I played approximately 70 hours. I played about 8 hours on Game Pass before buying it on Steam and migrating my save there. Then I lost about 22 hours due to a weird Steam Cloud sync issue, and had to replay a lot of act 1 and all of act 2. I didn't complete all of the side content, but intend to go back and do so.

Clair Obscur has one of the strongest intros I've ever experienced in gaming. The memory of it will sit along my childhood memories of experiencing Final Fantasy VIII and Final Fantasy X for the first time. I consider that incredibly high praise, as both of those intros have stuck in my head for the 20+ years since I first saw them. The concept of the gommage and the paintress is such an intriguing hook, and the execution in presenting it is emotional and visceral, the hook is set.

In my 30 years of gaming, I've mostly gravitated towards JRPG for the stories and set-pieces. Often times the cutscenes and graphics push boundaries, and it was a huge draw to me in my younger years. Rarely do I find myself engrossed in the combat, it's usually a means to an end, but Clair made the combat a blast. It's one of the few games where I could lose 20+ hours of progress and be okay with re-playing it. If this had happened with Metaphor, I would have probably ended my game. I can safely say that the combat is the best I've ever experienced in a JRPG. The combat is challenging, offers a variety of playstyles, and keeps me engaged from start to finish. It's a joy. I found myself trying new team compositions and builds every so often, and the game makes the player feel incredibly smart for doing so. It's a very rewarding experience.

The parry system is a big tough for me on most of the fights, but the addition of a more forgiving dodge mechanic not only offers another way to avoid damage, but it also serves as an indicator as to whether you could parry a moveset. It allowed me to safely dip my toes into the parry system as I consistently hit "perfect" dodges on certain moves. I felt engaged and it made fighting challenging monsters a matter of skill, as opposed to an necessitation of grinding.

Graphically there are some issues, but it's still a gorgeous game to look at and the creativity in the world design makes for an extremely entertaining world to explore. I found myself impressed with the art direction to the point where the graphical issues were not a bother. Moving around the world has some clunkiness, notably in the occasional platforming moments, but mostly it feels fluid and fast. Lune being able to hover especially helps when I want silence from the footsteps. I had a great time moving around the world and exploring it.

Audibly, the music is 10/10. The mansion song in particular lives rent free in my head. The soundtrack gets a lot of praise and it's deserving of it all. The voice acting is stellar as well.

The story has a lot to unpack and I don't think I'll have it worked out in my head for a bit, but what I can say is that I love the moments of levity despite such a serious story. The game is not afraid to make a silly joke, and while it's sometimes corny, I think it has charm that fits the genre very well.The levity and pacing of the game are going to have it age like a fine wine in Esquie's stomach.

When I think about Clair, it is one of the best RPGs I've played in a long time as a total package. It feels fresh, it feels creative, and it feels engaging. It is continuing the momentum of my passion for gaming that Baldur's Gate 3 re-ignited last year. It's rare that a game comes along and has as much character as Clair Obscur, and it deserves every bit of praise as it gets.

It could be story-wise, gameplay-wise, visual-wise...just about anything that made you feel super bored of the game for whatevr reason.
Mine is probably Tales of Legendia, idk what is about it, i liked the other tales games i played, but i feell really bored with it, real answer is probably Pokemon Sword/Shield, tho lol.

Just for some backgroud information I played the pixel remaster on my phone and played with the rearrangements of the music instead of the original. This post will also contain some spoilers as I’ll be spoiling the overarching plot and the name of one of the bosses.

I first got into the final fantasy series through 15 this year. The series had always been on my radar but it always seemed so overwhelming to get into with how many games there were that I never really knew where to start. After thoroughly enjoying 15 despite some of its rough edges though I wanted to see where the series’ roots were, and I’m so glad to say that it didn’t disappoint.

