Current Events > Turn based JRPGs that aren't just "use your best attack"?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Yeah, Radiant Historia is probably what youre looking for. Its a good game.

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I havent played JRPGs like Persona but they turn me off cause its usually the same attack, defend, item, escape

Western CRPGs (Baldurs gate and co.) are much more in line with micromanaging the nuances of a party consisting of a bard, a barbarian, a cleric, a sorcerer, a ranger, and (whatever else) and really tend tomake it apparent your characters wont survive without the help of a team


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Shadow Hearts trilogy, on top of the wheel mechanic, was fairly varied from what I remember.

Fell Seal, if you're the SRPG type.

It's basically FFT/FFTA with an emphasis on buffs and debuffs. Also seconding anything Etrian Odyssey
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To anyone:

What is a jrpg like Persona where debuffing actually works? I want to be able to lower any bosss defense or what have you but a lot of games dont let you do that

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It's an older game, but Legend of Legaia.

All of your attacks cost Ki, which you build up by defending. You also have a limited number of input commands per turn, so you have to get creative in how you combo your attacks.

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All of your attacks cost Ki, which you build up by defending. You also have a limited number of input commands per turn, so you have to get creative in how you combo your attacks.

no, you don't. you just use the most effective combination of break arts every time. the whole 'you have to defend first before you can' is a god awful design choice and all it does is pad out time.

even the auto-battle is trash.

how many button presses does it force out of the player before the battle round animations can even play out? and i mean -- don't get me wrong. i realize the era is different. they were likely motivated by other JRPGs that had you hit 'attack' and that was it. they probably thought that was dull, and their intent was likely pretty noble, but their result is a bloated mess and they had so little control over it and themselves that it spread to eating turns too.

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Radiant Historia getting a lot of love in here. Good to see.

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Shadows of Adam, which is a bit ironic for a game that has a regenerating "MP" system.

The Bravely Default games CAN be about just using your most powerful attacks, but there are many equally viable strategies, such as making your party invincible, wearing enemies down, and preventing them from even attacking.

I hear Little Town Hero's combat system is like an expanded game of rock, paper, scissors, but I've heard very mixed things about the quality of the game.


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Xavier_On_High posted...

I hear Little Town Hero's combat system is like an expanded game of rock, paper, scissors

It's closer in structure to a trading-card game.

Earthbound and Mother 3

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even the first mother game had some really nifty decisions going for it. ninten being as fast as he was gave you a lot of flexibility in how you wanted to handle a round because he had all the buffs. he could cast psi speedup on someone and have them take their turn immediately, and he usually went first. so plans would actually gasp work.

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Solid Snake07 posted...

Balancing buffs and timing when you break enemies defenses so you can hit hardest while they're broken is also kind of important to strategy

So while you can basically boil the strategy down to break then hit as hard as possible, that's sort of an oversimplification.

There's also the matter of not dying. A great deal of the strategy in later bosses, especially side bosses, is figuring out how to not die. Buffs, debuffs and breaking the enemy's shields becomes not just a matter of hittimg them as hard as you can, but surviving. And the final boss pretty much requires you to master the game's deceptively simple mechanics in order to beat. The whole "only one person can use each sub-job at a time" thing also prevents everyone from spamming all the strongest attacks.

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I want to say The Legend of Dragoon, as the timing based button presses for attacks is a fun way to keep you involved in what is going on in the game, but I'm also hesitant to mention it because I feel like every boss fight kinda plays out the same. They're damage sponges, so even your best attacks barely hurt them, they hit like trains, and it ultimately comes down to if you have enough healing potions in your very limited inventory.

Other than that, I thought Dragon Quest XI was quite good. Status changing magic actually serves a purpose and simply wailing on your enemies will often lead to a game over.

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Tsukasa1891 posted...

Not actually a jrpg, just inspired by them.

Is the "j" part in terms of it being a Japanese product really that important when its the exact same gameplay style? It would be one thing if this board was only for Japanese rpg discussion but for someone looking for a turnbased rpg it's a valid suggestion.

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Xavier_On_High posted...

The Bravely Default games CAN be about just using your most powerful attacks, but there are many equally viable strategies, such as making your party invincible, wearing enemies down, and preventing them from even attacking.

I hear Little Town Hero's combat system is like an expanded game of rock, paper, scissors, but I've heard very mixed things about the quality of the game.

Unless you overlevel or play on easy mode, just using powerful attacks will start to fall short on the chapter bosses in Bravely Default which all have unique gimmicks that punish just attacking. And then you get to the chapter 7 and 8 sidequests which is pretty much scaled to max level and you can't beat them without a synergized team and skills because they're fighting you 4 bosses at once.
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Fenrimis posted...

Cold Steel games are very mechanic exploitable though, especially 2 and 3.

Yeah, I'm currently replaying Cold Steel 2 on Nightmare NG (not plus) and Laura with Tauros MQ + Domination = EZ PZ

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Fluttershy posted...

