A talk in another forum got me thinking about how little exposure the genre has in general, resulting in mainstream audiences judging the health of the entire genre based solely on the latest Final Fantasy title.

It could be useful to have a place to get the word out on which JRPGs are the good ones, and where we could find them.

It would be particularly useful however to learn about upcoming releases, since especially on PC those tend to fly under the radar. I'm not the most hardcore fan of JRPG, so I would welcome other people to contribute and spread the word whenever there's a new game coming out that piques your interest.


Some recommendations:

The Persona series on Playstation: Persona 5 just came out on PS4 and PS3, and Persona 3 and 4 I believe can be bought on PSN under the PS2 Classics section. It's a mix of dungeon crawler and life simulator. What really elevates the game for me is the challenging combat. The most common problem I see with JRPGs is boring combat where you spend 90% of the game just mashing confirm to use the regular attack because it's all you need to win. The Shin Megami Tensei series, and the Persona sub-series as well, employ sort of a rock-paper-scissor system where even a lower level enemy can potentially wreck your shit if you're not careful, aside from that the battles themselves can be challenging even when trying to exploit your enemy's weakness so they'll keep you engaged. On top of that I have to give props to a very small quality-of-life improvement that I think is a real game changer on JRPGs: an auto-battle and a fast-forward function. The game allows you to press a button and have everyone use their physical attack automatically and the battle goes at 4 times the normal speed. If you use that against an enemy close to your level then you're asking for a game over, but if you happen to be at a low-level area and there's no changing the fact that the regular attack is all you need to win, like in the scenario I described, then why waste the players time at all, right?

The Bravely series on 3DS: It's like old-school Final Fantasy 3, 5 or Tactics, with characters switching Jobs and mixing and matching abilities. The standouts here is the quality-of-life improvements. It has a 2X and 4X fast forward function if you want to get through battles faster. It has a robust auto-battle function that, unlike with Persona, is uncoupled from fast-forward and you can set any skill to it before the fight, and not just the standard attack. This opens a meta-game of sorts. If you stay at the game's level the battles can be challenging, but if you grind and overlevel the battles instead of getting boring become less about trying to win and more about finding the perfect auto-battle strategy to win without ever having to imput any command. You can choose to engage with that or not, the game can be interesting either way. Also it offers a "random battle slider", with which if you want to grind you can crank it way up and lose less time walking around, and if you don't feel like fighting tone it down and remove random battles altogether at the cost of not earning XP. That's what I did after hitting lv.99. There was no point in random battles anymore so I turned them off completely and the last section of the game was basically a boss rush for me.


Upcoming Releases:

The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky the 3rd is coming out in less than 2 days. Sadly, I don't have personal experience with the series (it never got cheap enough for me :'( ), so I do hope someone else jumps in and tells us more about it. It does look really cool, and it appears to be sort of a new self-contained story, so it might be a good starting point for people. It doesn't have a page on GOG yet, but considering the first 2 games are already available in the store, this one will probably come as well.


P.S.: Let's not argue about JRPGs, and SRPGs and japanese ARPGs. If the recommendation is made in good faith that's all that matters. Best case scenario we have a cool new game to play, worst case we can just ignore the game.

SRPGs? Are those Soviet RPGs where monsters grind you?

Strategy RPGs. That involve maneuvering around units in a battlefield. Games like Final Fantasy Tactics, Fire Emblem and The Banner Saga.

I'll mention a few interesting subgenres that have arisen, and are not talked about as much.

1. Japanese roguelikes:

Japanese roguelikes (by which I mean games like the Mystery Dungeon series; this probably excludes Elona, even though it is a Japanese developed roguelike) are an interesting subgenre which combines some aspects of JRPGs with traditional roguelikes. Typically, you have a town, which is not part of the dungeon (in particular, like in most JRPG towns, you usually can't perform arbitrary actions, so no attacking townspeople here), and then you venture into the dungeon. These dungeons are randomly generated, as you would expect.

One way in which they differ from conventional roguelikes is that you can typically save items from one adventure to use on the next, and you keep your levels in some games (but not all). Another difference is in the way death is handled; when you die, you typically go back to town minus all your equipment, though anything you put in storage is kept. I also note that there is often a story told in cutscenes. I note that these games tend to be simpler than conventional roguelikes; enemies don't typically pick up and use items, for example. One interesting tradition in this subgenre is what I could call the "hardcore rogue dungeon"; a 99 or 100 floor dungeon in which you can't bring anything in with you, and where you start at level 1 (even in games that normally let you keep your level).

