....the big plot twist....is this?

ykno....i've seen discourse about how E33 is so great because you dont have a bunch of teens fighting God with the power of friendship

At this point I kinda wish the story was that there's a time skip and the apprentices took over and were a bunch of teens fighting an alien God rather than... THIS.

Guess I'll finish it but I have a feeling the ending will leave me very underwhelmed unless they pull some crazy Lavos in the planet type sht idk

Edit: After ranting a bit i think my feelings come down to this: I felt like i got bait and switched because of the story i thought i was getting..

This is something me and my friends have been discussing for a bit with Persona 4 Revival on the way. I noticed a lot of them really hated Marie's inclusion and that got me wondering, what is the worst version of something like this? What's an addition that completely changes how an enhanced version of a game feels compared to the original?

Personally I think that comes in the form of Alex from SMT Strange Journey Redux. Following in the tradition of enhanced edition girls in Atlus games, the SJ remake added a character named Alex who attacks you multiple times in the plot. She ends up killing you very early into the game which leads to you being revived in one of Redux's new dungeons, the Womb of Grief. Throughout the Womb she attacks you and serves as a boss or a threat multiple times until eventually meeting you in the second to last dungeon, Sector Hologrium. This final encounter is why I think she's one of the worst additions in any enhanced/definitive/remastered version of a game ever.

Like most other mainline SMT titles there's an alignment system and different endings you can get depending on your alignment. SJ's endings are notable for how horrible they are, not as endings but for the consequences it has on humanity. None of the outcomes are good and it really makes you think about which one is the least worst for humanity. They're very open and left to interpretation which I absolutely love. Alex destroys all of this. You see she's actually a time traveler from the ending you would have gotten if you continue the game normally. In all three scenarios she's left as the only human alive and she travels back in time in order to prevent you from causing it. If completed the Womb of Grief and believe what she says, you're put on track to begin the new endings added with SJR and she fades as you create a new timeline where she was never born.

The issue with Alex is very simple. Her existence alone only serves to ruin the nuance and alternate interpretation you could have taken from the vanilla endings. She spells out what happens very clearly and definitively. She's also very unique in the fact she also retroactively ruins vanilla Strange Journey as Redux is technically a sequel to it with her inclusion. The worst part is is that the new endings she causes are actually great. They're very optimistic interpretations of the original endings and SMT's alignments as a whole while not being completely devoid of consequences. I think New Chaos is probably my favorite ending in the entire series just because of how it manages to frame the concept of freedom. New Law is also probably the only Law ending I can actually get on board with. I just wish they didn't have to tear the original endings down to prop them up. Past her involvement with the endings she doesn't really have a lot to her. She's strong, she misses her mother, it's heavily implied the protaganist is her father which means he's one of the only characters in the series to successfully bone a demon. Every time you see her she tries to fight you which prevents you from learning anything meaningful about her except for your final encounter.

I think if I had to fix her inclusion, I'd want it so that she wouldn't fade upon agreeing to the ending choice. The fact she fades means that everything she said was correct, if she didn't that gives you more wiggle room for interpretation. Was she telling the truth? Is what she said always destined to happen unless you agree with her or is there still room to change? That also gives her the opportunity for some actual character moments with you. In order to get the new endings you have to clear the second new dungeon, the Empyrean Ascent. Not a lot actually happens in it and it's probably the shortest dungeon in the game next to Sector Carina and Delphinus, it's practically a victory lap. You could have had some moments with her there, get to know her more as a person.

Does it get better? I just saved aegiomon and he looked at stars with Inori, so far it seems slow paced and not much is going on

So lately I was interested in exploring the concept behind extra content in JRPGs because I know that some players usually quit the game once the beat the final boss.

However, I was interested in seeing how common post game sections were in the genre aside from Disgaea where even if one beats the game, there is still some bonus content to explore because I have a fondness for JRPGs with extra layers of content.

Like what I am getting at is that I enjoy looking for challenges where some hidden bosses are by far the most difficult to beat because of how they are designed since lately I like to find replay value in games that offer more depth again instead of just ending when the main adversary is defeated.

I've noticed a lot of games specially those around early 2000s involve a big plot twist where the game becomes sci fi or it is revealed a secret technologically advanced civilization was the pioneer of whatever conflict is happening in the game.

It is a strange but somewhat very consistent trope, where does this originate from? A lot of fantasy games suddenly turn sci fi for the final chapter and it surprises me how many titles/series actually do this.

If you could erase your memory and replay any JRPG for the first time again which would it be?
For me I would want to replay Persona 5 Royal for the first time again. While I cherish the memory of that game from it being one of my first big series on my channel I’d love to play it again for the first time just for that amazing twist and true final boss fight as a whole.

