Originally posted on Facebook on January 5 2022
Last year on 7 Jan, I posted a little list here on FB saying what I planned on playing throughout 2021.
I wanted to play more JRPGs, and I had intended to play these games in particular:
- Secret of Mana
- Grandia
- Breath of Fire
- Dragon Quest XI S
- Final Fantasy VIII
- Final Fantasy IX
- Final Fantasy VI
- Final Fantasy VII
How many of these did I actually manage to play?
Well, the answer is... most of them.
I haven't yet played Grandia or FF7. But all the others on those list were actually played, plus many more.
So what did I actually play during 2021? I've got a list right here.
- Phantasy Star IV: The End of the Millennium (Mega Drive - played on Nintendo Switch)
Amazing, outstanding classic RPG. This has quickly become one of my favourites of all. This game already feels comfortable and familiar to me, even though I only played it one year ago.
...I kind of wish this one was included in the GBA Phantasy Star Collection I had when I was little, because then it would have been one of my childhood favourites. But instead... it's one of my adulthood favourites, I guess. That's fine too.
I already want to replay it.
The only problem I have with it is the limited inventory space. I wish there was a storage room like in Phantasy Star II! ...why not let us use our room in our home in Aiedo Town for storage or something like that? Missed opportunity, I say SEGA.
Other than this, the game is amazing. Nice visuals, fast-paced movement and battles, great nostalgic Mega Drive music, a cool cast of characters, and an extremely stylish, almost manga-like cutscene system. I'm actually shocked that this game is mentioned so infrequently compared to the likes of Secret of Mana in classic gaming discussions online. Is PSIV really so overlooked by the majority of RPG enthusiasts?
- Breath of Fire (Super NES - played on Nintendo Switch)
I talked about this one earlier. For games I've already made a FB post about before, I won't go into so much detail. But I will say a bit.
I enjoyed this game, but it never felt very remarkable. It has some interesting parts for sure, but nothing really all that outstanding to me. Gotta love those item names though - the exact nature of Mrbl3 is still a mystery to me.
- Secret of Mana (Super NES - played on Nintendo Switch)
Overall, not a fan. Extremely loose and dissatisfying combat, plus awkward camera and menus. The overall adventure was fun, but I never felt truly in my element playing this because I was always at odds with the camera panning system, and was always fumbling around in the wheel menus. Everything just feels so messy and uncomfortable to control.
This must have been one of the first RPGs to have multiplayer combat - so, maybe RPG fans who enjoy playing something like a Tales game in multiplayer would have enjoyed Secret of Mana back in the day. But compared to basically every Tales game, (even the bad ones), I don't think Secret of Mana has much to offer over them, gameplaywise.
Sorry, popular internet opinion - I don't think this one holds up so well.
- Terranigma (Played on Super NES)
I'm surprised at how much I ended up really loving Terranigma. It's not a game you hear about often, but when it is, it's talked about with high praise, and I can definitely understand why. It's a really unique, strange story, and it has some moments that really stuck with me.
It has some big problems with its overall story pacing... and the poorly-implemented magic system is very disappointing. But despite these problems, I look back on Terranigma extremely fondly. I really do like this one a lot. It's an amazing, unique RPG.
- Final Fantasy VIII Remastered (PlayStation - played on Nintendo Switch)
FF8 has some super weird RPG mechanics, but I actually ended up liking its style a lot, once I figured out how most of it worked.
The story often makes no sense, but it's actually kind of better when it makes no sense.
I like how broken the mechanics can get if you play your cards right (quite literally in fact). Though I'm not really a fan of how easily missable some extremely important items/abilities are. ...don't forget to talk to the headmaster A SECOND TIME before leaving after graduation, otherwise you irrevocably miss out on obtaining the super cool and useful GF Diablos for the rest of the game .... stuff like this really bothers me in these games.
This feels like a game that gets way better when you already know exactly what you're doing. You avoid missing things, and you can also manipulate everything to your liking by doing specific things with the cards and the GFs to create overpowered items early on, and stuff like that.
I feel like the menus are pretty fiddly in this game though. It is a bit of a bother to have to keep swapping around all your magic, battle commands and GFs between party members, and when the story keeps shifting perspectives, your setups may need to be redone over again. ...
- Final Fantasy IV (Super NES - played on Wii VC)
FF4 is one of the true classic RPGs.
I was pretty surprised at how playable this game is for such an old RPG.
The story is simple, but certainly has some interesting moments. There is quite a large focus on storytelling and cutscenes in this game, which definitely wasn't the norm when this one came out.
