- Joined
- Jan 30, 2018
I started replaying the quadrilogy about a year ago. I eventually got a few hours into Quarantine and just... never touched it again. By then, with how little the gameplay changes from the first entry, it was just a slog to play.
JRPG General - Video games were never meant to be shorter than 50 hours.
- Thread starter HexFag
- Start date
-
Want to keep track of this thread?
Accounts can bookmark posts, watch threads for updates, and jump back to where you stopped reading.
Create account
- Joined
- Jul 18, 2019
I played the games as a young teenager and I remember having a very similar experience. Infection and Mutation are really cool, Outbreak starts to really drag (but there's some cool moments in the first few hours that build intrigue), and then Quarantine is just a slog with kind of an underwhelming ending. One of my long-standing complaints with IMOQ (even going back to being a kid) is that there's zero reason for it to be four games.
Here's how I would have done it:
- Infection and Mutation are one game. The Skeith fight is slightly easier and he's a midgame boss fight. The final fight of this combined volume is a two-part marathon fight with a souped-up Cubia fight immediately after Magus as the finale.
- Outbreak and Quarantine are one game. Outbreak's storyline is mostly intact except the Mia plotline is much more prominent during the events of Outbreak so that you go immediately from Gorre into confronting Macha instead of all the faffing about you see at the beginning of Quarantine. The Cubia refights are reduced to just the one where you finally shatter the bracelet to defeat him. Quarantine's story is massively cut down to just being a kind of boss rush before the final confrontation.
- Virus Cores necessary to progress are reduced to just the ones you get from data draining story data bug enemies. The entire gate hacking mechanic is trivialized but it was stupid in the first place anyway.
I've already resolved that I will not be farming virus cores this time around and will just use cheats if I'm ever in a serious deficit.
- Joined
- Jan 30, 2018
Cheating for the virus cores is what I did my recent time around. Back when the games were first released and I was playing through them as a teenager I got up to somewhere in Outbreak. There was some gate that needed an obscene amount of different virus cores and I just went, "nah, fuck that" and never finished it or bothered with Quarantine.
It's insane how much of a quantum leap the G.U. games were in comparison, at least as far as gameplay is concerned.
Last edited:
- Joined
- Jul 18, 2019
I remember reviews complaining that the first few games were essentially each 50 bucks for less than 20 hours of story, so I feel like someone at Bandai/CC2 took that to heart and decided to add more obscene virus core requirements to pad out the runtime.
- Joined
- Dec 12, 2022
It's not limited to .hack. The difference between early PS2 era and "peak" PS2 era games is really striking.
- Joined
- Jul 18, 2019
Made some more progress in .hack//Infection and I'm just before the final dungeon of the volume. Man, I miss when RPGs had actual resource and party management and weren't just a series of braindead ULTRA CINEMATIC FIGHTS you sleepwalk through.
EDIT: Just finished Infection. I'd legit forgotten how barebones the story was in this volume. jfc they absolutely should have condensed this series into one or two games.
Anyway, onto Mutation.
EDIT: Just finished Infection. I'd legit forgotten how barebones the story was in this volume. jfc they absolutely should have condensed this series into one or two games.
Anyway, onto Mutation.
Last edited:
Hypercop
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Apr 16, 2025
I've played like 20 JRPGs now and Earthbound is still my favorite. I didn't like Undertale that much though, or even Mother 3, and I tried like 5 Dragon Quest games but they don't scratch the itch either. I'm trying to figure out what the hell EB has that these other games don't, and the answer might actually be shit balancing. The game is genuinely hard up until Saturn Valley, until the difficulty curve inverts and becomes piss easy until the end of the game. If you don't get the Mr. Baseball Cap in Onett you're living on a prayer during the first few bosses, but conversely you can buy unlimited bottle rockets later as Jeff and trivialize everything. I just hate this lukewarm "mild difficulty" of every RPG in the past 20 years. Like Dragon Quest 3 remake is a bad offender. In the SNES (JP) version of DQ3 the Dreamer's Tower will easily kick your ass whereas Dreamer's Tower in the remake is super soft.
So I think I enjoy fucked up balancing in RPGs, and most of them are TOO balanced. Can you guys recommend me some JRPGs that are actually poorly balanced? Too hard or too easy, but nothing in between.
So I think I enjoy fucked up balancing in RPGs, and most of them are TOO balanced. Can you guys recommend me some JRPGs that are actually poorly balanced? Too hard or too easy, but nothing in between.
Retarded Weeb
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Dec 17, 2022
That's a tough one. Most JRPGs are technically pretty unbalanced if you're nitpicky enough, but the mild difficulty generally papers over it.
