A touch of home....

By Rob Hamilton · February 17, 2009

If there's one genre of game I'd call my "home", it's that of J-RPG. For me, there's not much better than their hybrid of cheesy plots, non-stop encounters, quirky characters and oftentimes "interesting" ways to try to be somehow different than the gazillion other J-RPGs out there.

So, when I bought my 360 in December, I bought Oblivion. Great game. I really love it. However, (a) it's not a J-RPG and (b) my attention span isn't super-long, so after hitting the 90-hour mark, I realized I needed a break from its immersiveness.

So, I went to the closest game store and bought Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey today. Decided to play BD first, as it hasn't been reviewed here. So far, it seems kinda by-the-books (although I like the idea of getting monsters close together so I can mass-attack them to either (a) get some to kill off others or (b) get boosts between fights to make the latter ones easier), but I don't really care right now. It's just nice to be "home" in one of these games.

Comments 7

Suskie Feb 17, 2009

You know, I've had Blue Dragon for over a year and I still haven't finished it. I used to like JRPGs, but I'm finding them more and more boring as time goes on. Blue Dragon is about as generic a JRPG as they come and I found it to be an unbelievably dull experience.

overdrive Blogger Feb 17, 2009

For me, I just love the J-RPG genre of RPGs for some reason. I think they're the sort of game I just sit back and can play under any circumstance. I can be distracted, upset about something, stressed out or whatever and still make progress.

I can see what you mean, though. At heart, just about every J-RPG is the same. They all just have their own little gimmicks to make them feel different. BD's main gimmick is the same as Final Fantasy V's (changing your shadow's class to learn new skills), while its other involves setting up fights to get a bunch back-to-back to get boosts for the latter ones or to get enemies naturally hostile towards each other in with you so the stronger kind kills the weaker instead of targeting you.

I think a lot of times, liking or disliking a J-RPG comes down to how its gimmick(s) work for you. Rogue Galaxy (one I disliked) would have been cool with its more action-oriented style of play, but the combination of moronic AI for your teammates and all the crap you had to do in battles (charge attacks for shelled enemies, changing guns for certain encounters, jumping attacks for tall enemies, etc.) made it more frustrating than anything else.

EmP Staff Feb 17, 2009

I got somewhere to the second disk of Blue Dragon then stopped out of sheer boredom. Art style is the suck, too.

Lost's point-blank awesome, though.

jerec Feb 18, 2009

I was turned off by the demo of Blue Dragon that I have not bothered to buy it even when I found it dirt cheap in a bargain bin. Lost Odyssey, I loved.

Lewis Feb 18, 2009

I'm very much on the other side of the RPG coin. Just chugged through The Last Remnant for a review assignment. Thoroughly dull. Genre-bias in head trying to escape. MUST QUASH!

jiggs Feb 18, 2009

the only JRPG's i care about are the Megami Tensei series, and Dragon Quest series...and to some extent the Final Fantasy series. i'll check out the odd titles that Atlus brings over. other than that...meh

zippdementia Feb 18, 2009

As far as standard J-RPG goes, I'm really only interested in the Final Fantasy series, as it's been with me since I was a wee lad. Also, Final Fantasy Tactics is my favourite game of all time.

But there's plenty of good "off the beaten path" J-RPGs out there, like Odin's Sphere.