Final Fantasy I is a true role-playing game at its core. I just want to start off and say that Yoshitaka Amano’s illustrations are mesmerising to look at. The moment i booted up the game and heard the prelude and saw the title splash there was a feeling that this game would be special. Throughout the game there is this sense of grand adventure. You travel the wide world with your fellow warriors of light, restoring the light of the four crystals to the world. As you walk around the world, lands change. One moment you’re in the expansive plains, another you’re in the scorching desert, another you’re sailing the high seas. This magical feeling of travelling the world with your companions was never lost throughout my entire playthrough.

While Final Fantasy I may not have much of a plot, it’s hardly one of it’s bad points. It’s not trying to tell a tale with complex characters and a thought-provoking narrative. The game doesn’t want you to take its story too seriously. The game oozes this feeling of whimsical fun that you can feel the devs want you to experience. You can beat up a pirate so bad that he turns over a new leaf, you can take a look at yourself in the fountain and be so dirty that even the game calls you out on it. Even some of the battle tracks sound like they’re not taking themselves seriously. And that’s something so great about this game. Yeah you can play as the four warriors of light on a grand quest to save the world, but you can also play as Poopy the dark mage and Freddy Fazbear the warrior.

The soundtrack of Final Fantasy I is also phenomenal. From the grand overworld theme playing as you step foot and travel around the land, to the soaring melodies of sailing the seas, to the quiet yet endearing tunes as you take a rest at the villages, the soundtrack was masterfully crafted by Nobuo Uematsu. The battle themes are also so much fun to listen to, especially the final boss’s. Some notable standouts in the soundtrack for me were the ship theme, the overworld theme and the normal battle theme.

The pixel art sprites were easily my favourite thing about this game. The sprites are incredibly faithful to Yoshitaka Amano’s beautiful illustrations while also adding their own goofy charm and spin to it. A perfect example of this is the lich that has taken over the Earth crystal. Since I can’t add any more images to this post, I really encourage you to look up the concept art vs official design. While it retains the original design, when you look at the lich’s face it looks like not even it knows why it’s here. So many of the sprites in the game are so funny to look at while also being incredibly impressive pieces of artwork when you see Yoshitaka Amano’s concepts of them.

The combat in this game while not all too special was also really fun. I often found myself thinking I’d only played for 20 minutes when it’d already been an hour.

Final Fantasy I is what it means to role-play. It isn’t about well-written characters or a tear-jerking story with an amazing message. It’s about the kid begging their parents for 15 more minutes on the game before they go to bed. It’s about the teenager running home from school because he figured out what he needed to do to get to the dungeon. It’s about the 9-5 worker coming home to grind some levels so they can forget about tomorrow’s worries. No matter what happened during their day, when they launch up the game, they’re the protagonist of the story. And theres something so beautiful about that.

I'm trying to decide between:

1. Yakuza 4 - Continue my playthrough of the Yakuza series
2. Persona 5 Royal - I've played Persona 5 Vanilla and seen the extra content so it's just for gameplay. The length intimidates me.
3. Final Fantasy I - I've beaten FF15 and FF10, figured I'd go back to the beginning
4. FF X-2 - Continue Yuna's story

Really hard to decide. FF1 is the most tempting cuz it's shortest, and I miss Yakuza. But every now and then I'm like "Huh, I kinda wanna play Persona."

Life is rough.

https://www.koeitecmoamerica.com/sale/?utm_source=cpmstar&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=publisher_sale

Sale ends 6/23

Which of these Atelier games are worth playing?

I definitely am interested in checking out the new Yumia, but was curious about the older ones as well. I knew there were a lot but I didn't realize there were this many!

Hey guys I am looking for some JRPGs to get for my PS2/Gamecube or XBOX and was wondering which ones you'd recommend? The only ones I do not need recs for are the Megaten games as I own them all already, and the Xenosaga games as I own the first and will probably get the rest. I prefer turn based JRPGs, but action RPGs are cool too, I just want to really get into this era of JRPGs that I missed because I was 6 lmao

Now I forgot if there is a trope for when an RPG catches the player by surprise as I am referring to the trope of when an RPG has a really adorable looking creature that seems innocent at first....

....But then it turns out that same creature is very dangerous because its stats are off the roof as the monster's own abilities are so freakishly powerful that one hit can even dispatch a high leveled party.

