jrpg

All posts tagged jrpg

Trials of Mana

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 05/20/2020
Posted in: Android, iOS, Mobile Reviews, Nintendo Consoles, PC Reviews, PlayStation 4, Sony Consoles, Steam Deck Verification, Steam Deck Verified, Switch. Tagged: , , , . Leave a comment

Publisher: Square Enix

Developer: Xeen

Release Date: 04/24/2020


Also Available On

I’m not the biggest JRPG fan as I don’t like grinding or the typical tropes that go along with them. They usually are extremely bloated with dozens of hours added just in battles alone and this is why I only play them if they have a particular something that stands out albeit the story or the gameplay. Trials of Mana stands out as neither of those, but it does everything in a neatly tightened JRPG package that cuts out the fat and streamlines the genre for the modern world.

The story is nothing to write home about but isn’t bad either. You can choose between 6 different characters with three being in your party. Each character has to class specializations and this is important when your class up and balances out your party. It’s recommended to have a fighter, magician, and middle ground class. I chose Reisz, Duncan, and Angela for my playthrough and it worked out perfectly. The overall story revolves around a typical JRPG plot of saving the world from an evil entity. The Goddess of Mana is being targeted by a particular evil force and wants to be the only existing god. There are other evil kingdoms racing to get the Sword of Mana which is said to hold untold powers. Yeah, it’s trite, barely interesting, and towards the end of the game, there aren’t many cut scenes left. The English voice acting, in particular, is incredibly bad so please do yourself a favor and enable the Japanese voice-overs. The characters themselves are very likable with great designs and they stand out and are somewhat memorable, they have typical JRPG hero personalities, but I grew to like them nonetheless.

Let’s dive right into battles. Trials of Mana is a real-time battle system played out in closed-off areas. Once you are in sight of a creature the game surrounds you in a barrier that you can escape from by running toward or just fighting it out. There are heavy and light attacks as well as the same while in the air. Once you progress far enough and depending on your class, you will unlock Moves that are class-specific that consume MP, and then there are Class Strikes. These strikes use up Stamina that is acquired as crystals that enemies drop when attacked. These strikes are powerful and you get a new one with each new class. These must be strategically timed with boss battles as they are essential to winning and doing massive damage. Battles overall are intense and fun with the ability to adjust your AI mates in the Strategy section of the menu. Here you can adjust how often they use their strikes, moves, items, and how to focus on enemies. This is really important to adjust for later boss fights.

While combat is fluid, looks good, and is probably what you will be doing 85% of the time in the game it is essentially very simple and may seem dull to people who are used to more Western RPGs with more action. While it works in the context of this game, it beats the hell out of random encounters. Leveling up also occurs rather quickly and the use of cookies allows you to gain additional XP, but these are rare. There really isn’t much in terms of exploring or hidden items as most chests contain standard items, seeds, and rarely armor or weapons. Seeds are actually an essential part of the game and are required in order to get Class 3. These seeds are grown at pots in inns or near certain Mana (save) statues. These range from item seeds to illusive question mark seeds that drop talismans needed to get to class 3 to rainbow seeds which have high-end armor and weapons. You can level up the box by planting more seeds thus dropping rarer items.

Of course, you can buy most things in towns and the single night market as well as reset your skill points there. Leveling up is a big deal in this game and you can allocate points towards various stats like strength, stamina, intelligence, and so on. I highly recommend leveling up where you want your character to be strong and saving your points once you reach the cap for that class level. Once your class up you will have tons of points to advance your character even further without wasting them on stats you don’t need to focus on. Getting a higher class also grants a new costume and access to higher-level weapons and armor in addition to more ability slots. Leveling up stats grants abilities that add passive stats such as healing after battles, additional damage when entering them, sacrificing HP for additional damage, etc. The great thing is that these abilities are shared amongst all characters once unlocked to really customize your style.

Exploring in Trials of Mana is fine, but not wholly necessary. Exploring only gets you basic items, and the very rare weapon or armor piece and the question mark seeds in Chapter 5 needed to get to class 3. Grinding is also very minimal in this game as you will mostly stay just behind or ahead of the current area demand. I recommend staying above two levels of the next boss and it will make life much easier and you will chew through fewer healing items. The levels are very linear as well and it’s hard to get lost as a golden star will always lead you to your objective as well as on the map. I have to commend Square for implementing this as one of my biggest issues with JRPGs outside of random battles is never knowing where the hell to go. This allows you to just enjoy the game and not worry about whether or not you’ve been going the wrong way for the last hour.

With all of that said, Trials of Mana also looks fantastic. While not groundbreaking, it has bright visuals, detailed textures, high-poly models, and great animations. The effects are slick and the bosses are very well designed. While I wasn’t the biggest fan of regular enemies as they are just standard JRPG fodder like rabbits, slime, knights, dragons, and various fantasy creatures, they do require strategy as each has different attacks and debuff effects. So with that said, Trials of Mana won’t change the minds of those who don’t like JRPGs, but those who love them will truly enjoy this. I finished the game and even continued to the additional optional chapter that can grant New Game+ if completed. This is one of two Super Bosses and requires a level 75 party. This final dungeon is about an hour long and combines a piece of every area you have visited in the game for one mega-dungeon. It’s a challenge and fun, and I recommend completing it. Trials of Mana is one of my favorite JRPGs of the last decade and I can easily recommend it to most people.

