Best character development ever in a video game was Luke Von Fabre from Tales of the Abyss! He goes from being an unbearably annoying spoiled rich kid to a true hero who grows critical of his own past actions and gets to where he's ready to give his very own life to save the world! Amazingly well written and most evolving video game character development in my opinion!
@@arman_llc624 not familiar with that! Still, I doubt he has the same level of character development as Luke. Luke is literally so annoying at the start of Tales of the Abyss that you almost don't even want to play the game so you don't have to hear him anymore! However, if you bear with it, by the end of the game he's an extremely admiral hero. Dude goes through so much traumatic mind fuckery that you wonder how he didn't go insane and just give up in the process! Best way to describe it without giving away spoilers!
@@dthedarkartist6709 Sigurd is different and special from other fire emblem lords in a way that is hard to explain. He's mature and is an adult which is a nice change but its not neccarily his personality that carries him, It's his story and arc that really defines him. He's the person most elevated by the story of the game and the things he goes through is just plain sad and heart wrenching. but yea I don't have much experaince in jrpg's or rpg's in general, so I just decided to mention my favourite character from the fire emblem series
@@arman_llc624fair enough. That's understandable! I'm not saying that he's not got a good story nor that it's not touching! I'm just saying that the level of character development and growth seen in Luke is on a level I've never seen before and I play a LOT of RPGs. And I do mean a lot. Oddly enough though, I have not been very familiar with the Fire emblem games. That's only because I don't have any interest in buying any nintendo systems anymore. I usually emulate the games that I do want to try that are nintendo exclusive. Just haven't gotten to play fire emblem much mostly just because I never think about it when I go searching for something new to emulate. I'll have to check it out. If you ever get to, I would highly recommend Tales of the Abyss just for Luke's story alone! ⚠️ Warning ⚠️ if you do, remember, he is unbearably annoying at first! That's the beauty of it though. It's so well written that you literally can't stand the main character at first. Then he's forced to _ which messes with his head. Then he is tricked into_ and betrayed at the same time by_ which messes with his head more. Then he finds out_ which is a mentally destroying revelation in itself! After he comes to tems with all that there's this massive shift in him that pushes him to a level of hero not seen in most stories! I really recommend it to anyone who likes a good character arc!
I've got a Let's Play of Odin Sphere Leifthrasir starting after Christmas. I was so excited to play it again I recorded the whole thing in about 2 weeks. It's that good.
I never stop learning about amazing games with you, Eric! Thank you! I have added Trials of Mana & Langrisser 1&2 to my list of games that I hope to play in the future! ahhh, too many good games, too little time!
Something to add to dragons crown, the storytelling is basically like a dungeon master narrating your journey ala dungeons and dragons. Freaking cool as hell.
Love the narrator! "You've taken your antics too far, and the guards arrested you. After a lengthy lecture, you were freed the next day😁". Yeah I terrorize the villagers😅.
Thanks for the great content as usual Erick! I'm always happy to see Trails of Cold Steel love on your channel and the remasters are great. If your lucky enough to get a physical copy, both 1 & 2 comes with cool steelbooks! I really need to play the .hack series. They're always available for a great price and the story seems to be right up my alley. I would also like to mention Tokyo Xanadu eX+. I love that game.
@@gdoubleu8045 The game is 90% combat, but I found it very fun. And Gwen isn't the wall that she was in the original, where she was one of the harder characters to play with some really tough early bosses.
@@gdoubleu8045 just bought it on Amazon physical for 40. I've gotta hurry and beat the shit out of the jrpgs I'm playing right now before January gets here lol!
Persona 5 Royal is NOT an expanded version or remotely like DLC, and anyone who says so clearly never played the game... Outside of the main story, pretty much everything under the hood is improved or tweaked in some way: Every party member can now Baton Pass right away, and both Baton Pass and your Technical level can be improved. Guns are now more useable, as they now replenish after each battle, and can be customized to deal elemental damage. Enemies have far fewer weaknesses, making crits and technical knockdowns more valuable, and the bosses have new mechanics to their fights. The Palace layouts are different to accomodate the Will Seeds and grappling hook. Morgana isn't on your case as much, so you have more free time than you used to have. Mementos is less of a grind, with new mechanics and a new character. Confidants give new or changed bonusses. There are new places to visit. Persona fusion in the Velvet room works differently. Each persona now has a Pokemon like ability, many which you can pass down through fusion. A new NG+ superboss is available. A few confidants are either new or work differently. The general quality and look is better, as it is now purely made for the PS4, and not a joint effort with the PS3. There are more ways to increase your social stats and SOOO much more! Pretty much nothing about the game was left untouched, and either got improved, changed completely or tweaked for a much more userfriendly experience... If you liked Persona 5, i can guarantee that you will LOVE Persona 5 Royal! It's not even close to a remaster, and is closer to a complete remake when you look at how many changes they made...
