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I had a good feeling! Celebrating 40 Years and 108 JRPGs of Destiny

To my surprise and shock, I realized that Nocturne was not on my list. I do wonder, it probably was once, and then i took it off. It is a great game, but I like other SMTs more, I guess. Again, it's great. But I can't think of anything too specific, which might be a reason why it was not on there. Great vibe and artstyle, though.

Persona 4 was on place 22 (directly below P3). I loved it. I bought it and P3 at the same time, after learning about how much TT loved both, and started with 3. Did two playthroughs of that over two summer months, always at night for the vibes. Then went directly to P4. Which seemed like an improvement in all aspects. I liked the characters more (in general), I enjoyed the somewhat lighter vibes (somewhat), it's incredibly stylish, the dungeons showing you aspects of people was a fun touch. And it had it's pretty disturbing moments too. I don't remember the details of that one too close, but the dungeon that looked like a jrpg dungeon, where you, for the first time, can't save the person really hit hard. Something about it. I generally loved the social link system, there are a lot of great demon designs in there, having a fixed place where time is moving, instead of how it feel in other rpgs, is such a nice, interesting change. When you get up there, and at some point have gods at your disposal, it's just so cool. Or one of my favourite designs, Beelzebub. I love the setting, seeing these teens walk along a river (I think) to school just feels cozy to me.

It's too long, so I don't have more to say. But I really enjoyed my time in this game. I don't regret a single hour of it, of the two playthroughs, including the second one, where I got 100% social links with a guide right next to me. Not for everyone, but I can very much enjoy that. I need to replay this one (or P3). They gave me a very fun summer.
 
I was a day one purchaser of both these games. SMT3 I bounced off of really hard. No fault of the game itself, it just does things that doesn't match my idiosyncrasies. P4 I never started because of a series of unfortunate events that kept me from completing P3 and I just didn't want to start 4 without having beaten 3.
 
I also spent a summer with Persona 4, and it is a masterpiece. Some of the gender themes are perhaps explored without a great deal of grace, (I wish I could remember where I first read this, where the character comes to terms with the fact that they've decided to rigidly adhere to traditionally conservative gender norms after all) but the characters you spend a period of anime high school with are all mostly likable and certainly memorable.

The underlying premise of trying to solve a murder mystery throughout is a refreshing change of pace from your usual RPG fare of attempting to save the world as you know it.
 
I still voted for P4 but I debated replacing it with something else. I love the setting (rural Japan is much less common in games) but I found basically every character to be annoying in some way. I know it's the point of the game to confront your shadow self but it didn't feel like that's what a lot of the dialogue was doing.

I did like the moment in Persona Q2 where Mitsuru comes to their school in the haunted dimension or whatever and is shocked by how little the classrooms in a rural area have.

But again, the style, the setting and so much other stuff in the game is great. I just wish a lot of the characters had better dialogue.
 
Oh, I'd be remiss if I didn't bring up that the Persona games have great soundtracks.
 
persona 4...well, i liked it when it was new, but my opinion of it has gone down a lot overall. still, i played so much p3 i thought it'd be worn out for me, but i ended up being surprised many times. and the fighting game was pretty cool. lol.

nocturne i got when persona 3 was coming, i was really excited and wanted to play an smt game. and in my hubris i picked hard mode, and even when i learned about the worst part (you can't run from battles, the only escape that works is the expensive Trafuri spell) i thought i was so far in it was fine. not to mention i didn't really have any experience with dungeon crawlers and stuff at the time. it was a really difficult experience that took me years to get through, and so i didn't end up voting for it, which now that i'm writing this i kind of regret (there's only one other game i wish i'd voted for more, and it's one i've played for about 100 hours over the past several months). not only have i meant to come back to this game, but it's incredibly memorable...weird npcs, the demon conversations, the unique world and so many specific dungeons, some of which i absolutely remember by name. some of my favorite demons are the ones i used for really long stretches of the game, or really sick bosses (albion...). the game is a long, slow burn through a surreal and starkly empty world, but the characters do have a lot of personality and give the game a kind of alien or amoral vibe. (as is often the case, the maniax stuff is kinda the weak link there...but it's easy enough to engage with to the degree you want, and amala is really cool mechanically though for sure)

also, i think some of the work must have started with NINE but this game really bringing kaneko et al's work to the ps2 generation can't be overstated...even now it's the series most exciting period to me overall and the presentation, models, and artistic technique developed for this game really paid off not just in how stylish this game is but in how much more they were able to make out of it in the following years. it's a good one.
 
