Recently I have been playing a lot of JRPGs. The remake of Live A Live as well as some Super Famicom games that were never released outside of Japan but got a fan translation.
The Live A Live remake was pretty enjoyable in general even if some of the chapters were slower than the other. I think some redesign could have been done but then it would have been a remake any more. One chapter for example that involves setting traps could have done with a random placement mechanic. Other chapters I think lack replayability like the distant future chapter, it is a cool mix of 2001 and Alien but it is mostly a visual novel with the player going from plot point to plot point. My favorite chapter despite that it could be slow sometimes was the near future one because of its many manga influences and super robot theme. I so much like the Buriki Daioh theme once it starts.
The game is not very long which I think works in its favor as gameplay can become repetitive. Fortunately most people's skills can be unlocked pretty quickly and not much experience grinding is required unless the player wants more health. As there is no traditional shop mechanic the player also does not have to do fights in order to do cash though that does not mean that there is not some kind of resource gathering mechanic and in a couple of chapter there is the shop like trade-mechanic system which unfortunately has a level of randomness to it; you either get good, equal, or worse stuff for what you trade.
On a side note, I found out that this game was the director's debut of the director of Chrono Trigger. That would explain the structure but also why I enjoyed this game as I also enjoyed that title.
After that I started a bit searching around. I considered playing Final Fantasy 6 but I never really got into that game as I don't care for some of the content after I looked it up on Wikipedia. Yeah I know that spoiling things would ruin the experience but as I feel I have only so much time I would rather focus on games that really have my heart. I eventually settled on playing Cyber Knight 1 and later 2 for the Super Famicom. I was drawn to the series in the first place when I learned it was a mix between a space adventure and an RPG. When I first saw it it gave me a bit of an original Phantasy Star series vibe though a better description would probably be 90s sci fi anime. Plot of the first game is simple, a jump drive accident strands the main characters near the center of the galaxy and they must find a way to get back to Earth. The game starts somewhat linear before it opens up more later on, but progression remains a linear path though there are some side quests to do for better gear. the combat actually involves some tactics as the player needs to position their characters-in-mech suits depending on what weapon systems they use at specific locations and the position of an enemy also influences if a player can perform an attack. And as there are a variety of weapon systems some weapons work better on certain enemies than others. And the various mech suits also have different stats.
What I thought worked well in this game is that the player does not need to shop for items. Upgrades like improving existing weapons and armor and acquiring new weapons and defense systems is done by defeating enemies and salvaging their remains, or finding upgrades in chests. There is some bartering in the game but this is mostly for plot required items and some bonus items.
My main criticism with this game is a problem a lot of SNES JRPGs have, the high number of combat encounters. It is idiotic sometimes how often the player can run into an enemy. Another sort of point of criticism is the lack of healing a pilot of fixing a mech during combat. Healing and fixing can only done between fights. This may not necessarily have been a mistake on the designers but the annoying thing can be to run into an enemy who has a really powerful attack that drains both mech and player health pools. The player is also limited by the number of health kits and repair sets they can carry. The initial number is fine but the player can not raise the number and with how powerful some of the later enemies are this can become an obstacle as the player is then forced to return to their ship to repair their ship and restore their supply which means even more enemy encounters. And the option of running away is a joke half the time you use it. I think this could have been resolved by the player being able to find repair kits and health kits 'on the field'.
Edit: one issue with combat also is that it is very easy to 'loose' an attack. Not that the attack misses but it can not be performed because the enemy has either moved out of range for this particular attack, or has taken a position that should still put it in range but for some reason the game says the action can not be performed.
The frustration with enemies that are immune to your mechs' current selected weapons is that you can only replace them on your ship. You can't for example take a couple of them in your backpack and replace them in the field. And trust me, it gets really repetitive when you try repeated to hit an enemy with a melee attack or shoot them and they just shrug it off. Those plasma things on the lava planet can eat a #####.
And content wise it shows that the first game was somewhat of an early SNES games, both the visuals which are somewhat of a downgrade of the TurboGraph 16 version, and the storyline which shows a lot of promise but feels half finished after introducing some interesting plot points. The second game improves on both of these but I feel it could still have done a bit better in general.