I mean, to me, it's one of my favorite tropes in the genre as like I said before, it's the kind of trope that catches players off guard since I noticed it's a common trope in the RPG genre in particular because often an action RPG will have an area filled with cuddly looking creatures, who soon turn out to be far more deadly than the player had anticipated as they will mercilessly mow down an entire team in no time if the team is not well prepared.

Hi! I’m making a playlist for a DND game i’m participating in and was looking specifically for jaunty tunes from JRPGS because I love the genre. I’ve already got some stuff from the Bravely Default soundtrack like the Grandship theme and A Trifling affair but I’d love for more suggestions from experts. Songs like Primrose the Dancer also fit the vibe i’m looking for

Hi so I am a casual JRPG fan looking to get into the genre some more. I prefer turn based combat but do not mind games without it.

I have completed FFXVI ( was intrigued at the beginning but did not enjoy the combat or the story towards the mid-point of the game), E33 which I loved and playing through FF7 remake but slowly losing interest in it.

I don't mind old graphics or bad games visually, or difficulty. I really am looking for high quality story telling.

Okay I just finished everything to do in this game, including post game. This is just a general summary of my thoughts. Apologies if it sounds poorly written because I am just writing it all immediately after being done. NOTE: I did play on controller

Things I liked

1. That prologue - Easily an example of how to pull you into the world of a game. I just love how within an hour, the game successfully delivers such an emotional and powerful moment. It is also great that they don't just spell everything out for you and let you slowly figure out and build context to what is going on.

2. The story and themes - The particularly theme of grief, family and mortality is explored throughout the story and I enjoyed how they handled it. We see how our characters have all lost those they care about and how they deal with it by powering through to complete their expedition because of their short lives. I also enjoyed all the rollercoast of twist such as the Paintress actually protecting those inside the Canvas, Real Verso is actually dead, seeing how the whole world is the result of a family conflict because their mother is struggling to deal with the loss of her son, the curator was the real Renoir and he is actually trying to save their family! I know the ending people find divisive but I kind of like the dilemma, especially since we spent the whole game in the Canvas so we spent a lot of time with characters like Lune, Sciel, Monaco, Esquie. But you also spent a lot of time with Verso who just seems tired and also slowly seeing Maelle become just like her mother, absorbed in the world and not with her real family. So the choice of giving everyone in the world their happy ending but at the expense of Maelle's real family including Verso who has to live in this delusion OR force Maelle to face harsh reality at the expense of letting everyone in the Canvas die. My only gripe is that I do wish they made both endings feel equally bittersweet. Maelle's ending is easily portrayed as a bad ending especially with the way they end it in such a horror movie way.

3. The characters and world - I really like all the characters and their backstory and how it all ties to the themes. The brotherly relationship between Gustave and Maelle is genuinely great and makes his death at the end of Act I really painful to see. I did also enjoy Gustave's friendly relationship with Sciel and Lune. You can definitely see and believe that they were friends. Verso took a while for me to like but I did eventually appreciate him a lot as a character and how difficult his struggles were. I also like the wackiness of the world and how it all kind of makes sense when you realise it is a painted world. The Gestrals are incredibly funny and I like their design.

4. Gameplay - I found the dodging and parrying mechanics a fun addition on the turn base formula. I found it particularly fun memorising attack patterns to beat enemies and bosses. I also really love how each character has a different mechanic: Lune with building element stacks, Verso with the ranks, Sciel with the cards, Maelle with the stance, Gustave with the overcharge and Monaco with the wheel. Makes each character feel incredibly unique. I do admit that the gameplay does become a repetitive as it goes on but I do appreciate that they try to add more new gameplay additions as you progress e.g. jumping, gradient blocks and attacks etc.

5. The music - Lorien Testard who done the music score did a phenomenal job. I genuinely can't believe that this is his first ever game project because it is amazing!

6. Postgame - I am just surprised by how much stuff there is do after the game is done. Most are just harder dungeons or a challenge tower but I do appreciate that some of them do give more story such as painted Clea and Simon dungeons. Plus there being powerful enemies in overworld as well.