Final Fantasy VIII Remastered

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 05/08/2020
Posted in: Microsoft Consoles, Nintendo Consoles, PC Reviews, PlayStation 4, Sony Consoles, Steam Deck Verification, Steam Deck Verified, Switch, Xbox One. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a comment

Publisher: Square Enix

Developer: DotEmu

Release Date: 09/03/2019


Also Available On

Oh boy, this review has been 22 years in the making. I have been trying to finish this game since I was 8 years old, but just could not do it. I will admit, I’m not the best JRPG player as I don’t have the patience to do insane amounts of grinding and play into the earlier Final Fantasy game’s crazy summon hunting. FF8 eluded me for so many years because of one thing: The Junction system. I absolutely love the characters, art, and story in this game, but the Junction system nearly ruins it for me. And yes, I had to play with cheats/boosters activated and even then, I almost couldn’t finish the game.

I did, however, play the game normally. I collected spells, tried to get Guardians when I could, leveled up a good amount, and finally got past disc 2! The issue lies in the overall complicated nature of FF8‘s systems. You no longer just buy weapons and armor and change them out when you get to the next town. Instead, you collect spell cards that are finite and they can be traded amongst other members. In theory, this sounds fine, but it’s hard to strategize a specific player role when everyone can use magic. Some argue that you can give certain spells to certain characters and break it all up the way you want, but this is flawed because if you don’t collect cards found throughout the world, or stolen from enemies, you don’t get to use any magic.

Weapons are only upgraded this time by using parts found on monsters, but a lot of these parts are hard to find and to upgrade to a new weapon, you must find a magazine to unlock the weapon. This just keeps piling up the frustration as it hinders progress. Characters also have Overdrives which are powerful unique moves, but some characters, like Rinoa and Quistis, can only acquire new ones but using certain items or finding magazines. FF8 heavily relies on exploration and patience, this is not a game you can just blow through the story mode like previous games. The Junction system also functions as a way to equip Guardians which are bosses found hidden throughout the world. I only found about half, as the other half requires exploring the overworld map and finding their hidden locations. Accompany this with insanely frequent random battles and you will spend 2/3 of your time in the game just battling.

If this doesn’t sound complicated enough there are hidden features not explained in the game such as being able to “Card Mod” only using Quezacotl’s ability. This allows players to turn found enemy cards into items that are then used to turn into weapons, but this is a very obscure out-of-the-way thing for such an important gameplay element. FF8 is riddled with things like this and it made learning the Junction system like learning math. It was boring, not fun, and incredibly frustrating, and just imagine as a kid there’s no way I would have understood any of it. Even after I finished the game I still felt I hadn’t quite grasped it all and I missed something.

Outside of the awful (or good) Junction system the rest of the game is standard Final Fantasy fair. Turn-based battles allow you to do various attacks, use items, and there’s an option for real-time battle or waiting. Players also need to make sure they equip actual functions for each player otherwise you can only attack. GF use, items, and magic are all optional attacks that you can choose, but you can only have 4 menus. Another irritating thing about the Junction system. You must sacrifice GF use if you want to use items and magic for example. FF8 is also standard with an awful overworld map. This map has no camera controls and is horribly designed. It’s a 3D map, but eventually, you get into a ship, then a car, then a giant flying ship to traverse faster. This is when you can explore more and find Guardians.

Let’s finally talk about the story and characters. FF8 has some of the most memorable characters with Seifer, Squall, Rinoa, Quistis, and Selphie just to name a few. They are all well-written and designed characters and I cared for them greatly throughout the entire game. There are long written dialog bubbles that go on for dozens of minutes sometimes, but the mix of pre-rendered cut scenes with real-time models on top is a trip even to this day. There are some imaginative scenes in this game, and it’s a shame it’s hindered by the disc space of the PS1. The story in itself is one of the most controversial in the series with no real ending being explained and it is open to fan theory. I won’t get into those, but after reading some theories online they made a lot of sense and it’s a good story to talk about long after finishing.

But, also like Final Fantasy games, it’s heavily unbalanced, with the final boss having four whole phases and requiring you to be an insane level towards the end that normal story progression won’t get you towards Even with boosters activated I still got stuck and was required to level up normally and the game could easily take 50+ hours just to finish properly. I can’t bash the game for this as there’s a huge audience for it, but it’s not for me. It’s one of the few things I won’t knock this game for is how much of a hardcore RPG it truly is. This is a game you must play exclusively for days or weeks and just grind out, and some people love this. The story is thankfully rewarding enough, and after finishing a tough boss the satisfaction is exemplary.

Overall, FF8 is a strange game indeed. With an awful or good, Junction system that changes everything you know about the game, but one thing can’t be denied, it’s too complicated. The game looks fantastic with amazing pre-rendered scenes, great enemy design, a superb music score, and classic gameplay. For me, there’s just too much that keeps it from being fun outside of the story. I often gave up on this game for years, and even with boosters, the game is still a grind fest. However, if you like those things, then you will love this game. When it comes to the remastered part of the game it disappoints. The game suffers the same issues as the Final Fantasy IX Remaster with updated character models on upscaled original backgrounds. It’s lazy remaster with only new music and some boosts added. There’s no widescreen support or anything else.

Pokemon Sword/Shield

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 03/31/2020
Posted in: Nintendo Consoles, Switch. Tagged: , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

Publisher: Nintendo

Developer: Game Freak

Release Date: 11/15/2019


Available Exclusively On

 

I just want to start with a simple fact, I’m not the biggest Pokemon fan. I grew up with Pokemon in the late 90’s-early 2000s and stopped caring around Gen 3 when I was about 12-13 years old. I followed Pokemon afterward, but the card collecting and anime watching had pretty much stopped. My wife, on the other hand, continues to be a huge Pokemon fan to this day. This is actually the first Pokemon game I have ever finished including getting the legendary Pokemon. It was a chore I will admit. It was enjoyable sometimes and other times I put the game away for a couple of months. It was kind of exciting, then sometimes just plain boring. So, this review isn’t coming from a raging fanboy or a complete hater, so hopefully, this review will help people on the fence.

