/vr/ - Retro Games

[Anonymous No.9879682]

How old were you when you "understood" how JRPGs worked? I had played them since I was eleven but I had no idea how the mechanics actually worked until I was maybe 13 or 14

[Anonymous No.9879687]

>press x to win

[Anonymous No.9879691]

>>9879682
This was my first JRPG. Didn't understand XP/levelling so just ran away from battles. Got stuck at Demon Gate due to being too low level. Figured out XP. Still didn't understand grinding was an option, so deleted my save and restarted the game.

[Anonymous No.9879704]

They’re pretty self-explanatory games, aren’t they?

[Anonymous No.9879719]

>>9879704
Not always. It's not obvious to a kid how something like Materia slots can be maximized, for example.

[Anonymous No.9879728]

>>9879719
>doesn't read manual
>skips past tutorial
>ESL
many such cases

[Anonymous No.9879805]

>>9879682
Yeah for some reason I just didn't get the point until I was around that same age.

[Anonymous No.9879814]

>>9879682
i don't remember exacly which
i do remember that viii took a while to make sense

[Anonymous No.9879832]

>>9879805
Before then I got exposed to them on a couple occasions, like some kids at school were hyped about FF6 and one of them lent me his cartridge and so I'm attacking the snail while it's guarding like what the fuck is the meaning of this. He had a save file before Kefka and I was looking through the menus just baffled.
I had played and possibly beaten Shadowrun at that point so I don't know what my malfunction was. Maybe it was a lack of patience.

[Anonymous No.9879880]

The first RPG I played was Pokemon and I understood it fine. Although one thing that I admire about Pokemon is the fact that you get 4 attacks, instead of just 1 (which is boring and feels wrong).

[Anonymous No.9879978]

>>9879682
I made it to the end of FFVII as a kid but I was either too underleveled or too retarded to actually beat sephiroth, didn't see the ending till years later.

[Anonymous No.9879993]

>>9879682
i was fairly young
pokemon red got me into grinding
then i traded some cards for a copy of nes final fantasy and dragon warrior

[Anonymous No.9880006]

smashed the confirm button, even in dialogues

[Anonymous No.9880098]

>>9880006
>>9879687

[Anonymous No.9880105]

Started with Pokémon as a kid and it didn't take me long to understand the concept of IVs and EVs (I just didn't know they were called that or even had a name obviously), you just need to pay attention to what NPCs tell you. I also played the casino so much that I had figured out how it worked.

Then as a teen, Final Fantasy VIII, again just follow the tutorials, but that was too much for other kids apparently, I was the go-to guy regarding FF8 for others so I'd help them with their junctionning and other tips, or setting up their save files.

[Anonymous No.9880169]

Pokemon doesn't count, guys

[Anonymous No.9880181]

>>9879728
I was like 12 and played in japanese first, I only realized you could LV materia once I got new spells, had no idea what most support or purple materia did back then though,

[Anonymous No.9880186]

I also didn't care for most stats back then, would usually only focus on HP because it was something you could easily see the results in games like FF7 or Super Mario RPG

[Anonymous No.9880218]

>>9880181
You didn't consider that Blue ALL worked with spells when banded together?

[Anonymous No.9880231]

>>9879682
I've been playing them since like first grade, so for a long time. I remember struggling with parts like fighting Zio in Phantasy Star IV though, I wasn't very smart about using buffs and debuffs back then.

[Anonymous No.9880323]

My first was Super Mario RPG. I was lucky because I think is the perfect starter for anyone.
So when I started FF VII I already knew the basis of JRPG gameplay and I could focus on the more advanced stuff.

By the way: Pokemon counts! Pokemon games are pure JRPGs

[Anonymous No.9880407]

>>9880218
Nope, in my head they all did something when banded together, ALL and COVER were for example materiais easy to understand what they did, however there isn't an actual indicator in battle for elemental and added effect, even playing in english to really understand what is happening you have to look at the status screen, especially since even reading the materia description may be misleading due to the fact that it's different if you equip on the weapon or armor slot.

