There's actually an option to bypass the farming. Have a character gift an item to another character and if it's their favorite item it super boosts the relationship without needing to battle.
Fire Emblem Awakening, Fates, and Genealogy.
In all of those, not only do friendly characters get bonuses for fighting near each other, AND conversation cutscenes, they can have recruitable children whose stats are affected by the parents AND can inherit skills (and in Genealogy rare items!) from parents.
In Awakening, for example, a skill that lets a unit act twice is femme exclusive unless they pass it to a male child.
I assume you mean >!galeforce!< and can it even be passed to male children? I know fates you couldn't pass gender excusive class skills to opposite gender children (like when I tried to pass >!ignis!< to a female child unit and no dice)
Ohhh yes Galeforce can be passed to male children in Awakening. In Lunatic I make it a *point* to have female MU marry Chrom and rank up Dark Flier ASAP to recruit M!Morgan with Galeforce early enough that I can actually *use* him to fight without being outmatched by all the high level enemies. The one negative I have to say about Awakening is that using children characters on Lunatic is nigh-impossible. Lucina, M!Morgan, and Kjelle are about it.
Counter, from the male-exclusive Warrior class, can be passed down to female kids too.
Fates kind of muddles this, because any single skill is possible to attach to any other character provided that character can actually learn it either through inheritance or through reclass*
Slapping Galeforce on a child character is easy; look for a castle that actually has that character and the related skill and buy it from them, and then you can slot it in.
///* The Caveat here is that there are hacked My Castles that offer all skills on all characters. This is both good and bad, depending on how much of a purist you want to be, but I'd rather not touch the B A B Y R E A L M S.
Fates is so frustrating to me because I *adore* most of the children characters (Soleil! Velouria! Forrest! Percy! Nina! Selkie! Midori!), and love the whole child mechanic (as mentioned), but think the whole outrealms "Let's put our kid in there to keep them safe!" is *stupid*.
Just the dumbest thing ever.
"Hype Ebonics Rhyme Chamber" - DBZA's Goku.
I get that they wanted to do something different than Awakening, and lean more into the Outrealms/dimensional travel hinted in that game, but man... it really does *not* work very well as a story element.
Interesting, wonder why they removed being able to transfer opposite gender skills in fates, or maybe they only removed it on dlc classes. My awakening child units were a hodgepodge as I didn't know about the mechanic nor galeforce but some ended up being legit, like Tharja with Friedrick for a luna sniper Noire
Fates has some of the best *characters* in the FE games, and some of the most challenging maps in the Conquest route, but *damn* is the plot too convoluted by half.
Though I'm dying for a Geneology remake, especially if it cuts down on Leon Leonstar's role - the dev had a serious crush on him and basically had him take the story away from the actual MC. Then did a whole game just about him in Thracia 776.
What makes Geneology cool is that there's a timeskip and you have to recruit the children (and some of the adults) from the first generation, and that they use fewer but MUCH larger maps with multiple castles. What makes it UNcool are some very badly dated mechanics, and the larger maps heavily favor Cavalry units.
Thousand Arms might be one of the games available on the PS3 network still. I got a bunch of RPGs I wouldn't have been able to play otherwise, like Tron Bonne. They are also reasonably priced, with most being 5-10 bucks.
I just checked on my PS3. Thousand Arms, Brave Fencer Musashi, and Beyond the Beyond are not available in the PSN. They aren't even listed. At least, not in the American PSN on the PS3, and since that's the only one I've set up an account for I'll consider it effectively absolute. That means that I've already gotten all of the PS-X games that are on it that I want to have over a decade ago (seriously, I haven't bought any 'PSOne Classics' on my PS3 since the PS4 launched) and now I'm down to just trying to save up money and hit eBay for them.
And yeah, I had to replace my stolen copies of Mega Man Legends 2 and The Misadventures of Tron Bonne via it many years ago as well. I do have a physical copy of MML, though I might also have a digital copy on my PS3. There aren't very many games where I have both physical and digital versions (without one adding additional content beyond what was in the other), but there are a few.
I'm not sure if I still have my copy of beyond the beyond. I didn't like it as a kid. My mom got it from some random guy at a flea market. I've got my brave fencer and thousand arms. Bummer the ps3 network didn't have it. It has a few I wanted when I check about a year back.
I've heard mixed things about Beyond the Beyond, and even I'm not sure if it's worth it or not, but it's one of the three PS-X games I don't have that I am still interested in.
I haven't done a thorough check on the PSN via the PS3 in about a decade now, but that's because Sony has had any new PSOne or PS2 Classics release on it that I've heard about in that long. Anything that was newly becoming available on the PSN was releasing on the PS4, and maybe PS Vita, instead, at least as far as the ones I was hearing about at the time go. Maybe some of the ones that have been releasing for the PS4 since they re-worked the PSN subscriptions have also been releasing for the PS3, if they weren't already on it (getting that refund because I had already bought it for my PS3 all those years ago is a nice touch when I pick one up for my PS4).
I've been picking up many RPGs (original or remaster) on PSP and Switch lately. Beyond the Beyond is alright, very old school. Like, it doesn't even tell you where your objectives are. You are told what you want to do and just given a map lol. Confused the hell out of me as a kid. I have some retro friends that loved it. I adore FF Tactics but I've had friends who hated it because they said it was too difficult and explains very little, so it may just come down to my personal experiences.
I don't mind having to figure out where things are on my own, so long as it makes a reasonable effort to tell me what to look for. I mean, I've played through Wild Arms 2, 3, Alter Code: F, and 5, and that's a notable part of those games.
Now, if there are a bunch of various side-quests I do prefer a good quest log that helps me to keep track of the details, so I don't have to do that by hand, but these days, unless it's on a handheld, I've got a computer at hand for doing that so it isn't nearly as much of a pain as it was for me back in the 90s and early 2000s when I had to take those notes by hand.
You know, I just moved today, and I brought my collection of PS1-PS2 games with me, but my actual PS2 is dying, and I'm thinking I might sell off the whole collection, and put up a post on this sub with my own short reviews/descriptions of everything in it. I have a copy, and I'd be happy if I knew it were going to an enthusiastic new owner.