I’ve played nearly every other game in the series, but not for long. I love the idea of running around a world catching monsters, the problem is the series falls under 30-year-old JRPG tropes that still haven’t really gone away. My biggest hate with JRPGs, in general, is random battles. I feel they are time fillers, something to pad an extra 50 hours onto a 30-hour adventure. I want to explore more and these random battles prevent that when they’re happening every 5-10 seconds. It makes me want to give up, and I usually won’t play JRPGs with random battles. Sword/Shield has gotten rid of that with Pokemon that can be seen in the grass and random encounters that show up like exclamation marks and something following you in the grass. Yes, Pokemon is still confined to water and grass. That solves that major issue which made exploring more enjoyable.

When you explore the Routes, Wild Areas, and Towns, there are random items scattered throughout such as berries, candies, DMs (moves), and various items. You can ride a bike to get around faster and you can also fast travel to discovered areas which is a Godsend. This makes trying to go to certain regions that much faster and simpler to get. Wild Areas consist of level ranges and now that a weather system is in place you get certain Pokemon in certain weather systems for each area. Now, I had to run the system clock around to get to the month when I started wanting specific Pokemon. It’s actually quite fun to go around widdling down health and catching these guys and building up your Pokedex, that’s the entire point of the game.

Now the game had a lot of controversy by not having the full Pokedex of every game prior plus the new ones. It just has a grab bag of some from each generation. For someone like me, it doesn’t matter outside of the first three generations of Pokemon. I also found that older Pokemon were messed with and their looks and types were changed like Rapidash, Mr. Mime, and Ponyta. I’m not really a fan of all this switching around, but it’s not hard to get used to.

Battles are one of the main components of the game and they look nice. I’ll give the game that, seeing these guys in crisp 3D models is great, but the Pokemon battle system is something I’ve grown tired of. I’m sick of all the long animations to get into the battle and all the dialogue boxes that pop up. I know most JRPGs are like this but this is a 30-year-old trope that needs to change already. Some battles feel like they take longer only because of how little input I’m actually giving. When you introduce something like Dyna and Gigamax Pokemon that can grow to the size of buildings and do massive damage, I start to feel this is just filler and nothing that adds anything. These are literally just giant Pokemon that have powerful moves. It never turned the tide of a battle because either I knocked a Dyna-mon out in one hit or I could change too.

The strategy behind Pokemon battling is weaknesses. It’s grown more complicated over the years with additions like fighting, fairy, ghost, steel, etc. I had to sometimes look up weaknesses online to make sure I didn’t waste a move on some boss battles. These were the most challenging in the game but I never died once in my entire playthrough. Sure there were some cheap shots, but I always managed to pull through with most of my Pokemon knocking out opponents in one hit. I could chew through an entire gym leader’s stack with just one Pokemon. The balancing is really off compared to other JRPGs with it being overly easy or unfair. I wound up sometimes with Pokemon that my enemy was not weak against. You always want super-effective moves, and thankfully once you’ve battled that Pokemon once you can see which moves will work against it and which won’t which is super handy.

The visuals are another disappointing feature. They don’t really wow me in any way. They look like HD 3DS graphics and have the same bland anime RPG style that most other games have. It looks decent enough, but I just wanted this game to be the big game-changer that it wasn’t. The Dynamaxing, Wild Areas, and overall small additions didn’t add anything new but gave us the same experience in a slightly tweaked way. At least the menus are more simplified, but things like a cooking mini-game and being able to play with the Pokemon by petting them just doesn’t add to the experience. I felt bored most of the time because of how little player input there is, and I haven’t even gotten to the story.

Pokemon has never had an interesting story, Sword and Shield are no exception. It’s just something to make an excuse for dialog, which by the way, is another 30-year-old JRPG trope, you can’t skip the cut scenes. The first 2 hours of the game drag because it treats you like you’re stupid. With so many tutorials and drawn-out animations, cut-scenes, and dialogue, each Pokemon game is a chore just to start. It should ask you if you have played a Pokemon game before and just want to learn the new features, but they always have to integrate it into a story with dialogue and cut scenes. I honestly can’t really explain the story that much because I didn’t care. You’re trying to become the Pokemon Champion and some bad people get in the way to steal the legendaries away like every other game. Characters have no substance or appeal and there’s no reason to care for them.

Overall, Pokemon is a game that you either love or hate, and somehow I got lucky enough to be stuck in the middle. It suffers from issues in the series that have never been addressed such as the lack of player input, boring battles, story, and characters. I want to care about the world I’m in not just my favorite Pokemon, it has to be more than that for the investment. I want to see a visual change, stop making battles more complicated and make them more interesting, can we go after something besides badges? It’s a fine game and is done very well, but from a jaded Pokemon veteran, the series has just stretched itself too thin.