I don't think I got very far in the japanese version, when I played the english one there were already full guides out that helped understand, at that time I didn't even knew english very well, so it was funny to see how my grades in english suddenly went from almost zero to almost perfect scores because I was looking at so much english text and using dictionaries to translate it that was able to memorize how the phrases were being written.

[Anonymous No.9880437]

I was a kid when I played FF7 and all I remember is that I didn't equip materia for the longest time, until I got btfo several times by the elevator bosses in Midgar.

[Anonymous No.9880565]

>>9879682
11

[Anonymous No.9880584]

>>9880323
super mario rpg-to-ffvii chad here too. i also played star tropics the year before but it was an ajrpg

[Anonymous No.9880590]

>>9880231
i still never use buffs or debuffs. feels better to just cause damage

[Anonymous No.9881594]

>>9879682
>be me, 12, the year is 2012
>still enjoying the hand-me-down chipped ps1 despite having modern systems
>enjoyed the many newgrounds sonic flash animations in the mid-late 2000's that featured turn based battles (Final Fantasy Sonic X, Sonic RPG, Sonic Cosmic Dimensions, Wave Warrior EXE, etc)
>i'm familiar with the concept of turn based combat
>after many years of hype and social osmosis, i burn ff7 to a cd and play it on a sunday morning
>really comfy too cause the tv in my room was a crt
>enormous 8 hour gaming session (i got to the midgar zolom and chocobo ranch)
>during the elevator boss fight, i had to go eat dinner
>it's a turn based game so i figured i could just leave the game running while i eat
>return to a game over screen
I love FF7 so much, it's my favourite game

[Anonymous No.9881978]

>>9879682
my 1st jrpg was Chrono Trigger.
I grinded on Lv1 mobs, since they werent a threat, and the AP was good. Had all skills/spells at the start of the game, but was severely under leveled.

Eventually I learned after CT to grind on stronger monsters...

But... I was still running from encounters, thinking id be too hurt or out of healing items/mp if i fight every encounter.

it wasnt until late high school, i saw a friend, whos never played an RPG before, just fighting everything... i was like, WTF are doing idiot?! and hes like, idk, its fine, dont worry about it...
He was early in the game, and higher in level than my file which beat the game.
He said he doesnt grind...
I gave it a shot, and suddenly the world of JRPGs became "mash X to win", and were no longer hard. Went back and beat all the game i could never beat.

I also didnt truly know how to combo mechanics together. I semi knew, but usually through example. it wasnt until late highschool another friend was like, think about it, dual weild, and x2 attack, is now x4 attack. youre capped at 9999 dmg, so this is essentially 40k dmg. and once i saw "how" he thought, i started to be able to think that way as well.

Its my autism, I always need to be shown HOW to solve things, and eventually can start doing it on my own. rarely did i understand stuff w/o seeing others go through the process 1st. (not to be confused with being told the answer. I mean the process of figuring out things)

[Anonymous No.9881986]

my first were ff mystic quest and ff4. they were pretty straight forward. i was 7 or 8 when i first played them. i didnt beat them til years later but i was able to play them.

[Anonymous No.9881997]

>>9879682
Played FFVII when I was 8. I got to the final boss without even assigning any roles. I literally just gave whatever materia to my characters. I think they all had cure and Life or some shit. I played another RPG with classes and then it clicked. I then replayed FFVII a few years later and minmaxed my characters into a fighter, a mage and a healer and breezed through it. I remember aeris was doing 9999 damage by the end of disc 1 with some magic because of how materia boosts your stats

[Anonymous No.9882109]

I think I figured them out when I was very young. I played Pokemon Red when I was seven or eight and handled it fine.
When I was like five or something though I really liked this educational RPG called Mazequest where you solved grammar problems to befriend monsters. (The best thing about this game is that because you aren't fighting the monsters, you're calming them, their health stat is called "rancor".)
I wasn't used to the concept of saving and loading games, so I would just make a new profile every time I played and start over from the beginning. Because of that I never made it past the first few dungeons despite playing it for hours and hours.
I didn't know any better though, so I still had a lot of fun with it.

