Yeah, you're right. The first DQ, which I played when I was something like 9 years old, was WAY too hard for me. The combat AND the cryptic things to find were just too much. Well, I have to add that I couldn't even read english properly at the time ! It's the same for the first FF : boy, was it hard to finish ! I only manage to finish those games years later when I was a young adult.
But, during the SNES era, where RPG were more mature in terms of gameplay and storytelling, sadly that also came with a significant decrease in difficulty. For example, FF6 is just really awesome story and visually wise, but the gameplay is beyond broken. I have to use mods like Brave New World to make it playable nowadays.
Conceptually, you're totally right. FF8 is a hot inconsequential mess. "Stealing" magic from monsters to "equip" it later ? Yeah...
But technically, FF6 is full of bugs and shortcomings (you got stats like evade that just doesn't do anything, for example). If you haven't played Brave New World, just do, you will then understand all the things that were wrong with vanilla FF6.
I find it impossible to not enjoy a Final Fantasy game. They are goofy, for the most part pretty easy, but all have a sort of charm that no other JRPG series is able to create. I don't really get the appeal of anything outside FF either. Chrono Trigger obviously, Secret of Mana as well, but these are classics from long ago at this point. I'm going to try Persona 5 when it comes out, because I hear nothing but great things about the series. Other than that, I guess I have Tales of Symphonia on my laptop, and it seems.....idk, interesting I guess. But the games are all a little too cutesy in the end. There is clearly some cultural thing about JRPGs that translates to some Americans, I'm just not sure I'm one of them. Funny thing is, the whole JRPG craze started with Japanese gamers being absolutely obsessed with Wizardry, and I can't think of any JRPGs that even come close to that style of gameplay outside of Etryian Odyssey.
But seriously, Final Fantasy remains awesome. Every single title, 1-15.
I find it impossible to not enjoy a Final Fantasy game. They are goofy, for the most part pretty easy, but all have a sort of charm that no other JRPG series is able to create. I don't really get the appeal of anything outside FF either. Chrono Trigger obviously, Secret of Mana as well, but these are classics from long ago at this point. I'm going to try Persona 5 when it comes out, because I hear nothing but great things about the series. Other than that, I guess I have Tales of Symphonia on my laptop, and it seems.....idk, interesting I guess. But the games are all a little too cutesy in the end. There is clearly some cultural thing about JRPGs that translates to some Americans, I'm just not sure I'm one of them. Funny thing is, the whole JRPG craze started with Japanese gamers being absolutely obsessed with Wizardry, and I can't think of any JRPGs that even come close to that style of gameplay outside of Etryian Odyssey.
But seriously, Final Fantasy remains awesome. Every single title, 1-15.
As far as Final Fantasy goes I actually like I, III, IV, IX, and XII. I haven't played VI, XI, XIV, or XV so I can't comment on those.
Well, the thing with XI and XIV is that they are MMOs. XI is weird in that although most Final Fantasy games are perhaps THE easiest RPGs someone who has never played an RPG can get into, Final Fantasy XI is perhaps more obtuse and hard to get a grip on than frickin' Everquest. I spent two weeks after I recently bought it just trying to get a basic understanding of what the hell to do. That said, it's pretty great, and perfectly playable solo for 90% of the game nowadays once you get acclimated. FFXIV is just simply the best MMO on the market today (imo).
Never played VI??? Oh man.....and XV is great if you are into the current console generation of games.
Funny thing is, the whole JRPG craze started with Japanese gamers being absolutely obsessed with Wizardry, and I can't think of any JRPGs that even come close to that style of gameplay outside of Etryian Odyssey.
By current definition, dungeon crawlers aren't JRPGs (and neither is stuff like Dragon's Dogma). For the more intuitive definition of "Japanese first-person dungeon crawler", however, there is a plethora of them on the Vita (a console which is rather a mecca to those of us who love Japanese games, and a wasteland to those who do not). Some are very fanservicey, some are not. Quality is not actually related to how fanservicey they are; Demon Gaze was a big hit on both sides of the Pacific and is an excellent (re)intro to dungeon crawlers, but it's not a good choice for those who don't care for lots of boobs.
(Some other Vita dungeon crawlers of note include:
Ray Gigant, a graphically and gameplay-innovative game, not two words the genre is really noted for - no random encounters!