I do have an amusing(?) anecdote about Nocturne. I don't remember when, but Atlus did a reprint run of PS2 Nocturne and the copies were pretty cheap (I think like $30). However, some of the discs had a manufacturing error where miniscule load times were suddenly huge, and so it basically made it unplayable. I also tried playing the disc on a backwards-compatible PS3, and IIRC that one either didn't read it at all, or it like, crashed the game sometimes? It was a bad time.
 
I did play SMT3 for a while and made it a decent way in, but I reached an area where I walked in and my first or second random encounter cast an instant death spell on my entire party??? I went "what the fuck is this" and, after consulting with some people and finding out that the game or at least the area was Just That Way, I put it down. I enjoyed it up until that point, though...?
 
I played Nocturne a decade or so after it initially released, after years of reading about how it was the peak of the classic SMT-style games. It mostly lived up to the hype, and since I had played a number of games in the series by that point, I didn’t have much trouble with it.

It is a solid as heck game, yet it’s the austere beauty and quietly ominous tone that make it a classic. It’s sad that a number of the people who made Nocturne what it was haven’t been with Atlus for a long time now.
 
Paul le Fou said:
I did play SMT3 for a while and made it a decent way in, but I reached an area where I walked in and my first or second random encounter cast an instant death spell on my entire party??? I went "what the fuck is this" and, after consulting with some people and finding out that the game or at least the area was Just That Way, I put it down. I enjoyed it up until that point, though...?
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SMT3 is brilliant, and it is indeed Just That Way, since it is an ode to old school game/rpg design philosophy. It's pretty commendable that they went that route at a time when most RPGs were trying their hardest to be watered down for mass appeal. I just uh, am kind of a wimp for the whole Dark Souls, put-your-nuts-in-a-vice style of trial by error player experience lol
 
I think Nocturne was the first SMT I played. I’d heard of the series and was interested in the idea of games set in the modern world with various gods and demons and mythological entities. I think I wasn’t ready for it, though I think I did finish a playthrough. I remember it being unrelenting - you still get random encounters in towns, so I never felt safe. I don’t think I understood the idea of using fusion to get more powerful. I think I wound up getting a magatama that made me immune to everything except almighty damage, and subsequently getting destroyed by some boss with almighty damage. I also didn’t really like the art style - it felt flat, or sterile, or something.

I suspect I’d get a lot more out of it if I were to play it now, with a bit more experience with the series.
 
I feel Persona 4 in its original release hit a lot of things well for 2008, but quickly had its handling of its themes (esp relating to LGBTQ+ topics with Kanji and Naoto) age very poorly. Teddie is also way too much of a creep for the young women of the cast to forgive as readily as they do, and Yosuke...he's kind of a dick throughout. I don't think I could go back to its PS2/Vita release and be able to enjoy it any more.

But when 2008 me experienced it, it was revelatory. The art style, the UI flair, the character designs, the music! It was all dripping with such splendor that I fell in love with it, especially after ending my time with P3 rather poorly with FES. The mystery angle was also novel, and I enjoyed the Scooby-Doo esque antics a lot. The battle engine was a little more refined and offered more control than the original version of P3, and I liked the psyche dungeon concept. So yeah, I was blown away back then. Loved it.

Now, though, I am hopeful P4 Rewind or whatever they're calling the remake can better write its LGBTQ+ characters, make Teddie less of a pervert, and thread Yosuke better so he's less antagonistic, all the while keeping the soul of the style. We'll have to see!
 
WildcatJF said:
I feel Persona 4 in its original release hit a lot of things well for 2008, but quickly had its handling of its themes (esp relating to LGBTQ+ topics with Kanji and Naoto) age very poorly. Teddie is also way too much of a creep for the young women of the cast to forgive as readily as they do, and Yosuke...he's kind of a dick throughout. I don't think I could go back to its PS2/Vita release and be able to enjoy it any more.

