I don't get all the different naming conventions. I thought Persona 4 was out years ago.

I wanted to play Xenoblade Chronicles for the Wii as it supposedly moves the genre forward a bit. However, I found out that it goes for $90 now since not a lot of copies were made. Guess I'm never gonna play it unless they reprint/re-release.

I think it's been a good decade since I played a NES/SNES-style RPG. I recently purchased Final Fantasy Origins (PSX Classic that has updated versions of FF1 and FF2) but have only messed around a little, listening to the theme song and getting all emotional for '95-'96 when I played FF1 ("retro" even at that time).

Persona 4 did come out years ago on the Playstation 2. Persona 4 Golden is the PS Vita version of the game with (I believe?) HD graphics and some added content... I never played the PS2 version but the Vita/Golden versions animated scenes look amazing, the voice acting is top notch, etc. I've heard fans of the PS2 version of Persona 4 say it was worth getting a Vita to play the Golden version.

Persona 4 Arena is a spinoff/sequel fighting game (like Street Fighter) featuring characters from Persona 3 and 4. Unfortunately it's for the PS3/Xbox 360 and not the Vita, so I haven't played it.

Tread at your own risk then. There are tons of social links, which, since the game is quite good at getting you invested in the characters, are nearly all compelling. Also, there's not enough time in the game (you're limited to a certain number of actions per day, not sure how similar this is to other Persona games) to master all the social links in one playthrough, meaning you'll have to go through the game more than once if you want all the side stories completed for all the characters. I finished my first playthrough (I always do the first run through an RPG with zero spoilers) at something like 60 hours, felt like I had a full and rewarding experience, and also later realized I had missed a TON of content. If someone went into total nerd obsession completionist mode and said they spent 200+ hours finding everything, I'd believe them. Near the end of my first playthrough I was feeling like my characters were pretty strong, and then I found an optional hidden boss that wiped my whole party with damage to spare before I even got an action. On normal mode.

So yeah. If you can approach it like a normal person, sit back and enjoy. It's got its own sort of leisurely, deliberate pace, and I was struck by the attention to detail in emulating the life of a Japanese high school student (I spent three years in Korea and the school systems are quite similar). If you're the type to obsess and get sucked in, clear your schedule, break up with your girlfriend, and fill your freezer with Hot Pockets, because you're screwed.

All of these reviews for the game really make me want to play Persona 4, but the setting just doesn't appeal to me at all.

I played Devil Survivor (part of the Persona (which is actually itself a secondary series) universe), a tactical RPG, for the DS quite a bit. It has that social stuff and choices and consequences with limited time as well. It's a really fun game, but I've essentially quit because finishing it would require a lot of grinding.

One other thing that impressed me about Persona 4 is that like a lot of JRPGs there's a lot of translation to be done (obviously) and they really took their time to not only make sure the English was translated properly, but also took the time to translate the spirit of the dialogue and the jokes, as well.

For example, there's an item that lets you go back to dungeon entrances, which in the English version is "Goho-M" (to sound like "go home"). The joke is there in Japanese as well, but I feel like the standard for JRPGs would have been just to leave the item names in their transliterated Japanese and let the joke be lost. There's a lot of instances of stuff like that.... it's notoriously difficult to get humor, slang, and social cues to translate from one language to another, and whoever did the translation from Japanese to English did pretty much a perfect job, which really is saying a lot. It's obvious in a lot of small places that they really wanted to put out a high quality end result.

I can see that being an issue - it definitely isn't the standard fare epic journey/world saving fare of JRPGs. For what it's worth, they did a really great job imo of establishing the setting and story. It may not be my first choice for setting, but when you're looking for something different than the usual, they knock it out of the park.

Of course in my personal case it probably helps that their attention to realism and detail in depicting rural towns, television shows, and school life will really turn the nostalgia factor up to 11 for anyone who has spent time over there.

Danganronpa was pretty fun, it was real pain to get it working though since there is only unofficial fan-made translation for it.

It is coming to NA/EU in first half of 2014.

(fine, fine, it is not RPG. I'd imagine this topic is still the best place to post this.)

i hadn't played any new video games in a while and was considering giving persona 4 a whirl. setting was actually a major plus to me, seemed like a cool change of pace from the standard.

but then i tried to peruse a LP to see if it looked like the gameplay was cool, and it seemed there was ~ 6 hours of cutscenes and tutorialish fights before the game started for serious which i don't really have the patience to deal with

any recommendations for an RPG to try for somebody who loved all of the SNES GOATs but hasn't played any RPG's since? i haven't even played ff7 yet so i figured i may as well try that. i've got a ps3 and wii and other than that would be willing to download an emulator.

ff7 is probably good choice since you can get it for ps3 (which I'm sure you know.)