If you can wait until the 21st I'd definitely be interested in Thousand Arms, and if you have them Brave Fencer Musashi, Beyond the Beyond, MagnaCarta: Tears of Blood, Growlanser Generations, Shining Force EXA, Inuyasha: The Secret of the Cursed Mask, Rune Factory: Frontier, and Castlevania: Curse of Darkness. Those are definitely my high priority interests, though I'm not sure if I'll be able to afford all of them, even with the paycheck I'll get that day.
I have Brave Fencer Musashi, but not any of the others.
I'm okay selling them for cheap, if you're up for offering feedback afterwards on what you thought of them.
That's fine with me. I've been interested in Thousand Arms for roughly 20 years now, but anytime I might have the money to get it off of eBay the price either goes way up, or I have a surprise bill appear and take the money.
As for Brave Fencer Musashi.......I had it many, many years ago, and have played it all the way through. It is one of the most humorous journeys of being the Small Turd who stops a 'wet' empire and saves a 'well fed' kingdom. Yes, I still chuckle at those jokes, over 20 years later. What was even better was that the combat was actually rather good for the time as well and everything had a nice, balanced pacing to it. I don't have it anymore because about 21 years ago most of my games, and even the PS2 I had at the time, were stolen from me. I still haven't replaced everything, and honestly some of them I don't mind never replacing, but this one has stuck with me as the last one needing replaced since then.
Well, on my end I've replayed Brave Fencer Musashi enough times that the memories aren't likely to fade any time soon. I've often wanted to play the sequel, but I've heard it was pretty disappointing in comparison.
Thousand Arms isn't all that great from a gameplay/balance standpoint, but it has a lot of charm, and it's the sort of game I wish had been more successful to motivate other studios to try more like it. It's a game whose good points are uncommon, and whose weaknesses could be improved on by copying things that have worked for other games, so rather than the studio seeing it as an unsuccessful experiment, I'd much rather they'd taken an attitude of "try again, try better."
Yeah, I remember hearing that all of the cute humor from BFM was missing in the sequel as well. I think I tried playing it, and didn't care for it, but I'm not going to swear to that as it would've been a \_long\_ time ago.
Oh, I've heard a lot about the gameplay/balance problems of Thousand Arms. I'm not terribly bothered by that, as the game is still functionally playable. I'm more interested in the story. As for companies not trying again, that's because most of the time they can't be bothered to learn \_why\_ something failed, which is why there are so many that have a similar concept to Thousand Arms and have been rather successful, instead of the near-flop that was Thousand Arms.
Scarlet Nexus, the protagonists speak so their conversations actually are better imo since they're not one sided. The conversations tend to get really long winded by the end though.
I love Persona games, but social links and conversation feel kinda awkward since the others basically monologue for eternity and you just say one sentence every one in a while. Doesn't feel natural imo.
Scarlet Nexus is legit the greatest hideout of all time. Even though it's just a couple basic rooms, the way it goes from barren at the start of the game to completely overflowing with decorations by the end of NG+ when you've completed both routes is unlike anything else. Literal hundreds of amazing and unique idle animations for your party members that give them so much additional personality and they all just endlessly cycle meaning there are literally tens of thousands of different possible hideout states and you'll almost certainly never see the exact same configuration twice. Plus that absolute jam of the music track for it. SN's OST is all around elite and the hideout theme is no exception.
Another underrated factor is that the lack of a romance system means that the bonding events can create clearly defined and diverse relationships and dynamics between all the different characters rather than just generic "so are you gonna pick this one" setup templates like you get in games like Persona or Cold Steel. It's a refreshing change from most bond systems devolving into low-substance waifubait. And then the fact that you have two protagonists means you get to see a totally different side of the party members in each route's bond line. Like Gemma's bond in Yuito route focuses more on his external issues with the OSF and its treatment of veterans, but then in Kasane route focuses on the internal survivor's guilt he suffers from as someone whose power makes it almost impossible to die but has had to watch countless teammates die around him.
Scarlet Nexus' main issue with the social interactions was the part where you're 'enemies' but then you just go and hang out with the people like nothing is happening.
It's from the Tales of Vesperia team, so it has some pedigree and charm. Even if it doesn't land 100% with you it's still a quality game you can probably appreciate regardless lol
I love persona but my personal enjoyment of the social links would be so much better if the protagonist had a concrete personality. The self insert thing is kinda BS and it just feels like I’m playing therapy to these people (especially in 5)
That’s why 4 is well regarded as the best in social interactions. The other party members often show up in each other’s social links and just make it much more fun
i really wish they went one way or the other on the self insert stuff. either give us a customizable protagonist so we can make it a real self insert or go all in with an actual character. the in-between option is just awkward.
That's the exact problem I have with Persona's social elements. AND the fact that their character development has to be ignorable, and never affect the main story. If social links were just backstory without any character progression, it'd make sense that it doesn't change how they act in the main story, but usually the end of the social link changes the character's outlook on life.
Most hardcore fans would revolt if we suggested Atlus could use a little BioWare in their development. But this is exactly the type of thing someone like me would be citing when making a statement like that, and I don't think it'd be all that overly difficult. Just have a few different lines of dialog and animations qued up for scenes and activate depending on your standing with the person in the scene. It doesn't have to be ground-breaking changes. Just internal consistency with the characters' developments
Yeah it's a bit lazy that social links have essentially stayed the same for years now. It would be cool if they actually had an impact on the main narrative for a change.
Ar Tonelico. You go into your characters' brainspace or whatever and do fetish roleplay with them then they get stronger. Which I say as a joke but I really wouldn't mind seeing the same system adapted to other games, with a less horny execution. Or more, you know, if I'm into it.
What I'd like to see more of is games where you can see bonds grow between party members without the MC being involved. Fire Emblem's like that I guess.
> What I'd like to see more of is games where you can see bonds grow between party members without the MC being involved.
I would love to see this implemented in ALL party-based RPGs.