But when 2008 me experienced it, it was revelatory. The art style, the UI flair, the character designs, the music! It was all dripping with such splendor that I fell in love with it, especially after ending my time with P3 rather poorly with FES. The mystery angle was also novel, and I enjoyed the Scooby-Doo esque antics a lot. The battle engine was a little more refined and offered more control than the original version of P3, and I liked the psyche dungeon concept. So yeah, I was blown away back then. Loved it.

Now, though, I am hopeful P4 Rewind or whatever they're calling the remake can better write its LGBTQ+ characters, make Teddie less of a pervert, and thread Yosuke better so he's less antagonistic, all the while keeping the soul of the style. We'll have to see!
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I would love to see these character improvements too!
 
I saw a Youtube video the other day about how Teddie comes across as more of a perv in English than he was meant to be.


Short version is that he's meant to sound like a little kid who sometimes uses words he picks up from adults without fully understanding what they mean. One of those words comes from Yukiko's shadow, and refers specifically to women picking up men. This became "scoring" in English, which doesn't have the same gender-specific connotations, so Teddie says he wants to try scoring with girls and it sounds like he's propositioning them, but it's more like he's asking to be their wingman.

There's certainly potential to improve him in the remake, especially since it might not involve rewriting anything in the Japanese script... except the video also mentions that some scenes added in P4 Golden portray Teddie as a perv even in Japanese, so it is part of his character after all, at least now. I find the modern Persona games too much of a time sink to play more than once, so I haven't played Golden myself and likely won't play Rewind, but I'll be hoping for more bear puns and less "scoring" even so.
 
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59. Lufia II
Neverland, 1995: SNES Points: 268 Votes: 8 Previous Rank: 12
​
What on first inspection appears to be a fairly generic and straightforward SNES RPG proves to take some big swings that elevate Lufia II to among the most lauded on the system. First and foremost is the brilliant peanut butter and chocolate idea of putting Link to the Past-style puzzles in a standard turnbased RPG. Lufia II is famous for its brainteasers, which range from the usual fare to the truly diabolical.

There are lots of them, too. Lufia II is not a game shy on dungeons, and all of them are jam-packed with perplexing switches, blocks, pits, and pressure plates. Of course, this could get tedious fast if random encounters were involved. But Lufia II wisely opts for on-map symbol encounters which, through their varied movement and behavioral patterns, and the fact you can stun them with dungeon tools like arrows and bombs, make them into something of a puzzle itself. Lufia II is as much a purely cerebral puzzle game as it is a stats-and-battle story experience, and that makes for a compelling combination.

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And then of course there is the Ancient Cave. Tucked away in a corner of the world map is an optional mega-dungeon. Not only are its 99 floors completely randomized, but you’re stripped of your levels and gear upon entering and have to scavenge what equipment you can. Yup, there’s an entire and complete roguelike here; attached almost like a throwaway triviality but as large and fulfilling as the ‘real’ game.

Finally, there’s the game’s position as a prequel. Lufia 1 tells the story of the return of the Sinistrals, god-like supervillains intent on taking over the world. Several generations prior, their initial attempt was thwarted by the legendary hero Maxim and his wife Selan. In a very cool in-medias-res opening scene, Lufia 1 begins with you controlling Maxim’s party and fighting the final boss of that earlier conflict. However, the fight takes its toll and both Maxim and Selan perish after the king Sinistral is defeated. The game then jumps several generations forward to one of their descendants, who will be the primary player character for the rest of the game.

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Lufia II cleverly positions itself as that original, preceding story and sees you playing as Maxim on his journey to stop the Sinistrals. The game leverages this in all sorts of interesting ways, like in how Maxim is labeled the destined hero early in the game for seemingly no justification. But Lufia 1 has already established that he’s the hero who defeats Daos, so doesn’t that in a way make him destined by dint of that future-fact? Or there’s the way the story spends a significant amount of time building up to and developing Maxim and Selan’s relationship, and in the process subverting the cliche of the hometown love interest.

