Home on the RNG

The guys played another non-jRPG, although it's still very Japanese. Let's talk about the amazing NES game River City Ransom.

Final Fantasy Adventure, known in Japan as Seiken Densetsu:

Final Fantasy Gaiden or simply Seiken Densetsu, and later released in Europe as

Mystic Quest, is a Final Fantasy spinoff and the first game in the Mana series.

Published by Square in 1991 on the Game Boy, it saw a North American re-release

by Sunsoft in April 1998.

Originally developed under the name Gemma Knights, it

features gameplay roughly similar to that of the original The Legend of Zelda,

but with the addition of role-playing statistical elements. Along with Final

Fantasy Mystic Quest, Final Fantasy Adventure was the first Final Fantasy game

to be released in Europe. A remake, Sword of Mana, was released for the Game

Boy Advance in 2003, changing the plot and many gameplay aspects. A second

remake was released on mobile phones in Japan which improved the graphics and

music of the original version. A third remake, Adventures of Mana, was released

for iOS, Android, and PlayStation Vita on February 4, 2016.

Let's talk about how the jRPG genre deals with the topic of romance. Let's talk about good examples, bad examples, and how frequently there are no examples at all.

Final Fantasy V is a fantasy role-playing video game

developed and published by Square in 1992. It is the fifth main installment of

the Final Fantasy series. The game first appeared only in Japan on Nintendo's

Super Famicom. It has been ported with minor differences to Sony's PlayStation

and Nintendo's Game Boy Advance. An original video animation produced in 1994

called Final Fantasy: Legend of the Crystals serves as a sequel to the events

depicted in the game. It was released for the PlayStation Network on April 6,

2011, in Japan. An enhanced port of the game, with new high-resolution graphics

and a touch-based interface, was released for iPhone and iPad on March 28,

2013, and for Android on September 25, 2013.

What are the tropes that you just know are going to be in any jRPG game? The stuff we don't even make jokes about anymore? Let's examine some, and hear some examples of games that try to subvert them.

Breath of Fire II is a role-playing video game developed and

published by Capcom. First released in 1994, the game was licensed to Laguna

for European release in 1996. It is the second entry in the Breath of Fire

series. It was later ported to Game Boy Advance and re-released worldwide. The

game was released on Wii's Virtual Console in North America on August 27, 2007.

In 2013, it was released for the Wii U Virtual Console. In 2016, it was

released for the New Nintendo 3DS Virtual Console. In 2019, it was released for

the Nintendo Switch SNES games library.

Jeff and Russ review a spinoff game of a jRPG they haven't even reviewed yet. What happens when you make a Dynasty Warrior style Persona game? Pure magic.

Grandia is a role-playing video game, developed by Game Arts

and published by Entertainment Software Publishing for the Sega Saturn console

as the first game in their Grandia series. Released in Japan in 1997, the game

was ported to the PlayStation in 1999, with an English version of the game

appearing on the platform in North America in the following September by Sony

Computer Entertainment, and in Europe in 2000 by Ubisoft. The game was produced

by much of the same staff who worked on the company's previous role-playing

endeavor, the Lunar series, including producer Yoichi Miyagi and composer

Noriyuki Iwadare.

Welcome to a bit of a thought experiment. If Jeff and Russ were to make a jRPG, what exactly would be in it? What systems would they use? What types of characters? What kind of setting?

Live A Live is a 1994 role-playing video game developed and published by Square for the Super Famicom. The title remains exclusive to Japan, though it was given a fan translation by the online group Aeon Genesis. The game follows seven distinct scenarios scattered across different time periods, with two more unlockable scenarios linking the narratives together through the recurring antagonist Odio. Gameplay is split between exploration with story-specific twists, and turn-based combat played out on a grid.