This was a cute little feature in the Mass Effect games. If you didn't romance Garrus or Tali, they'd end up dating each other lol which is awesome and I'm not sure why more games don't do stuff like that. It'd be a shoe-in with the Persona games. I feel like it would make harem aspects in games like Cold Steel more tolerable to people like me as well. This was a huge problem in Rune Factory 5 where all the little girls kept chasing after me and annoying me. If I could have secured interest in one early on and have all the other girls and boys be interested in each other rather than me, that game would have been infinitely more enjoyable to me
Wow what a series thats a blast from the past. I remember finding out the optional superboss at the end of 2 actually crashed the game if you didn't beat her in like 3 turns or something and just nuking her down in one turn over and over again
Then you had the weird engrish way they'd say things like SYNCHRONITY CHAIN during battles.
Those inner brainspace scenes were fucking nuts sometimes lol
every choice you make, the food you cook, and the overworld skits give affection points to your party. This can affect things like who you have the >!Flanoir!< scene with, costumes you receive, who >!Mithos takes!<, highest affection is the person Lloyd goes on a journey with in the end, and even determining if >!Kratos stays in the party!<
Star Ocean The Second Story's Private Action System
So many freaking endings and you have loads of PA's everywhere.
I could say the same about most of the other Star Ocean games too.
I don't think the feedback of the relationship values into other elements of gameplay was as much as it could have been, but I've still never seen another game which I thought outdid SO2's Private Action system as a mechanism for engaging with those relationship values.
There's an indie RPGMaker game which had an interesting start and which I had high hopes for, but seems to be an aborted project, but one of the things I appreciated about it was that it recognized the value of SO2's Private Actions and just copied the system wholecloth (with some actually fun character writing to back it up.) I really wish Tri-Ace had recognized how well it worked and kept doing it like that.
Stella Glow - specifically when it comes to the witches in your party.
In-game innuendo aside, I like the idea of going into someone's psyche to help them over a mental block, and doing it via the game's combat system. it doesn't hurt that a lot of the tuning maps include gimmicks not seen in regular story maps. The fights can get frustrating at times, but the unlocked abilities and character development from it really makes them worthwhile.
The first Fire Emblem game with a meaningful relationship system also had the best one. It's also never been officially localized (FE4: Geneaology of the Holy War). It's kind of spoilers to say why, but basically
>!You play the first half of the game as the parents of the characters in the second half. Certain characters can also pass on legendary weapons if they pair up with someone and you get entirely different characters as replacements for the kids if you don't pair people up, both of which adds some amount of replay value!<
I hope it gets a remake in the same way that shadow dragon and shadows of valentia. Three houses was litered with references to noble houses and place names and so on from FE4/5, and I really hoped as I was playing it that that meant they were thinking about porting or localizing those games.
In my opinion, it's the Ar Tonelico trilogy and Ar Nosurge that are the best, even if it's mostly limited to the MC and the Reyvateil(s) in your party. In Ar Tonelico I and II that was how you gained new Song Magics for your Reyvateils, got the Reyvateils new outfits with better stat boosts, it influenced the ending as well as the story path of the game (II saw more pronounced affects on the story path and ending), and it even influences your ability to sync with the Reyvateil in battle so that your front-liners can use better moves. Ar Tonelico Qoga and Ar Nosurge keep most of the effects, but they have a much more limited selection of Song Magics.
There are a few other games that blend the Dating Sim and RPG genres, with the progress you make on the Dating Sim side influencing either how powerful your characters are on the RPG side or what abilities they have access to. However, the rest that I know of are all Adult Only games, and I don't mention AO games by name in public forums unless said forums are age restricted. Still, I think the Ar Tonelico games did it better.
Persona, especially P5R. With the confident system you'll get to know your friends better by hanging out and also get advantages in the dungeons. These mechanics are awesome and very polished.
I would say yes with the caveat of how the romance system is pretty meh. The game does not acknowledge you dating anyone outside of very specific scenarios like Valentines. Even something minor that could easily be implemented like changing the final conversation you have with someone on last ingame day or changing what your partner says when you add them to the party would make it feel more like its actually happening.
The break room dialogues would have been a *really easy* place to implement at least a bit of variability, because they're already short, unvoiced interactions. On the scale of the amount of writing that already went into the game, adding a bit of modularity to those would have been simple, and it could have made a nice way for the game to acknowledge the state of your relationships, and maybe add to the replay value a bit, since you'd see different ones in different playthroughs if your confidant levels were different.
True, and specially if you hang out with certain confidants, you’ll become very busted, like the insta-enemy-kill you get if an enemy is of a lower level.
It activated constantly, except all you got was a persona if you had an open roster slot, which you often wouldn't have unless you just did mass fusions. So no exp, no bonus exp for the would be gained persona if its already in your roster, no money, no items
Trying to grind money or items or experience? Trying to just have fun playing the game? Not allowed
Royal did a hard 180 to correct the issue
I never beat it, but I put like 90 hours into Vanilla and don't recall this being a problem. But I'm not a completionist or anything. I never felt under leveled. I don't really recall being overly short on cash. I can't think of a reason to grind lower level enemies and if I need to grind for anything, why not reserve grinding to areas in your level range so this doesn't happen. Is this just a completionist issue?
It would trigger constantly during palace explorations. Sure money wasn't ever really an issue in p5 because it's "balanced" but trying to get a persona leveled up or for fusions and such? Dare to have fun ambushing enemies? Ryuji says get fucked
His instakill is part of why I despise the character. On top of him being a lazy copy of p4 Kanji and overall annoying
Yeah I think P5 is the best executed version of the concept as well. I wouldn't even be disappointed if they didn't change it at all for P6 because they basically nailed it there.
Star Ocean II, or even old sprite styled Fire Emblems. I don't like overly complicated systems and I dislike most romance stuff put into Jrpgs. Give it a little depth, a little player agency, and then leave me alone. If I wanted a dating sim, I'd play a dating sim.
The Last Sovereign also has these additional combat options once enough, uh, 'friendship', has been achieved with both """"friends""".
And the inter-"friends" banter might be the best part of the game !
Ar Tonelico is #1 by a considerable amount.
It impacts the main story.
Summon Night is very very good as well. Also impacts the main story, but the main gameplay loop isn't the best for the series.
Not a JRPG but the rivalry/friendship system in Dragon Age 2 was a very good experimental system that should have been expanded on. It’s one of the very few times a game has challenged the player to…not just mindlessly yes man their friends. Because both variants can still be friends!
It reminded me of how the Persona 3 protagonist is just a serial enabler to terrible people acting on terrible ideas, and how nice it is to have an option to not do that.
