JRPGs

I played all the non-mainline games, so it feels like there's a lot of them. That's cool for people who are into it. I'm just a bit weary of the series. I vastly preferred the old style of FE, where the characters were less anime and more of a Suikoden-ish design. These new ones don't do much for me but I kept playing them because I was a fan.

Been playing the Live-a-Live remaster. It's a good time if you like obscure Super Famicom RPGs. They changed very little from the original outside of the graphics which obviously got a big overhaul.

This means that there are a few unpolished things, like the Prehistoric chapter generally being a pain without a guide (due to missables). However it's a fun playthrough with a lot of charm. I'm about a third of the way through it.

I don't normally ever get hyped up over indie games (unless it's that Mother 4* project or AM2R) but I gotta say, this Trinity Trigger game has my attention. The music is SO GOOD and so similar to Secret of Mana that I'm wondering if it has the same composer. Also, ring menus and multiplayer. This looks incredible. Only thing I don't like is all the yelling during battles, a trope that is in a ton of modern games, but it can probably be turned off.

Don't know if I'll actually play this, since I got similarly excited about I Am Setsuna and Undertale and never actually got to either of them. But it does look really good, as a huge Mana fan.

* - Whatever happened to Mother 4 anyway? Anyone remember that?

Pyros said:

He's worked on a variety of indie projects. One of the traditional rogue-likes I played that got me into the genre had a very SNES JRPG era soundtrack and some of the tracks were specifically made by the SoM composer. So could be the case.

That said all these pseudo indie square rpgs have had pretty meh reception usually. I am Setsuna got very mild reviews, Octopath Traveller was also pretty meh received and so on. So I'd definitely not get too hyped before it's release. Undertale I wouldn't put in the same category though since it was a pretty different experience and not made by a japanese studio either.

OST of Tangledeep, the rogue-like I mentionned:

Click to expand...

Whoever that SoM composer is, they're probably my third-favorite game composer behind Yasunori Mitsuda and Hitoshi Sakimoto. ...yeah I've never been as into Uematsu's work as other people, but he's probably #4 if it helps.

I thought Octopath was an actual Square game, not a pseudo-indie Square game? It says it was jointly developed by Square and Acquire. Was Square's contribution minimal or something? I've also heard meh things about it, but at the very least it did start this "2D-HD" trend that I really like and want to see more games adopt.

Released today!

Bought the Romancing Saga 2 Remaster on Switch, since I wanted something similar after Live-a-Live. $7 at the moment on eShop.

Only an hour in but I can't say I recommend this one. There are no QOL improvements over the SFC version (and anyone who played the old SaGa games via fan translations knows how rough around the edges those games are). It looks like all they did was ramp up the graphics from Early 16-Bit level (FF4-ish) to PS1 level (Suikoden 1-ish). Which makes it look a lot nicer on modern systems, but it isn't the kind of upgrade I was hoping for.

The music is great though. Extremely similar to FF4's soundtrack, to the extent that it sometimes feels like you're playing an FF4 side-game or something.

The problem is the QOL and the way the game gives you ZERO CLUE what to do the majority of the time. Also you don't get a choice of characters at the outset like you do in RS3/Saga Frontier/LAL. Nope, RS2 you have one character, then at two points midway through the game you choose a class for your successor, then at the end it goes back to one character. Very strange game, not sure if I really want to invest time in it. Was hoping for another SaGa game along the lines of what I know, but this is very, very proto-era SaGa before it knew what it was yet.

I never got a chance to play RS1 (not sure if it even got a translation) but I imagine it was even more rough around the edges.

RS2 turned out to be really good, got about 40% through it. Once it makes sense, it's a fairly unique RPG and a lot of fun. It does the "generations" system like Phantasy Star 3, except wrapped in a better game.

I've got a question, anyone know of a good/decent ROM site these days? I haven't fooled with any emulator stuff in a long time. I heard Romancing Saga 1 (Super Famicom) is fully translated now and I'm gonna check it out whenever I'm done with RS2 (already played RS3). I know RS1 is nowhere near as good as 2/3 but whatever.

Basically, looking for the translated RS1 ROM or a site that has ROMs/patches and isn't all viruses or whatev. If anyone happens to have the RS1 translation around feel free to send that my way too.

I didnt play this one but I did play the shit out of Ogre Battle: March of the Black Queen on SNES. Will definitely pick this one up.