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[kayos90]

The answer you're looking for is Glory of Heracles DS. Specifically the Japanese version, or the NA version if you don't enable any of the speed enhancements (which still do not make the game "speedy" in any sense of the word).

I actually find Pokemon to be slow but not because the battles are so long but because the repetitive nature of that game along with how long it takes you to do stuff. Not cool....

 

[Nemo]

On replays or things I have to do over because of a save issue or something? Yes. On the first playthrough or after a few years another playthrough? Nope, no problem at all.

The small speed increase in 4HoL was also welcome tho

 

[SatelliteOfLove]

I swear to god, every single time. Is there a bot that writes these posts in every single RPG-related thread? All the cliches are here: I used to love JRPG in the SNES/PS1 era, tried playing Lost Odyssey/FF13/etc., then I played Oblivion/Mass Effect/etc. and now I love western RPGs. Throw in something about nonlinearity, voice acting, animu, and you have a typical post.

"JRPG" in a thread title is a bug zapper for the willfully ignorant.

If yall don't know what to buy to get what you want, how the fuck are you to avoid what you don't? Caveat emptor and all that.

 

[charlequin]

Turbo button can't save it, that game SUCKED - it was SO boring. Probably my worst console jprg this gen. It's an outward manifestation of all that is wrong with SE these days.

I'd say shipping a game with a unique new battle system, using a middleware engine to reduce development time, that features a wide range of explorable nonlinear areas and tons of side content is what most people think Square-Enix should be doing rather than laboring in development hell forever on games that might not even appeal to anyone when they come out.

 

[Aru]

@Aru

I didn't find radiant historia to be slow at all ..repetitive backtracking , yes but slow ? not at all .

Same for golden sun ( all 3 ) battle are fast , no waiting , animation takes 1 second MAx and in some cases you can skip the long ones ..

i read your post and i don't know if i have properly grasped your definition of "slow"

IMO xenoblade is not slow paced AT all ... there are times i wished i could slow things down even ..



Yeah Xenosaga 2 is a painfull passage in a nice trilogy ( after getting to Xeno 3 all is perfect )

Read again. I didn't say Radiant Historia was slow, neither is Xenoblade.

I still have those JRPGs in my backlog, and I know some of them are pretty slow paced too

Here's a list of games that have no fast forward-like option that I played recentl

Some people just take the word "Slow" from the thread's title, and see Xenoblade and RH in the OP and deduct that I said they are slow paced. No, just no.

If you thought Radiant Historia battles got boring then JRPGs are not for you apparently. The thing about Radiant Historia is it takes the standard turn based JRPG formula and adds so much to it that it's not supposed to be a "mash A in battle" type of system. You can't do TOO much with turn based battled and RH probably made a turn based system as complex as possible while still being turn based.

I've been playing JRPG since I was 8 or 9... I still love them, but I can't help but being pissed off by some design choices, like anybody about any random game.
Radiant Historia's battles are FAST but LONG. You can make them quicker by doing almost the same thing everytime, it becomes boring after a while. I even skipped battles because of that !

For everybody's information, I'll post the list of every single JRPG (all sub-genres mixed - ARPG / SRPG / DRPG / Metroidvanias) I've finished, I'll update the OP later:

DC:
Grandia 2

DS:
Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow
Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin
Chrono Trigger
Dragon Quest IV
Final Fantasy IV <-- so slow that I didn't enjoy this remake, and I love FFIV !
Lunar Knights <-- not really JRPG, but close
Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time
The World Ends With You
Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days
Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume
Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia
Dragon Quest V
Pokemon White
Radiant Historia
Kingdom Hearts Re:coded

GC:
Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance

GB/GBC:
Pokémon Yellow
Pokémon Trading Card Game

GBA:
Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow
Castlevania: Circle of the Moon
Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance
Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones
Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories
Shining Force Resurrection of Dark Dragon