The Last Story – 7 Years Later

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 04/14/2019
Posted in: Nintendo Consoles, Wii. Tagged: , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

Publisher: Nintendo

Developer: Mistwalker

Release Date: 08/14/2012


Available Exclusively On

  • wii

You’re a mercenary who wants to become a knight in a far-off land with two races at war with each other. On top of that, you accidentally fall in love with the princess and end up in a political war and the savior of the world. Sounds like a typical JRPG doesn’t it? Well it kind of is, but the story is incredibly engaging and I can’t give more away without spoiling it. It takes a little while to pick up, but there were some unexpected plot twists and turns in the story that had me blow through this game in 3 days. That’s how engaging this game is. I wanted to play more and keep going further because I cared about the characters and what they were going to do next.

the-last-story-trademark-4

The Last Story plays a lot different than any other JRPG out there, so much so, I have yet to play one that is like it. The combat system is both real-time and pauses based with deeper strategies slowly unlocking as you progress through the game. What’s great is the game starts off super easy and simple, and I honestly didn’t really get a game over until two-thirds through the game, but then it got really tough and challenging, but just enough to make me think a little and really decide my next decision rather than hacking away blindly. The main mechanic around all of the combat is Zael’s Gathering ability which makes all enemies go towards him. This is needed for strategic reasons as you have magic party members that cast spells on a timer. If they get hit that timer resets, so you need to have all the enemies come towards you and your other melee fighters. This seems like instant death, but their movement slows down and the magic fighters’ cast speed increases double so there are benefits to this. You can also use your gathering as a burst weapon if you get hit enough times.

You can also snap to walls and take cover as well as peak out and hit enemies with your crossbow. This also lets you see enemies’ weaknesses which are mandatory later on when trying to figure out how to kill enemies. Sadly, this isn’t as smooth as it sounds. The controls are really sticky so if you don’t face the wall exactly head-on you won’t get the prompt, and this includes using the wall-run move which is hindered by the camera that is uncontrollable. I also had issues when attacking an enemy by just pressing forward on the C-stick I couldn’t quickly back out or dodge. I would snap the stick back and I would still be attacking and this was usually the main reason why I would die. Speaking of dying, you get 5 lives, and then it’s game over. This sounds like it’s easy, but it works well with this combat system and there were plenty of times I ran out of all 5 lives pretty quickly. You can get more lives during combat with a Revive skill or an item.

maxresdefault

Outside of whacking enemies, you can pause the battle by pressing up on the D-pad and choose your main skill, regular skill, retreat to a healing circle, or guard. Your main skill requires a meter to fill up before using it, and to command your party members your command bar must have all bars filled so you can’t abuse it. You can also use these bar segments to use your Gale move which lets you dash around the battlefield knocking enemies over. It’s a very interesting and intricate combat system that you end up mastering by the end of the game or you won’t pass the tough bosses in the last few chapters. They require all of your knowledge of the combat system and learning each party member’s moves and all their strengths.

Every so often the game does change things up by throwing an enemy at you that can only be killed on dry land and heals in water, there are throwables scattered sometimes, and destructible environments to make killing groups a little easier. Once a battle is over you level up and can collect items. These items randomize as you approach them with a slot machine-style spin and range from weapons, armor, and crafting items.

Weapons and armor work a little differently here as you won’t really buy weapons after the first 10 chapters and instead just upgrade the weapons you pick up, and the same goes for armor. I always found a more powerful weapon from a boss or tough enemy and never had issues with that. Thankfully there’s an auto-equip feature, which I love in JRPGs, and does a good job making sure everyone gets what makes them the strongest. I never really had to manually equip anything.

Outside of combat there are some optional chapters you can complete, but honestly, they’re a complete waste of time as the items you get aren’t much better than what you will get during the story and there are no extra plot paths or anything like that. It’s literally just to level up a little bit, but even ground isn’t needed in this game as you level up so quickly during the story. Most of the story is progressed by entering rooms, talking to people, or leaving and coming back to the main castle, most NPCs give you clues as to where to go so that was never a huge problem. There really isn’t much to explore here as many areas repeat a few times and the castle area is rather small equaling to the size of a market center in most games. I wish I could have traveled around more, but the story explains why you don’t really go anywhere and it makes sense.

Wii_TheLastStory_03

Let’s talk about the production values a bit. The game looks fantastic for a Wii game with lots of detail, good lighting effects, and huge vistas, but it comes at a huge price. The game slows down to single-digit frames constantly whenever the camera pans out too far or you get a vista shot. Even during combat when there are a lot of effects on screen the game crawls and makes things frustrating as the controls don’t respond during these times. There’s tons of horrible aliasing and the textures are muddy because Mistwalker tried pushing the system way too far. It still looks great but also looks bad because you can see the Wii struggle so hard just to render a single face on the screen and it looks like a GameCube game at best. The voice acting is actually pretty decent for a localized JRPG and like I said earlier, the story is just amazing and memorable.

Overall, The Last Story is a must-play for any Wii owner. It strays far enough away from JRPG tropes to be unique and has enough action gameplay to keep people from getting bored. The lack of grinding needed, engaging story, great characters, and interesting combat is enough to get you through the 20-25 hour story. You do have to forgive the visuals and some minor control issues.

Golden Sun: Dark Dawn – 6 Years Later

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 07/30/2016
Posted in: DS, Nintendo Consoles. Tagged: , , , , , , . Leave a comment

Publisher: Nintendo

Developer: Camelot Software

Release Date: 11/29/2010


Available Exclusively On

  • nds

I can count on two hands the amount of JRPGs I have actually finished from start to finish. I’m not a completionist with these games as they are long-winded, difficult, and usually very complicated and complex. Golden Sun is no exception. It starts out as a light-hearted easy-going JRPG, but then things turn around quickly once you get into the meat of the game.

