I played FFVII when it came out and hadn’t played a JRPG before. I thought I was getting near the end of the game until I left Midgar and saw the world map for the first time.
To be fair, having multiple discs spoiled it. Yeah I had the "whoa, Midgar is just one small part of the map?" moment, but the fact I hadn't even switched to disc 2 was a hint.
So I didn’t know there were multiple discs. My brother had started playing and stopped because he has terrible taste in games apparently. I just started playing with the disc already in there. So I got out of Midgar, thought “oh my god, there’s so much more to this game”, and then hours of play later, I looked at the box and saw there were two more discs. Yet again, I was blown away with how much was left.
My Star Ocean 2 second disc worked fine until you actually beat the game and it froze (since most of the space on psx discs was for FMVs). I bought one of those disc doctors but I don't think I ever saw it before youtube.
I remember playing Parasite Eve for the first time at a friend's house, got to the part where it said "insert disc 2" and he was ADAMANT that I turn off the system to switch to switch discs. Learned the hard way that they expected you to open the disc tray and swap with the console on and had to replay the annoying last boss of disc 1 again (unlike FF, PE did not let you save right before the disc prompt).
On the other hand, the discs are so front-loaded it's almost a red herring really. If you finish disc 1 so you think you must be 1/3rd of the way in, you're going to be disappointed -- it's more like 65 / 25 / 10 (of course, exact values may vary depending on when you do certain optional content)
Very true, I remember the last disc was always just end game content and what took up the bulk of the space was the FMVs for the ending. Funny how almost all of FF7's towns and map fit onto disc 3 so you could still revisit with new dialogue even though there wasn't any story reason.
There's also the fact that some games, like Resident Evil 2, had different discs for different game modes, so it wasn't a dead giveaway, just a strong hint.
No, its 12 hours of the game. The entire game is only 58 hours long, 12 hours is much more than just the end of the game. its got 5 dungeons and 18 boss fights.
I had the exact same experience. It was my first JRPG as well, and I was... Bad at it. The fact that I was dying and had to work hard at it really added to the experience. Of course now I know what I'm doing, so I don't know how you can replicate that experience without just being infuriating.
As sort a result of playing JRPGs I had bit of a learning curve with Baldur's Gate 3. I had to adjust to the fact that things like poison and slow are actually worth investing in. Was used to not investing in things I assumed wouldn't work on tough enemies.
Anyone here play GBA version of 1 & 2? With the extra add-ons they added at the end I only beat the first game. I also had three and four. Out of all four games I only beat the first. And on top of that I'm pretty sure it took me a week of prepping and training for the final dlc tower.
Pretty sure in the end I went to game FAQs to get help with the last parts of the game.
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u/DecoyOne 4h ago
I played FFVII when it came out and hadn’t played a JRPG before. I thought I was getting near the end of the game until I left Midgar and saw the world map for the first time.
It blew my teenage mind.