JRPG's are great. We can all say that. Some are better than others, of course. There are a handful of JRPG's though that have that one or two things that make them more memorable/stand out, either because of a fun gimmick/mechanic, mini game, etc. So today I wanted to ask, this

What is one thing you would like to see more of in JRPG's? (for the love of all that is holy, elaborate why)

For me, I understand it'll cost more budget, but I'll always appreciate it when weapons and armor have a physical appearance and change design in battle depending on the weapon you equip. Say for instance the MC is using a basic Iron sword. But if I give him a serrated blade, it'd be awesome to see it and not the stock iron sword graphic. Or say I put sandals on a female character, that equipment piece would be on the characters model. Stuff like that is awesome (Again, it's a budget thing, I understand this. If people are worried about ruining cutscenes, the game should adopt what Xenoblade DE did which is like a transmog thing)

One other thing, Chained Echoes has really spoiled me, I want every battle to end in being fully recovered so I don't have to constantly reopen the menu everytime I get into a battle and heal everyone for the unteenth time. The recovery items won't be useless, cause they'll be used in battle, which imo is better.

This goes for any game, but the option to turn off rumble, and the option to customize controls (the latter more so being for games that are action combat focused though) Left face button is primary attack, up face button is heavy. If it's not those two buttons, you're doing it wrong (glares at souls games and Monhun)

Finally, when done well, crafting weapons, armor, accessories, and potions is amazing. Doesn't have to be an open world style game, just let me use monster parts to make stuff and break the game if I can (Atelier in a nutshell from what I've heard)

I will start with FFXIII, even though I love the game.

*group finding Serah lying on the ground*

"Is that... my hero?"

I'm asking here because I'm too scared to ask on the actual r/KingdomHearts for fear of being summarily executed.

I'm craving the gameplay of KH, and I only played 1, CoM, 2, and 358/2 way back when I was a kid. I'd like to play through the series, and I am actually interested in the big picture story stuff with Org 13, Roxas/Sora situation, etc., but I could not give less of a shit about listening to Tron tell me about his world or w/e, and I know the ratio of legitimately interesting story beats to filler disney cross-over for the sake of it is all whacky. Because of that, I can't just reliably skip cutscenes.

Does anybody know of a mod that would let me fast forward the cutscenes so I can stop fast forwarding when I see xemnas show up or w/e? I know that's the sort of thing that you can do on emulator (though I don't know how reliable it is for emulating these games), but I'd rather not bother with emulation if I can help it.

Okay, so I just finished beat the final boss in Starbites, saw the credits roll and... The final trophy, "The Journey Continues", did not unlock. I did get the trophy for defeating Delphi though. So right now, I have every trophy except for that one and the platinum of course.

I've tried starting the epilogue, but there are no more (main) quests to complete and no way to rebattle the final boss. I've tried reloading my save, restarting the game, but still nothing.

Needless to say, this sucks. Has anyone experienced this issue as well? And did you or did you not find a solution?

I'm looking to collect a list of favorite/interesting video game mechanics from RPG type games. I know there's this list but that's tropes, not mechanics. Here's a couple examples of what I'm thinking:

• In one (maybe a few) Final Fantasy games, the person leading the party changes the Tent icon when used.
• In Breath of Fire, the leader of the party can do different things on the overworld. (ex. Ox can hit trees)
• Xenogears (and I think Legend of Legia) had a combat mechanic where you would chain together punches and kicks and if you did them in the right order you would do a special move.
• Some games with Day/Night systems have events that only happen at day or night (like sneaking into town at night)

If you can remember the game please include it but not necessary. So what are some of your most favorite/overused/hated mechanics from games? Anything goes: loot systems, party friendship, crafting, whatever. Thanks for the help!

I took some time and made this sheet for all Metal Max/Metal Saga releases and what their status of english translations is!

This is a very unique JRPG series (though you can compare it to something like Wild Arms, Fallout or Valkyria Chronicles) and thanks to fans you can basically play all the mainline titles in English, so I hope this sheet will be useful to someone!

I already tried the original back in 2016 when I was just trying any old school JRPG I could find but honestly I got kind of bored and lost interest.

Would like to try it again and maybe even finish the whole series. I'm leaning more towards playing the remake but is there any missing content in the PS2 remake I should be concerned about?

I assume someone here has. I'm thinking about giving it a go, but the installation process seems quite tedious, so I'd prefer to jump in knowing that it's worth the effort.

Combat fun? Good story? That sort of thing. Thanks.