Megadrive:
Phantasy Star IV
Shining Force II

NES:
Zelda II (yes, Zelda II is a JRPG for me, even if it's more like an hybrid between Zelda and a JRPG)

PS1:
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
Final Fantasy VII
Suikoden
Suikoden II
The Granstream Saga
Vandal Hearts
Wild Arms
Wild Arms 2
Final Fantasy VIII
Grandia

PS2:
Ar Tonelico: Melody of Elemia
Dark Chronicle
Dragon Quest VIII
Final Fantasy X
Final Fantasy X-2
Final Fantasy XII
Grandia 2
Kingdom Hearts
Kingdom Hearts II
Rogue Galaxy
Star Ocean: Till the End of Time
Suikoden V
Valkyrie Profile 2: Silmeria
Wild Arms 3

PS3:
Valkyria Chronicles
Final Fantasy XIII
Resonance of Fate
Disgaea 3: Absence of Justice

PSP:
Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII
Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness
Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions
Jeanne d'Arc
Popolocrois
Tales of Eternia
Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth
Dissidia Final Fantasy
Star Ocean: First Departure
Star Ocean: Second Evolution
Lunar: Silver Star Harmony <-- slow and boring
Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep
Yggdra Union
Persona 3 Portable
Valkyria Chronicles II
Hexyz Force
Dissidia 012: Final Fantasy
Riviera: The Promised Land <-- slow and boring
Final Fantasy IV <-- Fast paced with a fast forward button ! Thank you Bullets Co.
Final Fantasy IV - Interlude - <-- Fast paced with a fast forward button ! Thank you Bullets Co.
Final Fantasy IV:The After Years <-- Fast paced with a fast forward button ! Thank you Bullets Co.
Knights in the Nightmare

SNES:
Illusion of Time
Mystic Quest Legend
Secret of Evermore
Secret of Mana
Terranigma

Xbox 360:
Blue Dragon
Infinite Undiscovery
Star Ocean: The Last Hope
Tales of Vesperia
Lost Odyssey
NIER

Wii:
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers

 

[Sophia]

Yeah Xenosaga 2 is a painfull passage in a nice trilogy ( after getting to Xeno 3 all is perfect )

Worst part is, Xenosaga 1 itself isn't the speediest game around. After playing Xenosaga 3 and Xenoblade, I find it extremely difficult to go back to Episode 1. And then you get Xenosaga 2 which is so fricking slow you want to blow your brains out... or return it to the rental store and just watch the cutscenes online. >_>

@Aru: That'd be your fault for miswording your original post. You made it sound like everything in that category was slow-paced. I don't think adding a massive list is going to get your point across better, either.

 

[K.Sabot]

I am sick of the story pacing in JRPGs because they don't integrate well with the gameplay. If they could hit that problem, I'd be totally fine with a nice, long JRPG.

 

[Thoraxes]

I like the slower JRPG's because it's more like a good book.
You get and give time to enjoy all the little facets of the game, and as weird as this sounds, I think people coming into the genre are more akin to new beer drinkers (aka an acquired taste).

 

[Aru]

Worst part is, Xenosaga 1 itself isn't the speediest game around. After playing Xenosaga 3 and Xenoblade, I find it extremely difficult to go back to Episode 1. And then you get Xenosaga 2 which is so fricking slow you want to blow your brains out... or return it to the rental store and just watch the cutscenes online. >_>

@Aru: That'd be your fault for miswording your original post. You made it sound like everything in that category was slow-paced. I don't think adding a massive list is going to get your point across better, either.

I've modified the OP to make it a bit less confusing.

 

[Xilium]

I personally like turn-based rpgs and the fact that they are slow paced is why I like them. When nearly every other genre is all about constant in-your-face action, it's nice to play games that turn the dial back down to 5.

There are a number of non-turn based JRPGs as well though admittedly there could probably be more. It's not surprising that there isn't though seeing as how every time they try to do something new to their formula, people just complain even more or simply ignore/don't purchase the product.