Another topic where I'll bring up Ar Tonelico 2. It's a recency bias since I was just playing it a week ago. But this is exactly why I started playing it. I was looking for a game with quality writing and palpable camaraderie of some sort. Someone made an impassioned review about how the romance and friendship works by literally diving into the psyche of some of your companions and dealing with their inner personas to get closer to them and help them resolve problems. Its very similar to persona awakenings in the Persona games, except that the awakening happens over and over the deeper and closer you get in their psyche. And the characters then get to "equip" these resolved personas as like a piece of equipment in their inventory but they come with huge stat and mechanical bonuses that make them more effective in combat
Yep, love Ar Tonelico. It's such a unique system. I love that it actually affects the main story, and that it's also the main way to unlock new song magic. Makes it feel really significant and worth doing.
I liked the bonding in Rune Factory. If you get lucky and go romance someone, you can even set up some dates or they might help you out with chores or fighting.
Persona 4 and 5 do well with this. Ones you reach like 9 in their bond they can tank a fatal blow for you- one of the earlier ones is they have a chance to remove a status effect.
The Trails of Cold Steel series implements bonds and romance options. You can get special items if you manage to max out these bonds. This is done through purchasing special items and choosing specific dialogue options which effect bonding.
I know you mentioned LAD8, but it really is one of the best precisely because the writing is so on point. So many other RPGs just don't have a quality level of writing in their romance/friendship systems at times. But LAD8 feels like it was written by a collection of people who are actually human beings who know what it's like to hang out with other human beings.
I actually really like the Barracks System from the Fire Emblem Tellius games. It let you have quite a few conversations with everyone and were all well written.
And I liked Xenoblade Chronicles X's friendship system. You gain friendship points through a number of things, from being in combat together to how people in your party react to your dialogue choices and so on. But on top of that, you unlock character quests over time as well. It also helps that because the main story isn't really the focus of the game, the entire experience as a whole is, you don't quite have that disconnect between character content and main story content you have in many other games with these kinds of systems.
Maybe hot take, but there are no good such systems. Ultimately they cause me to spend less time with my characters, either because spending time with them is a limited resource (so I either pick and choose who to spend time with, try and optimise my friendships mechanically, or really get to know a character then have to stop spending time with them).
I'm gonna be honest here. I disagree *very* strongly with this. I think the way Trails does it is a surprisingly poorly executed facsimile of Persona's social systems. With one of my major issues with it being how it's impossible to see all bonding events in one playthrough without reloading.
But to be fair, I feel that way about a lot of JRPGs that try to imitate the social systems and bonding mechanics of Persona. I don't think a lot of JRPGs get it right in the same way
Hmmm I disagree with it, but it's mostly because of a singular thing. It's the 'way' the writing is done on Persona.
Specifically it's because they use silent protagonists.
It just doesn't FEEL natural, at all, when the game goes deep into storytelling mode. Having your bond partner talk 99.9% of the time and you just being able to interact with a few options, and yet the game treats it as if you 'bonded'. The whole roleplay stuff simply doesn't do it for me in this scenario.
I think the fact Rean is a PROPER character for this makes all the difference, the bonding scenes themselves just feel a lot more natural.
> it's impossible to see all bonding events in one playthrough without reloading.
i consider this a pretty hefty pro
feels more like bonding and less like checklist game
This was gonna be my answer as well. I definitely don’t think CS is the “best” but it’s the one that hooked me the most. I genuinely cared about all my classmates stories and with each new game it’s always a blast learning more about those characters.
You kind of have to reload your saves to see all the bonding events though. Some of them hide some pretty good character development which you might otherwise not see, like in the case of Crow and Millium.
hear me out: Dragon Age 2. you can have friendship, lovey-dovey romance OR a love-hate relationship, and I can't think of another game that had this as an option.
would not call that romance at all, let alone a system for it.
Not even sure I would call it always friendship and more just comradery and fighting together.
But to answer and accurately, I would say the Fire Emblem and fire emblem like games since they give you the gameplay buff and are how you progress chats + romance and not just with your character but each other. And to progress them often is a long grind of gifts, talking, story, and fighting in same personal group.
(although personally I tend to find the romances in these very little, you just asked system so works).
I like the Heart-to-Heart feature in the Xenoblade Chronicles games.
I liked that one as well. Even the slight interactions with blades on XC2, XC3 lacked that, but I hope to see more in the future games.
I don't like how much farming is needed at a certain point for characters you didn't use as often together.
There's actually an option to bypass the farming. Have a character gift an item to another character and if it's their favorite item it super boosts the relationship without needing to battle.
Fire Emblem Awakening, Fates, and Genealogy. In all of those, not only do friendly characters get bonuses for fighting near each other, AND conversation cutscenes, they can have recruitable children whose stats are affected by the parents AND can inherit skills (and in Genealogy rare items!) from parents. In Awakening, for example, a skill that lets a unit act twice is femme exclusive unless they pass it to a male child.
I assume you mean >!galeforce!< and can it even be passed to male children? I know fates you couldn't pass gender excusive class skills to opposite gender children (like when I tried to pass >!ignis!< to a female child unit and no dice)
Ohhh yes Galeforce can be passed to male children in Awakening. In Lunatic I make it a *point* to have female MU marry Chrom and rank up Dark Flier ASAP to recruit M!Morgan with Galeforce early enough that I can actually *use* him to fight without being outmatched by all the high level enemies. The one negative I have to say about Awakening is that using children characters on Lunatic is nigh-impossible. Lucina, M!Morgan, and Kjelle are about it. Counter, from the male-exclusive Warrior class, can be passed down to female kids too.
Fates kind of muddles this, because any single skill is possible to attach to any other character provided that character can actually learn it either through inheritance or through reclass* Slapping Galeforce on a child character is easy; look for a castle that actually has that character and the related skill and buy it from them, and then you can slot it in. ///* The Caveat here is that there are hacked My Castles that offer all skills on all characters. This is both good and bad, depending on how much of a purist you want to be, but I'd rather not touch the B A B Y R E A L M S.
Fates is so frustrating to me because I *adore* most of the children characters (Soleil! Velouria! Forrest! Percy! Nina! Selkie! Midori!), and love the whole child mechanic (as mentioned), but think the whole outrealms "Let's put our kid in there to keep them safe!" is *stupid*. Just the dumbest thing ever.
