I have very limited experience with JRPGs, basically I just want some recommendations, maybe with a small description on what the game is like. I like games with cool art design and music, and fun gameplay.
Can you JRPG friends help give me some recommendations?
Certainly, but your pic related is overrated slop. I'd rate it about a 5.5/10 subjectively.
I'm sure you know all about FF, so also try out Grandia 1, Jade Cocoon, Star Ocean 2 and Legend of Legaia.
I'd like serious answers...
What are your two favorite JRPGs?
Final Fantasy VIII is my favorite. My answer was serious, so I don't know what else you want.
It's not even an uncommon answer amongst JRPG players. Kiseki is by far the best series running at the moment and probably of all time.
LOL, you're not
(me) but this is almost exactly what I would have said.
FF8 is based and my favorite, yes.
Kiseki games are the best out of all JRPGs.
Trails in the Sky for the start of it all.
Trails of Cold Steel 1 for the best stuff immediately
Ignore FF, it's pretty bad except for VIII, VII, and X.
Definetely ignore SaGa. Persona 5 is good but ignore the rest. Legend of Legaia is pretty good but not really worth it unless you have played better games first.
>Kiseki games are the best out of all JRPGs.
>Ignore FF
>Definetely ignore SaGa
>Persona 5 is good but ignore the rest
This has to be bait lol
It's not bait, it really is a Kisekigay with a bone to pick
See
for recent examples, he's shitposting like this since a while and does the same on Ganker
Breath of Fire 3 has the best pixel art of any jrpg. Self contained story.
Ff tactics is the best trpg to this day.
Ff6-10 are all vey different. You might like one but not one of the others.
Trails games are more visual novels than rpgs.
Tales of Berseria and vesperia are the best in their series, have unique combat.
Star Ocean 2 is great and also the only good star Ocean game.
Lunar 1 & 2 on ps1 are comfy and charming
Strong disagree on Berseria. Almost every aspect of gameplay is immensely frustrating. The characters are nice but it’s painful to play
>Trails games are more visual novels than rpgs.
This is just stupid.
No it's not. They're 99.9% text boxes
second for breath of fire 3, everything else is slop
4 has better art than 3.
all Breath of Fire games are good on some level.
Except for Dragon Quarter, frick everything that game stands for
Dragon Quarter is the only BoF that is actually good to play
This. All other BoF's are pretty generic and mediocre jarpigs.
>But muh dragon transformation
Oh yeah, because I love it when Ryu is permanently low on AP because I abuse an overglorified summon
Xenoblade Chronicles also check out whatever you find appealing on lists why do you ask here
I really should make a new thread for SAO games I guess but do I have to play Lost song before Hollow Realization? I mostly like the games for Philia, is she really relevant in Lost Song or not, is the recap in Realization sufficient if she's not? Thanks
They're all trash. Bubsy 3D is better.
Also, if you do play Trails, try Nightmare difficulty for the best experience IMO. Yes, the game will say it is designed for New Game plus, but it is always doable on a fresh game...it's just difficult.
Trails of Cold Steel 1 & 2
Is a JRPG series set in the Erebonian empire, a fantasy 20th century Prussia analog that is undergoing the turmoils of modernity. The aristocracy is losing power to an increasingly totalitarian imperial government. The way of the sword and martial arts are giving way to tanks and machine guns. A cold war with a rival expansionist republic is heating up.
The series has an extremely likeable cast of characters. Even the antagonists are likeable.
The games have turn based combat. You can move your characters around the field during battle, and there is a speed stat that determines turn order. The combat and character building is very fun. I would recommend playing the first two games on hard difficulty. The game can be very difficult at the start, but after 20 hours you start being able to afford better accessories and quartz, and then the game becomes progressively easier. For CS3 and CS4, you can start on nightmare difficulty, and for Reverie you can start on Abyss difficulty.
The games have great aesthetics and music.
The first two Cold Steel games have an above average English localization and voice dub. The next three sequels (CS3, CS4, and Reverie) discard the interesting narrative direction of the first two Cold Steel games, but are still entertaining (again characters are likeable, Erebonia is a cool place), and the voices for the new characters aren't quite as good as the old ones and there is some stilted dialogue here and there, but it is still overall a very enjoyable experience.
