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What are some beginner friendly turn-based sRPGs
- Thread starter Mozendo
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CertifiedFP
Member
IT BEGINS.
But the PC version of Valkyria Chronicles is the best*, even has a decent rebalancing mod for it.
*If your PC can handle 60FPS or above for it at 1080p or 4k. Otherwise, yeah, might as well get the PS4 version.
Chairman Yang
if he talks about books, you better damn well listen
Seconding the recommendation for Shadowrun: Dragonfall. Its combat is basically exactly what you're looking for: beginner-friendly and SRPG-like.
Chronospherics
Member
Advanced Wars is also super fun.
If you have a Switch you could look into WarGroove
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62nqJxq3E-4
Well, I stopped short of recommending Resonance of Fate, which is a much harder game.
The thing is in my opinion Disgaea is the easiest SJRPG I've ever played. It has the core gameplay of FF tactics but also if you're stuck it's very easy to just repeat a mission and level up. It's also super easy to just focus on leveling one or two characters and power through the game as a result. There's always something you can do to circumvent the difficult in the Disgaea games, and that's not true of others like Valkria Chronicles.
If you have a Switch you could look into WarGroove
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62nqJxq3E-4
Well, I stopped short of recommending Resonance of Fate, which is a much harder game.
The thing is in my opinion Disgaea is the easiest SJRPG I've ever played. It has the core gameplay of FF tactics but also if you're stuck it's very easy to just repeat a mission and level up. It's also super easy to just focus on leveling one or two characters and power through the game as a result. There's always something you can do to circumvent the difficult in the Disgaea games, and that's not true of others like Valkria Chronicles.
cj_iwakura
Member
Rhapsody(PS1) is the easiest SRPG ever made.
The DS version is crap, though.
Sheesh, I can't believe someone recommended Dragonfall. That game is NOT easy.
The DS version is crap, though.
Sheesh, I can't believe someone recommended Dragonfall. That game is NOT easy.
I've personally had a hard time getting into the SRPG genre myself. Shining Force and Shining Force 2 were two of my first games ever and I loved them. I similarily loved FFT and FFT Advance and Disgaea 1, but oddly have not really been able to get into any other game in the genre. I have tried and I really do want to play more of them, but it just hasn't worked yet and I don't know why.
Devilgunman
Member
Front Mission on the DS. It's the remake of the first game so it's really easy to get into.
Nachtfalke
Member
Jeanne D'Arc on the Vita (PSP game on PSN) or on a PC with emulation (60fps patch, savestats, better graphics) is the perfect entry point. I also recommend Final Fantasy Tactics Advance on GBA or Final Fantasy Tactics a2 on DS.
Stella Glow would be my first choice, but sadly you don't mentioned to have a 3DS. Fantastic game.
Avoid Final Fantasy Tactics or Disgaea. Fantastic games aswell but not the best games for starters.
Stella Glow would be my first choice, but sadly you don't mentioned to have a 3DS. Fantastic game.
Avoid Final Fantasy Tactics or Disgaea. Fantastic games aswell but not the best games for starters.
I haven't seen these ones mentioned so I'm not sure if they fully qualify as srpg, but the shadowrun series was my first intro to these styles of games and I didn't feel as though they were too difficult. Made my way to end of shadowrun returns and most of the way through dragonfall before getting distracted and moving onto other games. I thought they were great games for explaining the mechanics of this genre well.
Then I tried xcom enemy unknown, and while it was hard and I did not beat it I was able to put an enjoyable 20 or so hours into it, very well done game and addictive, too.
I see valkyria chronicles being mentioned, I tried it and thought it was VERY HARD. Even on the standard difficulty mode. Not sure I got more than 5 or so missions into it before quitting out of frustration.
Then I tried xcom enemy unknown, and while it was hard and I did not beat it I was able to put an enjoyable 20 or so hours into it, very well done game and addictive, too.
I see valkyria chronicles being mentioned, I tried it and thought it was VERY HARD. Even on the standard difficulty mode. Not sure I got more than 5 or so missions into it before quitting out of frustration.
Unless you're really into the gacha the game is not that good though. Its difficulty is very reliant on what your unit rankings are.
whiteninja
Member
Pick up a cheap 3ds/2ds and get Stella Glow. Has a great ost and was easy to understand and play through.
NipplesAndToes23
Member
There are action-based strategy RPGs?
Hmm, I'm not sure if I played any. Does Arc the Lad: Twilight of the Spirits count?
Hmm, I'm not sure if I played any. Does Arc the Lad: Twilight of the Spirits count?
I mean, growlanser is ATB.
Augemitbutter
Member
play all the shining force games you haven't played.
growlanser is a must, but i thought they were a little harder. wayfarer of time is the best one. you won't stay a beginner forever.
growlanser is a must, but i thought they were a little harder. wayfarer of time is the best one. you won't stay a beginner forever.