IKR? Man, I would have preferred if they just used a time travel mechanic instead of a fucking hyperbolic time chamber mechanic.
"Hype Ebonics Rhyme Chamber" - DBZA's Goku. I get that they wanted to do something different than Awakening, and lean more into the Outrealms/dimensional travel hinted in that game, but man... it really does *not* work very well as a story element.
Interesting, wonder why they removed being able to transfer opposite gender skills in fates, or maybe they only removed it on dlc classes. My awakening child units were a hodgepodge as I didn't know about the mechanic nor galeforce but some ended up being legit, like Tharja with Friedrick for a luna sniper Noire
Def seconding Awakening and Fates. Fates has good supports even if the plot is kinda stinky.
Fates has some of the best *characters* in the FE games, and some of the most challenging maps in the Conquest route, but *damn* is the plot too convoluted by half. Though I'm dying for a Geneology remake, especially if it cuts down on Leon Leonstar's role - the dev had a serious crush on him and basically had him take the story away from the actual MC. Then did a whole game just about him in Thracia 776. What makes Geneology cool is that there's a timeskip and you have to recruit the children (and some of the adults) from the first generation, and that they use fewer but MUCH larger maps with multiple castles. What makes it UNcool are some very badly dated mechanics, and the larger maps heavily favor Cavalry units.
Thousand Arms. You get closer to the girls in your party to help level up your weapons and skills.
A thousand arms reference in the wild. Amazing
It's always in my replay every few years list. VERY underrated.
Yes sir, this guy get it. Amazing dating sim game, mediocre and enjoyable jrpg. It is the nostalgia talking.
Some day, I hope to have the money to get a copy from eBay as I'd love to play it.
Duckstation is pretty light, and even has a phone app if you just want to experience. But I get it if you want to experience is a collector
It's part being a collector and part having a working PS2 and backwards compatible PS3. Why pirate it when I can enjoy it the original way?
Cuz its a bunch of money, like you said.
That's why it's a long-term project.
Thousand Arms might be one of the games available on the PS3 network still. I got a bunch of RPGs I wouldn't have been able to play otherwise, like Tron Bonne. They are also reasonably priced, with most being 5-10 bucks.
I just checked on my PS3. Thousand Arms, Brave Fencer Musashi, and Beyond the Beyond are not available in the PSN. They aren't even listed. At least, not in the American PSN on the PS3, and since that's the only one I've set up an account for I'll consider it effectively absolute. That means that I've already gotten all of the PS-X games that are on it that I want to have over a decade ago (seriously, I haven't bought any 'PSOne Classics' on my PS3 since the PS4 launched) and now I'm down to just trying to save up money and hit eBay for them. And yeah, I had to replace my stolen copies of Mega Man Legends 2 and The Misadventures of Tron Bonne via it many years ago as well. I do have a physical copy of MML, though I might also have a digital copy on my PS3. There aren't very many games where I have both physical and digital versions (without one adding additional content beyond what was in the other), but there are a few.
I'm not sure if I still have my copy of beyond the beyond. I didn't like it as a kid. My mom got it from some random guy at a flea market. I've got my brave fencer and thousand arms. Bummer the ps3 network didn't have it. It has a few I wanted when I check about a year back.
I've heard mixed things about Beyond the Beyond, and even I'm not sure if it's worth it or not, but it's one of the three PS-X games I don't have that I am still interested in. I haven't done a thorough check on the PSN via the PS3 in about a decade now, but that's because Sony has had any new PSOne or PS2 Classics release on it that I've heard about in that long. Anything that was newly becoming available on the PSN was releasing on the PS4, and maybe PS Vita, instead, at least as far as the ones I was hearing about at the time go. Maybe some of the ones that have been releasing for the PS4 since they re-worked the PSN subscriptions have also been releasing for the PS3, if they weren't already on it (getting that refund because I had already bought it for my PS3 all those years ago is a nice touch when I pick one up for my PS4).
I've been picking up many RPGs (original or remaster) on PSP and Switch lately. Beyond the Beyond is alright, very old school. Like, it doesn't even tell you where your objectives are. You are told what you want to do and just given a map lol. Confused the hell out of me as a kid. I have some retro friends that loved it. I adore FF Tactics but I've had friends who hated it because they said it was too difficult and explains very little, so it may just come down to my personal experiences.
I don't mind having to figure out where things are on my own, so long as it makes a reasonable effort to tell me what to look for. I mean, I've played through Wild Arms 2, 3, Alter Code: F, and 5, and that's a notable part of those games. Now, if there are a bunch of various side-quests I do prefer a good quest log that helps me to keep track of the details, so I don't have to do that by hand, but these days, unless it's on a handheld, I've got a computer at hand for doing that so it isn't nearly as much of a pain as it was for me back in the 90s and early 2000s when I had to take those notes by hand.
You know, I just moved today, and I brought my collection of PS1-PS2 games with me, but my actual PS2 is dying, and I'm thinking I might sell off the whole collection, and put up a post on this sub with my own short reviews/descriptions of everything in it. I have a copy, and I'd be happy if I knew it were going to an enthusiastic new owner.
If you can wait until the 21st I'd definitely be interested in Thousand Arms, and if you have them Brave Fencer Musashi, Beyond the Beyond, MagnaCarta: Tears of Blood, Growlanser Generations, Shining Force EXA, Inuyasha: The Secret of the Cursed Mask, Rune Factory: Frontier, and Castlevania: Curse of Darkness. Those are definitely my high priority interests, though I'm not sure if I'll be able to afford all of them, even with the paycheck I'll get that day.
I have Brave Fencer Musashi, but not any of the others. I'm okay selling them for cheap, if you're up for offering feedback afterwards on what you thought of them.
That's fine with me. I've been interested in Thousand Arms for roughly 20 years now, but anytime I might have the money to get it off of eBay the price either goes way up, or I have a surprise bill appear and take the money. As for Brave Fencer Musashi.......I had it many, many years ago, and have played it all the way through. It is one of the most humorous journeys of being the Small Turd who stops a 'wet' empire and saves a 'well fed' kingdom. Yes, I still chuckle at those jokes, over 20 years later. What was even better was that the combat was actually rather good for the time as well and everything had a nice, balanced pacing to it. I don't have it anymore because about 21 years ago most of my games, and even the PS2 I had at the time, were stolen from me. I still haven't replaced everything, and honestly some of them I don't mind never replacing, but this one has stuck with me as the last one needing replaced since then.