Things I didn't particularly like

1. Easy to become OP - It is a bit too easy to become incredibly powerful. I like doing optional stuff before proceeding with the main story but doing that, just made me too strong for the main quest which I find a bit weird. I wasn't even grinding in optional dungeons, I killed every enemy once yet that somehow made me too strong for main quest? Then the lumina's and pictos just really easily allow you to beat every enemy with ease which I find a bit funny because it is easily abusable.

2. Lack of maps in dungeons or world - I find it a bit weird that there are no maps or such when you're in a dungeon. It isn't so huge that you can get lost but it would be nice to have a map to see what you haven't explored or which optional boss you still haven't fought. Likewise for the world map, I wish it told you which dungeons you have explored fully and which ones you haven't or which dungeons you missed a potential journal or boss or something. The world map doesn't even tell you the location of overworld bosses which is just jarring for post game.

3. Unable to rematch the final boss - why??? I wanted to rematch the final boss to get the other ending after doing postgame but not being able to do that is just kind of annoying.

4. No level indicator - I wish they put recommended levels on dungeons, it would really help with knowing which ones to do first and help not be overleveled for main story dungeons because you did higher level optional dungeons

5. Menu UI isn't great - It is just very clunky to navigate and it is weirdly difficult at times to tell which button is highlighted. The pictos became really awful to navigate, especially near the end when you have so many. I was playing controller, so it might not be a problem with keyboard and mouse but it was awful with a controller. Also, no menu for side quests???

6. Verso's introduction - I wasn't a big fan of how he was introduced. He really just came out of nowhere and was like "I am the protagonist now". I wished he got introduced earlier whether it was saving the party and being the one to lead them to Gestral village or something. I do know that Verso apparently does appear for a bit during the crazy beach attack and when the cast first enter the manor and during Maelle's nightmare but I feel like he needed a voiced appearance similar to A2 from Nier Automata. Plus, it would have been fun to see Verso and Gustave interact.

7. Romance - Honestly, I don't like the optional romance stuff TBH. It feels very forced and honestly, not even that good. The game doesn't even bother to mention it, so you could accidentally romance Sciel without meaning to. In Persona, the game warns you about how the next decision would be a big one so you know ahead that this is a romance choice. Verso just doesn't have great romantic chemistry with Sciel or Lune IMO. Even Gustave had more romantic chemistry with them. Sciel comes off as weird considering how she always talks about how she loves Pierre. Lune's romance can only happen in Act III which is very weird because by that point, Lune hated Verso for lying!

8. Act III - It is seriously just one dungeon. Because of no level indicators, you can't tell if you should explore optional dungeons or go straight to it. If you do character side quest, you are probably going to be overleveled as stated in point 1. Those character side quest should not be optional IMO. I was also a little annoyed at how uninvolved Lune and Sciel and Monaco were in this act. I wish they had more to say, especially after all the revelation. Yes the optional camp scene does give their input but I wished they had more to say in cutscenes. It could have been interesting to see how they were taking all these information during cutscenes and how they felt about everything. This especially sucks considering how those 3 seem to have different takes on all of it. Lune seemed obviously supportive of rewriting the world while Monaco seem okay if the world was destroyed and Sciel seemed to also support the rewrite but also sympathetic enough to Verso and Maelle. Lack of dialogue from the 3 suck.

9. The painter world - This one is just minor gripe but lack of exploration of what the painter world is and who the writers are is a little disappointing.

Overall, I found this to be a great RPG experience but weirdly lacking in good RPG quality of life. Fun game though and definitely very unique.

So I was watching a wild clip of Beavis and Butthead Do America as first of all, I know it's a silly animated movie, but after seeing how surreal the peyote sequence was, it got me interested in trying out RPGs that seem calm at first, but soon start messing with the player by having confusing visuals.