Dice
Pokémon Parentage Conspiracy Theorist
Jeanne D'Arc starts out simple, but if you're new to the genre you'll be shitting your pants soon enough. I really do think Disgaea is the best if you pay attention to the tutorial. The story mode is cushy and for the harder stuff you can grind all you want before attempting anything and it's all safe. It's also more like FFT with the jobs rather than some R/P/S system, which is actually trickier to keep in mind as a newcomer.
StereoVsn
Gold Member
I am not certain I get why posters here think VC is difficult. It even has some "real-time" sections for people not familiar with just turned based.
Yes, there are couple of missions that are almost "puzzles" in that you probably will die the first time but that's also alright in this sort of a game. Again, can always set it in lower difficulty. Plus VC let's you grind missions over and over if needed.
PassiveObserver
Member
Try Saiyuki: Journey West on PSOne classics. No class-system or skill trees to mess with. It's a breezy fun take on the Monkey King legend with an interesting beast transformation system.
Elaugaufein
Member
Its very similar to Jeanne D'Arc. Well more the other way around, they both follow this model which I've seen on SNES games too, there was a Tenchi Muyo game using the same idea. I'm actually wondering what the original game / source was now.
Augemitbutter
Member
Suikoden Tactics is another fun game and not too hard,
NipplesAndToes23
Member
ATB like Final Fantasy? That's still turn-based.
Chairman Yang
if he talks about books, you better damn well listen
It is if you pick the "Easy" difficulty setting. What setting did you use?
Huh? Outside of leveling and the item world with the senate (which you can mostly ignore) there's very little confusion there. It's the same as any other SRPG.
Elaugaufein
Member
The early games weren't great at explaining some of the stuff about throwing and lifting and geoblocks.
That's definitely improved, I'd recommend 5 happily.
The post game stuff has never been properly explained or even properly hinted at, though I admit I can't think of a way of explaining the level 99 enemy experience trick without it sounding like "Our Experience Formula is dumb".
Jacobson
Member
FFT A2 on the other hand is quite easy, so it's perfect for beginners.
it's on sale for ps4/vita so i picked it up! thanks
Well there are real time sRPGs, and I would consider Warcraft 3 one of them, and believe the Warhammer 40k Dawn of War games fall into this category too?
I'm interested in Hyperdevotion Noire just because it was developed by Sting and I adore Yggdra Union
Also thanks for the suggestions everyone.
I think I'll do another replay of Shining Force 1 since I have it on Steam for some reason, and I will also play Valkyria Chronicles since I played a bit of it on Steam, followed by Jeanne D'arc.
I also forgot to put more systems namely the PS3 and 3DS. I'm still looking into research for other games but I think I have a great list to start off with so far.
hydrophilic attack
Member
I don't know about beginner-friendly but I love Valkyria Chronicles, Tactics Ogre and Final Fantasy Tactics
At least Valkyria Chronicles should be considered beginner-friendly imo. The other two should be ok as well, if you're fine with a bit of a learning curve
At least Valkyria Chronicles should be considered beginner-friendly imo. The other two should be ok as well, if you're fine with a bit of a learning curve
hydrophilic attack
Member
I would argue none of them are
We should call them Tactics RPGs to use correct terminology
Carl von Clausewitz said:
Elaugaufein
Member
Starcraft etc are RTS (Real Time Strategy), though Warcraft 3 introduced some RPG elements with the focus on unique heroes (previously heroes in those games were just recoloured generics with some tweaked stats). There also some real time 4X games like Warlords Battlecry that were similar. Neither would generally be considered an SRPG but the lines do get blurry at times.
Tactical RPGs , yeah. They generally focus on a small units and the individuals within them rather than the higher level strategy. But they've been SRPGs for way to long for it to be likely to win that war.
GoldenCrow
Member
Why "lol" you can literally run through the game with little to no consequence. With the way the game is designed it is easier to get an A rank than it is to get a C or D rank. Only tricky mission is the first big tank and that is only because it is a waiting game. Don't really have to do any grinding either.
dead_lighter
Member
Jeanne d'Arc on PSP
For years I couldn't play SRPG's. I found them entirely too cumbersome, grindy and complicated. However eventually I found 2 'simple' games that I'd call SRPG lite and will help you familiarise with the genre.
The first game is one already been mentioner several times. Valkyria Chronicles. It teaches you tacrics in small steps and stages and the difficulty is pretty easy, bar a sudden spike in chapter 7, but that was trial and error. Preparing appropriately beforehand can trivialise it. There's not really any grinding or farming for loot. You don't need to worry about cross class skills or leveling individual characters since it's the class you level instead. For max rank it's based on speed and not how many enemies you take out. It eases you in with a semi realtime movement and aiming system to gradually familiarise yourself. The story and characters may seem simple, but it's also prety endearing. I honestly can't recommend this game enough.