Can confirm. The changes to P5 are much deeper than the changes to P3 and P4. Royal is completely different from the original. If you have only the original, you won't be wasting your money if you buy royal!
@@chairkun9139 Oh, not at all. I think it's fine to not go for a game you haven't played. I just had to point out that there is so much new in Royal, that dismissing it on grounds of being just DLC or an enhanced port is doing yourself a MASSIVE disservice if you liked the original! If you already have the original, it might be a bit of a hard sell to go for it, but even after having spent over 800 hours with the original, i have never regretted my now over 600 hours with Royal. I would equate Royal to the Definitive Edition for Xenoblade Chronicles 1, where much of the game is the exact same, but it has so many small improvements that does away with SOOO many tiny annoyances that it basicly feels like a new game to me...
@@skynet0912 despite all the hate royal had, it was a great improvement, better gameplay, excellent new semester, godlike new songs, and overall one of the best games of the year without a doubt
I had no idea odin's sphere was on ps4. Definitely buying it there! I thought I would be stuck getting it on vita (ordered one via eBay) so this will be great! 1080p 60fps! Thanks!
it was pretty good! and it has a bit of replayability because of the different ways the stories can go based on your 3 team setup from the start. personally i think i liked Angelica's the most but each character was a lot of fun to play with.
YS Memories of Celceta for PS4 is awesome and the box it comes in is nice and shiny. Still need to get that platinum trophy. I also need to get back to Odin Sphere. Started playing Cornelius' story and got sidetracked by other games. An overwhelming urge to play Tales of games is not helping. Then there's a certain PS games I want to play again... :/ Dragon's Crown was actually more enjoyable than I thought it would be. Played FFVIIR for a bit recently and the nrw battle system doesn't bother me as much as I thought it would. Plus there was still a sense of nostalgia.
Last Recode had ONE issue and a major one... The increased base attack of characters and increased XP gain which meant the game is easier. Could have been fun to have set this as an option of a difficulty select at the start.
I bought odin sphere partially because of one of your videos like a year or two ago. But I finally got around to playing it this week (after finishing cold steel 4). Its lots of fun, and have no regrets buying or playing it. But I kinda like dragons crown more so far. That said I hear odin sphere is better in ng+ than fresh ng. Dragons crown is too kinda, but I suspect not as much. I guess Ill see.
Atoli is waifu material for me. She's the part of the reason I loved GU (her, and the avatar battles). But I wouldn't put GU at number 1, since the dugeons are boring crap.
Alkaid was waifu for me. I just think that the dot hack game and stories were ahead of their time from this current era where everyone was a trapped in a game style anime. So ifeel like it gets somewhat ignored for how good it is.
Yeah i never played vanilla persona 5 all i can say that the few mild critics of the game arent there in royal. It just feels like my personal favoeite jrpg. Could play persona forever^^
I actually looked up suggestions on what JRPG's to possibly play and a list had Trails of Cold Steel at the top, I had no idea how it was going to play, if I'd like it, I bought it on a whim really and I'm so glad that I did because I love the series, I've played 1 all to 4 and loved them al, the character development is amazing but it's a series with an outstanding soundtrack as well
i hope you went back and played the trails in the sky series as well...i had a similar experience actually, id heard about the trails in the sky series all over the place but never played it, and was looking for a new turn based jrpg series to dive into, that also happened to be the week cs1 released on ps3..i watched a short review of it and they talked about the slow build up, the excellent worldbuilding, the wonderful combat, so i shelled out the money for it (which i think at the time was only 40, it wasnt even a full 60 dollar game) and i never looked back. finished cs1, and while waiting for cs2 i decided to play trails in the sky and finished the entire trilogy, and fell in love with the series.
I always find it so strange why you love hack g.u. so much. I played the remastered ps4 version. In fact, you are the one that motivated me to do so as you always speak passionately about it! I have to say though, I would qualify this trilogy AT BEST as being decent. The gameplay is simply awful, but that is a well-known fact so I knew what I was getting myself into. However, the story and characters are very underwhelming in my opinion and I was sort of counting on those two points to be much better to compensate for the gameplay. The characters are very cliche and the story fairly predictable and also not very original. Another problem is that the story stretches itself far too much in length. Throughout the trilogy you will be doing quests needed to progress in the game that you frankly don't want to do and really storywise, it was more than possible to condense the story in a single game. The only redeeming point for me was the OST. The game does possess some excellent tracks.
