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Related, I really wish more JRPGs would do the "Three-four characters with job changing" thing and not the "Eight characters with preset jobs" thing because the former tends to have a lot of options (ie White Mage characters tend to just suck in general so give me stuff to do with the character when I don't need a person to stand there who I'm afraid will die when hit by the tiniest monster whenever we get to a new area but need because I don't want everyone else to die when we get to a new area) and plots tend to work better if you don't have 8+ MCs.
Also The Last Hope was totally worth it.
And has anybody played Toukiden?
But if only I could actually use all of them at the same time in battle.
Give me a SRPG format or something I guess.
Also any SRPG that gives you the choice of character creation/random characters vs. using preset characters always seems to make the preset characters much less appealing to use (FFT, Hoshigami etc).
I'd give a max of 10.
Actually come to think of it, Fire Emblem regularly has more than six.
Uh, I'm sorry if this statement was in irony, but every Fire Emblem game has at least 15 or 16 characters. And traditionally more than 10 classes (with characters usually locked in to certain class paths).I like JRPGs with unique characters, and I like trying out different combinations of characters. My personal preference is around seven or eight characters for a typical party of three or four, with those numbers higher for strategy RPGs that typically have you deploying 10+ characters at a time.
Agreed on both counts. I wish more RPGs would let me switch out in battle as smoothly as FFX does. And other than my first run of FFT (which had a LOT of Ramza, Mustadio, Agrias, Beowulf, Reis, and Orlandu), I've used generics + Ramza almost exclusively. Beowulf, Reis, and Orlandu are so powerful that the game becomes a little too easy. In recent plays I only use them when I'm messing around.
I was actually thinking of the number of characters that one could deploy onto the battlefield at once. I remember this is limited to 9 in at least one of the Sacred Stones missions, on hard, but I don't actually know what the usual limit is. It's not the full traveling group, in any case. So just to be safe, I said "more than six".
Also apparently the LInux version doesn't work right but this may help: http://steamcommunity.com/app/230700/discussions/0/618458030650089374/
So, due to a desire for some RPG and problems with installation of my bro's copy of Neverwinter Nights, I decided to reinstall Dragon Age. Chose commoner dwarf background this time. And you know what, after finishing the prologue it struck me that at this moment I'd probably be more interested if the rest of the game was like that, urban survival-slash-class conflict fantasy story, without all that joining the Grey Wardens and saving Ferelden stuff. (I quite like that kind of class conflict stories, for some reason. Which is
also
why I wondered about posting this post in Updates. Kinda like it's with Fight Club and the rest of them commercial anti-commercial stories.)
I don't agree in full only because the darkspawn serve as an additional way to spice things up for the dwarves. But apart from that, exactly my opinion.
Mind you, I'd have to play other games to discuss the rest of the franchise. I have an impression I'd still prefer the first one, but, you know.
It's an exploration platformer where your primary direct game mechanics are picking up and throwing seeds. Really. And it is quite good.
Basically, life has been discovered on Mars. You are one of the astronauts who has been sent to explore said life on Mars. You make first contact with them and discover that they are these plant-like lifeforms, that produce seeds, which you can use to plant more of them. There are also, conveniently, barriers that open when you have enough of them growing.
That last bit might seem like a convenient gameplay mechanic, but it actually ties into the story. Yes, a surprisingly intriguing story follows from all this. The whole game took me about 11 hours to complete, and I can vouch that the story is quite interesting.
The game is an exploration-heavy metroidvania, consisting of interconnected areas to explore and grow things in. There is a certain depth of strategy to how to grow things, since different things have different biomass values, and you need to exceed a certain biomass value to proceed, or to unlock other features. Also, you can pick up some seeds, but not others, and not all terrain is suited for planting all things. And then there are more complex mysteries that lie deeper within...
Your exploration is punctuated by your contact with your fellow crew members -- one person back at base, and one AI who is a little annoying (and the other characters lampshade this). These characters are okay -- if anything, their voice acting is better than their actual scripts, which are a little redundant. You could actually make this game more like a silent-protagonist Metroid-like game with a strong element of the player learning game mechanics without being told -- I mean, heck, that's basically what happens anyway, except for the "I wonder how you might be able to do such-and-such" that the characters sometimes say. That said, the characters are (needless to say) part of the plot. And there are even multiple endings.
Aside from the somewhat chatty NPCs and the occasionally irritating physics (the player-character insists on taking a moment to get his footing very often), this is an excellent game, so I definitely recommend it.