The Cold Steel games were ported by Durante, the modder who fixed the Dark Souls 1 PC port. They are the best PC ports of any JRPG, period.
CS1 is beatable blind on nightmare, but I fear for a newcomer with little to no prior JRPG experience, it would be a little much. Cold Steel's battle system has a lot of mechanics going on and only gets more as the series goes on. Hard is more paltable.
Maybe it just depends on how frustrated one is willing to get.
Also to OP, if you do go Nightmare blind on Cold Steel, keep many saves in case you need to go back and get something for a fight. It's always good to keep many saves anyway just in case you missed something or advance (It's harder to accidentally do this in CS albeit.)
>mfw not a single Suikoden recommendation
The first two Suikodens are among my most favorite JRPGs (S3 and S5 were also fun), but I wouldn't recommend them as a newcomer's first JRPG. They don't have the audio-visual appeal of newer games like Cold Steel, and there is the impediment of having download and set up Retroarch and try to find Bios files and find the correct folders, and then trying to find a good CRT filter, etc, whereas with Cold Steel you just buy and download and play.
I mean, you can just get from PSN. Also, soon.
This is the correct answer. I'd recommend starting with Suikoden 2 for a better first impression of the series. The first game is a little clunky and the portraits are kind of a tragedy.
>suikoden remastering
how in the FRICK have I not heard about this?
If you like music, design and vibes the ps1 era final fantasies are top tier. This may be a controversial statement but chrono cross is one of the best imo. Beautiful art, music by yasunori mitsuda and a captivating story about dimensional paradoxes, dragon gods, futuristic sci fi shit, you name it. I highly recommend it If you’re looking for a chill jrpg experience.
Don't listen to /vrpg/ gays shilling Kiseki. They have a cool combat system but the first 5 have shittons unskippable, uninteresting dialogue, like the main characters debating for hours what spices they prefer in their paella and so on. And sidequests are just lame jobbing opportunities. Cold Steel is okay for a while, but turns into super shonen slop the further it goes on, and only survives on unsatisfying sequel baiting
>tells OP to ignore four Trails of Cold Steel recommendations
>doesn't recommend a game himself
Are you pretending to have played 4 hundred hour games, each of which you hated? KEK
Yes, because I got meme'd by you keks and fell for the sequel baiting. Like I said, combat is fun, but if you're gonna tell me CS 3-4 have good stories, you'll be lying or you're 15 and you're favorite anime is black clover or some shit
Warpigger here, here's a list of the few JRPGs that I think are pretty good:
>SaGa games
>Etrian Odyssey
>Bravely Default
>Crystal Project
>Black Souls
>Vagrant Story
I have tried a fair amount of other JRPGs (SMT, Persona, Kiseki, Chrono Trigger, Grandia, FF, Suikoden, Octopath, Xenogears, Valkyrie Profile, Bravely Default 2) but I hated pretty much all of them.
>the absolute state of WRPG gays
LMAO
His taste is completely fine, some pretty good stuff on that list. What's the problem with it?
the absolute state of this board LMAO
Buttmad kisekicuck
nani
Anon you can say something of substance, it's fine.
Go ahead.
The Legend of Dragoon, as you posted.
>good music, muscle memory quicktime event combat system
Any SMT game
>occult themed apocalyptic settings based around negotiating with and fusing demons based on mythological/religious characters. Usually are decently challenging
Chrono Trigger (if you want something easier)
>polished and charming shorter game with ATB and a great cast
Dark Cloud 2 (I hear 1 is good too but I haven't played it)
>third person dungeon crawling with some town building and time travel
Final Fantasy 5, 3, 7, or 9, but most of the mainline are at least decent
>this series is impossible to have an honest discussion on this board
Lunar
>comfy, good story, good music, and very easy
Any Etrian Odyssey game
>first person dungeon crawling with built in cartography. Pretty damn challenging
Rune Factory 3 or 4. Hell any of the series if you like comfy farm sim.