The story is told entirely using very simplistic dialogue boxes, but they managed to present it in a way that works well.
The characters are cool, and I like the five-person combat system.
Yeah! Cool game. Glad to have finally played such a classic. I'm a fan.
- Final Fantasy IV: The After Years (Played on WiiWare)
Very derivative of its predecessor, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. This game is rather redundant, but for fans of FF4, it does its job at providing more to do in FF4's world. Its episodic style means that it's more like 10 mini-RPGs that you play all in a row. It's an interesting way to do it I guess.
I feel like Kain's story is the most interesting one in this game, though I did enjoy seeing the mage twins Palom and Porom get a much more significant presence in the story - they didn't get enough screentime in the first FF4.
Some of the stories felt really like filler arcs though. Edward's was the worst one because you have to traverse the same dungeon twice, alone - and FF4's combat system is much more interesting when you have a full party of five, which means that Edward's prolonged solo dungeoneering is just boring...
I enjoyed each mini story for what they were, however I was getting rather sick of this game during the EXTREMELY LONG final dungeon.
I wasn't really a fan of all the cameo bosses either - it felt like they decided to include all the bosses from FF5 and FF6 in the final dungeon of FF4 After Years just for the sake of making the already long dungeon even longer. ...and I hadn't even played FF5 or FF6 at the time, so the references kind of went over my head. Even though I didn't recognise them as cameos, they still felt really out of place.
Overall, I liked the extra story content that adds to the FF4 lore, but there's just so much fluff in between it that it's almost not even worth playing the game to see it.
It's worth it for FF4 superfans for sure, but maybe not recommended for average RPG fans.
Overall...I'm glad I stuck with it, but they could have done better with this one.
- Shining Force (Mega Drive - played on Nintendo Switch)
After I decided to stop comparing it to Fire Emblem, I started to understand what makes Shining Force good on its own merits. It's a fun little RPG adventure, with tactics-style combat.
It's actually more RPG-like than it is Tactics-like, in that you don't have to play it so perfectly. There's a lot of wiggle room with the numbers and turn order, and if someone dies, they can be revived in town like any other RPG. It's not like in Fire Emblem where the numbers are super precise, and death is permanent. ...Which makes Shining Force more easygoing, but overall less interesting than Fire Emblem in my opinion.
It's a little clunky to control this game. The menus are bothersome, and I hate how many menus you need to go through just to perform the simple act of opening a treasure chest if your main guy has a full inventory (which he always does).
I liked the flying jellyfish thingy the best out of all the playable characters.
- Shining Force II (Mega Drive - played on Nintendo Switch)
An improvement over the first one in many ways. It's basically more of the same, but with a little bit more going on mechanically. I liked it quite a bit.
But....when they translated the game into English, they also decided to remove the ability to open treasure chests during combat. Which means that this game has some treasure chests that literally can never be opened...??? 90s game design was ridiculous at times. Why would you release a game in that state lol.
- Beyond Oasis (Mega Drive - played on Nintendo Switch)
This one surprised me - it's not really much of an RPG, it's more like a mini Zeldalike adventure with beat-'em-up style combat. Very unique, and very fun. I like all the moves and weapons and spells, and the system of summoning elementals is interesting for the dungeon puzzles. Very cool and unique little game!
- Sword of Vermilion (Mega Drive - played on Nintendo Switch)
This game is just....not so great. It's very ambitious, having multiple distinct modes of play and first-person style dungeons... yet at the same time, it doesn't really stand out at all.
There's no plot. The quest itself is mundane. The first-person dungeons are cool at first, but become incredibly samey over time. The overhead combat is awful (and way too easy once you get magic), and the sidescrolling boss encounters are seriously bad in a not fun way.
I'm glad I finally got to see what this game is about - it's one of the few Mega Drive RPGs after all. But man...it's not so good.
I really ought to try Shining in the Darkness at some point - that's a Mega Drive dungeon crawler that seems much more interesting.
So far, my favourite Mega Drive first-person dungeon crawler is still Madou Monogatari I. You know, out of the...two I've played total.
- Final Fantasy VI (Super NES - played on Super NES Classic Mini)
FF6 is one of the most popular games in the series. And... I think it's a very cool game! I like the characters, and the story is cool and quite extensive. Learning magic by equipping Espers is fun, and it gives you lots of customisation options. Each character has their own unique abilities too. Lots of secrets to find and sidequests to complete... I never felt too overwhelmed with this game, either - which is always a plus when it comes to classic RPGs.
