Quick Questions XIV: A Question Reasked (Part 1)

after an early point you can turn off random encounters in ffviii

in the remaster of vii you can toggle them

1 Like

all the newer ff ports have ā€˜boosters’ that let you disable random battles, gain invincibility when you do have to fight etc.
bravely default also had a random battle toggle you might have missed

Yeah, feels like, at that point, they’re admitting that this core part of their game isn’t fun and you should skip it. I love the look and style of Bravely D, but the fact that they let you fast-forward at all is wild. It’s as if they themselves, the creators of the game, did not enjoy playing the game, to the point where they added in a skip.

5 Likes

I actually find harder, more involved, RPGs more enjoyable because without much meaty planning and strategizing it’s often just busywork.

Like there’s a reason I make more progress in most megaten games or Etrian Odyssey than Final Fantasy VI or VII.

4 Likes

yeah i dunno, i actually like some jarpeg battle systems
on the flipside kawazu (peace be upon him) just made one that is nothing but combat and it owns

going into a boss fight in nocturne and chaining weaknesses gives me that same kind of pavlovian feeling as the zelda puzzle jingle

3 Likes

Bravely default has barely any new environments past a point anyway
None of the Dragon quest are what you’re looking for I think?

I find it really hard to recommend something outside of RPGs!

Chrono Trigger is an obvious recommandation if you haven’t played it yet, it has it all and is super breezy

Nier 1 too I guess, maybe?

Your best bet really is FF7-9 on a modern platform with battle speed boosters; I’ll add that they’re light on battles until the very end. Speedruns have a higher ratio of battles than a regular playthrough

Maybe you’d like seeing a Xenogears playthrough because it has amazing environments, the most intense JRPG storytelling and atrocious battles

2 Likes

Chrono Trigger is great because it has the gentle tactical friction of Dragon Quest with the out there storytelling and aesthetics of a final fantasy. More coherent than FF usually is, though.

4 Likes

undertale :woman_shrugging:

7 Likes

Actually played that through for the first time last year! Full pacifist. Absolutely adored every second. Probably the best game I’ve played in a decade.

3 Likes

There’s an old RPG Maker game by Saint Bomber called Embric of Wulfhammer Castle. While I can’t ignore its flaws—some of the writing’s pretty rough, there’s definitely some problematic stuff involving dark elves, it’s a real male gaze-y approach to lesbian romance—the fact that there was literally† no combat made it such a breezy joy to play that I found myself replaying enough to get at least four endings before I started to get bored.

† (this use of literally may be figurative, depending on your choices in the game)

3 Likes

I think it is less that it isn’t fun just (and I will keep beating this drum) most RPG battle systems do not support a 30-50-80-100 hour game where they would have been fine in a 15-20. Turn Based RPGs are about making the right decisions and after a certain point you always know the right decision. Then it does become a grind to continue the game in any fashion. Definitely have this problem with SMT games.

Anyways I see no one has made a hack of Skies of Arcadia legends putting in the Dreamcast or CD soundtrack in.

3 Likes

That’s a good point, it really is that they overstay their welcome, the challenge fades, and the ā€œoptimalā€ grind sets in. Even Persona games have that. I wished P4 had shaved fully a forth of the game off, for all the tedium it brought.

2 Likes

latter day persona is truly fucking unbearable in this regard, especially because the battle systems are so much shallower and the writing is so atrocious. for mainline megaten imo nocturne is the one that sidesteps this problem best by consistently keeping you on your toes in terms of routing and strategy until the end, but i still don’t think it or virtually any game, especially not an rpg, needs to be 80 hours long. in particular final fantasy games should be no longer than 30 hours at most, usually less.

4 Likes

it took me like 25-35 hours to beat chrono trigger and dq5 each so I definitely think 40 hours or under is a pretty good place for videogames to be at. i dont want to spend 80 hours doing anything mandatory

4 Likes

Can anybody translate what’s written on this? A friend is asking.

1 Like

Lady Rude thinks it is a poem.

She’s going to translate it on the train.

1 Like

do we have a game borrowing/trading thread?

Not since D2…

4 Likes

Is Dragon’s Crown PS4 good?