What RPG are you playing right now?

[opa]

I've finally sat down to finish Skyrim. I made a new character and have strictly focused on finishing the main quest. Looking at a guide I'm kind of surprised that the main quest is so short (only 18 missions). Morrowind felt like it took forever to finish and I'm already over halfway done with Skyrim.

[MrPopo]

Morrowind's main quest is also fairly short. It's only 19 missions as seen here: https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Main_Quest

[marurun]

I think Morrowind's main quest feels longer because Morrowind gives you shit for quest markers and whatnot. So it may only be 19 steps, but trying to do those 19 steps takes longer because the game isn't interested in directing you.

[Ack]

Yeah, particularly when you have to go to the northern portion of Morrowind and do the Asura's Star stuff. I found the questline bogs down there. Skyrim never had a place that felt quite like that in terms of throwing you into a wasteland, so I breezed through it comparatively easy.

[ZRofel]

I just wrapped up the new Live-A-Live remake for the Switch. What a delightful little game. I mean, it's kind of a sloppy mess in a lot of ways, but the characters are so fun, the gameplay is so light and breezy, and almost all of the bite-sized chapters felt like they easily could have been transformed into excellent games in their own rights. Especially the old west and the prehistoric ones. We desperately need more wild west and prehistoric jRPGs. Bonus points if you make a game that combines both.

A+++++++++ Would recommend again.

[MrPopo]

The Wild Arms series exists for those looking for wild west RPGs.

[Ack]

And Chrono Trigger does have that fun prehistoric section at least. I can't think of any others that combine both though.

[ZRofel]

Yeah, I've played most of the Wild Arms games, and I did enjoy them. With the exception of 3, and maybe 5, though, they're really more sci-fi fantasy games than westerns. The western portion of Live-A-Live definitely had more of a spaghetti-western feel to it that I really enjoyed for its uniqueness.

And, yeah, the prehistoric parts of Chrono Trigger are definitely some of my favorites, again because its something you don't see all that often in jRPGs.

Thinking about it again, Live-A-Live really does bring into stark relief how homogeneous the RPG landscape is. Even nearly 20 years after its initial release, almost all of its mini-stories feel extremely fresh and unique. Why is it that, for decades now, the realm of jRPGs has been overwhelmingly dominated by anime-inspired fantasy or science-fantasy titles, with maybe a little bit of modern day settings or post-apocalyptic settings creeping in thanks to the Shin Megami Tensei series? And western RPGs have almost universally been Tolkien-style fantasy yarns or CliffsNotes versions of Star Trek, with maybe a bit of Fallout-inspired post-apocalypse thrown in. I mean, I understand the tendency of the market to stick to the familiar and safe, but it seems like there should be a bit more diversity in the landscape, especially when there are occasional titles like Live-A-Live that manage to shake things up and still be moderately successful. Don't get me wrong, I definitely love my fair share of Tales of... or D&D-style comfort games, but it always feels like so much wasted potential how the genre seems to intentionally limit itself to just a handful of basic scenarios.

I was actually thinking about the Shadow Heart games the other day and how, while from a gameplay perspective they're pretty standard mid-budget PS2 jRPGs, the fact that they're set in Europe and Asia (and later America) in the early twentieth century makes them feel much fresher than they otherwise would. I'd love to see an RPG set in colonial America, or an RPG inspired by the buddy copy movies of the '80s. I definitely don't mean to rant about RPGs, because like I said, there are plenty of games that absolutely stick to the tropes that I still genuinely love. I'd just like to see the genre explore some alternative settings a bit more often. Spice things up a little.

[marurun]

I've been playing Dragon Quest 8 for a while now, but I hit a slow patch. The game has a pretty gradual progression and grinding is mostly fun. Still annoyed by the Tension/Psyche Up mechanic, but otherwise the game is pretty enjoyable. As I mentioned, however, I did hit a slow patch. The game definitely is paced a little on the slow side. Fortunately, it doesn't drag the way I feel FF games can sometimes drag, but with the distraction of Smash Ultimate's Adventure mode, I'm going to have to come back to this game after a short break. I will also note that while I've seen graphics comparisons online showing how much better the PS2 version looks, I actually don't care that the 3DS version is a visual downgrade. It's still an attractive enough game even if it isn't the best looking version. The voice acting is mostly pretty good so far, and the music, while definitely generated soundfont, is decent. It's weird how good some instrument samples are and how poor others are. Very weird.

[REPO Man]

I personally wish the rest of the Dragon Quest games would get Switch releases. So far, aside from DQ11 and the Builders and Heroes spinoffs, all we got were the first three games. I'd love to see 4-6 get ports while 7-9 get remasters.