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Talking JRPG Times: Animus All the Way Down

Issun

Issun

Chumpy
(He/Him)
I figured we could use a general JRPG discussion thread.

So I've started Blue Dragon. It's actually kind of... charming? I really like the battle system with the mythical beast shadows. The voice acting is cringey but that's to be expected I suppose. We'll see if it holds onto me through the end.
 
Pombar

Pombar

I remember Blue Dragon being mechanically solid if fairly slow at times. I think I'd probably tolerate the children-aimed story and characters better now, but at the time I was looking for something more like the PS1 Final Fantasies. I suppose it's kind of a hybrid of Dragon Quest and FF5, in some ways, as Lost Odyssey was like FFX via FF4.
 
Falselogic

Falselogic

Lapsed Threadcromancer
(they/them)
I had it and remeber sinking a number of hours into it. I can't remember when or why i burned out on it.

The only thing I really recall is that it seemed real rote and repetitive, eventually. But this was years and years ago...
 
JBear

JBear

Internet's foremost Bertolli cosplayer
(He/Him)
I remember liking that game, but it has been obliterated from my memory. When I go to access Blue Dragon in my brain, I get [scene missing] awesome hair metal boss music [scene missing], and then the rest is just mistaken memories from Adventure of Dai.
 
Torzelbaum

Torzelbaum

????? LV 13 HP 292/ 292
(he, him, his)
I was confused about the sub-title until I realized it was the plural of animu and not a reference to the Jungian concept of animus.
 
WisteriaHysteria

WisteriaHysteria

Anyone want to hear why I resent and hate the label "JRPG"? No? Ok.

I was always curious how Blue Dragon was as a game, but it's obvious and glaring flaws, as well as it being trapped on a console I despised meant there was little chance of me ever seeing it for myself. I'd be tempted to play it if it ever managed to get a modern port that both cleaned up a lot of the issues I assume I'd have with it, but I doubt it'll ever get that kind of treatment.
 
Falselogic

Falselogic

Lapsed Threadcromancer
(they/them)
WisteriaHysteria said:
Anyone want to hear why I resent and hate the label "JRPG"? No? Ok.

I was always curious how Blue Dragon was as a game, but it's obvious and glaring flaws, as well as it being trapped on a console I despised meant there was little chance of me ever seeing it for myself. I'd be tempted to play it if it ever managed to get a modern port that both cleaned up a lot of the issues I assume I'd have with it, but I doubt it'll ever get that kind of treatment.
Click to expand...
Is it because they are all ultimately based on Wizardry which is definitely not a Japanese RPG, but indeed a Western one?
 
Sarge

Sarge

hardcore retro gamin'
Some of Blue Dragon was good, and I remember getting to the second disc, only to lose my saves when my 360 red-ringed on me. Whoops. I've always stored saves on a MC since then.

One of my least favorite things about it, though, was that almost everything was searchable, and finding "Nothing" actually had a purpose. That was actively un-fun. I'm sure if I did it now I'd be like "screw it", but if I remember right you'd occasionally uncover stat boosters, so... blah.

If I was going to play through a Mistwalker game, it'd be Lost Odyssey, but that one didn't wow me, either. But I think I'd be more primed to be moved by the story at this point - I remember the story vignettes being particularly poignant.

While we're on Mistwalker, anyone really enjoy The Last Story? Now that was a fantastic game. So many Final Fantasy and Chrono Trigger vibes, and it didn't overstay its welcome. For my money, it was easily the best of the Operation Rainfall games.
 
R.R. Bigman

R.R. Bigman

Coolest Guy
Sarge said:
While we're on Mistwalker, anyone really enjoy The Last Story? Now that was a fantastic game. So many Final Fantasy and Chrono Trigger vibes, and it didn't overstay its welcome. For my money, it was easily the best of the Operation Rainfall games.
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I wish we lived in the reality where The Last Story got to be a franchise, instead of Xenoblade Chronicles and it’s exponentially worse and hornier sequels.

The only Final Fantasy I had played prior to Last Story was FFXIII, and it made me wish that Sakaguchi was still working on the FF franchise. I never truly understood the combat system, yet everything else was so refreshing after XIII.
 
Sarge

Sarge

hardcore retro gamin'
I didn't hate Xenoblade or its sequels, but I do get your point. I'd have much rather has TLS as a franchise.
 
Lokii

Lokii

—
(He/Him)
Staff member
Moderator
Last Story is one I wish I hadn't let get away. Never trust a middling review.
 
MetManMas

MetManMas

Me and My Bestie
(He, him)
Speaking of Mistwalker stuff, it's a shame that Terra Battle never branched out beyond just being a mobile game series. Didn't care much for the gameplay, but much like Lost Odyssey the game had some really cool lore stuff and it would've been neat to see it expanded on beyond some bland half-hour free FFXV DLC ep.