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In more of the metroidvania realm, I recently restarted playing La-Mulana. Basically, playing it in front of a couple friends. I've kinda gotten tired of not having anyone to talk to about this game, and I've also wanted to play the remake for a while now.
That said...
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Even while not with my friends, I love playing La-Mulana so much that I still felt like playing a metroidvania game with an emphasis on exploration and discovery, so I've finally (re)started playing Aquaria. (I previously played through the first dungeon a while back, the stopped.)
Now here's a game that is absolutely beautiful. Gorgeous in its art and music. It is just a joy to be in the game itself. There might be a lot of backtracking to do, especially if you're exploring the game on your own for the first time, and it is occasionally tedious, but the sights to see and the music that accompany them are just so atmospherically enjoyable.
The game stars a humanoid sea-creature named Naija, whose journey of discovery begins as she explores who she is, and why she is alone in the sea. She has the ability to sing these tones that put together can have magic-like effects, whch she picks up as the game progresses.
Now this game does really well that "no hand-holding"/"discover things on your own" bit. You control Naija with the mouse or keyboard, swimming in all directions and being able to generate bursts of speed every couple seconds or so to go faster. Right-click or hold Ctrl and move the mouse to open up the singing tones around oneself, and sing the magical codes of your abilities once you discover them. That's basically it. Some abilities may have different controls.
You're in an underwater world. A vast variety of creatures dot almost every corner of every area. Now if you're a longtime gamer, one of the first things that you might notice is that most of them are harmless to you, and you to them as well. Yet they also interact with each other. Sometimes they may even be hazardous to you but only under conditions unrelated to yourself -- for example, pulling up some food may attract a big fish, who will want to eat the food. That said, you may find more hostile creatures elsewhere...and there may be reasons for this...
There's also lots of things to collect. First, there are ingredients, and then there are food items, which you can find and also create using ingredients. But you'll need to find one item first, to get the recipe of it. There are also a number of collectibles in out-of-the-way places around the map, which you can use to decorate Naija's home cave, or give her costumes to wear.
The plot is has got a lot of depth (no pun intended) in its mythos, and delivers very well on that journey of self-discovery. I won't spoil it, and I'll only add that, having played (I think) about half the game, I think you can make it through just by being observant and learning to use your abilities, but there are a number of "optional" secrets and features that you are left to discover on your own. This includes features that aren't part of the game mechanics, but are visual features that you can explore with just a pencil and paper -- and they can reveal quite a lot about the game's setting.
I think the variety of areas -- visually and musically -- is a little less than in games like La-Mulana or CvSotN. That said, there's actually a musical reason for this -- most of the game has music in D minor / F major, and the tones that Naija sings are C, D, E, F, G, A, Bb, C. If you pay attention, an early-game dungeon has music in E minor (or actually E phrygian, technically), and Naija instead sings C, D, E, F, G, A, B (natural), C. Despite this limitation, Alec Holowka created a stunningly lush soundtrack for the game, one that really is a core part of the game and defines its atmosphere. So you can't really use too many different keys and keep nearly the same set of notes and make it not sound out-of-place -- though then again, I have only played half the game. If later parts of the game do even more with this potential element of contrast, I will be very, very impressed.
TL;DR Aquaria is an excellent game, and I definitely recommend it.
Then a half hour in it turned into fetch quests, lots and lots of running around without any battling because they didn't even take place on the field. Fetch quests with very little incentive to actually care about finishing them. The plot is also basically a bunch of Ghibli movies and not exactly like... worth playing through to find out what happens?
So it was half an hour of fun, then three hours on top of that of going to places (mostly back and forth and that is the worst because it's basically trading cutscenes for having me walk around which is not cool).
I will probably play more because I think the next place I get to go is an actual dungeon but if I'm this sick of it now it probably won't be worth it.
Oh no.
or i just tend to ignore those things i don't like, in forming my tastes.
until i start talking to other people about them and then suddenly realize that most of the anime fandom isn't like what i wanted it to be or somethingRelated: I have finished less PS3 JRPGs than I wish I had (ie neither White Knight Chronicles) because the PSP came along and just had everything on it and now I'm trying to make the Vita that even if it doesn't want to be (I feel like this will involve a lot of pretending Neptunia's battle system does not make me want to throw things). Also I will definitely never finish a PS4 JRPG even if I get one and even if it's KHIII.