The first half is linear, and the second half is completely open - it's almost like two separate campaigns back to back in one game. I kinda like that aspect.
- Final Fantasy V (Super NES - played on GBA)
The Job system is this game's main thing - the ability to reclass your party at any point, and then to mix and match the class abilities to suit your needs. Very cool party customisability options in this game.
The story and characters are okay - compared to 4 and 6 it's nothing too special, but it's an okay story on its own merits nonetheless. But yeah, I had a great time with this one overall.
...
The final boss was REALLY difficult though! Maybe I just didn't have a good team composition, but I felt so underpowered and on the edge of defeat the whole fight.
This is very different to how I felt in FF6, in which I felt like I was a little too overpowered at the end since I decided to go for all the sidequest stuff... I was able to doublecast Ultima with Relm, and then mimic the doublecasted Ultima with Gogo so that I could cast it four times in a row lol.
I'm sure something like this is also possible in FF5, but I didn't end up playing it enough to get access to that kind of endgame brokenness. Maybe one day I'll grind out Job Mastery with every character, but the game didn't really enthrall me enough to go for that kind of grind.
Still, though. It's a good RPG.
I also like how the game keeps track of the hero's current level of "piano mastery". At the beginning of the game, he's practicing scales, but by the end he's playing Mozart lol.
There's a lot of fun little things like this hidden in the game, which keeps things fun, even though the actual main plot and progression was less interesting than FF4 and FF6.
- Dragon Quest XI S (Played on Nintendo Switch)
Wow, looks like this is the only modern RPG I played this year. ...
This is a super good modern RPG, too.
It's a very long game, but you can play it at your own pace. Monster encounters are easily avoided, traversal is quick and easy with a warping spell, and there's a lot of guidance, so it never feels overwhelming.
The characters are really cool and very well-characterised, and the story is fun and goes in some interesting directions.
The English localisation job is absolutely top-notch. There is so much ridiculous personality in each and every line of text in this game. Monsters and items all have silly pun names, and NPC dialogue is written with specific accents or styles depending on where they come from. There's even a town that speaks entirely in haiku... it seems that most modern DQ games ever since DQ8 have had a lot of care and attention put into the English localisation, and I'm curious to see some of these older games for myself.
Overall, I'd say that DQ11 is a true modern classic.
- Final Fantasy IX (PlayStation - played on Nintendo Switch)
FF9 goes for a more...comprehensible story compared to the utter weirdness of FF7 and FF8 before it. I like the world and the characters in this game, everything feels really lively in this one.
I also really like the World Map music in this game in particular. It's so peaceful... 😃
Combat in this game does feel rather slow, but thankfully the Switch version has a speed-up feature to help mitigate this somewhat. The speed-up feature also significantly reduces the tedium when it comes to some of the more repetitive moments, such as the Chocobo minigame. I think the Switch version also has a reduced encounter rate in general?
I enjoyed the simplified approach compared to the previous FFs. RPGs don't always need to make super complex systems and mechanics to be interesting. I think the reason FF8 is generally seen as the least-popular of the PS1 trilogy is due to how it kinda overcomplicates everything, and I suppose FF9 was made as a response to FF8's reception. FF9 keeps it simple (though the story does get more bizarre towards the end), and the end result is one of the better FFs for sure.
...One nitpick I have, though, is that the card minigame is much less interesting in FF9 compared to the one in FF8. The outcome of a card game is much more random, and the cards themselves don't do anything, unlike in FF8 where you could turn them into items and stuff. And collecting them is more bothersome due to the inventory limit of 100 cards total - a limit that FF8 never had. At least this card game is completely separated from the main game for the most part.
...
Wow, so I actually did get through most of my 2021 list, I'm kind of surprised about that actually.
So all that's left to do is to create my JRPG list for 2022.
...
I'm going to make my list a little bigger this year. ...
I want to play:
- Final Fantasy VII (finally)
- Final Fantasy XII The Zodiac Age
- Vagrant Story
- Final Fantasy Tactics
- Lunar Silver Star Harmony
- Grandia
- Dragon Quest IV: Chapters of the Chosen
- Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King
- Suikoden
- Phantasy Star Online (played offline, of course)
- Legend of Dragoon
- Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch
- Skies of Arcadia Legends
...it's a bigger list, so we'll just have to see how many I can actually make it through this year. 😃
Dang, it's like there's a neverending supply of JRPGs out there.
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