Well, on my end I've replayed Brave Fencer Musashi enough times that the memories aren't likely to fade any time soon. I've often wanted to play the sequel, but I've heard it was pretty disappointing in comparison. Thousand Arms isn't all that great from a gameplay/balance standpoint, but it has a lot of charm, and it's the sort of game I wish had been more successful to motivate other studios to try more like it. It's a game whose good points are uncommon, and whose weaknesses could be improved on by copying things that have worked for other games, so rather than the studio seeing it as an unsuccessful experiment, I'd much rather they'd taken an attitude of "try again, try better."
Yeah, I remember hearing that all of the cute humor from BFM was missing in the sequel as well. I think I tried playing it, and didn't care for it, but I'm not going to swear to that as it would've been a \_long\_ time ago. Oh, I've heard a lot about the gameplay/balance problems of Thousand Arms. I'm not terribly bothered by that, as the game is still functionally playable. I'm more interested in the story. As for companies not trying again, that's because most of the time they can't be bothered to learn \_why\_ something failed, which is why there are so many that have a similar concept to Thousand Arms and have been rather successful, instead of the near-flop that was Thousand Arms.
Scarlet Nexus, the protagonists speak so their conversations actually are better imo since they're not one sided. The conversations tend to get really long winded by the end though. I love Persona games, but social links and conversation feel kinda awkward since the others basically monologue for eternity and you just say one sentence every one in a while. Doesn't feel natural imo.
I like that the gifts matter in Scarlet Nexus too and you can see your companions interact with them in the hideout
Yeah, that's a cool little touch. Grinding for all the gifts is a bit tedious though.
Scarlet Nexus is legit the greatest hideout of all time. Even though it's just a couple basic rooms, the way it goes from barren at the start of the game to completely overflowing with decorations by the end of NG+ when you've completed both routes is unlike anything else. Literal hundreds of amazing and unique idle animations for your party members that give them so much additional personality and they all just endlessly cycle meaning there are literally tens of thousands of different possible hideout states and you'll almost certainly never see the exact same configuration twice. Plus that absolute jam of the music track for it. SN's OST is all around elite and the hideout theme is no exception. Another underrated factor is that the lack of a romance system means that the bonding events can create clearly defined and diverse relationships and dynamics between all the different characters rather than just generic "so are you gonna pick this one" setup templates like you get in games like Persona or Cold Steel. It's a refreshing change from most bond systems devolving into low-substance waifubait. And then the fact that you have two protagonists means you get to see a totally different side of the party members in each route's bond line. Like Gemma's bond in Yuito route focuses more on his external issues with the OSF and its treatment of veterans, but then in Kasane route focuses on the internal survivor's guilt he suffers from as someone whose power makes it almost impossible to die but has had to watch countless teammates die around him.
Scarlet Nexus' main issue with the social interactions was the part where you're 'enemies' but then you just go and hang out with the people like nothing is happening.
Yeah, I was really confused when someone was like "I WILL FUCKING KILL YOU!" and next scene you're hanging out with him xD
That sounds hilarious, I got to play this game
It's from the Tales of Vesperia team, so it has some pedigree and charm. Even if it doesn't land 100% with you it's still a quality game you can probably appreciate regardless lol
I love persona but my personal enjoyment of the social links would be so much better if the protagonist had a concrete personality. The self insert thing is kinda BS and it just feels like I’m playing therapy to these people (especially in 5)
That’s why 4 is well regarded as the best in social interactions. The other party members often show up in each other’s social links and just make it much more fun
i really wish they went one way or the other on the self insert stuff. either give us a customizable protagonist so we can make it a real self insert or go all in with an actual character. the in-between option is just awkward.
That's the exact problem I have with Persona's social elements. AND the fact that their character development has to be ignorable, and never affect the main story. If social links were just backstory without any character progression, it'd make sense that it doesn't change how they act in the main story, but usually the end of the social link changes the character's outlook on life.
There's a definite disconnect in social links for sure. Maybe P6 will change things up a bit but I doubt it.
Most hardcore fans would revolt if we suggested Atlus could use a little BioWare in their development. But this is exactly the type of thing someone like me would be citing when making a statement like that, and I don't think it'd be all that overly difficult. Just have a few different lines of dialog and animations qued up for scenes and activate depending on your standing with the person in the scene. It doesn't have to be ground-breaking changes. Just internal consistency with the characters' developments
Yeah it's a bit lazy that social links have essentially stayed the same for years now. It would be cool if they actually had an impact on the main narrative for a change.
Infinite Wealth really upped the bond system and made them better. Too bad there's none between Kiryu and Ichiban, sad.
Its already maxed so no use.
Nah, you have to build them up too. It's just that there aren't any drink links for each checkpoint.
Ar Tonelico. You go into your characters' brainspace or whatever and do fetish roleplay with them then they get stronger. Which I say as a joke but I really wouldn't mind seeing the same system adapted to other games, with a less horny execution. Or more, you know, if I'm into it. What I'd like to see more of is games where you can see bonds grow between party members without the MC being involved. Fire Emblem's like that I guess.
> What I'd like to see more of is games where you can see bonds grow between party members without the MC being involved. I would love to see this implemented in ALL party-based RPGs.
This was a cute little feature in the Mass Effect games. If you didn't romance Garrus or Tali, they'd end up dating each other lol which is awesome and I'm not sure why more games don't do stuff like that. It'd be a shoe-in with the Persona games. I feel like it would make harem aspects in games like Cold Steel more tolerable to people like me as well. This was a huge problem in Rune Factory 5 where all the little girls kept chasing after me and annoying me. If I could have secured interest in one early on and have all the other girls and boys be interested in each other rather than me, that game would have been infinitely more enjoyable to me
Came in here to bring up Ar Tonelico. Happy and surprised to see so many others doing the same!