[Anonymous No.9882118]

>>9881978
>I gave it a shot, and suddenly the world of JRPGs became "mash X to win", and were no longer hard. Went back and beat all the game i could never beat.
cant do that with FF8

[Anonymous No.9882173]

>>9879682
I understood them just fine but I didn't have the patience to really exploit the systems until maybe I was around 15. Before then I would just brute force it. Equip the newest stuff, make the numbers bigger, etc. I was the kid who beat Emerald Weapon just by miming Knights of the Round instead of the dozen other ways that make it go by way faster.

[Anonymous No.9882180]

>>9882118
lolwut
i beat FF8 before i understood how to play RPGs.

much less after i just equipped a single GF to a party member (not intentionally) and it was Lv99 at the start of the game, turning most fights into a joke.
Also had 1 GF to squal, just for attack power, and basic attacked to victory.

despite the level syncing, I was like Lv10 or something low at the end of the game, since i ran from encounters. So i know i didnt meet the minimum level they intended u to be.
FFX was the 1st game i hit a real roadblock, where X to win wasnt the answer.

[Anonymous No.9882491]

>>9882180
the people i know who played it couldnt beat it so your experience isnt universal.

[Anonymous No.9883215]

>>9879682
Not until sometime in 1998 when Pokemon came out in NA. I shotgunned through with blastoise almost making it past the elite 4 but missing the mark. THAT was when I finally realized that you're meant to grind. I had rented Earthbound too when it came out but I didn't get it, same with FF3 on gameboy I got as a gift. I think it was because I had too much invested in the game at the time I was willing to grind without knowing what it was. In the previous games there was no incentive for young me to want to grind, especially on rented games. It wasn't until way later that I played Earthbound finally.

[Anonymous No.9883271]

Took a while but by 9 I had taught myself well enough to learn how to read English at a good enough level to know how to operate most text heavy games. Before then trying to figure out how to play FF7 was a big of a challenge, I think I probably spent 10 hours just finding the materials to find the crossdressing materials.

[Anonymous No.9883828]

>>9880323
>By the way: Pokemon counts! Pokemon games are pure JRPGs
For the purposes of OP's question, I don't think it does because Pokemon is bigger than jrpgs and everybody played it. I don't remember even knowing what a jrpg was let alone thinking of Pokemon as one, so I don't think there's much overlap. It's its own thing.

[Anonymous No.9883915]

I understood them well enough to beat the game but not well enough so I felt like it was too shallow. In a way the people who derp with them get more out of them. Once you feel like there is nothing left to do but go through the motions its not as enjoyable.

[Anonymous No.9884057]

>>9879682
I rented Mario RPG the day it came out and understood it fine. That was the perfect start. I was 9 or 10

[Anonymous No.9884101]

Age 8, when I got Dragon Warrior 2. I learned about EXP and grinding, status effects and how some would persist on the world map and others would vanish at the end of battle, the importance of writing down all NPC dialogue, making maps, opening every chest and searching every room, keeping the inventory full of healing items, keeping a wing of wyvern for a quick trip back to town for emergencies, and careful conservation of MP for when it's really needed.
I wanted a game I wouldn't blast through in a month or less, and I got it. Took me over 8 months of daily play to finish it.

[Anonymous No.9884309]

>>9882118
I would swallow so many of her turds.

[Anonymous No.9884571]

I started with final fantasy and dragon warrior on nintendo when most kids had moved on to snes. good times. Got stuck on ffII(usa) at demon wall, and went through mystic quest later. Started a lifelong interest in these types of games. I also liked dungeons and dragons in the 80s, and tolkien, for whatever street cred that gives me.