 

[spekkeh]

The more time-starved I become, because of being an adult with a job and everything, but also because there's an increasing number of great games coming out (and the increasing finance to buy these), the more I hate turn-based battle systems with a passion. I guess there's nothing really wrong with a strategic outlook on battles, were it not for the fact that for 99% of the battles in a jrpg, no strategy is involved because the enemy you're fighting is a variant of a previous enemy on which you can simply apply the same procedure as before.

They pretend to be puzzle games, but every puzzle is the same, and that's even before they artificially start padding it out and you have to grind to proceed. From a gameplay and pacing standpoint I really feel turn-based jrpgs have no valid reason to be longer than 8-10 hours.

 

[R_thanatos]

I've been playing JRPG since I was 8 or 9... I still love them, but I can't help but being pissed off by some design choices, like anybody about any random game.

Same here , Some design choices can be weirds , but by trying to experiment in Jrpgs , they sometimes strike GOLD. this is a necessary process in any genre IMO.
Xenosaga is a perfect example. The first tried too mix their ideas while staying too close to xenogears and the second , they didn't experiment at all .. but at the 3rd game it was freaking perfect. even the big titles like FF experiments new things every game. Sometimes it doesn't work and sometimes it's a step forward for everyone.

Radiant Historia's battles are FAST but LONG. You can make them quicker by doing almost the same thing everytime, it becomes boring after a while. I even skipped battles because of that !

It's no secret you can easily break RH with 20 minutes at a right spot in various moments of the game .( FREE XP yeah ) in fact there is so much backtracking , that the game give you the tools to skip and evade Battles. I didn't spend much time in the jungle forest-like ( chapter 5 or 6 ) because it was annoying and i just skipped those battles . In a sense some parts having long battles is not even a problem because you can compensate in various ways and the game give you tools to adjust.

 

[Desi]

The Xenogears animations are so bad at this. I can not see myself playing that game again since some of Fei's attacks go on for 20 seconds.

The one where he jumps in the air and shoots lasers is especially a example. Yeah it shows progress from a charged punch but my goodness that and half of Bart's attacks were torture to watch 5x in one battle.

Feels good to read the OP's post. Can imagine a lot of replies complaining "why you hate turn-based?" and not "I enjoy 5 minute long spell sequences from Legend of Dragoon"

 

[KariOhki]

I know the feeling. I played Digimon World 2 recently and the battles are so slow due to all the animations. Recently I've taken to mashing through scenes and text as long as they're not important to the story so I can get on to playing the game more. Or even if they are important, and I just know the plot already.

And then I look at the list of 50 some RPGs I still have to play...

 

[Parallax Scroll]

You could have made this thread ten years ago and replaced "slow JRPGs" with "all JRPGs."

 

[Wallach]

I nearly stopped playing JRPGs altogether around Albert Odyssey, so I guess I'd have to say yes.

 

[Boss Doggie]

What's this? No one mentions Valkyrie Profile 2, Resonance of Fate, and Star Ocean 3 for fast-paced, actually good, battle systems? Well no wonder you think JRPGs are crap.

 

[Rolf NB]

Radiant Historia's battles are FAST but LONG. You can make them quicker by doing almost the same thing everytime, it becomes boring after a while. I even skipped battles because of that !

All Tri-ace games are like that. Exact repetition of optimum battle tactics make them mindnumbing and tedious, even when half the galaxy explodes on the screen.

Resonance Of Fate is the only Tri-ace game worth finishing, but that's in part because it's not very long.

edit:

What's this? No one mentions Valkyrie Profile 2, Resonance of Fate, and Star Ocean 3 for fast-paced, actually good, battle systems? Well no wonder you think JRPGs are crap.

Oh wow.