Wow what a series thats a blast from the past. I remember finding out the optional superboss at the end of 2 actually crashed the game if you didn't beat her in like 3 turns or something and just nuking her down in one turn over and over again Then you had the weird engrish way they'd say things like SYNCHRONITY CHAIN during battles. Those inner brainspace scenes were fucking nuts sometimes lol
While not exactly what you asked for, Thousand Arms. Date the ladies to improve your weapon stats. Such a unique system.
Tales of Symphonia - you best friend affects how the story plays out and your closest friends typically receive outfits
I played ToS a lot when it first came out, but I don't remember this. How did that work?
every choice you make, the food you cook, and the overworld skits give affection points to your party. This can affect things like who you have the >!Flanoir!< scene with, costumes you receive, who >!Mithos takes!<, highest affection is the person Lloyd goes on a journey with in the end, and even determining if >!Kratos stays in the party!<
oh yeah! it's coming back to me! thanks!
Star Ocean The Second Story's Private Action System So many freaking endings and you have loads of PA's everywhere. I could say the same about most of the other Star Ocean games too.
2 is a goat game
One of the best system of all times and the best way to develop side characters while not being intrusive in the main story line.
I’m playing that at the moment and I’m so nervous I’ll miss a PA. It’s a great system though!
I don't think the feedback of the relationship values into other elements of gameplay was as much as it could have been, but I've still never seen another game which I thought outdid SO2's Private Action system as a mechanism for engaging with those relationship values. There's an indie RPGMaker game which had an interesting start and which I had high hopes for, but seems to be an aborted project, but one of the things I appreciated about it was that it recognized the value of SO2's Private Actions and just copied the system wholecloth (with some actually fun character writing to back it up.) I really wish Tri-Ace had recognized how well it worked and kept doing it like that.
I think Star Ocean The Divine Force does it just as well, only downside is that there's less endings.
ff8 does rewards you with lots more lores and items if you interact with party members’ places of interest
Social links from persona 3 4 5
This! And Trails
Trails has a great story and well developed relationships. But I don't recall those relationships having any gameplay impacts.
At least in cold steel, they give arcus link buffs.
Yeah I was alluding to the buffs from the Arcus Link System.
Oh yea, my mind was on trails in the sky. Yes the arcus system is their in cold steel
Stella Glow - specifically when it comes to the witches in your party. In-game innuendo aside, I like the idea of going into someone's psyche to help them over a mental block, and doing it via the game's combat system. it doesn't hurt that a lot of the tuning maps include gimmicks not seen in regular story maps. The fights can get frustrating at times, but the unlocked abilities and character development from it really makes them worthwhile.
Thousand Arms
The first Fire Emblem game with a meaningful relationship system also had the best one. It's also never been officially localized (FE4: Geneaology of the Holy War). It's kind of spoilers to say why, but basically >!You play the first half of the game as the parents of the characters in the second half. Certain characters can also pass on legendary weapons if they pair up with someone and you get entirely different characters as replacements for the kids if you don't pair people up, both of which adds some amount of replay value!< I hope it gets a remake in the same way that shadow dragon and shadows of valentia. Three houses was litered with references to noble houses and place names and so on from FE4/5, and I really hoped as I was playing it that that meant they were thinking about porting or localizing those games.
In my opinion, it's the Ar Tonelico trilogy and Ar Nosurge that are the best, even if it's mostly limited to the MC and the Reyvateil(s) in your party. In Ar Tonelico I and II that was how you gained new Song Magics for your Reyvateils, got the Reyvateils new outfits with better stat boosts, it influenced the ending as well as the story path of the game (II saw more pronounced affects on the story path and ending), and it even influences your ability to sync with the Reyvateil in battle so that your front-liners can use better moves. Ar Tonelico Qoga and Ar Nosurge keep most of the effects, but they have a much more limited selection of Song Magics. There are a few other games that blend the Dating Sim and RPG genres, with the progress you make on the Dating Sim side influencing either how powerful your characters are on the RPG side or what abilities they have access to. However, the rest that I know of are all Adult Only games, and I don't mention AO games by name in public forums unless said forums are age restricted. Still, I think the Ar Tonelico games did it better.
Came in here to bring up Ar Tonelico. Happy and surprised to see so many others doing the same!
Persona, especially P5R. With the confident system you'll get to know your friends better by hanging out and also get advantages in the dungeons. These mechanics are awesome and very polished.
I would say yes with the caveat of how the romance system is pretty meh. The game does not acknowledge you dating anyone outside of very specific scenarios like Valentines. Even something minor that could easily be implemented like changing the final conversation you have with someone on last ingame day or changing what your partner says when you add them to the party would make it feel more like its actually happening.
The break room dialogues would have been a *really easy* place to implement at least a bit of variability, because they're already short, unvoiced interactions. On the scale of the amount of writing that already went into the game, adding a bit of modularity to those would have been simple, and it could have made a nice way for the game to acknowledge the state of your relationships, and maybe add to the replay value a bit, since you'd see different ones in different playthroughs if your confidant levels were different.
True, and specially if you hang out with certain confidants, you’ll become very busted, like the insta-enemy-kill you get if an enemy is of a lower level.
You must specify that it's the Royal version. Vanilla p5 instakill ruined the game and actively punished the player
Wow, really? I only played Royal, but what was different in the vanilla version that made this a punishment?
It activated constantly, except all you got was a persona if you had an open roster slot, which you often wouldn't have unless you just did mass fusions. So no exp, no bonus exp for the would be gained persona if its already in your roster, no money, no items Trying to grind money or items or experience? Trying to just have fun playing the game? Not allowed Royal did a hard 180 to correct the issue
I never beat it, but I put like 90 hours into Vanilla and don't recall this being a problem. But I'm not a completionist or anything. I never felt under leveled. I don't really recall being overly short on cash. I can't think of a reason to grind lower level enemies and if I need to grind for anything, why not reserve grinding to areas in your level range so this doesn't happen. Is this just a completionist issue?
It would trigger constantly during palace explorations. Sure money wasn't ever really an issue in p5 because it's "balanced" but trying to get a persona leveled up or for fusions and such? Dare to have fun ambushing enemies? Ryuji says get fucked His instakill is part of why I despise the character. On top of him being a lazy copy of p4 Kanji and overall annoying
Yeah I think P5 is the best executed version of the concept as well. I wouldn't even be disappointed if they didn't change it at all for P6 because they basically nailed it there.