Allegedly there were plans to do something for consoles, but that never happened. And with Terra Battle 2 quickly being cancelled, and Terra Wars getting the axe after barely six months, and Terra Battle itself shutting down back in 2020...A pity.
 
balder the brave

balder the brave

An issue with Blue Dragon is that it has a job system but not a whole lot of jobs or abilities. It misses out on the "sandbox" quality of jobs systems where the world is your oyster, and you can take your characters any number of different progression paths.

Instead, it's pretty much a given that two characters are going to be fighters, one is going to be a healer, and the other a mage. You might get them a few levels in one or another class, but there aren't any interesting decisions or niche builds.
 
WildcatJF

WildcatJF

Let's Pock (Art @szk_tencho)
(he / his / him)
I adore The Last Story omg. I really want Mistwalker to port it to the Switch, or just let someone else do it.
 
balder the brave

balder the brave

I occasionally have a craving to play Lost Odyssey again. It's got a strong first half. And while the story isn't perfect, it's got the Sakaguchi "heart" that you can't really get anywhere else.

The story loses some steam in the last third of the game. Especially if you do that puzzle dungeon that takes like 10 hours to clear and try to find all the pirates. Pretty clear example of bonus mechanics / stab at open world aspects taking the momentum away from the story!

The battle system was also overly simple for my tastes. The spells aren't much more than damage & heal. Hitting the timing of the attack QTE is too easy and doesn't add a lot of damage and hitting elemental weaknesses doesn't add much damage either.

There's a front line barrier mechanic that is a little interesting, but if I recall, only the puzzle dungeon is difficult enough to make you figure out how to use it. Learning skills from equipment is still fun, though.
 
balder the brave

balder the brave

The XBox 360 didn't have a ton of JRPGs, but it had some memorable titles.

Blue Dragon
Lost Odyssey
NieR
FF XIII trilogy
Eternal Sonata
Tales of Vesperia
Dark Souls I and II (sort of)
I never got around to playing my copy of Resonance of Fate, but it seems interesting

The PS4 and Switch have plenty of JRPGs and have better-regarded JRPG libraries, but in many cases those games didn't seem like a significant evolution or were kind of disappointing. At least for me, Dragon Question XI and FF XV were duds and Bravely Default 2, Dark Souls III, and Nier Automata were slightly disappointing).

The time I spent with the 360 and 3DS in the 2007 - 2015 timeframe were my favorite years for gaming as an adult.
 
Pombar

Pombar

The 360 was the first home console generation that really overall disappointed me on the JRPG front. I spent the PS2 years in denial at the loss of the PS1-style Final Fantasy, but also so many devs were cranking out so many PS2 JRPGs that I got my fix just through sheer variety and quantity. The 360 had far fewer as devs fled to the DS and PSP, and those we did get tended to be pretty but clunky and railroaded, with weak or compromised stories.

Lost Odyssey has moments of greatness but there's a lot that needs to be tolerated. The Last Story I always wanted to play but didn't own the console.
 
Rascally Badger

Rascally Badger

El Capitan de la outro espacio
(He/Him)
I'll echo the The Last Story love. I really should play it again to refresh my memory about why I liked it so much.
 
WisteriaHysteria

WisteriaHysteria

Blue Dragon, Lost Odyssey, Eternal Sonata, and Tales of Vesperia (don't forget Resonance of Fate!) were all products of MS throwing ridiculous amounts of money at JP devs in order to try and get the 360 off the ground in Japan. The creative freedom that having someone else pay for your games development led to some interesting outcomes, but they largely didn't click with JP audiences, and most of those games were big disappointments. The lack of success of those games/the abysmal sales of the 360, coupled with the general high cost of development in that era and beyond for home consoles led to most of the creativity in the JP RPG market to transfer over to portables. If you compare what was happening on the DS/PSP/Vita/3DS from those eras, there's TONS of creativity in those spaces.

The PS3 was no slouch in that era either, and I'd attribute to a lot more success in moving the genre forward. Demon's Souls was a PS3 exclusive and kicked off the entire Souls franchise. Ni no Kuni was a PS3 exclusive. Dragon's Dogma started out PS3 exclusive. White Knight Chronicles, Valkyria Chronicles, 3D Dot Game Heroes, all of the post-Vesperia Tales games, Final Fantasy XIV, PS3 had a pretty decent showing.
 
