Dragon Warrior 1, 2 ,3 ,4
Secret of Mana
Final Fantasy 1, 2, 3, 7
Suikoden
Fire Emblem
Chrono Trigger
Shining Force (tactical turn based) 1, 2
...and many more that I can't remember off the top of my head.
So what happened? Well, Everquest happened. I fell out of the scene, man! So, due to the variety and quality of the RPGs available on the 360, I figured I would take the plunge and see if the genre still had the ability to hook me. All the games I bought are at least a year old, so I was able to pick and choose various sales and get all of these for under 20$. Hell I got several for less than 10$.
Here are some of things that pretty much all every JRPG has in common...
--Steampunk-esque technology existing side by side with magic, swords, and sometimes guns. (except Star Ocean which is the distant future)
--Cut scenes. Sometimes really fucking long ones. Lost Odyssey was the worst offender by far. The game started with a battle and then you had almost an hour of nothing but story. In Blue Dragon, I basically took 2 steps and entering a cut scene for the first 15 minutes of the game. All of this changes the deeper you get into the games, but always be aware that RPGs are extremely story driven and cut scene intensive.
--Discs. These 6 games have a total of 15 discs between them. It's weird holding them all in your hand because they are heavier than what you'd expect. They also have thicker and more detailed instruction booklets than most games which adds even more to the weight.
Ok, here are the JRPGs I played and my impressions.
Lost Odyssey - Ok, I cheated a little with this one. I actually bought this on release in Feb of '08. It's been so long since I actually played it though. I was only in the second dungeon I believe. I stopped playing because I bought something else that took 100% of my attention. Eventually, it just fell behind in my stack of games. For this post, I decided to break it out and play it for a bit. Classic turned based RPG goodness. Some reviewers knocked this game down a few pegs because of this, but I consider the classic feel it's greatest strength.
The graphics are beautiful. After playing about 15 minutes, I had already remembered how to use all of the basic controls. I just have to remember to swap around spells so everyone learns them or something like that.
I really like this game. I didn't want to stop once I started playing it again.
The Last Remnant - This is the most unique out of all the games I have bought and tried. It also appears that it will have the biggest learning curve. The game play is totally different than your typical JRPG. You recruit people into your party, then set them up to lead thier own units on the battlefield. You form unions and battle in a kind of RTS type of way. Different characters affect a wide variety of basic soldiers in different ways, resulting in the player having to find the best mix to create the best unions to accomplish certain tasks on the battlefield. It's hard to explain because it's so unique.
This game uses the Unreal 3 engine and the only real complaint anyone has with the game is that Square Enix apparently didn't optimize the game at all for the 360. This results in texture pop-in and some pretty shitty frame rates. Sure, these can be somewhat fixed by a HD install, but it's still considered unacceptable by some. Oh well, at least you get lens flare!
I put it in expecting the worst. To my surprise, I didn't think it was that bad. I do think the overall graphics make up for any slowdown I had to deal with. The game has great character models and animations. The fight scenes have so much going on at once it will make your head spin (in a good way). I only played through the first battle, but it was really fun and a unique experience to say the least.
The 360 has a nice amount of free DLC for the game. Be sure to get all that if you ever get this game.
This was also released on the PC and I've heard it is almost a completely different game. It runs great, they added more abilities and variety to your union compositions resulting on a significantly improved version of the game.
The battles were fucking crazy though. Good looking and oh so shiny!
Star Ocean: The Last Hope - It's a JRPG in space. Cool. I like it. I did the tutorial and fought a couple of battles in the simulator. Jesus fucking huh? When you engage in combat, your character just gets to go apeshit like you're playing Devil May Cry or Ninja Gaiden. You have all the same combo moves of a traditional action game (A is weak attack, B is strong, you can chain and combo, ect.), but you have 4 people in your group during any fight that you can cycle through on the fly. When you take control of a character, the other 3 get taken over by the AI. The characters all have specials, gauges, counters, dodges, and... goddamn, this is a lot to learn. Fuck it, I'm playing the next game. Good looking game!
There is an added layer to this game that sounds pretty cool. You have so many playable characters, that when they are not active in your group they all hang out in your space ship. You get to set up who rooms with who and stuff like that. After awhile, these characters form bonds of friendship that will affect the game. If characters A and B bunk together for a couple of weeks and you rotate them into your active party, their friendship will activate in certain ways. For example, A is at 30% health, so B gets really pissed because his friend is hurt so he hits twice as hard. You get it. Stuff like that. The characters bond in differently amongst themselves and create different bonuses. I thought that was a pretty cool idea.
Infinite Undiscovery - I think this is the weakest of all RPG games I played. The graphics are nice and it has a free roam battle system similar to Star Ocean, but the story and intro were the least impressive.
I didn't care at all for the in-game cut scenes. The lip synching was way off and sometimes the lips didn't move at all. The backgrounds used lower rez graphics than the character models making everything look cheap during these scenes.
Blue Dragon - This was a first generation Xbox 360 game that was created by the same guy that made Final Fantasy. The only complaints I read about it is that it really brings nothing new to the RPG table. Once again, this was one of the things I liked most about the game. It's also pretty damn easy.
I was least looking forward to playing this game because it is the oldest out of all the titles I bought. To my utter surprise, I think this is tied as my second favorite of the bunch. I played this for a good hour or so. It was hard to put down. This game uses the turn based method of combat and people fight in a particular order. You can get skills and such that allow characters to take multiple turns before the enemy.
The game allows a decent amount of hybridization with it's shadow magic system.
My only real problem with the game is that I don't like playing as a fucking 8 year old kid. It's not enough to make me stop playing, but I really don't care for that aspect.
Tales of Vesperia - Wow. This is the one. Out of all the above games, Tales was the one I was going to pass over entirely, but I couldn't help but notice it has better reviews than any of the other games I wanted
I got this for 10$ as Amazon's deal of the day, and let me tell you this game is worth full price.The graphics are really unique. It's cell shaded and very fluid. It feels like your watching an anime movie at times. The combat is most similar to Star Ocean's because it is real time and not turn based, but it's not as complex or flashy. You only control 1 character and the AI takes care of the rest of the party. However, you equip them and can set basic functions.
This game combines all of the old RPG features that I am familiar with and raises the bar and adds a ton of new features. I think that cooking is handled in a very fun and unique way. The game also has a feature that should be standard in these types of games. You can see a summary of the events at any given time. This means you can out the game down for a month, pick it up and know exactly what you've done and need to do to progress the story. It is exceptionally well done. The game even has an over world map, which was surprisingly nice to see.
I played this for about 3 hours. This will be the first one I play all the way through. The feeling I get playing this is like when I played Chrono Trigger or Final Fantasy 3. It just does everything right. I have no complaints about this game. This awakened the magic for me.
This is my play order based upon first impressions with each game and it's type of combat:
Tales of Vesperia - free roam
Blue Dragon - turn based
Lost Odyssey - turn based
Star Ocean - free roam
Last Remnant - turn based...squads?
Infinite Undiscovery - free roam
I actually prefer turn based, but Tales just won me over by doing everything so well. I feel like I'm going to need a fucking arcade stick for Star Ocean!