All of your attacks cost Ki, which you build up by defending. You also have a limited number of input commands per turn, so you have to get creative in how you combo your attacks.

no, you don't. you just use the most effective combination of break arts every time. the whole 'you have to defend first before you can' is a god awful design choice and all it does is pad out time.

Ehh, kinda. There were arts that built ap, but the better arts cost ap to use. Unless you had the right equipment, you couldn't just go completely ham every turn. or you would empty your ap too fast, then have to spend time to rebuild.

You also had to keep in mind that high/low attacks were also ineffective on flying or short enemies. Which could affect your better arts depending on which zones it attacked.

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Compsognathus posted...

Earthbound and Mother 3

Those are absolutely spam your best attacks

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Irony posted...

Persona

are you referring to the first two? the mainstream ones are just like every smt where you apply your overpowered buffs and debuffs an then you start spamming your strongest skill that can hit a weakness, or you alternate between charge/concentrate and your attack

people give smt way too much credit when encounters always play the same and enemy variety and skill design are very lacking

MaxEffingBemis posted...

To anyone:

What is a jrpg like Persona where debuffing actually works? I want to be able to lower any bosss defense or what have you but a lot of games dont let you do that

Etrian Odyssey. You can debuff, bind and status all the bosses. Classes have enough good skills that you will need to choose the best one for the situation. Random encounters can be challenging and if youre not over leveled they can work like puzzles.

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Conflict posted...

Western companies can make JRPGs too. Some people will try and argue Crosscode isn't a JRPG when it clearly is lol

The descriptors refer to gameplay style and structure, not just "RPG developed by Japanese or Western company". Same reason Dark Souls is a WRPG despite being developed by a Japanese company.

Yeah see people say that but it doesn't make any sense. Dark Souls is an evolution of Japanese action RPGs that have been made since the 80s, and more specifically From's King's Field and then Shadow Tower series. Also the first Japanese RPGs were inspired by Western CRPGs and tabletop RPGs like D&D, Ultima, Wizardry, Might & Magic, etc.

The style argument makes no sense. Especially since the earliest Japanese RPGs in the 80s were primarily action RPGs with Falcom leading the way, and the earliest Western RPGs were primarily turn-based. Further the whole Dark Souls is a WRPG crowd instantly start calling things like Code Vein a JRPG, showing it's just a label based on their stereotype of how games look.

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RedJackson posted...

I havent played JRPGs like Persona but they turn me off cause its usually the same attack, defend, item, escape

Western CRPGs (Baldurs gate and co.) are much more in line with micromanaging the nuances of a party consisting of a bard, a barbarian, a cleric, a sorcerer, a ranger, and (whatever else) and really tend tomake it apparent your characters wont survive without the help of a team

Almost all the Japanese Wizardry inspired RPGs (which commonly get called DRPGs) are like what you described, since Western CRPGs also derive from Wizardry (which is now strangely owned and developed by Japanese devs ever since the PS2 era).

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ChrisTaka posted...

Yeah, I'm currently replaying Cold Steel 2 on Nightmare NG (not plus) and Laura with Tauros MQ + Domination = EZ PZ

To be fair, all of the games except Sky 1 and 2 can be broken like that. Sky 3 is destroyed by magic and Richard even on Nightmare, in Zero you can't die once you learn earth wall. In Azure, while still hard for some fights (Especially the final boss which is one of the hardest final bosses ever and probably the hardest fight in the entire series), is trivialized by an evasion tank.

CS1, 2, 3 and 4 just happen to be able to be broken even easier because you don't need that point system to get certain spells anymore and can just stack speed, strength, etc. Rean completely breaks all 4 games. CS1 and 2 he can delay enemies till they never get a turn and CS3 and 4 his Ogre powers are so absurdly broken he can practically one shot every fight but there a plenty of other ways to break them all too. Chrono Burst with the Moebius MQ breaks all 4 games since you can just have infinite turns and throw CP restoring food and spam S Crafts and the occasional EP heal so you don't run out of EP.

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Oh great, who could have guessed that this would devolve into a discussion about genre

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Ehh, kinda. There were arts that built ap, but the better arts cost ap to use. Unless you had the right equipment, you couldn't just go completely ham every turn. or you would empty your ap too fast, then have to spend time to rebuild.

You also had to keep in mind that high/low attacks were also ineffective on flying or short enemies. Which could affect your better arts depending on which zones it attacked.

so much better than just hitting 'attack.'

I want to say The Legend of Dragoon, as the timing based button presses for attacks is a fun way to keep you involved in what is going on in the game

i've only seen bits and pieces of legend of dragoon -- i watch LPs by a chill dude to get sleep sometimes. the impression i came away with was that the animations kinda take a while. compare to smrpg where they often don't outlast the 'you did it!' sound effect by too much.

Those are absolutely spam your best attacks

they are but i still think the series has some nifty ideas. shields have a really good thing going. (and again! mother 1 let you set them up and practically gave you two characters' worth of choices to do so)

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