#The Grandstream saga

[tneql]

You suspect that something might be inside the barrel... "PSYCH!" 90's video games were very rude sometimes...

[blazehedgehog]

this mightve been asked before, but what do you think of jrpgs generally? any favorites?

The JRPG boom of the late 90's was prime territory for me. I've told this before, but I think my first JRPG was Final Fantasy 4 on the SNES. I think I borrowed a friend's copy at first, and liked it enough that I ended up getting it second-hand, later.

When I first heard somebody describe "hit points," I thought that meant points you could hit, like individual locations on the body that could be struck. So hearing a boss had 15,000 hit points made me think, "Wow, they must be really big." Y'know, like they had lots of surface area. To hit.

I think I played FF4, then Earthbound, then Chrono Trigger. I had a Game Genie, so rather than understand all of the stats and stuff, I would just input a code that would give the maximum amount of possible EXP, so I would jump straight to level 99 after the first battle.

The first JRPG I played and actually understood was Super Mario RPG. That was also one of the first games I ever bought with my own money.

I'd never finished FF4 originally, so as the buzz for FF7 began to ramp up and I found myself lacking a Playstation, I started the SNES version. I don't think I ever finished it then, either, because I ended up with a Playstation that Christmas, with Final Fantasy 7. FF7 practically became my life for over a year and a half. I did everything in that game, and most of it without a guide. All master materia, all summons, all ultimate gear, all limit breaks (even Aerith's!), leveled my party to 99, a full stable of gold chocobos, beat Emerald and Ruby weapons, and a maxed out in-game clock of 99 hours, 99 minutes, and 59 seconds. I also had several other files to explore alternate routes (dates at the gold saucer, etc.). I wrung out every droplet of fun that game had and then some. I even figured out a way to infinite-cast Knights of the Round, for free (it was a complex system of setting up a w-summon materia, counter-materia, and something else, but it trapped you in a loop of summoning them over and over and over and it only cost MP for the first summon).

Like a lot of people that started a minor JRPG obsession, but I didn't have a lot of money to really try out much. I watched friends play a little bit of Beyond the Beyond, Wild Arms, and Secret of Evermore. I heard kids at school rave about Legend of Dragoon (and I rolled my eyes at it, because I thought it looked dumb). I played demos for Grandstream Saga and Legend of Legaia. Heard enough about Xenogears and its infamous second disc to think I'd never, ever want to play it. Learned to hate how slow strategy RPGs were when I tried a friend's copy of Final Fantasy Tactics.

I was over-the-moon excited for Final Fantasy 8. I was obsessed with how cool the demo seemed. It was such a huge jump in fidelity over FF7! It was gonna be great!

Then I rented the full version of FF8 and it was... markedly less cool. The rad, action-packed demo sequence was changed to be less climactic. I fell off pretty hard, getting bored. (Many years later, a cousin would give me their copy of FF8, and I gave it an earnest second try -- came away not just bored, but legitimately frustrated by how dumb some of the writing was)

Still, I continued to bounce around various other JRPGs. Starting lots, but never finishing them. I was super excited for Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete, but hit a difficulty spike in the third or fourth dungeon and rage quit the game. I think I probably played close to half way through Grandia 2 before falling off the game and never going back to it (no real reason, just got distracted).

Then came Chrono Cross. Chrono Cross and Final Fantasy 8 delivered kind of a one-two punch that made me wonder if Squaresoft knew what they were doing. Cross was so obtuse plotted, so in love with itself, and so NOT what I wanted in a Chrono Trigger sequel that it actively upset me. I got stuck somewhere towards the end of the first disc and ended up reading a story synopsis. I don't remember much about it now, outside of the fact that I really did not like it.

FF8 and Chrono Cross seemed like Square-Enix was feeling themselves a little too much and started mucking with the traditional JRPG systems in ways that didn't make sense or feel good. Like how battles in Chrono Cross don't give you EXP, or the magic draw system in FF8. It felt like, after making so many JRPGs, Square was trying anything to differentiate new games, even if it meant breaking fundamental core concepts in bad ways.

And so it became: if an RPG reminded me too much of what I didn't like about FF8 or Chrono Cross, I stopped caring.

Which is a shame, because Square were genre leaders. Everyone followed them. And soon enough, it felt like "JRPG" stopped having any meaning. It became more about story trappings than systems or mechanics, and most of them are modern day, or science fiction, or alternate historical. Swords and sorcery JRPGs are almost dead, outside of Dragon Quest, and I have a sneaking suspicion the next Dragon Quest could change that, too. The term "JRPG" became more synonymous with "anime RPG."

Most of the JRPGs I am interested in these days are the classics I didn't get to play back in the day. That's not to say that's all I'm interested in; I'm currently about 12 hours in to Mother 3, and I have Switch copies of Tales of Vesperia and Final Fantasy 12 I've gotten for Christmas over the years, and I have added incentive to play Kingdom Hearts 2 (and 3, and...) now.

At this point, JRPGs I've played are mostly: Final Fantasy 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 13-2, Lightning Returns, 15, Mystic Quest, Tactics, Tactics Advance, Chrono Trigger, Cross, Earthbound Zero, Earthbound, Mother 3, Grandia, Grandia 2, Legend of Legaia, Skies of Arcadia, Phantasy Star 4, Tales of Phantasia, Kingdom Hearts 1, Re:Coded, Sands of Destruction, Sonic Chronicles, Breath of Fire 1, 2, Super Mario RPG, Mario & Luigi Super Star Saga, Bowser's Inside Story, Dragon Quest 8, Pokemon Red, Blue, Yellow, Crystal, Ruby, Fire Red, Pearl...

JRPGs I've finished: Final Fantasy 1 (GBA), Final Fantasy 4 (DS), Final Fantasy 7 (PS1), Earthbound (SNES), Chrono Trigger (SNES, DS), Sonic Chronicles, Super Mario RPG, Super Star Saga, Pokemon Red, Blue and Yellow.

A few of those are basically finished. I played KH1 and Re:Coded to their final dungeons, respectively. I got to the final boss in Bowser's Inside Story and FF6, but the final battles were so long that I got fatigued, made a mistake, and didn't feel like redoing them more than once. In Pokemon Crystal, Ruby and Pearl, I reached the Elite Four but didn't feel like grinding up enough levels to get over the hump.

Favorites are probably Final Fantasy 1, Final Fantasy 7, Earthbound, Chrono Trigger, and Super Mario RPG.

Final Fantasy 1 because it feels so different and so much closer to a traditional western RPG. You feel a little less lead by the nose by the story and are turned loose in a space that feels more mechanical, like you're exploring an open world.

Final Fantasy 7, because... well, see above.

Earthbound because I love the weird viewpoint of "Classic 1950's Americana as seen by a Japanese author." It's also very charming, nostalgic and heart-felt.

Chrono Trigger because it's the best JRPG designers of their era collaborating across company lines and basically making what I would consider to be the ideal, perfect JRPG. It's not the most complex, sprawling or thought provoking game in the world, but it's EXTREMELY good at being a digestible story that doesn't overstay its welcome.

And Super Mario RPG isn't necessarily a revolution, but it's got fun characters and a weird world and extremely nice music. Just a very charming, solid game (and story!) all the way through to the end.

I'm looking forward to getting around to seeing more of Breath of Fire 1 and 2, the Tales of games, that SNES Star Ocean game, Secret of Mana, maybe Robotrek, finishing Final Fantasy 9, playing more than just the demo of Grandia 1, etc.