Operation Abyss - haven't played myself, but it's an earlier game by the Demon Gaze guys, less fanservicey, set in an occult modern setting.
Stranger of Sword City - Has a dark fantasy artstyle more likely to appeal to those who don't like anime/manga (and, peculiarly, an entire different set of character portraits and cgs people who really like moe artstyle can switch to... or just a change of pace in a repeat playthrough). I'm playing through that now and it's quite good, though it's also unforgiving at points - significantly harder than Demon Gaze. It's plot is also kind of interesting, especially given most DRPGs - as they're sometimes called - have skeleton plots.
Dungeon Travellers 2 - Probably the crown jewel of Vita DRPGs, it has by far the most interesting mechanics that have the most impact on the game. Your choice of character classes in Demon Gaze is important, for example, but you will never have to come back and exchange your party for a partially or wholly new one that is more proficient at handling the type of boss that just stomped you flat. You do do this in DT2; almost every wall you run against is not best handled by grinding, but by lateral thinking. This is great, if that sort of thing appeals to you. Game's not perfect by any means - classes and skills are not super balanced, and many builds are just flat-out superior to others. Oh yes, and it's the most fanservicey game I've mentioned by a very wide margin. But despite that, and the excuse plot it has, it's actually quite funny, and has a ton of character interaction for every possible character, half the classes they can be in, if they're walking around with status effects, if you get a certain item in the inventory, etc, etc, etc. It sends up its genre and itself a fair bit and never takes itself too seriously. Plus, it has a post-game that's even longer than the lengthy main game, and a host of other things to dig into I didn't even mention. An easy recommendation as long as one can stand the fanservice.)
If you're the sort that hates handhelds (or don't want to buy a Vita just for some Japanese games, an understandable position even if I love mine more than any other console), I think a few of these are going to (or already have) ended up on Steam.
Comments
But, during the SNES era, where RPG were more mature in terms of gameplay and storytelling, sadly that also came with a significant decrease in difficulty. For example, FF6 is just really awesome story and visually wise, but the gameplay is beyond broken. I have to use mods like Brave New World to make it playable nowadays.
But technically, FF6 is full of bugs and shortcomings (you got stats like evade that just doesn't do anything, for example). If you haven't played Brave New World, just do, you will then understand all the things that were wrong with vanilla FF6.
But seriously, Final Fantasy remains awesome. Every single title, 1-15.
Never played VI??? Oh man.....and XV is great if you are into the current console generation of games.
(Some other Vita dungeon crawlers of note include:
Ray Gigant, a graphically and gameplay-innovative game, not two words the genre is really noted for - no random encounters!
Operation Abyss - haven't played myself, but it's an earlier game by the Demon Gaze guys, less fanservicey, set in an occult modern setting.
Stranger of Sword City - Has a dark fantasy artstyle more likely to appeal to those who don't like anime/manga (and, peculiarly, an entire different set of character portraits and cgs people who really like moe artstyle can switch to... or just a change of pace in a repeat playthrough). I'm playing through that now and it's quite good, though it's also unforgiving at points - significantly harder than Demon Gaze. It's plot is also kind of interesting, especially given most DRPGs - as they're sometimes called - have skeleton plots.
Dungeon Travellers 2 - Probably the crown jewel of Vita DRPGs, it has by far the most interesting mechanics that have the most impact on the game. Your choice of character classes in Demon Gaze is important, for example, but you will never have to come back and exchange your party for a partially or wholly new one that is more proficient at handling the type of boss that just stomped you flat. You do do this in DT2; almost every wall you run against is not best handled by grinding, but by lateral thinking. This is great, if that sort of thing appeals to you. Game's not perfect by any means - classes and skills are not super balanced, and many builds are just flat-out superior to others. Oh yes, and it's the most fanservicey game I've mentioned by a very wide margin. But despite that, and the excuse plot it has, it's actually quite funny, and has a ton of character interaction for every possible character, half the classes they can be in, if they're walking around with status effects, if you get a certain item in the inventory, etc, etc, etc. It sends up its genre and itself a fair bit and never takes itself too seriously. Plus, it has a post-game that's even longer than the lengthy main game, and a host of other things to dig into I didn't even mention. An easy recommendation as long as one can stand the fanservice.)
If you're the sort that hates handhelds (or don't want to buy a Vita just for some Japanese games, an understandable position even if I love mine more than any other console), I think a few of these are going to (or already have) ended up on Steam.