I actually thought this game and its sequel are pretty good non Square JRPGs. I liked the themes, the storylines in general, and the gameplay outside of a few issues I think could have been designed better. I would love to see both of these being remade for today's consoles with some of the changes and additions that I mentioned.
I have also been trying out Treasure Hunter G, another fan translated game. Content wise it is a lot of JRPG staples, young kid (and his brother) go looking for their missing father and discover that evil has been unleashed in the world. Gameplay is quite different from a standard JRPG just like with Cyber Knight. Like that game the player must also move their characters across a 'game board' to position them to do an attack or perform another action. One thing that makes this one a bit weird is that there is the option to throw items from the inventory. When player characters are not close to each other items like health potions can not be passed on towards another, instead the item must be thrown to the character for who it is intended. Likewise the player can also throw certain items at enemies that can stun them for a while or prevent them from doing certain attacks.
The issues I ran into with this one is that it is very difficult to acquire money, at least in the beginning as most enemies (at least animals) do not drop money when defeated, which does make sense from a real world point of view. Why would a bee drop money when defeated. But this makes it hard to stock up on health items, not that it matters much as not all stores sell these. Often you have to be lucky to find one in battles.
Another issue I ran into is a lack of magic in the beginning. None of the characters start with any kind of health spell. It does not matter that early on but eventually you start running into enemies with an area effect attack and this is where the unpleasantness starts. Often when the battle begins the enemy with the area effect attack is on the other side of the board, spamming its attack on every turn. Not having any ranged weapon (well maybe I can throw the weapon the player character is holding but that leaves him unarmed), and no ranged magic like say a fireball or a lightning strike, and you quickly see your health pool dry out. Yeah, this quickly became very tiresome. And not being able to stock up on health items, not that it would help because of limited inventory, and battles became things you want to avoid.
After that I gave Metal Max Returns a try. Metal Max Returns is basically a West imagined post apocalypse imagined as a JRPG. The series was started by the guy who created or directed the Dragon Quest series. What is interesting is that it is in some ways a very open world RPG. You are still limited by the layout of the land and available equipment to fight enemies but in general you can go wherever you want. The player is not even out to fight a great threat, he just wants to be an adventurer, though there is a big threat in the game the player can take out. Despite being a PA setting the designers don't take it too seriously such as with the enemies. You have your standard mutant staples like giant ants and raiders, but also intelligent gun using monkeys, creatures from the black lagoon, creatures that are a hybrid between animal and machines such as caterpillars with gun turrets for heads, robotic worms with drills as a head, octopus tanks, a hippopotamus combined with a canon, dogs with guns and missile launchers fitted on their back.
Showing perhaps its Mad Max inspiration (which probably also inspired its name) is that the player and companions can fight both on foot but also in vehicles like tanks, a buggy, a truck. In fact it is in general recommended to fight in vehicles because of the higher armor and superior firepower. The player can modify these vehicles with various new parts such as better engines armor, primary weapons, auxiliary weapons, special weapons, target computer. This is something I have not seen often in a JRPG.
This is a game that should hold my attention but after taking out a couple of very powerful cannons that block the path to the next part of the world map I decided to take a break from MMR as I was a bit done with both the grinding and how slow the game's campaign goes. Instead I decided to give its sequel which was remade for the DS and translated by fans a try.
Metal Max 2 Reloaded starts out with a somewhat stronger story premise; the player is part of a group of mercenaries that tried to stop a gang of raiders from kidnapping people from a town, only for most of them including the player character's adoptive mother being killed by the raiders' leader when he sets them all on fire with a flamethrower. The player only barely survives and has to be healed back to strength before he or she (player can now choose to play as a boy or a girl) can decide to go after the raiders to avenge their parent figure and find out why the raiders are kidnapping people. That definitely gives a better motivation to go looking for the bad guys.
The game definitely plays a lot smoother then MMR but at this point I felt I had to take a break as going through all these games to find one that I really wanted to play was become a bit tiresome itself.