That’s not to say Dark Dawn is bad at all, but it’s the only Golden Sun game I’ve actually played. I dabbled in the first game a bit but never got through it. The first things that got me hooked in Dark Dawn were the visuals, some of the best on the system, and the deep combat system. Golden Sun isn’t just about attacks and magic powers. The lore uses elements of the Earth to create Psynergy that each hero can harness and unleash which you will use more than regular attacks. Djinni is little creatures that you can equip to enhance stats, add new synergy powers, and summon giant creatures. The combat system requires quite a bit of strategy and you can’t ignore this Djinn system. You must go around collecting at least half of them or you will never be able to finish the game. This is part of where my issues started to set in.

f9b6e9dce50b4bda1a8e5f903bc2baa1-650-80

While combat is deep and complex, and quite fun, the exploration part of Golden Sun is just as deep. Every dungeon is full of puzzles that require you to use your Psynergy powers to pull blocks, grow vines, smash rocks, and slap stuff around. You unlock these powers as you acquire new party members and go along in the game. The game is actually quite large spanning a huge map and a couple dozen dungeons which are quite a lot for a handheld title. Once you get a third through you unlock your ship which allows you to access the rest of this world. There are many towns to explore, people to talk to, and weapons and armor to acquire. I never had an issue always having the most powerful stuff as the game is generous with money during battles. I also found this was the easiest game to level up in, but more on that later.

So, while the first few dungeons were easy and just the right amount of hard to figure out, they became obscure and downright confusing and labyrinthine later on. I actually needed a walkthrough for the last half of the game. I had no idea where to go, or what to do, and the game requires certain objects to be obtained before you can even continue the story. I would never have known this without a walkthrough. When I got to the final boss I actually had to level up 20 whole levels to beat him because I didn’t acquire all the Djinn in the game. I had to compensate with much higher base stats even though I had the most powerful weapons and armor in the game. Thankfully, in the final dungeon, the enemies are really easy and I could level up every two battles which is something I’ve never seen in a JRPG. The 20-level climb took only about 2 hours which is fast compared to most.

darkdawn

How about the story? Well, there’s a lot of lore here and I appreciated all of it, but it’s just really forgettable and not all that interesting. You start out trying to find a bird feather to power a flying machine you broke then you end up saving the world? The dialog and writing are extremely cheesy and cliche and I just wanted everyone to shut up. The characters are nice, but once again, forgettable. I had higher hopes for the story in this series, the lore, and everything is there, but it’s just not very fulfilling.

screenshot_nds_golden_sun_dark_dawn022

Overall, Dark Dawn is still one of the best games on the DS and one of the best looking. The graphics are fantastic with clean texture, high res models, and so much detail. The game is just brimming with variety and beautiful locales. I can only recommend this game to the hardest of hardcore JRPG players. The game is so complex and full of optional bosses, hidden weapons, and armor, that won’t appeal to most players. It’s fun and pretty straightforward until about 10 hours in then it gets complex and overwhelming.

Tales of Hearts R

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 01/19/2015
Posted in: iOS, Mobile Reviews, PlayStation Vita, Sony Consoles. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a comment

Publisher: Namco Bandai

Developer: 7seventh Chord

Release Date: 11/11/2014


Also Available On

If you have been following this site for a while you will know by now that I don’t have much patience for JRPGs. They are usually extremely long, random battles get tedious to the point of me wanting to quit the game completely, and sometimes the stories and battle systems can be boring or convoluted or both. Tales of Hearts R just so happened to be one of the few JRPGs available on Vita so I thought I would give it a try. I was in for a strange surprise.

The story itself is actually pretty decent and actually makes sense despite how involved it is. You play as a young hero named Kor Metor who is traveling the world to help save a girl named Kohaku along with her brother. There are links within people called Spirias. This is kind of like their soul. Somatics has weapons that are formed from this Spiria and Kor discovers he is one after watching his grandfather die at the hands of a woman named Incarose. There is a “Spiria disease” called xeroms that can cause dispir within people meaning part of their Spiria Core is missing or corrupted. Kor and his friends “link” with people to fight off this corruption. Kor does this to Kohaku and shatters her core sending the shards into eight pieces across the globe. However, what threw me for a loop was that this whole adventure was only the first half of the game. The second half involves another huge plot with an entire ancient planet that can suck out these Spirias. Of course, your new goal is to stop this new evil madman.

ToH_Apr222014_06

Holy crap…I can’t believe I remember all that! With that said the story consists of endless cut scenes…I mean endless. There are probably hundreds of cutscenes in this game but 90% of it is spoken Japanese dialog which is nice. There are a few anime cutscenes that are beautiful but I wish there were more. I know most people like cut scenes but I honestly felt it held up the game too much but that’s just personal preference. Aside from the story, the combat is actually pretty intense and deep. You can control four different party members in real-time in an arena. The attack buttons are completely customizable allowing you to assign new skills and “Artes” to Circle and X. While you hacking away at enemies a meter will charge that allows you to go into a “hyperdrive” mode to deal more damage and take less. All while this is going on you can also assign other members’ skills to the touch screen by flicking their icon which I thought was a nice touch. I had one party member heal at my beck and call exactly how I wanted him to instead of relying on his AI which would usually wait until everyone’s HP was in the red.

