What are some JRPGs with actually well designed and challenging combat/gameplay?
>Equipment choice mattes, and you're often swapping gear around for their unique effects instead of just linearly upgrading armor/weapons for more attack/defense as the game goes on >Grinding is non-existent or inconsequential, being a few levels below or above the enemy isn't going to dictate whether you have a super easy or hard time with them >Strategy matters, learning enemy patterns, behavior, how to best dispatch and defend against each of them is crucial to progress >Everything is important, every piece of gear has an use, every spell is necessary to be used, as opposed to usual games where you don't ever use a single status ailment skill through the entire game
Do you know of anything that fits these criteria? I'm okay with rom hacks/mods as well. Pic related is FF6 Brave New World, a mod that I've felt that really made the game more challenging and engaging.
I've heard of it. Can you tell me a bit more about what makes it good? How challenging is it?
Isaiah Butler
There's a porn VN called God Catching Alchemy Meister which has the best use of equipment. In this game there's a sort of Fire Emblem type of gameplay where you recruit girls (and fuck them) while using them in combat. The main girls have unique outfits you can make for them.
The outfits have unique appearances their own talent trees. There's a Monster Hunter-type outfit which looks beastly with claws and shit which unlocks a berserker type of playstyle. In a cutscene the girl wearing it keeps getting hotheaded then you find out the outfit is making her go into heat, so you fuck her doggy style.
Best use of equipment in gaming history.
Ethan Clark
Sounds like you don't want a jrpg, you want some mediocre action game. try dmc3, sounds right up your alley.
Christian Rogers
Lost Odyssey
Zachary Martinez
lost odyssey is filled with ultra linear upgrades for weapon and armor, there aren't even novelty weapons like the blood swords in ff. You have to grind your fucking ASS off part way through disc 2 unless you've done literally every sidequest (which is enough of a grind as is) there's no more strategy in it than learning the dial for shadow hearts or the timed commands for paper mario or legend of the dragoon.
Noah Phillips
Unironically some of the difficulty hacks out there for chrono trigger
Brayden Long
Literally The World Ends With You
Aiden Lewis
it has all points in the OP covered, also - you have a reserve party of 8 regenerating in the back. You need to swap those people in and out of the active party of 4 during battles - swap in your healer or mage at the wrong time and you're fucked - enemy behavior is complex and timing matters, if you exhaust your options too early or don't buff up/ disable enemies before it's too late, reload It's unforgiving, but satisfying to become gud at
Zachary Richardson
TWEWY
Alexander Barnes
Final Fantasy Legend II (nee SaGa) and everyone hated it
Literally every Etrian Odyssey game
several games in the SMT universe, especially SMT4, which even includes optional puzzle battles that challenge you to figure out how to beat them
Anthony Campbell
Persona 5 is like that, but easier. What's crazy is you can completely miss the ability to hot swap party members in battle.
Joseph Mitchell
Etrian Odyssey has a fairly linear equipment upgrade path but otherwise it fits everything you described
I would say Bravely default? It has some challenges here and there in the late game where you need to do certain strategy with some of the jobs to even have a chance to win.
I.e. Multi-asterisk bearer fights
Lincoln Powell
>SMT Literally spam buffs, debuffs, and whatever the boss is weak to. There's no real strategy since there's not much vairety. Even pokemon has more unique spells and passive effects.
Connor Baker
Hylics.
Christian Lee
mainstream JRPGs make retarded design decisions like giving the player overpowered curative items any character can throw. LoT and a similar game, Genius of Sappheiros (also fits the topic) don't even have usables. Your healer is invaluable and you have to protect her from harm
Anthony Lopez
Did Bravely Second have anything like that? I swear that game was a cake walk from start to finish. Only the optional superboss actually had me rethink my strategy.
Evan Perez
This is a really bad OP image for your subject matter because it appears like you're talking about FF6 which is none of those things
Noah Hall
Every pokemon game
Ayden Anderson
Bravely is piss easy to cheese except for a small handful of superbosses. Definitely not a challenging game unless you try to make it that way by handicapping yourself in some way
Caleb Hernandez
Every Pokemon game is pathetic easy, what are you on?
Andrew Harris
Fortunately those of us who can read know he's talking about Brave New World
Do you regularly reply to people who you know can't read or can you actually not read yourself?
Or maybe you can just admit that putting the game you're talking about at the very end of your lengthy post with an easy to misunderstand image is a bad idea.
Jeremiah Butler
SaGa
William Brown
Romancing SaGa 2 until you unlock the "I win" button, but you gotta find it first Defense is separated into 8 categories, Blunt, Slashing, Piercing, Projectile, Heat, Cold, Electric, "Status" (this doesn't really mean status effects, it means magic damage that doesn't fit into the other categories, like dark curses or weird star magic) Since you can't just pump 1 "def" stat you'll be swapping defensive gear around to deal with different enemy types and also probably be supplementing your defenses with utility spells. Utility spells are a BIG deal. Status effects are useful against bosses but how a status effect is applied matters. "Stun" comes from both Sweep and Feint (and a bunch of other sources), but Sweep only works on enemies that actually have legs, and Feint only works on enemies that are actually holding a weapon. ect. Really the only point that doesn't fit is that grinding can be very effective if you know what you're working towards, but as long as you don't look stuff up like a queer it should squeeze past this requirement of yours as well.
Arc Rise Fantasia Leveling up only increases your HP, everything else about your character comes from fiddling with gear and the magic system. Gear comes with tetris blocks in it. Some, but not all, blocks can be removed and placed in other gear. Old weapons can retain their use if you suddenly need access to their innate blocks. Magic is done by assigning elemental orbs to different characters, and you're going to be shuffling these orbs around as you need access to different spells. The battles also have a positioning matters component.
Cameron Kelly
I've played a lot of jrpgs but I've yet to find any game that meets those conditions and I seriously doubt any romhack could fix FF6.
BNW changes a lot. It's been on development for over a decade. Basically it tries to make fights more dynamic, rework most mechanics to make them more functional, and give each character more distinct strengths and weaknesses. You can get it on NGplus.com and read the overall design philosophy of the creator.
Lucas Richardson
>do you regularly reply to people who you know can't read? Yeah and I knock over the elderly salvation army santa every year too
Ian Walker
Are there any good ones, though? There's fire emblem, but that shit is bland as hell.