 

[Coxy]

Personally I'm much more sick of games doing stupid things to try to speed things up and turning the battle system into a complete button mashing clusterfuck

Desperately wanting a new Grandia, to me that was the perfect battle system

 

[Mungular]

play some of the other Tales games! looks like youve only played vesparia. great game btw one of my favorite rpgs this gen

 

[mjemirzian]

Fire Emblem is a very fast paced tactics game, it's almost as fast as you can input commands into it. In the latest DS Fire Emblem you can skip the entire enemy turn (similar to Valkyria Chronicles 2). It's lightning fast compared to the slow, unskippable animations and trash grinding in FFT and TO. No comparison, really. Valkyria Chronicles is also a fast paced game if you play skillfully.

But again, look at what series are massively popular in the console turn based tactics world. It's FFT, Disgaea, and TO - some of the slowest, easiest, strategically simplest, most grind heavy games in the genre. The intended audience for most RPGs is just fine with plodding, easy, repetitive, and grindy games, and routinely give them accolades and high scores, while taking dumps on more skill based but faster paced games.

 

[fallagin]

Shin megami tensei games are usually really good about this. They usually have a rush button so you can just cruise through battles. Sometimes however that can be a very very bad idea.

 

[erragal]

I'd say shipping a game with a unique new battle system, using a middleware engine to reduce development time, that features a wide range of explorable nonlinear areas and tons of side content is what most people think Square-Enix should be doing rather than laboring in development hell forever on games that might not even appeal to anyone when they come out.

Is it coincidence that you described The Last Remnant exactly? It's unfortunate they screwed up the 360 version so much or it might have sold enough to get a sequel. Additionally,at least on PC, it looks amazing showing that FFXIII's engine/development troubles were clearly the reason for the corridor nature of the game as opposed to any real issues creating HD assets.

EDIT: Read the post you responded too (fail on my part): I can't understand how anyone found that game to be boring if they enjoy turn based JRPG's with tons of content. Sorry for reacting too fast!

 

[Levyne]

Loved the last remnant. Performance issues didn't bother me too much.

Could have used some more time in the oven. And a PS3 release.

 

[mjemirzian]

I thought Last Remnant was a decent game (played the PC version). I liked how scaling difficulty meant no grinding, the fast forward button, and the game system reminded me of a spiritual successor to the SaGa series. Only thing I didn't like was how the guild system required hunting down rare mobs that almost never spawn.. I skipped over that BS of course.

 

[Boss Doggie]

All Tri-ace games are like that. Exact repetition of optimum battle tactics make them mindnumbing and tedious, even when half the galaxy explodes on the screen.

Resonance Of Fate is the only Tri-ace game worth finishing, but that's in part because it's not very long.

edit:Oh wow.

Because you know, tri-Ace is made up by the same people.

There's a reason why there's this thing called "team VP2" tri-Ace.

Also, are you a Tales of fan?

 

[ronito]

I hate slow paced RPGs. Honestly, if FFIX wasn't so goddamned slow it'd be my fave Final Fantasy. If Lost Odyssey wasn't so slow it would've been far better received. Honestly I don't get it. I know they think it looks cool the first few times you see the animations but after 40 hours you're just like "get it over with already!"

 

[Boss Doggie]

Note that I'm not saying tri-Ace games aren't repetitive. All of the games not made by Team VP2 barring SO3 are very repetitive, out of date, and bland. The "hailed" Star Ocean 2 is an example.

With that said, VP2, RoF and SO3 are pretty much on the top as far as JRPG mechanics are concerned.

 

[bigmit3737]

The Xenogears animations are so bad at this. I can not see myself playing that game again since some of Fei's attacks go on for 20 seconds.

The one where he jumps in the air and shoots lasers is especially a example. Yeah it shows progress from a charged punch but my goodness that and half of Bart's attacks were torture to watch 5x in one battle.

Feels good to read the OP's post. Can imagine a lot of replies complaining "why you hate turn-based?" and not "I enjoy 5 minute long spell sequences from Legend of Dragoon"

Oh god Legend of Dragoon. This and Final Fantasy 9, were painful for me.
Wild Arms 1 also had very slow battle animations.

I think most 3d games for the ps1 were slow.