>marriageable cute girls, combat can actually be harder than expected
If you're coming off of western games you have several options
>SaGa
Funky AD&D+GW+RQ+Kawazu homebrew, highly experimental game series that focuses on system heavy gameplay with in-depth customization and lots of mechanics but combines it with a Ultima4/5 syle open ended game structure, and often features multiple main characters with their own campaigns, think what Larian is doing now but done better and since more than two decades ago, high quality series all around.
>Metal Max
Wasteland, but with a dash of Dragon Quest, or maybe the opposite depending on how you look at it.
The early games are pretty much just that as even the UI is more or less the exact same, mostly comedic but still has its moments of seriousness, really cool universe with some minor overall continuity.
Notable for being focused on vehicular combat.
>SMT
Wizardry but you play as different flavours of sci-fi Werdnas, summoning demons is the main attraction, very cool post apoc atmosphere, gameplay starts off pretty bad but gets refined later on in the series, dungeon crawling heavy
>Wizardry Empire/Elminage
Classic wizardry made by the people who worked on the oldass japanese ports for the series, quality old school dungeon crawling, albeit pretty povery in production values, Elminage Gothic is probably the most refined classic Wizardry game ever, but also ball bustingly hard.
>Etrian Odyssey
Another Atlus dungeon crawler that's more in line with the classic format, more cartoony than SMT but with more refined gameplay and a more mechanics focused approach.
>Growlanser
Notable for being one of the few RTwP RPG series from Japan, very story heavy, suffers from so so localizations, some of the games are notable for having pretty indepth route systems and lots of interesting choices, gameplay....is kinda there, the closest you'll get to a japanese version of the bioware romance focused formula, unfortunately a now defunct series.
These should be good enough for you to start off.
Ahem
>Tales of Berseria
>Xenoblade Chronicles X
>SMT V
>Final Fantasy IX (with Megori mod) or just X
>Demon's Roots
>Nier Replicant/Automata (2 different games but both are amazing)
>Persona 5 Royal
>Skies of Arcadia Legends
>Breathe of Fire IV
>Shadow Hearts 1/2
>Lunar Silver Song Story Complete
>Blue Reflection: Second Light
>Omori
>Wild Arms 3/5
>Grandia
>Secret of Mana
Honestly I could probably reccomend 200+ jerr perr gerrs but those are good to start with
These are all good reccomendations for people as they give an extremely wide variety of tone, setting, gameplay, etc etc.
They're right, but Persona 3 and 4 are also really good. I'd play them first. If you start with 5 they'll feel like a downgrade and you probably won't enjoy them as much.
If you want to get in to JRPGs never having played any, the SNES Final Fantasies and Chrono Trigger are all approachable and fantastic
>CT
>approachable
>impossible to beat without New Game+ shenanigans
the frick are you talking about?
Practically the only complaint you ever hear about CT is that it's rather easy. Perhaps you just suck?
>impossible to beat without New Game+ shenanigans
You literally can't get to New Game+ without beating the game. You just proved yourself wrong.
Is there a recommended order to play the Trails games in?
The overarching story never has a satisfying payoff, so you should play individual games on their own merits. Play whichever games hold the most appeal to you.
Trails in the Sky FC is chronologically the first game, but it has lackluster combat and shitty sidequests. It is aesthetically boring (top down view of grass and rocky roads... more grass and rocky roads). It is a 50 hour long game but the first 20 hours are pretty boring. I really liked the second half of the story but I'm not sure I'd tell someone new to JRPGs to slog through the first half just because "it gets good later on, trust me". IIRC the devs have since patched in a turbo mode so you can fast forward through the boring combat.
Trails of Cold Steel 1 is much more fun from the get go. The combat and character building is enjoyable. Looks more appealing from an audio-visual perspective (can move the camera around in 3D, you get to visit a wider variety of environments). I also thought that the plot was much more intriguing from the start. I found the cast of the Cold Steel games to be the overall most likeable.
Lastly, you could play Trails from Zero if it really appeals to you, but personally I found it to be the most boring arc. It is set in a boring modern urban city. The characters wear boring modern clothing. I didn't find the plot of the first game gripping (and the second game's story I found to be a slog and later on aggravating), and I found the cast to be very meh.
