RPGCast – Episode 505: “We’ll Just Postpone It Every Week”

Tags: Atelier LuluaBloodstained: Ritual of the NightCadence of HyruleDragon Quest Builders 2Final Fantasy VFinal Fantasy VIIIFinal Fantasy XIV: ShadowbringersPersona Q2

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Persona 1 I would never recommend being the first someone plays.

The Fire Emblem series is one where I recommend against starting with the first game. In this case, the first game was Japan-exclusive for many years. Even when Shadow Dragon introduced a remake of that first game to the Nintendo DS, I still do not recommend it as a solid entry point.

Fire Emblem 7 on GBA, Fire Emblem Path Of Radiance on GameCube or even Fire Emblem Awakening on 3DS are all better entry points into the franchise.

I would also respectfully disagree that one should skip Bravely Default and go straight to Bravely Second. Both games are terrific in my opinion, but Bravely Second always felt like more of an expansive DLC pack for the original game as opposed to a standalone title.

Players would be at a significant disadvantage given the sequel’s recycling of numerous world/town assets and characters from the original game. The five minute “catch-up” video at the beginning of Bravely Second does not do justice to the original game.

There are two major plot twists in Bravely Second, one about half-way through the game, the other near the end that also wouldn’t have the same impact without having played through the first game.

Street Fighter. But who has even played the first one anyway 😅

I certainly wouldn’t recommend Tales of Phantasia, particularly the GBA version. It can be rough in spots, even without the odd slow down in that game. I’ve barely played any of the Tales game outside of Symphonia and its direct sequel, though ToS seems like a good place to start.

Must say, my first thought echoed Chris’s – there’s hardly any series where I would recommend someone started with the first game, particularly for anything that’s been around more than one or two console generations. All the big JRPGs – FF, DQ, Tales, Legend of Heroes, Persona, Megami Tensei – have refined themselves beyond recognition (except DQ!) over the years. Not to say the first entries aren’t necessarily decent – I can still happily run through FF1 – but each has a far superior starting point down the line.

I almost think the exceptions are more interesting. Phantasy Star stands up brilliantly for an Eighties RPG, and I have a soft spot for Ys 1, with its weird bump combat, but great music and brilliant boss battles.

QOTW: Borderlands.

While the original Borderlands was fun in it’s day and in it’s own right, when Borderlands 2 hit the scene it had made so many changes and improvements to mechanics, UI, and storytelling that as much as I love that series and even the original I cannot recommend the original when it’s sequel is just leagues better.

QoTW: Definitely the Persona series, which effectively starts with Persona 3. Persona 1, Persona 2 Innocent Sin, and Persona 2 Eternal Punishment are all dungeon crawlers, made by a different team of developers. While the early Persona games are presumably canon, their characters and story events are almost never referenced in the later games.

Also, the Earthbound/Mother series. Mother 1 is an extremely primitive and unbalanced game, and only those who love Earthbound & Mother 3 so much that they want to see its rough-woods predecessor are likely to enjoy it.

The Dragon Quest series might also qualify, since its early games are so rudimentary, but at least Dragon Quest 1 has the virtue of being short. Anyone who delves into the early DQ games should do themselves a favor and play the remakes, not the NES originals, since the remakes tend to have various quality of life improvements.

Last week’s QoTW: For JRPG July 2019, I’m finally wrapping up the Dragon Quest XI postgame on the PS4. It’s so much fun that I can hardly remember why I put it down (I know it was because the game is SO long, but still…)

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