But always there’s the doom of Lufia 1’s beginning hanging over the journey. No matter how the game rewards success in the form of JRPG progression, the ultimate futility of the ending is writ in stone. The normal progression rewards of new areas, new story, and better stats only move things closer to that finality. Maxim and Selan will die, and that knowledge lends a subtle shroud of melancholy over the proceedings. I won’t spoil the ending, but Lufia II manages to honor everything depicted in Lufia 1 while also hitting a bittersweet note of poignant emotional impact.
 
I completely missed the boat on Lufia back in the day. I was vaguely aware of the series' existence thanks to Nintendo Power, but our paths never crossed. That didn't change until about a decade ago when TT fell in love with the FFV "Ancient Cave" ROMhack. I played the hell out of that and loved it, and was left afterward with a compulsion to go investigate its namesake. So I fired up a ROM of Lufia 2, played along, had a pretty good time... and then I got to the Ancient Cave and immediately dove off a cliff and played the hell out of that too. It derailed my play of Lufia 2 so badly that I never got back to resuming the narrative.

It's a good cave, though! Very deep!
 
Inspired choice to use the Lufia DS artwork Lokii; I prefer it myself haha.

Lufia II did not hook me (I got rather annoyed at Maxim sending off Selan and Tia from a fairly early plot point because they're women), but I did see why it had such a strong appeal. I did play through the DS reimagining, and had a decent enough time with that, but it should have been made on a more powerful platform so you could see the action more clearly.
 
Nr. 49 on my list. Sub section: Well done.
It just is. The basic jrpg is, well, somewhat basic, but it does what it does very well. No major faults I can think of there (except for it maybe being a bit too simplistic, but it's not behind other jrpgs of the era, in that regard, and is fine). But it does add neat mechanics, like the capsule monsters, pre-Pokemon beasts you can find, raise, and evolve, so you can have a fifth, uncontrollable party member. There are six of them, I think?
Loki already mentioned the excellent puzzles. No other jrpg has such good logic puzzles. One of them makes you kill flowers, before they grow too high, and you have to make every move count. One makes you place tiles, which disappear if put in a line of multiple, and you need to make them all disappear. There are, of course, also the dungeon navigation puzzles (you even get a hookshot!), but those logic puzzles are simply completely unique in this genre. Which I understand, getting stuck on one of them, in a genre where you normally can grind past every problem, is a gamble by the developers. But I love that they are in there.
There are also the eight(?) Dragon Balls Eggs. If you collect them all (stuck in eight of all the chests in the whole game), you can go to the Egg Dragon, and get a wish fulfilled. The Eggs will then be hidden again, and you can find them once more (you might want to find all the chests first, because if an egg lands in a chest that you never opened, it will overwrite the original treasure), and get another wish. I never did this, but I think after the third wish, the dragon challenges you to a fight, he is a secret boss (the second one, next to the boss at the bottom of the Ancient Cave). Also, you get a method to check either whole dungeons, or individual rooms, for unopened treasure chests, which makes the search way easier.
The story is not too special (though fun enough), but the game has its share of nice character moments. The ones of Maxim and Selan growing closer was already mentioned. We even see the marriage, when the heroes think they saved the world, and everything seems peaceful again, and Tia, the woman who has a crush on Maxim from the start, accepts that it will never happen. Maxim and Selan also get a kid, and we have a real timeskip for that. Again, it's not spectacular on the whole, but these bits, letting time actually pass, make the story stand out from its peers.

If you want a simple, well done jrpg, with a few neat tweaks, check it out. It's worth a playthrough.
 
Lufia 2 is my #2 favorite JRPG. The individual elements that make up the game are good but they combine to form something greater.

Lokii said:
Maxim and Selan will die, and that knowledge lends a subtle shroud of melancholy over the proceedings.
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True, but tragic heroes are still heroes.

And Lufia has other interesting characters like the Shaias - a family of recurring Cid-esque inventors. And how could anyone forget Dekar†? A character who is equal parts stupid and awesome. He's awesomely stupid and stupidly awesome.

†My #7 favorite video game character.

