I love JRPGs that have a strong naturalist feel (e.g., balancing elemental forces, environmental themes, an organic feel, magical beasts of nature). Some of my favorite JRPGs that touch on naturalist themes are Breath of Fire IV, Tales of Vesperia, FF7, Trials of Mana, Sakuna of Rice and Ruin (underrated), Rune Factory 3, and a few others. There is a strong naturalist/organic vibe and trend among my favorites. Whenever I come across beautiful greenery in JRPGs and when you see themes about balancing elemental forces or rejuvenating nature, such as in Vesperia, I like it a lot. I also love how you help monsters and humans improve their relationships in Rune Factory 3.
Are there any JRPGs that fall into this category that you enjoy or would recommend?
uh ok go play Jade Cocoon and the Soul Blazer trilogy anon
atelier ayesha
Seconding Atelier Ayesha.
>Are there any JRPGs that fall into this category that you enjoy or would recommend?
Just because you mentioned based Sakuna and BOF4 i'll actually be helpful. Ni No Kuni 1 and to a lesser extent 2 are likely to be to your taste.
Ni no Kuni was good, but the DS version seems narratively better. I disliked how the witch plot felt tacked on. Ni no Kuni 2 looks bad.
Thanks for the rec. I downloaded Duckstation and am using these settings (given in description) for the game. Sharing because it might be useful for other people. It looks pretty good:
I would highly recommend something like a CRT filter. Sharpening the visuals on these early polygon games only serves to make them pop out more imo, and the text and backgrounds will all be highly distorted, along with menus having those muddled text and bars.
Yeah, I would have preferred upscaled backgrounds for Jade Coccoon like they have for FF7 and FF9. I wonder if there's a way to add these backgrounds to the game?
I love this aesthetic. It's my favorite kind of setting.
I get this feeling from the Dark Cloud games, but it isn't as pronounced as the other suggestions in this thread.
>Ni no Kuni 2 looks bad
I could forgive its other problems if it didn't egregiously recolor enemies. There are very, very few unique enemy models. But its locations are great.
I played Jade Cocoon as a kid, and I remember seeing 2 for the first time out in the wild years after. I was so excited that there was a sequel I never knew about. It's a completely different game. I don't know why they bothered called it Jade Cocoon. I remember the gameplay being good, though.
I second fpbp's recommendation of Jade Coccoon. On top of the people appearing to live simple lives, it has wonderful visuals all made by the character designer at Ghibli. It's a bit of a surreal game, but a comfy one.
I beat Jade Cocoon yesterday and it was incredible. I enjoyed its strong folklorish vibe. I liked the world-building, murals, and legends, and I liked the stories involving the the divine tree and God of the Forest, Elrihm. The art direction was gorgeous too, and I liked the design of the villagers' clothing, village itself Syrus, and the forest. It was basically what I was looking for.
Some of the dialogue could get pretty deep about the mutual containment and balance of light & dark and reminded me of some Zen sayings. It's still a 9/10 for me at least, and I think the only major problem is that the ending felt a bit rushed. It's about 12-15 hrs long, and I liked how some of the later bosses became challenging.
Also, what's interesting about the game is that talking to everyone in the village as the story transpires helps give more context to the folklore; for example, there's an old man on a cliffside who shares the folklore, which feels very Shinto/animist.
It is basically Princess Mononoke mixed with Pokemon. Interestingly, Yakushima Forest inspired some scenery of Princess Mononoke and probably influenced this game too.
I found using a post-filter CRT scanlines on Duckstation while keeping it at 4:3 aspect ratio to be the best approach. I still think a cool project would be to make a version of the game with upscaled backgrounds.
The art style and ambiance of the PS2 sequel looks like crap compared to the solemn and spiritual tone of the original.
I'm glad to hear you liked it. I will concur with the other poster and recommend next Chrono Cross. The backgrounds are truly remarkable, and the people living on the El Nado Archipelago more or less fit the exact archetype you'd requested in the original.
Oh, and yes. Jade Cocoon 2 was absolutely shameful and a huge piece of shit, do not bother.
Check out the Atelier series.
MH Stories 1 and 2
Why is rural japan/the japanese equivalent of merry england so comfy bros?
Because it gives the feeling of a people in touch with nature, yet cleanly and advanced. I've some friends that moved over there to teach English that live in the boonies, and it sounds like the life I desire to be honest. Quiet, peaceful, Green everywhere, hot as frick in the summer, cold as frick in the winter. Kind of wish I'd joined them instead of letting my Japanese rot at home.
>hot as frick in the summer
Sounds like hell to me.
Honestly I quite like it. I used to despise summer but now the feeling of sweating my ass off and enjoying a nice summer night is my favorite, outside of coming into a well-heated cabin on a wintery December night and sitting down near the heat with a nice drink.
I don't know japanese at All and I know is never be accepted in a place like that but yeah rural japan really does seem like a dream. Rural americans are just as obnoxious and awful to themselves and their environment as anyone else here.
A large part of it takes place in a big city, but Radiata stories has some pretty nice nature environments.
Based tastes, if you like desertic settings try Ever Oasis
I really love the scenery in Chrono Cross, and it has a strong environmentalist theme for a few of it's subplots as well. Of course later it leans heavier into science fiction, but what JRPG doesn't.
I'd also say the Etrian Odyssey games do a good job of this as well. 3 is my personal favorite (pic related).
I've already played Chrono Cross when younger but had trouble with that final boss where in order to get the true ending you had to make sure elemental attacks were done in a certain order.
I do plan to replay the game alongside Radical Dreamers for added context; I had trouble understanding the story as a kid. I think the best way to play it is with the Steam version and modding it with the AI upscaled backgrounds and other improvements. The recent console ports seem pretty bad.
I'm playing Panzer Dragoon Saga next because I liked Orta a lot. It took awhile to set up correctly because I'm playing this one on my Linux computer.