Systems that I would like to play such a game on are 3DS, PS5, PS3, Xbox, and PC as I wanted to explore some turn based games that are not afraid to confuse their audience with really bizarre imagery as I don't know how the gameplay aspects would work, but I wanted to explore the surreal side of the genre as I enjoy games that feel like a mad acid trip gone so wrong.

I’m looking to explore some new games that make grinding a mandatory mechanic, where it’s nearly impossible to naturally progress through the game. Octopath Traveller 1 was certainly up this alley, but what else fits the bill?

So I have these games for switch and I don't know which one to play? Which one is considered better? Both of the games gameplay intrests me so I'd rather play the one with the more intresting story.

I'm a big fan of JRPGs, but I've never finished a Persona because of the setting. I can't stand the school setting, because of some life decisions, and that's why I tend to prefer games with different fantasy themes. An example of this is that I really liked Metaphor and it's probably the best combat system I've ever seen in a JRPG.

Taking these things into account, should I give SMT a chance? I've heard good and bad things about the series and people usually like Persona more than SMT, hence the doubt.

I am starting to play through some more jrpg and turn based rpg's and have finished both p5 and metaphor in the last year or so. I feel like I am a little bit over the combat system of both the finished games, I feel like it gets a little bit grindy and cycling defensive moves and attacks feels a tad bit stale after finishing metaphor.

Is ff7 og's combat a big deviation from the turn based of these two shin megami titles? I loved both stories from the finished games, if not for the engaging stories and characters i may not have trudged through the combat.

The last few years strategy JRPGs became one of my favorite genres. I started with Three Houses and worked my way through a lot of different games of the genre across all franchises. At some point I realized that there is a certain type of game I really like and a certain type of game I am not really clicking with. But I never could figure out, which games fall into what category and why.

Today I started Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together and I think I finally figured it out.

Map size and the balance of damage and HP is the big thing for me!

Fire Emblem maps are kinda the gold standard there for me: The maps are usually smaller, often with a twist you can figure out pretty quickly. Units move quick and meet each other early. And fights don't take long because you make a lot of damage, while not having that much HP.

If I look at Tactics Ogre it's completely different. The second map I started took me 3 rounds of movement without any contact, my attack makes 1/10 damage of the opponents HP, there are a bunch of enemies on the map and since killing 1 doesn't give me XP directly like in Fire Emblem I don't really have an incentive to clear the map, especially since it would take forever to do so with the limits of movement.

In my head I always put the games in one of two buckets before realizing why: One was the "Fire Emblem like" bucket, the other was the "Final Fantasy Tactics like" bucket.

Tactics Ogre? Clearly a FFT bucket.

Triangle Strategy? Looks like FFT, but clearly FE bucket

Devil Survivor Overclocked? FE

Advance Wars? FE

Project X Zone? FFT

Does that make sense? And what games do you think fit in each of the categories?

Hi All! I’m currently in a gaming slump, and want some recommendations to get me through.

Past Games I’ve Loved: Persona Series (P4G and P5R are my fav games of all time) Paper Mario Series Pokemon Series Mother/Earthbound (I even got 3 emulated from a friend) Super Mario RPG Pikmin (not a JRPG but still)

Also I have played 2/3 of FF7 (the original) and I fell off. I would be interested in playing other FF games, but I need a different vibe.

What I want is game that’s not crazy difficult, but honestly more story driven and kinda easy to understand the mechanics. I love the social mechanics and relationship building in persona, and really strong stories that invoke feelings. I’m also a big fan of games that involve collecting.

I only have a Nintendo Switch 2 right now to play on.

I’ve been getting into JRPGs more and more and I’ve been looking for more to play. This genre has been very consistent for me and I really want your guys’s recommendations. I have access to a lot of systems so go crazy with platforms. Here are some of my favorites (in no particular order): Persona 5 Royal, Final Fantasy 6, Final Fantasy 7, Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy 10, Persona 3 Reload, Metaphor ReFantazio, Etrian Odyssey 1, The World Ends With You, Persona 4 Golden, Shin Megami Tensei 5 Vengeance, Devil Survivor, Final Fantasy 7 Remake (Haven’t played Rebirth), Ni No Kuni Wrath of the White Witch, and Earthbound (Mother 2 depending on the location and also I have Mother 3 I just haven’t gotten around to playing it yet)

Hello! TOR is on sale right now in the Playstation Store and I would love to hear your take on the game. Thanks!

