. She becomes the ultimate dodge tank. Eat your heart out, Dunban.

Ohoho, if you think Tressa can dodge now, you ain't seen nothing yet.

Finished Olberic's and Primrose's stories.

Olberic's final chapter picks up considerably once the WHAT AM I FIGHTING FOR business is done for. Werner was admittedly hastily built up in the previous chapter but his presence is felt throughout this chapter.

Primrose's final chapter picks up from chapters 2 and 3, but it does really drag on. The rapid fire flashbacks feel twice as long as the previous characters'. She is probably the only one whose chapter 1 is the strongest in her story in my opinion.

Olberic's Path Action in the last chapter feels too standard while Primrose disappointingly doesn't have one at all.

Werner is the same deal with Esmeralda. Sealticge's Seduction + Mole Dance and you are set.

Someone's first phase is easy. Kill Yusufa first (who I didn't expect to be blond. I thought she had dark hair), then father. His second phase boils down to spamming his weakness and break him every turn. I got 5x EXP on his first phase.

Now Primrose can finally be retired. Her current level is 61.

Edited by RAlexa21th on Apr 2nd 2020 at 10:16:33 AM

Are you gonna fight the True Final Boss?

Probably.

Finished Alfyn's story.

Alfyn has been staying around Olberic for too long, because he has now contracted a severe case of WHAT AM I FIGHTING FOR. The boss is also not very engaging. Quite a step down from Ch. 3, but I guess that's how it goes. I enjoy some of his individual chapters, but his story is less than the sum of its parts.

The eagle blowing away one of my teammates is not too difficult to deal with. The permanent poison is a little obnoxious. Nevertheless it is weak to bows so spamming Rain of Arrow will quickly break it. Olberyn and Therion can now surpass 9999 damage with their Limit Break.

Edited by RAlexa21th on Apr 3rd 2020 at 11:22:25 AM

Finished Therion's and H'annit's stories. That's all of the "main" story for now.

Therion's story really improves with Darius. Unlike Werner, he has a lot of build up. His fate is also pretty satisfying. Darius looks scary at first but once you break him and get your items back he is pretty easy. He took me 1 try.

H'annit final chapter is the culmination of all the build ups for the fight against Redeye. That said, it is a little disappointing that its victims are just petrified. Maybe expecting an Alien-like horror is a bit too much. The boss fight was disappointing too. The thing went down easily and it didn't petrifying my party once. All that preparation and hype in Ch.3 came down to nothing.

Ranking of the stories: Primrose > Cyrus > Ophelia > H'annit > Olberic > Therion > Alfyn > Tressa

The current level of my party is

• Ophelia: 50
• Cyrus: 51
• Tressa: 50
• Olberic: 49
• Primrose: 61
• Alfyn: 51
• Therion: 60
• H'annit: 51

I will get all the battle-tested stuff and the secret jobs, then I'll tackle the final boss.

The Redeye fight went the same for me as well, and I was at lower levels. Seems like it's a pretty common occurrence unless you tackle it fairly early, because if you've finished a few character's stories already, you're usually more strong enough.

All four secret jobs are obtained, along with the battle-tested gear.

The Starseer and Sorcerer are technically cheesed by Reflective Barrier, but they have have annoying Status-Buff Dispel. I had to reset a couple times to break the Sorcerer before he can move. Without Reflective Barrier those two just obliterate my team with their AOE.

The Runelord is fairly easy to fight. He doesn't have any AOE attack and he can't OHKO anyone. The Warmaster is cheesed hard by Sidestep.

Ophelia got Sorcerer, Cyrus got Starseer, Tressa got Runelord, and Alfyn got Warmaster.

The current level of my team is:

• Ophelia: 53
• Cyrus: 52
• Tressa: 53
• Olberic: 52
• Primrose: 61
• Alfyn: 51
• Therion: 61
• H'annit: 54

Now I'm ready to take on big G.

Edited by RAlexa21th on Apr 3rd 2020 at 11:40:32 AM

Okay... I have decided that Big G is too much trouble for his worth. Orsterra can die for all I care. Not that the final story is interesting anyway.

Edited by RAlexa21th on Apr 4th 2020 at 11:38:52 AM

Personally, I appreciate that the Final Boss is actually the strongest enemy in the game by far, and that it's intentionally designed around you being totally busted.

I never got around to fighting him mainly because I didn't know what to do about the sidequests. XD;

I wonder how viable would it be to make a JRPG where you have no access to item shops or crafting or item drops, and the only resources available are the ones you find in chests throughout the game.

Probably a decent survival horror RPG. The fear of running out of resources is the cornerstone of the genre.

There's an option for it in Dragon Quest XI. People really like it, too.

Edited by Watashiwa on Apr 4th 2020 at 11:13:24 AM

And using it so far has allowed me to just buy as many medicinal herbs as I can carry.

DQ XI has a lot of challenge options like that. My fav is you can make the NP Cs of the world lie to you, think you are getting a hint at what to do? 50% chance it’s wrong.

Doing that thing again where I enjoy Another Eden up until it decides to revert back to its primordial form of soporific grinding

wow I get the fucking hint Cradle System, go grind another hundred hours for a 0.5% chance at an item to unlock their level caps and grind them even more, then maybe I can actually pass this damage check where one character is required to take the RNG brunt of all the bullets

I'm playing Great Greed for Game Boy. It had autosave back in 1992 plus gay marriage options, and an interesting case of bowdlerization where they were originally just going to censor the scene in question with a new enemy portrait but ended up axing it entirely, but the enemy remains in the game files.

Edited by lalalei2001 on Jun 8th 2020 at 9:05:25 AM

Moon: Remix RPG Adventure is headed to Switch August 27th. Apparently Chulip for PS 2 was a Spiritual Successor of sorts.

I've heard a lot about how Moon was one of the early examples of a "metacommentary" jrpg that didn't get a lot of credit or exposure until recently because it was never released stateside. Cool that it's finally coming out.

Wonder if it still holds up to today standards.

The passage of time is particularly unkind to video games.

We'll find out!

I mean, I'm just happy that people can experience it stateside at all. Even if it doesn't hold up all that well by today's standards, it's still an interesting little bit of RPG history that we have more light on now with this release.

I just got Neptunia VII on Switch and Chrono Cross on PS 1.

I love Neptunia and I need to play Chrono Cross.