The other game is on the DS. Valkyrie Profile Covenant of the Plume. This was actually the game that got me into SRPG's. As a Valkyrie Profile fan, it kind of forced me to try it. One reason this is so beginnger friendly is that the number of units are small. You only get 4, so there is so much less to micromanage compared to other games which can have well into double figures and more. While there isn't a difficult mode per say, there's 3 paths in the game depending on how much you use a certain game mechanic. The more you use it, the easier it gets but it locks you out of the good (hard) ending, but NG+ is there for you to try your hand at them all. Nothing overly complicated and the Valkyrie Profile battle system transitioned surprisingly well at times. Again no grinding, farming or spending an age on various subsystems to improve your units.
There are other games I find awesome like FF Tactics and Tactics Ogre. But I wouldn't recommend them to newcomers at all. So many random systems from classes skills that optimisation is an annoyance. People set up auto grinding loops for both games because of how awkward it is, which is a shame since the games themselves are fantastic. Both Valkyria Chronicles and Valkyrie Profile CotP let you simply play and never worry about levelling, farming or any of that stuff
The first game is one already been mentioner several times. Valkyria Chronicles. It teaches you tacrics in small steps and stages and the difficulty is pretty easy, bar a sudden spike in chapter 7, but that was trial and error. Preparing appropriately beforehand can trivialise it. There's not really any grinding or farming for loot. You don't need to worry about cross class skills or leveling individual characters since it's the class you level instead. For max rank it's based on speed and not how many enemies you take out. It eases you in with a semi realtime movement and aiming system to gradually familiarise yourself. The story and characters may seem simple, but it's also prety endearing. I honestly can't recommend this game enough.
The other game is on the DS. Valkyrie Profile Covenant of the Plume. This was actually the game that got me into SRPG's. As a Valkyrie Profile fan, it kind of forced me to try it. One reason this is so beginnger friendly is that the number of units are small. You only get 4, so there is so much less to micromanage compared to other games which can have well into double figures and more. While there isn't a difficult mode per say, there's 3 paths in the game depending on how much you use a certain game mechanic. The more you use it, the easier it gets but it locks you out of the good (hard) ending, but NG+ is there for you to try your hand at them all. Nothing overly complicated and the Valkyrie Profile battle system transitioned surprisingly well at times. Again no grinding, farming or spending an age on various subsystems to improve your units.
There are other games I find awesome like FF Tactics and Tactics Ogre. But I wouldn't recommend them to newcomers at all. So many random systems from classes skills that optimisation is an annoyance. People set up auto grinding loops for both games because of how awkward it is, which is a shame since the games themselves are fantastic. Both Valkyria Chronicles and Valkyrie Profile CotP let you simply play and never worry about levelling, farming or any of that stuff
Kresnik258
Member
ethomaz
Banned
Hell since my SNES says the magazines called these gameplay like FFT strategy rolling-playing games... aka Front Mission.
JRPG = Most turn based games (FF, DQ, etc)
AJRPG = Tales of, Star Ocean, Secret of Mana, etc
SRPG = Front Mission, FFT, Ogre Battle, etc
I never get much into WRPG.
But I can understand the differentiation
GeekyDad
Member
Yeah, as a good beginner option, definitely a great choice.
And Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume (DS) because...it's excellent. And it's actually pretty friendly to newcomers, I think.
The n00b Avenger
Member
FFT is the game that got me into the genre. It's not all that simple but it's also not complicated and learning new things as you go along was part of the fun.
There are some things it does that I think are fairly easy on a beginner too compared to some other games. For instance, the focus on a smaller number of units(usually your party just involves a max of 5) and the overall low movement range of units(3 or 4 compared to other games like Fire Emblem which is like 6-8) makes the battlefield as a whole easier to keep track of. That and the fact that I think it's just one of the best games in the genre so it can keep your intention better than some other games.
There are some things it does that I think are fairly easy on a beginner too compared to some other games. For instance, the focus on a smaller number of units(usually your party just involves a max of 5) and the overall low movement range of units(3 or 4 compared to other games like Fire Emblem which is like 6-8) makes the battlefield as a whole easier to keep track of. That and the fact that I think it's just one of the best games in the genre so it can keep your intention better than some other games.
Elaugaufein
Member
There's an option to choose wherever you want to walk on the world map without seeing any enemy whatsoever. Also, this game is dope.
Its also not an SRPG, controlling movement on a turn by turn basis is pretty much non-negotiable to qualify.
That said yeah it's dope. The last few chapters can be a real let down though depending on how you approach / like games, I thought it was handled well enough in the English release (where they made it less repitive).
Really? It wasn't too hard on normal difficulty, and it has an "easy" setting.
Also, the underlying RPG system is a lot less convoluted than many SRPGs.