There's quite a few NES RPGs that are a bit difficult early on, get a lot easier through the mid-game as you and your team are more prepared to handle things, and then suddenly it starts raping you in the final dungeon because developers didn't have time to fully playtest it. The first Mother (EarthBound Beginnings) and Dragon Quest II for instance. The first three Final Fantasy on NES have shades of it.
There's not too many games people will talk about often that are really hard early on and then get easier, since people will usually get frustrated and stop playing before then. Earthbound kind of just avoids that through sheer strength of its charm. Closest thing I can think of is Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn, where the first fourth-ish of the game is the hardest part because you're given a lot of mediocre to shit units, and then it gets easier as it goes on because you get more and more strong and busted units, but that's a strategy game so probably not what you're looking for.
Just some spitballed ideas for reccomendations
Live-A-Live - Weird, experimental RPG where you play through different unconnected storylines with different protagonists, each with their own gimmick in the gameplay or structure. The battle system feels like it wasn't thought through that much, so fights do tend to be either cakewalks or frustrating. Though overall, it does tend towards being easy.
Treasures of the Rudra - This is a weird one. A lot of the battle system revolves are your spells. which you actually "make" yourself by entering a spell name and the game procedurally generates the effect of the spell based off the name. The game's difficulty depends a lot on what spells you generate, with the inherent quirk that you make the early-game way easier by already knowing good spell names. Even if you look up the best names on the internet that generate spells with powerful effects and low MP costs, the final stretch of the game is pretty brutal and I remember the final boss taking forever to kill.
The SaGa series in general - This entire series is known for being weird and experimental, and that tends to lead to some weird balancing. I've yet only played the first two games on GameBoy myself, but I found the difficulty curve in the 2nd one pretty weird, with a slightly tough early-game, mildly easy mid-game, and suddenly tough to the point of getting annoying endgame. The balance between races (basically classes) is really wack too and will have a big effect on diffuclty. While I haven't really spent time with later games, the first SNES one Romancing SaGa is a full-on open world game where difficulty can fluxuate a lot based on your team, actions, and how well you know the game, and a really tough final boss. And I've heard people say each of the Romancing SaGa's final bosses are nearly impossible without optimizing your team beforehand.
Phantasy Star II - I wouldn't even say this is a good game. People are only fond of it because it has a somewhat interesting plot and there was no other RPGs on the Genesis when it came out. The dungeons are gruelingly tedious, the combat is really simple, and you have to grind forever in the first half of the game. It certainly is really unbalanced though. The early game will rape you until you grind for multiple hours, the rest of the game is mostly braindead easy except for like one really tough boss about halfway through, and then the final boss at the end is quite possibly the most bullshit final boss in the entire genre.
Hypercop
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Apr 16, 2025
Based, thanks for the recs. Actually, I somehow forgot to mention that SMT3 and 4 fit into this category pretty well. Both have massive difficulty spikes at the beginning and then notoriously taper off in difficulty from there, though instead of becoming easy they're just pretty mild. I always thought the first part of the game until you beat Matador was the best part of Nocturne.
- Joined
- May 7, 2022
Please try "The 7th Saga" for SNES. There are 7 starting characters to choose from. Almost all are incredibly difficult to get going and level. As you progress and get stones (you have to collect them to beat the final boss) and spells, the game gets marginally easier. Every sector has mobs that can absolutely fuck you up though. Every boss is a gamble throughout the game. At one point you lose all your stones and spells. If you chose a caster, well fuck you specifically. Melee and potion time. There are 2 points where you can recruit a sidekick if you want, but that splits xp and makes leveling harder. Pick the human if you want the hardest experience imo, the Dwarf is in the middle, the robot and the lava guy are the 2 easiest to start with. And if you want the bottle rocket experience, there is a glitch towards the end of the game where the robot gets a huge stat boost in a lab but you can keep doing it repeatedly until you max him out. Then you're unstoppable.
Lufia (1): Rise of the Sinistrals is a game that is coherent but made much more difficult by weird targeting systems and other stuff. Probably more on the side of annoying than what you're after but it'll be a slog for sure. Lufia 2 is a legitimately fun game with great puzzles and problem solving mixed into much improved battle systems. Id recommend that to anyone to try.
On the super easy side, I'd recommend Soul Blazer. You kill enemies and that destroys their spawns and rebuilds cities. There's a finite number of enemies in the game. It's pretty linear and right away you get a spell that can kill most enemies from range. You can collect their drops from distance as well. I think you have to backtrack maybe 3 times the whole game. But it's clearly obvious where. With all that being said, I love this game and have probably beaten it 25 times.
- Joined
- Mar 24, 2019
Status update: If you use the combined power of Hitler, Nero, and Napoleon, you get to cast Dictators that basically summons Death to wreck the enemy. It sets your whole party's HP to 1 and removes the first spirit you use for the combo so you can't spam it though.