Secondly, you level up in this game very oddly and it took me a while to figure it out. You don’t buy weapons in shops, only armor. Weapons are acquired by leveling up your members through their Somas. There’s some sort of complicated line chart in the form of a star, but thankfully the auto-level button just lets you choose what type of fighting style you want for that character and it will assign the points accordingly. Along with this there are also cooking items that give you boosts during battles, but I never really got into this much. It did come in handy at times, but thankfully you level up fairly quickly while only hitting a difficulty spike on the last two bosses of the game. This required me to level grind for over a day just to raise my members up to about 12 levels to get an edge over the bosses.

1

Lastly, there’s a lot of side content in this game and a New Game+ which is usually unheard of in JRPGs as they are linear and follow a set pattern and path. There are other difficulty levels that also raise the level cap (200) as well as a few side quests for people interested in some more side stories (I usually hate side quests in JRPGs). With all that said it’s optional.

ToHR_Fami-Shot_11-21_002

After the credits rolled and I logged 30 hours into this game I felt satisfied. The ending had closure, the final boss was rewarding to fight, and I felt myself feeling relieved that the game was just the right amount of challenge throughout and did not require constant bouts of level grinding. Graphically the game is average. Not very ugly but also doesn’t push the Vita to its limits. The music is monotonous and typical of a JRPG, but at least the voice acting is great. If you own a Vita this is probably the best JRPG you can plan outside of all those PS1 classics.

Dragon’s Crown

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 05/11/2014
Posted in: PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita, Sony Consoles. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

Publisher: Atlus

Developer: Vanillaware

Release Date: 8/6/2013


Also Available On

Vanillaware is known for one of the hardest JRPGs on the PS2, Odin Sphere, and I was very excited upon hearing about the spiritual successor to that game. While Dragon’s Crown isn’t nearly as hard as that game (it’s much more forgiving) it still has a lot of challenges that await you. Dragon’s Crown’s biggest disappointment is its short length. There are almost no main quests and contain mainly side quests (about 50). Once you finish the game you unlock a hard mode and then an Inferno mode. Thankfully the game can be played with up to 4 players so it can be a blast.

Vita_Arlus_Dragons_Crown_01

The story is about a Crown that has been taken by an Ancient Dragon. Your job is to return this crown to your kingdom and kill the dragon. The story is very light and I know there could have been so much more here. But the super short length makes it impossible for a better story. There are very few cutscenes and not much-spoken dialogue (which is only done by a narrator). Once you jump into the game you can attack, use items, cast spells, and use the right analog stick to move a hand around the screen to collect treasure. You always have a non-fighting thief with you who can pick locks on hidden doors and open chests. Sadly, you can’t change out your equipment during a mission (most levels can be passed in less than 10 minutes). However, at the end of each level is a boss and they increase in difficulty throughout all 8 levels or so. Each level has two bosses at different levels for various players.

psv-game-6878-ssm6

Once you finish a mission you can return to town to appraise your items, bury or resurrect bones you find in levels for new AI partners, level up, acquire new quests, and buy runes. Runes are found throughout levels in pairs which need to be matched with runes in your possession. These add various buffs to your party which can turn the tide of a battle. Outside of those main things there’s not much to do besides hit the level cap. The missions are extremely repetitive since you need to find 9 talismans before facing the Ancient Dragon (that’s almost all there is to the entire main quest line) and once you are able to beat the Ancient Dragon (probably when you’re around level 30) you do it all over again on a harder difficulty. It gets kind of boring after a while and extremely tough towards the end. It’s best to go in with actual people since your AI partners can mess things up. Thankfully, unlike Odin Sphere, you have lives and can even pay to keep reviving with your coins. This alleviates some of the frustration.

Dragons-Crown-Screenshots-19

I just wish there was so much more to this game. It feels so small and claustrophobic. The short levels, the nearly non-existent questline, and story, but at least the characters you pick are fun to use and the controls work well. The art itself is stunning with beautiful water-color backdrops and crazy-looking enemies and bosses. This game is mainly designed for fans of the co-0p arcade RPGs of yesteryear from Capcom. Not much of a story, but tons of combat and enemies to kill and levels to acquire. If you want a story-heavy RPG like The Elder Scrolls or Fable you won’t find that here.

Final Fantasy X HD Remaster

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 04/27/2014
Posted in: Editor's Choice, Microsoft Consoles, Nintendo Consoles, PC Reviews, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, Sony Consoles, Steam Deck Playable, Steam Deck Verification, Switch, Xbox One. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment
FFXX-2_HD_Remaster_Vita_NA

Publisher: Square Enix

Developer: Square Enix

Release Date: 3/18/2014


Also Available On

  • ps3-logo
  • windows
  • ps4-logo
  • switch
  • xbone

Final Fantasy X was a game in the series that really shifted things around. It broke some common JRPG rules and was a bit all over the place. This was the first JRPG I had ever beaten as a kid and was the first Final Fantasy I ever finished. I have a lot of fond memories of this game and the HD Remaster brought a lot of those back.

The core game hasn’t really been touched, but US gamers will finally get a taste of the tougher International version which adds an expert sphere grid, and Dark Aeons which are the toughest enemies in the game (some have millions of HP). Outside of the game, the game is still the same with great characters that are memorable and beautiful locales. The story is a bit confusing at first but very original – if not very deep. You play as Tidus who is a young man sent forward in time hundreds of years into the future. His original home is now a sacred ruin and a giant being called Sin is destroying humanity. Every 10 years this Sin comes back and the Calm ends. Another summoner must go on a pilgrimage to gather all the Aeons and takedown Sin for another 10-year Calm. Your goal is to put a stop to this cycle. You gather your crew along the way to level up and put an end to all this nonsense.

