(J)RPG

As much as i like this genre, when i wanted to get examples, nothing really stuck to my mind except for the first ones. Part of the reason might be the time investment they require, tied to the story being central and not always up there. Or that i'm hardly interested in the story in general, which doesn't help to say the least. It ended up with a small list overall, as most of the (J)RPG i played, i didn't finish them.

The first one was Pokémon Blue. The Pokémon franchise was and still is a popular one. Between the cards, the anime, the games, etc. Blue being one of the two first one with Red. I also played later Pokémon Silver and Pokémon Stadium. I don't know the psychology of collecting on children and if they're more prone to being affected by it. But it sure worked on me with cards and in the games. Plus the fact it was popular in schools. You'd trade cards or exchange Pokémon connecting 2 Game Boy. Past the period though it quickly dissipated and the last Pokémon i tried on Nintendo DS didn't last long.

Then i remember playing Golden Sun but while i did finish both Pokémon, this one i'm not sure. I do remember the Djinn system though with their psynergies you could use in the world to advance, solve puzzles or find secrets.

A few years later, i got the GameCube Tales of Symphonia edition, which drastically changed what i was used to in the genre with real-time combats instead. From that moment, turn-based combats sounded way less appealing. In the RPG i experienced, most of the time the difficulty isn't high enough for choices to matter in combats, making the wait between each turn purely annoying. I did finish this one along with the sequel way later. I think after finishing Tales of Symphonia, that's where i searched which Tales of to buy and somehow ended up with an imported version of Tales of Legendia and Swap Magic to not install a chip in my PS2. While i don't remember anything of this game sadly, i do remember having a massive english-french dictionary to understand the dialogues as much as possible.

As stated in the introduction, i started to play many others RPG. Some examples i may continue one day:

• Final Fantasy X a friend lend me in exchange for Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy, but i wasn't able to finish it in time, so i've a 50% save on a memory card still there, with the PS2 connected and ready to be booted. With the game i bought in a pack on Ebay at some point thinking i'd do the Final Fantasy series from VII to X. And i did start Final Fantasy VII.
• Another Tales of, Tales of Berseria.
• Cthulhu Saves the World, with the humor being probably the strongest point.
• Xenoblade Chronicles on Wii, which is with the Tales of, probably the ones i'd like to continue the most. Though the issue with an abandoned RPG is you'll most likely need to restart entirely.

So, since unlike the others genres listed in the sub-menu i wasn't really able to give you an insight of what i like the most in this genre, what i can say is it's mainly a matter of: lacking time, having a story with a theme that have my interest and that i'm more willing to play an RPG with a real-time battle system than one with turn-based combats.

It should also be noted that most games i play with RPG component generally enter another category, due to the preponderance of action for instance. It stays true for many games with a high focus on the story still.

Credits: Tales of Symphonia by Namco Tales Studio, Blastoise from Pokémon Blue by Game Freak.