Golden Sun 1 & 2 are the best JRPG for GBA. I have played them through 3 times in ~10 years and it hasn't got old.

The World Ends With You is great, now also available for iPad.

Yeah, I wouldn't recommend it then. The focus in the game is very heavily on the story and the character development. The game does have combat and battles but they're truly secondary to the story elements and character development. Even in the middle of the game there are spots where you can easily go an hour or two with absolutely nothing combat related.

The story has good pacing for the kind of story it is, but it's not fast. Of all the hours I played, I would say that less than half of them were spent in combat situations, easily.

That doesn't bother me though - I mean, let's be honest here, 99% of all the fights in any given Final Fantasy game (except tactics) are repetitive auto-win fights with zero chance of anything interesting happening, that serve no other purpose than to add filler/grind/timesink to the game.

I'd rather see character development and great looking cutscenes, than, say, spend hours drawing magic from generic enemies:



But yeah, all picking on Final Fantasy aside, if you want a game where you're spending a majority of time exploring dungeons and/or fighting monsters, Persona 4 is pretty much the opposite of what you want to play.

Im fan of Fate/Extra on PSP, Saber Bride looks very cute, ive bought game with figure.Also like as class Gilgamesh

I hope y'all get into the Four Job Fiesta before it's too late.

http://fourjobfiesta.com

Mine was fun. White Mage, Mystic Knight, Geomancer, Dancer. Total victory.

lol, at least i know to avoid that game

your argument makes sense but i like to at least feel like i'm doing something. that magic drawing thing would drive me insane, and i generally don't stop to grind. but the random encounters that naturally occur don't bother me because i at least enjoy the experience to find the most efficient way to handle them (or to have fun spamming whatever super rape spell/ability i recently acquired for a few battles).

based on reviews it sounds like chrono cross would be a sweet game to play and prob ff9 or ff7 after that.

FF8 is not nearly as bad as this guy is making it seem. He's being intentionally stupid to make it seem worse. You'd be an idiot to draw every spell to 99, there's other ways to draw, and it's not even necessary.

While we are on the subject of FF8, I made it all the way to final boss but he/she/it just stomped me. Wasn't intrested in spending a lot of time grinding vs random monsters, so I just gave up.

I made it to the final dungeon and got stomped because they took away all of the powers you had used the whole game. I decided to look at strategy guides and grind. Actually had a lot of fun with it since I did it in my friend's dorm room. Twenty extra hours.

I remember the last boss being ridiculously hard compared to the rest of the game... and that the last boss also came completely out of nowhere.

That's kind of his shtick. He's got similar vids for other RPGs as well.

FF8 *does* have a ton of painful and repetitive grinding, though. I played through it once and had a pretty fun time, but when I went back to it later I was absolutely bored to tears.

I actually thought the final dungeon was really cool. You get to solve a variety of puzzles looking for the minibosses, and since they lock all your abilities and you get to choose which to unlock one at a time, there's a lot of figuring out which miniboss to go after first, then which one you'll be able to beat with the next unlock, etc.

That was probably the only part of the game where I felt like there was tension in the battles. The rest of the combat of the game was standard final fantasy (fighting random enemies every five seconds that have essentially no chance of defeating you).

How is Final Fantasy 9? I played 8 and liked it the first time but hated it the second, played 10 and had a pretty good time, played 12 and thought, "where the **** is the second half of the game?" when I beat the boss and never went back to it.

I will, at risk of having to turn in my nerd card, admit I've never actually played Final Fantasy 7 - I've had all the big story moments spoiled long ago, and it looks incredibly dated now. Just as a point of personal preference, if I have to wrestle through archaic graphics/controls/etc., there are piles of games on my list to play above FF7.

Personally I think FF9 is at FF6 level and maybe my personal favorite in the series. The cast of characters is likable, the graphics have survived well, it takes aspects of previous FF's and builds on them. FF9 also is a mini tribute to past FF's. I really like the game.

Basically when it comes to suggestions for playing PS RPGs I say: Suikoden1/2, FF9, Xenogears, FFT. Think if you play those 5 games you're doing real well for PS RPGs. Chrono Chross and Legend of Dragoon are solid, the Breath of Fires are fairly good, DQ7 is really good.