Recommendations: Pokemon Mystery Dungeon games if you want something casual (with a sizeable amount of cutscenes). Shiren the Wanderer series if you want something more hardcore (though I should point out that the original Shiren and its DS remake (the only one I've played) have a lot of enemies that attack your inventory). Torneko: The Last Hope (PSX) is somewhere inbetween.

I could also mention Lufia: The Legend Returns (GBC). It plays more like a conventional JRPG, but the levels are randomly generated, and the game does feature the "hardcore rogue dungeon", namely the Ancient Cave. Its predecessor, Lufia 2 (SNES), also features the Ancient Cave, but the rest of the dungeons are non-random puzzle filled dungeons. Don't forget Disgaea!

One thing that's worth mentioning is that Disgaea is known for allowing your characters to reach extremely high levels of power. The level cap is 9999, and leveling up is not the only (or even necessarily the best) way to gain power. I could recommend the series to anyone who likes to "grind".

The Fire Emblem series, by contrast, keeps numbers low and does not let you repeat battles to get stronger, so the focus is more on strategy than on building your characters' power.

Ah. Thanks. Strange, I don't think I've ever seen them called that. I mean, I get that it's a sensible opposite of action-RPGs, but RPGs pretty much by definition include strategic combat (going back to their pen & paper roots), so I only thought it's necessary to point out when they don't, hence the action RPG term.

Anyway, no point in derailing the thread. I'll be going now, since I don't have much more to contribute other than more bad jokes about Soviet RPGs (you can't level up - everyone is equal in glorious People's Republic of Tamriel!)

2. Wizardry-likes, as I call them.

There are some Japanese developed Wizardry games (Wizardry Gaiden, Wizardry Emperor, and some others), and some other Japanese series that are made in the style of classic Wizardry. You get your menu based town, your first person dungeon crawling, your turn-based party-based combat, and sometimes even your level draining, aging, and resurrection failures (though those last few things are only found in some games of this type). They tend to be easier than Wizardry 1-5, even if many of the mechanics might be the same.

Examples include the Etrian Odyssey series (DS, 3DS), which use the bottom screen for having you draw your own map (and being the least Wizardry-like in terms of mechanics), The Dark Spire (DS), Class of Heroes (3DS), and the Elminage series. (Elminage Gothic is available on GOG; check it out, but be aware that Elminage Gothic, once you get past the starter dungeon, is probably one of the hardest and most unforgiving games of this subgenre. In the final post-game dungeon (20 floors!), the random encounters are ridiculous in terms of difficulty.) Actually, there is a clear difference; in SRPGs, positioning is a major element of the battle system. Typical JRPGs generally don't make positioning a factor beyond setting a formation or having front/back rows; you don't generally issue instructions to move your characters. In SRPGs, you do; usually each unit can move something like 3 to 9 squares in one turn (depending on the game), and you also issue an order to attack in the same game.

Also, SRPGs have fewer battles than other RPGs, but the battles you do have are bigger in scope, and are much longer. Also, out-of-combat exploration isn't usually a thing in these games (but see Fire Emblem Gaiden (FC), Shining Force (GEN), and Arc the Lad 2 (PSX) for counterexamples).

If it's a term used in context of JRPGs that would explain it, as I don't like, play or know much about those.

It's used almost strictly in contrast to the usual JRPG standard of 3 or 4 people standing in a line trading turns against a bunch of enemies also standing in a line.

Because both types are turn-based it needed a special denomination to differentiate each other.

EDIT: Ninja'd

Decided to necro this instead of starting a new thread to say the same stuff.

Bitmap Books- A Guide to Japanese Role-Playing Games

I got this a week ago. Anyone that has the CRPG Book from Bitmap should know what to expect. It's a very similar layout and style, just this one concentrates on JRPG's. It's also a bit larger. Just go to the Bitmap site for the list of games and series covered. But I can say the paper and printing quality is superb. The book is broken down into chapters. Starting off with early Japanese computer RPG's. Then to major series like Dragon Quest, Shin Megami Tensei and spin offs, Final Fantasy etc. Then games that are smaller series or standalone. Then a chapter specifically for the action type of games like the Mana series. Unfortunately my favorite types of games have smaller chapters near the end- Strategy RPG's and first person dungeon crawlers. It's an excellent book.
My only criticism would be that I'd have liked a more uniform and consistent system of letting the reader know if a game is localized in English either officially or via fan translation. As it is it's just sometimes mentioned in the text, I'd have liked to see that at the top alongside the existing platforms the game is on. Just a localized yes/no next to the title. All too often I read about some game that sounds interesting, but no mention of English localization so I have to go research it myself, only to find that it's Japanese only.