Final Fantasy XX-2 HD Remaster - 04

Before you jump into this game you must have a mindset from when the PS2 first launched. This game was fantastic back in the day and still holds up well. Most JRPG gamers will be thrown off by the Sphere Grid. There is no traditional leveling up where you gain levels. Instead, you acquire AP and get sphere points which allow you to freely upgrade various attributes and skills for each character. The expert sphere grid allows you to use keys to go off your path and learn other abilities from other characters. This is a lot of fun and gives you total freedom over your character.

Outside of the sphere grid is the obvious combat. Yes, there are random battles and some areas are so bad that you hit one every 2-3 seconds; literally. A max of three characters can battle at once with the freedom to swap out. It’s the usual JRPG turn-based battle system but there are overdrives that are crucial to winning boss fights. Characters learn new drives as they battle. Aeons are also essential but only Yuna can send them in. They are large heavy hitters that will take away massive damage and can also be overdriven which is probably the #1 technique to winning tougher boss fights. Like any other JRPG learning enemies’ weaknesses and battling with magic is a must. Some bosses nearly turn into puzzles where you must cast Reflect on them so their healing spell bounces off of them onto you. Some bosses will cast status ailments that can cripple your entire party. If you don’t grind a bit and stay ahead of the game you will struggle.

Tidus___Yuna

Outside of battle, there are the Cloister of Trials which are a huge pain and aren’t fun at all. These are puzzles in which you place various spheres to unlock doors. Another huge pain is the Blitzball mini-game. This isn’t fun at all and requires math to actually play. It’s stiff, shallow, and just plain boring. I hated it as a kid and I hate it even now that I know math better. It’s all nearly luck-based and is a roll of the dice. You have almost no control over characters.

FFX is also full of pre-final boss content but there are a lot of requirements to get this stuff. Ultimate weapons are a must-have to do more than the 9,999 HP damage limit. However, they require you to be in certain areas, acquire certain other items, or even get through harder areas that require getting through other areas just to get to that area. Sounds confusing? It is. I spent a good 15 hours just trying to figure all this out and could get only one optional Aeon (Yojimbo). Anima is another optional Aeon but requires getting through a tough boss with the 3 weakest characters (Tidus, Rikku, and Wakka) and then getting all the destruction spheres in every Trial. It’s a huge pain and requires a lot of running around and backtracking and can make you frustrated. You can also monster hunt but this requires training a Chocobo (which is tough as nails to get through) and then capturing the toughest monsters in the game easily requires Ultimate weapons which require more backtracking. It’s a frustrating mess but also somehow extremely satisfying once you do it.

final-fantasy-x-hd-screen-14

With the main game out of the way let’s talk about visuals. The HD upgrade isn’t exactly what you think. Most of the game has been remodeled and all the main characters are completely redone, however, many monsters and NPCs just had a few passes of texture filtering and that’s it. It really looks ugly in spots but isn’t so bad if you’ve played the game before. I just wish the Japanese voice track was on here since the English voice acting is so terrible and embarrassing to listen to.

Note: Shame on you James Arnold Taylor for your terrible voice acting of Tidus. You’ve done better! Like Ratchet from Ratchet & Clank, Gabriel Logan from the PSP Syphon Filters, even Marty McFly on the Back to the Future adventure games!

Ys: Memories of Celceta

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 01/01/2014
Posted in: PC Reviews, PlayStation Vita, Sony Consoles, Steam Deck Unsupported, Steam Deck Verification. Tagged: , , , , , . Leave a comment

Publisher: Xseed Games

Developer: Falcom

Release Date: 11/26/2013


Also Available On

I have never been much into Ys but I have played past games. Memories of Celceta is the biggest Ys yet and the best traditional JRPG available on Vita right now. You play as Adol Christin, a red-haired boy who loses all his memories and must find them again. Of course, the story is much deeper than that. A god named Eldeel ends up creating a mask called Mask of the Sun and other people want it for its powers. The story gets pretty deep, yet the characters are completely uninteresting. They all have generic dialogue and their personalities all feel stereotypical for JRPGs. While the game isn’t anything new it does what has been done before really well.

30322-ys-memories-of-celceta-ss-3

The combat in Ys has always been real-time and this helps alleviate the boredom that has come in JRPGs over the decades from random battles. The combat is fast-paced and fun with skills you can use, guarding, dodging, and switching between 3 characters on the fly adds a bit of strategy and depth. Each character has a weakness it can deliver to enemies so you will always change up who you put in your party. Aside from fighting regular monsters, the bosses are a lot of fun and quite challenging, but not so hard you can’t beat them. Honestly, the game is perfectly balanced in that you will acquire the strongest weapons and armor by the end of the game so you’re always one step ahead of enemies.

The whole point of Celceta is exploration. Your main secondary goal is to discover the entire area and complete the map 100%. The sense of exploration is one of the greatest assets of Celceta and you have a hard time putting the game down just to explore one more dungeon. When you’re in towns you can buy items and exchange stuff you find in the wild. Minerals, beast, and plant materials can be exchanged for larger and higher-quality items to reinforce armor and weapons. You can also craft items out of these materials as well. There are quite a few towns in this game and each one has 3 quests you can complete. Some are hard some aren’t, but they aren’t hard to figure out. In fact, I never really got lost that much in this game which is normally common in a JRPG. There was a sense of direction without having to hold your hand which is wonderful.