Hitler, while strong, has the nasty habit of stealing your turn to summon himself, which can be bad if you're trying to use healing. This sure is a JRPG.
- Joined
- Jun 7, 2020
Linda Cubed allows you to get ridiculously OP at the start but with the horrible side effect that you become so powerful you turn the animals you're supposed to collect into paste.
Final Fantasy VII and VI you can break easily with materia and espers.
Touhou Artifical Dream in Arcadia's postgame dungeons are ballfuckhard in a really good way and the superboss is CBT torture unless you cheese her.
Grub
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Jul 2, 2021
I played through the Pixel Remaster version Final Fantasy 2 lately and it was pretty poorly balanced. The overworld monsters can one shot you if you go the wrong direction but the dungeon monsters are usually stupid easy until the last two dungeons or so and then they get ridiculous. There was also a lot of status effect spam and random enemies that were immune to physical attacks just because but magic is pretty underpowered even if you take the time to level it up. But you can also do things like throw double weapons on everyone and just brute force your way through a lot of things.
The SaGa games also have pretty weird balance depending on how you play the games. I played through Romancing SaGa Minstrel Song twice in a row and the game balance was totally different both playthroughs just based on the weapons and skills and stuff I picked and the quests I ended up doing. Romancing SaGa 3's balance is also pretty weird and just jumps around between being hard and easy. Bosses are pretty brutal. Enemies range between also being pretty brutal or pushovers depending on your gear, skills and party formation.
- Joined
- Feb 4, 2018
I'm debating on Star Force Collection and Visions of Mana. The demo for the latter is it just me or is the text hard to read? Its pure white and clashes a lot with the scenery
- Joined
- Dec 26, 2025
This is where my mind went for an unbalanced JRPG recommendation too. Especially if you play the remake, which outright tells you what every enemy's weaknesses and resistances are in-battle, and has a minimap that can tell you exactly where you need to go on the overworld at any time (but TBH I would recommend the remake. It has a lot of changes and censorship that I can't stand, but the original is extremely obtuse and even for a snes game it looks very primitive.)
Something else that wasn't mentioned is that you're fully healed after every battle, and special skills don't have any cost beyond charge up time- there's generally no reason not to spam your strongest attack every opportunity you get and play as aggressively as you can, since so long as you don't get party wiped, you'll just be fully healed afterwards anyway. There aren't a lot of healing skills (some chapters don't even have them iirc) so you'll have to rely on consumables more than in other RPGs which, while I don't feel makes it especially easier or harder, is worth mentioning.
The combat is grid based and pretty heavily position oriented (kind of like Enchanted Arms, which I'll definitely be posting my thoughts on once I finish it), where certain skills hit adjacent tiles to your characters, others hit diagonally, some might hit a whole row or column, etc. So there is that facet of it which distinguishes it from a lot of RPGs, but aside from that it's generally a lot simpler. The story is good, and the vignette style in which the chapters are told will definitely appeal to a lot of people, too. It doesn't have a grand scope or a whole lot of twists and turns (besides one) like a lot of the other RPGs of the time had, but it delves deeper into themes about human nature and growth on a more general, universal level which I like.
Lots of soul, very little balance, if I had to sum it up.
- Joined
- Jan 30, 2021
So started bravely default flying faerie. Honestly im enjoying the game, it has this weird charm about it. Dont know if it is the chibi designs or the voice acting but it has grabbed my attention. As a "tales of" enjoyer, i like the party chats that occasionally trigger. The moment i saw the job class system and that you can mix and match skills my mind had a dopamine moment considering how will i break the game. Although gotta give it to the game, the opening caught me off guard, didn't expect to witness genocide as Norende got wrecked, Tiz is one unfortunate lucky SoB.
Zenos Yae Viator
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Sep 21, 2025
Uh, very good but also kinda meta and weird.
To explain, "you" are a somewhat vague entity in the plot of both games, there are mild out of bounds narrative bits such as references directly to game elements.
Its Not quite as meta as some of metal gear shit, but sometimes it dips into that, thr sequel is a very direct plot continuation and an upgrade, and has one of the best "Psycho mantis" in game out of game moments I've seen..
Other than that it's a sort of fantasy romp you expect with an inversion of your classic FF plot about magical crystals, till , obviously the weird meta stuff gets involved
- Joined
- Feb 2, 2024
You can't tell @Hypercop this without at least bringing up that the difficulty being bonkers is specifically because the US version was tweaked to be harder than Japanese version. Not that Elnard is specifically very balanced, but 7th Saga generally triples all the boss stats while nerfing the PC stats [especially HP] and the player doesn't get to benefit from stat gains that the Japanese version had.