Eternights did a pretty good job
Miitopia, super simple but I really liked it
Star Ocean II, or even old sprite styled Fire Emblems. I don't like overly complicated systems and I dislike most romance stuff put into Jrpgs. Give it a little depth, a little player agency, and then leave me alone. If I wanted a dating sim, I'd play a dating sim.
The Last Sovereign also has these additional combat options once enough, uh, 'friendship', has been achieved with both """"friends""". And the inter-"friends" banter might be the best part of the game !
Ar Tonelico is #1 by a considerable amount. It impacts the main story. Summon Night is very very good as well. Also impacts the main story, but the main gameplay loop isn't the best for the series.
I loved Summon Night Swordcraft Story. Then played the mainline games and *hated* them, haha.
Not a JRPG but the rivalry/friendship system in Dragon Age 2 was a very good experimental system that should have been expanded on. It’s one of the very few times a game has challenged the player to…not just mindlessly yes man their friends. Because both variants can still be friends! It reminded me of how the Persona 3 protagonist is just a serial enabler to terrible people acting on terrible ideas, and how nice it is to have an option to not do that.
Another topic where I'll bring up Ar Tonelico 2. It's a recency bias since I was just playing it a week ago. But this is exactly why I started playing it. I was looking for a game with quality writing and palpable camaraderie of some sort. Someone made an impassioned review about how the romance and friendship works by literally diving into the psyche of some of your companions and dealing with their inner personas to get closer to them and help them resolve problems. Its very similar to persona awakenings in the Persona games, except that the awakening happens over and over the deeper and closer you get in their psyche. And the characters then get to "equip" these resolved personas as like a piece of equipment in their inventory but they come with huge stat and mechanical bonuses that make them more effective in combat
Yep, love Ar Tonelico. It's such a unique system. I love that it actually affects the main story, and that it's also the main way to unlock new song magic. Makes it feel really significant and worth doing.
Came in here to bring up Ar Tonelico. Happy and surprised to see so many others doing the same!
Probably Persona 5, social links all give something, some more useful than others.
Persona 5, developing your relationships properly is actually super important
Dark Souls 3
I liked how Star Ocean 4 did it.
Record of Agarest war
Harvest Moon 😂
I liked the bonding in Rune Factory. If you get lucky and go romance someone, you can even set up some dates or they might help you out with chores or fighting.
Since FE and Persona games are already mentioned, I'll nominated the Rune Factory series. They had some quality writing and events.
Persona 4 and 5 do well with this. Ones you reach like 9 in their bond they can tank a fatal blow for you- one of the earlier ones is they have a chance to remove a status effect.
The Trails of Cold Steel series implements bonds and romance options. You can get special items if you manage to max out these bonds. This is done through purchasing special items and choosing specific dialogue options which effect bonding.
I know you mentioned LAD8, but it really is one of the best precisely because the writing is so on point. So many other RPGs just don't have a quality level of writing in their romance/friendship systems at times. But LAD8 feels like it was written by a collection of people who are actually human beings who know what it's like to hang out with other human beings. I actually really like the Barracks System from the Fire Emblem Tellius games. It let you have quite a few conversations with everyone and were all well written. And I liked Xenoblade Chronicles X's friendship system. You gain friendship points through a number of things, from being in combat together to how people in your party react to your dialogue choices and so on. But on top of that, you unlock character quests over time as well. It also helps that because the main story isn't really the focus of the game, the entire experience as a whole is, you don't quite have that disconnect between character content and main story content you have in many other games with these kinds of systems.
Persona 3-5. Especially 5.
Maybe hot take, but there are no good such systems. Ultimately they cause me to spend less time with my characters, either because spending time with them is a limited resource (so I either pick and choose who to spend time with, try and optimise my friendships mechanically, or really get to know a character then have to stop spending time with them).
Trails of Cold Steel
I'm gonna be honest here. I disagree *very* strongly with this. I think the way Trails does it is a surprisingly poorly executed facsimile of Persona's social systems. With one of my major issues with it being how it's impossible to see all bonding events in one playthrough without reloading. But to be fair, I feel that way about a lot of JRPGs that try to imitate the social systems and bonding mechanics of Persona. I don't think a lot of JRPGs get it right in the same way
Hmmm I disagree with it, but it's mostly because of a singular thing. It's the 'way' the writing is done on Persona. Specifically it's because they use silent protagonists. It just doesn't FEEL natural, at all, when the game goes deep into storytelling mode. Having your bond partner talk 99.9% of the time and you just being able to interact with a few options, and yet the game treats it as if you 'bonded'. The whole roleplay stuff simply doesn't do it for me in this scenario. I think the fact Rean is a PROPER character for this makes all the difference, the bonding scenes themselves just feel a lot more natural.
> it's impossible to see all bonding events in one playthrough without reloading. i consider this a pretty hefty pro feels more like bonding and less like checklist game
This was gonna be my answer as well. I definitely don’t think CS is the “best” but it’s the one that hooked me the most. I genuinely cared about all my classmates stories and with each new game it’s always a blast learning more about those characters.
You kind of have to reload your saves to see all the bonding events though. Some of them hide some pretty good character development which you might otherwise not see, like in the case of Crow and Millium.
hear me out: Dragon Age 2. you can have friendship, lovey-dovey romance OR a love-hate relationship, and I can't think of another game that had this as an option.
Without doubt Death Stranding. Connecting with other players could share their infrastructure with you speeding up the game
Persona and Fire Emblem
would not call that romance at all, let alone a system for it. Not even sure I would call it always friendship and more just comradery and fighting together. But to answer and accurately, I would say the Fire Emblem and fire emblem like games since they give you the gameplay buff and are how you progress chats + romance and not just with your character but each other. And to progress them often is a long grind of gifts, talking, story, and fighting in same personal group. (although personally I tend to find the romances in these very little, you just asked system so works).
i loved persona 5s way of doing things. they made social links way more useful than the previous games
BALDUR'S GATE 2, I WILL DIE ON THIS HILL
Mass effect. The game makes you simply love every single companion. Friendship and romance are too perfect in there
Persona 3, 4, 5