Ys

On another note, there are a few puzzles thrown in but nothing that really takes advantage of the Vita’s features which aren’t expected in a JRPG. I do wish the game had local or online c0-op for up to 3 people, but that’s all right. The graphics look detailed but are dated even for the Vita. It looks like a decent PS2 game at best and could have used some more detail. The textures can look really muddy and grainy which is unacceptable on the Vita. At the end of the day, you will just love Celceta for the engaging story and fun gameplay and combat. There are a good 20 hours just in the story alone and another dozen if you want to get 100%.

Ys-Memories-of-Celceta-High-Kick

Overall, Memories of Celceta isn’t perfect but it has some great combat, bosses, and a sense of exploration that will keep you glued to your system. The graphics are dated, the voice acting is awful, and the characters are uninteresting but that’s expected from a JRPG. Could Celceta have broken this trend it may have been one of the best JRPGs in a long time? What’s here is solid and well worth a purchase for any JRPG fan.

Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 07/17/2013
Posted in: Editor's Choice, Nintendo Consoles, PlayStation 3, Sony Consoles, Switch. Tagged: , , , , , , . Leave a comment
998014_233527_front

Publisher: Namco Bandai Games

Developer: Level 5

Release Date: 1/22/2013


Also Available On

Before you continue reading, this review is coming from someone who has grown to hate JRPGs over the past ten years. I rarely play them, and if I do, I never finish them. The story ends up falling flat, too many random battles, the characters are boring, or it’s just too damn hard. Ni no Kuni caught my attention due to the fact that Studio Ghibli was involved and Level 5 is a master at JRPGs. While I didn’t finish Dragon Quest VIII I did enjoy its story and art immensely.

Ni no Kuni is all about magic. A boy named Oliver’s mother dies after saving him from drowning. A fairy named Mr. Drippy comes to visit him and he’s off to another world. It turns out that an evil witch wants to destroy the world. Sounds pretty simple, but there are a lot of plot twists, and the ending will have you going, “No way!” during each cutscene. The game holds a lot of secrets and the characters are engaging and you will get very attached. However, the story is only half of what makes a good JRPG.

NiNoKuni1

The combat is in real-time, not turn-based. It’s all about reaction time and strategy. All three of your characters run around the battlefield. The enemy can strike at any time, but so can you. Each character can cast spells and send out one of three familiars to cast various other spells and do physical damage. There are dozens of them throughout the game that you can capture and train. Oliver is the most powerful mage and by the end of the game, you will be casting room-clearing magic. The biggest issue with this is that the game is solely focused on magic. Physical damage, no matter how high of a level you are, never does the same amount of damage as magic. You will be guzzling MP potions like crazy, always make sure you have a ton stocked up. Enemies will sometimes cast spells themselves or charge physical attacks. You can order your team to defend or attack and then you have to attack yourself. This requires quick thinking and timing, and actual gaming skills. It’s also important to exploit the elemental weakness of each enemy if there is one. During the battle, enemies will drop HP and MP glims to help you out, and rarely the gold glim will supercharge you or you’re familiar with an ultra-powerful attack or defensive move.

Boss battles are the toughest in the game, and towards the end, they will come with 2 and 3 different phases. This game gets extremely tough after the first few chapters, so tough that it will require a lot of level grinding during the last half. I actually played the last half on easy and still died quite often, this game is extremely hard, be warned. There are other things you can do outside of battles like side quests. Oliver can go around collecting pieces of heart from people and giving them to other people who need them. He can cast spells to help advance his way through the world like make bridges, talk to ghosts, and animals, rejuvenate broken objects, etc. There are 150 side quests and you get gold and items for them as well as stamps. 10 stamps get you a card and these cards can be redeemed for permanent effects like extra XP during battle, enemies dropping more loot, and even giving Oliver 100 extra max HP and MP. These side quests, including bounty hunts, can be fun and can add 15-20 hours of gameplay themselves.

351837

After so long you will be able to sail and fly around the entire world allowing you to avoid overworld battles. The game has no random battles, but some enemies are so hard to avoid that they might as well be. If you get to a high enough level enemies will run away and you won’t have to deal with them. The game is also full of dangerous dungeons full of chests of loot. Now, what about these familiars? Think of them like Pokemon. You can feed them treats to advance various attributes and then feed them gemstones to advance them to their third and most powerful stage. As they level up they acquire new spells and techniques. You can swap out different familiars and can hold up to 500 in your familiar retreat.

The game’s art is fantastic and gorgeous along with the music. Studio Ghibli created the animated cutscenes, but there aren’t many of them. There are less than 10 minutes of animation throughout the whole game and that’s very disappointing. I felt they shouldn’t have bothered at that point. There’s also a lot of unspoken dialogue and it just seems random when it happens. Towards the end, there are hardly any cut scenes and it drove me nuts. Why waste the great voice acting and animation only to spread it randomly and unevenly throughout the game? Other than that colors pop on a 1080p HDTV with bright vibrant colors thanks to Studio Ghibli’s art style that everyone has grown to love and appreciate.

Ni-No-Kuni-battle

In the end, Ni no Kuni has a very engaging story that will keep you hooked for dozens of hours, the combat tries to change things from the typical JRPG format, but there are a few flaws in it. Your spells can be interrupted often and when you defend sometimes won’t register or you don’t get enough time before enemy attacks. You get about a second before the enemy attacks. During that time you need to order your team to defend and defend yourself. It can be tough during boss fights. I also hated the focus on magic and the game was overly difficult during the last 3/4. Other than that the combat was fine. The game suffers from tedium towards the end, and the side quests start feeling the same and you just want the game to end. There is some post-end content, but most people might skip this. Ni no Kuni is a perfect game for JRPG fans, but non-fans won’t find enough here to change their minds.