Trailers for JRPGs these days...

[kane_magus]

You know... I might would actually consider getting back into buying some more JRPGs on Steam and such, if only the trailers for said games were actual trailers that showed off things like... I dunno... gameplay and such, rather than pretty much all of them lately merely being anime/J-pop music videos that don't really tell you much of anything about the games themselves (aside perhaps from the fact that they probably have pretty anime cutscenes). >_>

Comments

[owsf2000.livejournal.com]

I have to agree. At first it was a "ooo, pretty." But then they all started doing it - regardless of the quality of the actual game they're for. At that point it became completely pointless I think.

Regarding jrpgs though, if you still have your copies of Ar Tonelico you should try to play through them. Especially II. First one is quite good, I loved the second one though. Third one... -_- if the battle system wasn't retarded I'd like it a lot more. Tried playing it twice, and lost interest twice. Both in the same area too. As soon as they started introducing enemies that would immediately rush your vulnerable reyvateil and you'd spend the entire fight doing emergency saves. Annoying as fuck.

If you don't have them, then keep an eye on steam in the 1 in a billion chance they ever end up there. ^^

A more recent jrpg that is on steam that might be worth playing is Fairy Fencer F. Has one of those anime intros I'm pretty sure. But I at least enjoyed the battle system.

[kane-magus.livejournal.com]

I don't recall what game it was now, but I looked at one a week or two ago, and it had like 3 or 4 videos on the Steam store page, and all of them were different anime/J-pop music videos. Not a single one of them had any actual gameplay in it. The most recent one I looked at (and the one which prompted this post) was Conception II: Children of the Seven Stars. (http://store.steampowered.com/app/458730/) The screenshots don't help much more in that regard, either.

I don't have any console video games anymore, including Ar Tonelico. I did see a while back that they have games like Disgaea (http://store.steampowered.com/app/405900/) (and soon to be Disgaea 2 (http://store.steampowered.com/app/495280/), also) and Phantom Brave (http://store.steampowered.com/app/409870/) on Steam now, though. And just about every Final Fantasy (http://store.steampowered.com/search/?term=Final%20Fantasy) game except the original two, afaics, (remakes/remasters/whatever in the case of III-VI), for what that's worth. (And if Square Enix can put all those Final Fantasy games on PC, why can't they also put Chrono Trigger/Cross or the Star Ocean games or the Seiken Densetsu/Mana games on there? Or more than just the most recent Dragon Quest (http://store.steampowered.com/app/410850/) game? I mean, it's not like they haven't already rereleased Chrono Trigger several times elsewhere.)

The most recent JRPG I played was probably Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth1. (http://store.steampowered.com/app/282900/) Played it for about 50 hours about a year ago... and then just stopped one day and never went back to it, for whatever reason. >_>;

[owsf2000.livejournal.com]

First Disgaea and Phantom Brave are certainly worth it if you find them on a sale. Conception II you can probably pass on. I have it on the Vita but I rarely play it - mainly because I don't like the battle system too much.

[kane-magus.livejournal.com]

You know anything about The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky (http://store.steampowered.com/app/251150/)? That's one I've been seeing pop up a lot on Steam and GOG (https://www.gog.com/game/the_legend_of_heroes_trails_in_the_sky) recently and it looks pretty interesting, I have to admit. And, best of all, it actually shows some gameplay in its trailer.

There's a second (http://store.steampowered.com/app/251290/) one (https://www.gog.com/game/legend_of_heroes_trails_in_the_sky_sc_the) out now as well, with presumably the third one coming at some point. Though, according to Wiki (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trails_in_the_Sky_(series))pedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Legend_of_Heroes) anyway, I guess it should be called the "sixth" and "seventh" and "eight," rather than the "first" and "second" and "third." Or maybe all three parts are just considered part "six" of the overall series. I'd never heard of this series before. And, fuck, apparently even that outer layer The Legend of Heroes series is itself a subset of yet another outer layer series. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_Slayer)

(I'm still gonna wait for a sale, though, regardless.)

[owsf2000.livejournal.com]

I've only got the first one on the PSP myself, of which I only got so far in. The battle system isn't too bad compared to some, and the story's ok. Certainly more oldschool than some others. At least the game mechanics were fairly easy to understand for me. (some jrpgs get extremely complicated with crap.)

Not sure how closely linked the different parts are to each other - ie: are they like .hack etc where it's just one storyline and things don't get resolved until the last game. I think that was one of the things that made my interest wan on the first game, when I found out it was a multiparter and that the other parts had no chance of being on the PSP.

[kane-magus.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's another reason I haven't gotten the Trails in the Sky games yet. It's a multipart series with not all of the parts available (in English) yet, and it's not clear if XSeed or whoever is going to even bother with translating the third part, which would suck. As such, I probably wouldn't bother with buying the games, in that case. *shrug*

As for other games by Nihon Falcom, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihon_Falcom) I have pretty much all of the Steam-available Ys (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ys_(series)) games on my wishlist as well. Haven't seen them on sale very often, though.

[owsf2000.livejournal.com]

For Ys, I've got a few of the games but only really played through The Ark of Napishtim. Really recommend that one - I played it on the PS2 but I can't imagine they screwed up the port.

Have to admit I'm starting to get the urge to play it again, but before I do I might pull out the PSP and try either Seven or The Oath of Felghana. Bought those on the PSP both because I enjoyed Napishtim and because they were collectors edition with Stuff. ^^

Both still factory sealed. <_< Really should play my collectors more. I think I'll unwrap Seven in a bit, as that game was built primarily for the PSP iirc. Napishtim was probably the closest I've gotten to seeing a game with similar mechanics to Crystalis on the NES. Elemental swords you can charge, etc.

[kane-magus.livejournal.com]

Well, Kotaku says (http://kotaku.com/trails-in-the-sky-the-3rd-is-actually-coming-west-1764321454) it's coming in 2017, so I guess it will be released? I'll wait until I see it before making a determination on the series as a whole, I guess.