Dolor hic tibi proderit olim : Someday this pain will be useful to you. Lufia has my favorite and preferred way to do skills on equipment with IP Skills and the IP Gauge. Damage a character received filled up the gauge and it could be spent to use the IP Skill of an equipped item. In Lufia 2 it this also added a bit more strategy to choosing equipment since there were often situations where equipment with lower stats had an IP Skill that was useful. It's a design element that I wish more RPGs copied.

FelixSH said:
capsule monsters, pre-Pokemon beasts you can find, raise, and evolve, so you can have a fifth, uncontrollable party member. There are six of them, I think?
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There are 7 CapsuMons* in the game. I like the mechanic in game where you evolve the Capsule Monsters by feeding them leftover equipment. It integrates well with the Ancient Cave and with the shop on Forfeit Island which lets you buy back items you sold or fed to your mons. (That shop is another design element that I think more games should have copied.)

*Gotta caps 'em all.

Lufia 2 also has lots of neat little story moments. One of my favorites is:
When you are flying towards the final dungeon the Sinestrals make the practical decision to try to shoot down your airship. And they succeed! But it doesn't matter since Lexis Shaia had the foresight to add an emergency escape glider to the airship. The party crash lands the glider on the Sinestrals' floating island as their point of no return before entering the final dungeon.

Lufia 2 also has a great soundtrack. Neverland was really cooking with that part of the game. Here's a YouTube playlist if you want to check it out for yourself. (Wikipedia says that Yasunori Shiono was the composer.)

FelixSH said:
Also, you get a method to check either whole dungeons, or individual rooms, for unopened treasure chests, which makes the search way easier.
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The Jewel Sonar checks the entire dungeon.

Lokii said:
Several generations prior
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I think it's technically like 2 or 3 generations since Lufia 1 takes place around 100 years after Lufia 2.

Daikaiju said:
Lufia tends to have 3 distinct reactions
"Lufia rocks!"
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This was #3 on my list. You hit on all the points that make it so special for me - it's got some good presentation, an ending that hits hard, some of the best music in an SNES game, and a very good RPG bolted together with Zelda-style puzzling. It's almost custom-made for me. If you haven't played this gem and still love the best of the 16-bit era, give it some run. It's easily the best of its series.
 
Oh, another neat feature: Normally, you can't keep anything from the Ancient Cave, and can't take anything with you. Except for a certain set of items. You can find them outside the cave, and start it in a stronger state. But you can also find a super strong sword inside it, and then have it way earlier in the story, than you should have. It's another really cool mechanic.

I never beat the Ancient Cave. I once made it to the boss, but avoided battles after some time as much as possible, which made me way too weak to win at the end.
 
I cleared the ancient cave once with some luck which nets you some ridiculous equipment that makes the rest of the game trivial. Didn’t have a whole lot of motivation to power through it after that but I had my fun.
 
Yeah, I made it to the boss, but wasn't able to take him out in time. You really have to get really good run luck to pull it off.
 
Lufia II was number 45 on my list. It's just a straightforward JRPG that does everything well. I especially like how monsters in dungeons are incorporated into the dungeon design and sometimes the puzzles; lots of games from that era were experimenting with visible encounters, and most of them ended up worse for it than if they had just made them random, IMO. Lufia II is one of the few to do it right, and it even had the good sense to have random encounters on the world map, where making them visible wouldn't have served a purpose.

I, too, made it to the bottom of the Ancient Cave but couldn't beat the boss. I think there was a time limit?

Also, is this game's IP the first "limit break" gauge in a JRPG? I can't think of an older one.
 
gorha said:
Also, is this game's IP the first "limit break" gauge in a JRPG? I can't think of an older one.
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I think it is for RPGs. I also can't think of an earlier RPG that has anything like this. (The Super Meter in Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo appeared a year before the Japanese release of Lufia 2.)

gorha said:
I, too, made it to the bottom of the Ancient Cave but couldn't beat the boss. I think there was a time limit?
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Yes, it's 3 rounds.
 
The concept of a tragic hero in RPGs is very compelling. I can't think of too many examples, save for one that I think will come up later in the list.
 
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