Oathbreaker

Oathbreaker

The Last Story is so goofy and amazing. Run Zael into a shop sign, shoot banana peels at unsuspecting innocents. I love it to pieces. I got my hands on it in the final couple weeks before the Nintendo Online stuff went down for the Wii and I managed to just barely grind out all the ridiculous dye effects from it with a bunch of other people that came back to the game to do the same before it was too late. The online modes were shockingly fun when you had enough people to do them as intended.

Lost Odyssey I bought verrrrry late, and never actually found time to start digging into it. I should probably move it up my list. I've only ever heard great things about it.
 
balder the brave

balder the brave

WisteriaHysteria said:
Blue Dragon, Lost Odyssey, Eternal Sonata, and Tales of Vesperia (don't forget Resonance of Fate!) were all products of MS throwing ridiculous amounts of money at JP devs in order to try and get the 360 off the ground in Japan. The creative freedom that having someone else pay for your games development led to some interesting outcomes, but they largely didn't click with JP audiences, and most of those games were big disappointments. The lack of success of those games/the abysmal sales of the 360, coupled with the general high cost of development in that era and beyond for home consoles led to most of the creativity in the JP RPG market to transfer over to portables. If you compare what was happening on the DS/PSP/Vita/3DS from those eras, there's TONS of creativity in those spaces.

The PS3 was no slouch in that era either, and I'd attribute to a lot more success in moving the genre forward. Demon's Souls was a PS3 exclusive and kicked off the entire Souls franchise. Ni no Kuni was a PS3 exclusive. Dragon's Dogma started out PS3 exclusive. White Knight Chronicles, Valkyria Chronicles, 3D Dot Game Heroes, all of the post-Vesperia Tales games, Final Fantasy XIV, PS3 had a pretty decent showing.
Click to expand...

Console JRPGs were in a slump in general and I think if anything, Microsoft’s intervention had a positive effect and led to a better outcome than would have been reached otherwise. The narrative at the time was that JRPGs are dead and the future is in muscular space marine shooters, and I think that’s been proven wrong.

I’m more inclined to look at it as a generous attempt that produced some good games!
 
jpfriction

jpfriction

(He, Him)
I must have been in a burnout during that generation as I can’t think of many jrpgs I actually finished save for the souls games. I guess they just scratched the itch well enough to occupy my time.

I made it a decent way into lost odyssey but the timed hits during the battles and having to read novels in game to get the back story didn’t really gel with me.

Blue Dragon wasn’t anything special but I played through the whole thing. When you unlock the ability to wipe out lower level enemies without a fight it gets really breezy.

Vesperia was great but I recall it being too long.

Watched my wife play eternal sonata but it looked pretty boring to me.

Didn’t get a ps3 until Final Fantasy XIII came out, which I played and enjoyed but didn’t get into either of the sequels. Will do Lightning Returns one of these days, though, that at least seemed interesting.

Dragon’s Dogma never did anything for me, nor did valkyria chronicles but my wife loved that one.
 
JBear

JBear

Internet's foremost Bertolli cosplayer
(He/Him)
jpfriction said:
Watched my wife play eternal sonata but it looked pretty boring to me.
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I actually think this one is pretty special, myself. A lot of 360 RPGs blend together in my memory, but it's hard to forget the one that takes place inside the brain of a dying Chopin, plus I thought the battle system was really novel and fun.
 
Pombar

Pombar

Eternal Sonata didn't do much with its really sweet premise besides generic animu fantasy stuff, but I did like its battle system - "taking chunks of real time gameplay in turns" like Valkyria Chronicles, kinda.
 
Sarge

Sarge

hardcore retro gamin'
Don't forget Infinite Undiscovery, a game that has one of the worst openings I've ever experienced but ends up a really solid ARPG. There's also Magna Carta 2, which I confess I haven't put much time into. It's more ARPG-like than the prior game on PS2.

I really enjoyed Eternal Sonata. For a while there, the 360 was actually the place for JRPGs.
 
Issun

Issun

Chumpy
(He/Him)
Wow. Blue Dragon's first boss does not fuck around. Probably going to be some grinding in my future.
 
FelixSH

FelixSH

(He/Him)
WisteriaHysteria said:
Anyone want to hear why I resent and hate the label "JRPG"? No? Ok.
Click to expand...
I actually would be curious. Just saying.

I don't have much to say about the games that were discussed here, not having played any of them. Always wanted to try out Lost Odyssey, and Blue Dragon sounded interesting, too, since I heard about it. But it's interesting to read the opinions of people here.

Also, I'm disappointed that there was no discussion about what defines a JRPG.

I'm kidding. Mostly.
 
balder the brave

balder the brave

That gives me flashbacks to English classes in college. We'd begin an interesting discussion about a character's motivation in the assigned novel, and there'd always be a student who'd say, "wait... but let's first DEFINE 'motivation'" and it derailed the actual interesting discussion.
 
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