The thing I hate about FF and its clones since about FF4 is that, as a couple of you are saying, progression is smooth and easy for the whole game but then you often hit a brick wall with the final boss.

FF7 looks dated sure, but that's part of the charm. I think that when playing retro games, the ugliness wears off after a little while. I absolutely recommend playing FF7 at least until you get to the actual world map. The mood and atmosphere of the opening city and slums is the most memorable part for me. If you're not into it after that, just quit.

Is FF12 fun while it lasts? It got great reviews and was like a GOTY candidate, but seems to get a lot of flack on forums. Not even sure why I'm asking, as I'm OCD and would have to first fill in my gaps with FF2, 3, 5, 9, 10 and possibly dabble in 11 somehow. Maybe even FFX-2.

FF6 was my favorite as well and it wasn't even close. So many great characters, also it's the only game that has a perfect balance with the first 1/3 of the game being completely linear, and the last 2/3 being almost completely free to do what you want. Also enjoyed the fact that each character had their own unique way of combat, whereas later games the only difference was the attack and casting animation. Lots of puzzles, side quests, and the first part really sets up the game beautifully so that you want to do all of the quests, side quests, get every character and ultimately defeat Kefka.




FF7 was great when it came out, but the graphics now are a mess of polygons. The materia system is too simple (way better in 6 imo) and the game itself is very easy unless you make it hard. Also the storyline is a huge step down from 6 because they are limited by working with their new graphics, and actually I feel like all of the FF after limited themselves severely afterwards due to this. Sephiroth has nothing on Kefka, although Rufus was an enjoyable mini boss imo.



FF8 was a good game I thought. Not a huge fan of love stories in these games, but I Thought they handled it pretty well. Only part that really annoyed me was that part I mentioned in my "parts of a game that ruin a perfectly good game" thread or whatever the title was that I started.

Just awful writing.

The last dungeon was a lot of fun and very difficult, but there's no motivation to kill the last villain other than the fact that you're told that is now the last villain.

My problem with saying that the magic system in this game is a grind, is that it's a grind in all of these games, and the turn based combat system is always based on that. It's a grind walking around the map getting into random fights to level up your characters to 99 as well, the difference is that most people aren't stupid enough to do that. Apparently though add a new system, and everyone thinks they need to level their magic up to 99... why? Not only does that much grinding ruin any challenge in the game, but it's boring and certainly not how the game was supposed to be played. I never did play the game that way actually had a few challenging fights throughout the game because I kept my characters about where they should have been for the encounters.



9 was great, although very different. It tells an epic story and all, but does it very quickly. There's a special item you can get only if you beat the game in less than 12 hours, so that tells you how short the game can be. That leaves less room for character development, slightly less plot and less of a game all in all. The game is tight and compact though, with lots of mini games, a strong plot that moves forward quickly and gets epic at a much quicker pace, and a smaller cast of characters than normal. The game develops the storyline and the smaller cast at a very quick speed. Also one thing I thought was nice was that there was no way to teach everyone magic like the other games (as far as I remember). So it's back to the original rpg style with a fighter class, mage class, heal class, blue magic etc. but you have to choose the characters instead of customizing them yourself.

If you haven't played 7 or 9, I'd go with 9 for sure.





FF12 was awful through and through imo. Plot sucked, battles sucked, side quests sucked, It played like how I imagined FF11 (their mmorpg) would play except that it was single player.

I recently replayed FF7 for the 1st time and loved it. Adult me doesn't really care for most RPG stories and characters, but I enjoyed FF7's story, dialogue and characters. FF6 I would recommend also.

I also really like FF9 along with FF6. I don't think there's really any other FF games (aside from Tactics) that I'd really want to just jump back into to play. FF9 had great music, no palette swaps, good art design, my favorite version of the Chocobo minigame, and the story is pretty good.

The only thing that really brings down my FF9 experience is that boss fights generally are like 10% "boss fighting) and 90% waiting for your thief's turn to steal. The bosses always had really good stuff to steal, but you had to beat the RNG gods to get those items. Of course, you could just not focus on stealing those items (and even make the game a little harder as a result), but those items the bosses have are just way too good to ignore.

Agreed



I'd suggest Tactics over any other FF, but it's hard to go wrong as long as you play anything before X-2 imo

I rarely use steal in any game and missed out on all of that apparently.

I have to steal from everything. Putting pickpocket/steal in games totally ruins it for me because of my autism.