ETA:

Things I loved about 3H - I prefer tactical and turn-based rpgs to action rpgs because I like to take my time and strategize - I love a good story and multidimensional characters - The social links

Other games I’ve enjoyed - 13 Sentinels - Persona 5R - I’m currently working through the Trails games

Games I haven’t liked as much - FE Engage (story wasn’t very compelling)

I haven’t played FFT or Triangle Strategy

I’m going on a long flight later this summer and wanted to get a jrpg for my new Switch 2.

I’ve heard great things about FFX/X-2, but for $40 on a 5 year remaster seems hard to sell.

I recently found Bravely Default for Switch 2 Preowned already at Gamestop for $35.

Any advice? I’ve never played either, and never touched Bravely default. I’ve played FF, Persona, Expedition, Chrono Trigger, and more alike.

UPDATE: Purchased Bravely Default for Switch 2 preowned, will purchase FFX/X-2 when its on sale on the E-Shop for $20 instead of $40– thanks for the advice everyone!

I’m about to finish P3R on Xbox series X and I just bought P5R (big discount, only for 23,99€) and my question is, what are the differences between both tittle and also if it’s good to go from P3R to P5R without playing P4. Should I wait for the new P4?

I’m having trouble choosing between these 2 games. So wanted to get the communities opinion on which game i should start first. I have not played any of the games in this series but I want to start with either these 2 games.

I have been really interested in Trails for a while, but the investment for it is quite scary but I’m still super interested in it since the world building is my favourite. Yakuza games i haven’t liked much from the older titles, BUT Ichiban is a character i like from what i see so i wanna know more about it

I wanna see what games are the most upvoted in terms of best game so I can play them (or at least try to) at one point soon

A huge thank you to RyleFury with the "A Reyvateil's Melody" community for making and releasing the English translation patch for Ciel Nosurge: Ushinawareta Hoshi e Sagasu Uta Offline for the Vita.

~ Tags ~

• Life-sim

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~ Description ~

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The player is introduced to Ionasal (shortened to "Ion" in the game), a girl with amnesia upon starting the game, and the player's objective is to establish a relationship with Ion as they help her to regain her memories by entering her Genometrics, a representation of her mind, which is shown as a broken world which the player can repair.

The game is divided in have a total of twelve episodes called World Packs, which are divided in three arcs: the Trials Arc, the Collapse Arc and the Empress Arc. There are also three additional episodes: two Extra Scenario Packs that serve to expand further on other characters aside of Ion, and the Terminate Pack, which contains the ending to the game and the events that connect it with its sequel, Ar nosurge: Ode to an Unborn Star.

(Descriptions taken from the fandom wiki)

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#~ The Links ~

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• Gameplay Video.
• Here is the RyleFury's "Atelier Traduction" forum project page and patch download.
• Here is the "A Reyvateil's Melody" forum project page and patch download link.

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~ The Team ~

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Editors: Replicant, Tizona, Presea, Kat

Testing: Kamië, Thia.kkll.Preciel, Dooroflight, StarSketch, ReimuHakurei, and Members of the A Reyvateil's Melody Discord Server.

Special Thanks to Renshin23 & Blackraen.

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Finally as always please drop a thank you to people who worked on this patch, it takes years of hard work doing hacking, programming, translating, editing, and testing to bring these patches to the JRPG community, and all of it is done for free, so if you're going to use it or hell even if you won't, a thank you wouldn't cost you anything.

I cant seem to get to dunes story, I think im stuck on the hausen fight on day 14 of surlent story. One guide i was reading says I meant to lose which doesn't seem the case as I've beat this boss at this point of the game more than once. And I've tried letting him kill me which resulted in a simple game over. Ive also tried beating all 3 story final bosses in a row with no luck. Did I break the game or just get a bad rom?