Chronological order is: Trails in the Sky FC > SC > 3rd > Trails from Zero > Trails to Azure > Trails of Cold Steel 1 > CS2 > CS3 > CS4 > Trails into Reverie
Thanks. I see Cold Steel 1 and 2 are on sale now, so I'll give those a try.
>Metal max(metal saga) series(all good except for the xeno reborn)
post apoc setting with you using(or not) tanks to hunt rogue robots and monsters they created
>7th dragon (first is meh, 2020 great, last one okay)
Dragons are destroying world so you have to kill em(fun mini bosses all along the dungeon where you really can/need to use buffs and debuffs)
>Digimon cybersleuth(both)
Pretty decent monster evolving(they don't die from old age here)
>Langrisser
Good tactical rpgs but not much of them are translated
>Fate/extra and extra ccc
fun and simple rock-paper-scissors battle system along with decent story
I would also add
>infinite space
its only one game but its great space opera with fun gameplay
All of the games i listed have great music
I would recommended smt person 5. it's the best game there is, it's like a slice of japanese life. it makes me excited when I can go move to Japan and steal some hearts! its probably my most favorites in the SMT line of games.
Legend of Dragoon is a good game. I liked it quite a lot back in the day. I probably should replay it. Now to answer your question i`d like to recommend the following:
>Valkyrie profile Lenneth and Silmeria
>Vagrant Story
>FF VII, VIII, IX and Tactics
>Tactics Ogre
>Chrono Trigger
>Chrono Cross
>Saga frontier 2
>Shadow hearts and Shadow hearts covenant (these are similar to Legend of Dragoon and i believe some of the team worked on it)
>Star Ocean 3
>.Hack//IMOQ
>.Hack//GU
>Ni no Kuni wrath of the white witch (think studio Ghibli meets pokemon)
>Tales of Abyss
>Radiata Stories
>Xenosaga I and III
>Dragon Quest XI
Final fantasy tactics.
>I like games with cool art design and music, and fun gameplay.
Only going to namedrop games i've actually finished that comes to mind off the top of my head.
Breath of Fire 4. Great in every respect.
Final Fantasy 7. Great in every respect.
Chrono Trigger (SNES), Great in every respect.
Final Fantasy 5. Very fun job system, story keeps you going but isn't that special.
Dragon Quest 7 3DS version. Fun job system and great vignettes that keep changing with story progression.
Bravely Default, Bravely Second and yes even Bravely Default 2. The quality drops quite a bit as they go along but all are at least fun.
Chrono Trigger.
Wild Arms 1.
Grandia 1 (Saturn patched version).
Breath of Fire 2.
I feel that the peak JRPG platform is between SNES and the PS1.
>make thread asking for recs from JRPG friends
>a few JRPG friends answer
>a few WRPG gays answer too for some reason
>WRPG gays get pissy for 30 posts
oof
OP said he has very little experience with jarpigs, presumably making him a warpigger. It follows that he might value warpiggers' views, since he has similar taste to them, over jarpiggers'.
Here's an anti-recommendation: Trials in the sky and associated games are absolutely awful. You'll get it recommended a lot by 14 year old weebs but they are agonizingly dull, uninspired affairs with bloated, ponderous dialog and grotesquely bad combat and exploration with a shockingly boring story. They're truly dogshit.
Halloween is approaching. It's time to get Into Koudelka and it's sequels the Shadow Hearts games. By the time you finish those you can play Parasite Eve for Christmas.
Koudelka: a PS1 turn based tactics JRPGs horror game set in a haunted Welsh abby. You play a rag tag team of a witch, a thief and a priest who have all come to the abby for different reasons but must ban together to survive. It's like a JRPG meets Resident Evil. There is very little grinding required since you level up super fast.
Shadow Hearts: PS2 games that go from being very dark to moronic anime bullshit at the drop of a hat. They are classic turn based JRPGs u like Koudelka but set in the 1910s in China and other historical eras. Very good all around.
Parasite Eve: The best game on the PS1. It's a JRPG with horror elements and a rather unique combat system. You play as a female cop in New York during Christmas that gets caught up in an outbreak of mutants.