When VII Remake combat was first shown, I was disappointed it wasn't turn-based. But over the years of its development I realised that I didn't want the exact same game as the original (albeit modern). I wanted a completely new take on it. Now we have two different but great interpretations of the story and combat etc. The remake doesn't top the original for me, but its good enough to stand on its own, well...at least if the rest of the parts are well made too.
I can totally understand this sentiment but personally I was massively disappointed. Most of the character changes were fine, as far as giving extra dialogue to the side characters and adding some new ones, I think that's fine. What I was not okay with was them completely changing the continuity. The whole arbiters of fate thing was completely unnecessary and didn't add anything at all imo. It just made an already confusing storyline even more convoluted. I was willing to accept some different story beats but they tried to do too much too soon, and in first the first area of the original game. I didn't necessarily want the exact same game either but Remake isn't even FFVII at all. It's just those characters in an entirely new and different story/timeline. No thanks.
@@SliderFury1 I can understand people not liking the story changes, have no problem with that. At this point its hard to say its a remake...it may actually be part of the compilation, depending on what direction the story goes in. If its a multiverse type thing where events can be changed, then its not a remake but part of the compilation as its own thing. The changes to story are hard to judge at the moment. Unfortunately, we'll just have to be patient and see how it pans out. =/ Probably be waiting another 7 years or something though lol
@@gdoubleu8045 I'm willing to see how it plays out, and if they split it into two separate storylines from here I'd actually be alright with that for the most part. This is again a very personal thing but what upsets me the most is that I thought a whole new generation of people was going to get to experience the awesomeness that was (the OG) FFVII, somewhat different but still with the overall emotional impact of the story and characters intact. We could say to those people "yeah, isn't that crazy! Isn't that cool! What did you think when you found out X thing? Yeah, me too!" I was looking forward to a shared experience leapt forward in time. But the experience of someone who's never played the OG, and plays the Remake, and people like us who grew up with it, is not just sightly different, it's COMPLETELY different. They'd said to us "Hey wasn't that so crazy when you thought Sephiroth killed Barrett!?" And we're like uhhhhh, wut, that never happened…? So I guess that's what it comes down to for me. I thought the remake would bring new and old fans together but all it did, for the most part, was create two completely different sets of fans. And that just makes me sad 😞
@@SliderFury1 I would have been disappointed if the story wouldn't have taken another path. I've played it so many times so I didn't want the new ones to be just another set of games with modern stuff revolving around the same story. It's refreshing and awesome to play the new one with a new story, and at times go back to the original and feel at home.
@@Deadono yeah, again, totally get where you (and that sentiment in general) are coming from, but I don't like it. Wasn't for me. A lot of OG fans feel the same. It's unfortunate that it increased but also splintered the fanbase instead of just increasing it.
My only disappoint about the Trials Of Mana Remake is that night time doesn't look like night. It looks more like dawn. I have mixed feelings about the FFVII Remake having an Action Based Battle System. Just having this Battle System doesn't make me think this is Final Fantasy VII. I felt like the Remake lost it's Identity. It doesn't even have the Victory Fanfare the Franchise is known for! I've always known Final Fantasy to have Active Time Battle since FFVI(FFIII for Super Nintendo) and FFVII back in 1998. Even since my first experience with Final Fantasy since FFVI, I thought the Active Time Battle Style was a "revolution"! I'm just disappointed that it's not 60 Frames PerSeconds. Especially after the PS3 Tech Demo. Even with PS4 Pro, there's still no 60 Frames PerSeconds! I'm thinking of getting Trails of Cold Steel. My only problem with Valkyria Chronicles is the Batomys Battle.
I have the same feelings for the FF7 'Remake''s combat system... that and also the multi-part approach instead of just 1 full game remake it's more of a retelling ala Resident Evil 2 (2019) and 3 (2020) than a true remake
Bruhhhhhh I just got my hands on Parasite Eve Complete with bonus disk! Finally after wanting it since it first launched lol. Anyway, have a safe holiday. Saved the video to watch it post work.
just gotta say that while the graphics system may be more or less the same throughout most of the cold steel series it really boggled my mind how young they actually looked in the first game after finishing up IV (and once again wait in slow agony for the localization of the next one, hajimari ;-; ) we actually followed these people from teenagerdom to adulthood, thats kinda nutty. and the way a lot of them grew really is special. ive always loved the legend of heroes/kiseki series but they really did a good job with these, even with some of their particular flaws~
I haven't played Odinsphere, but I have to say that every other game on your list has ranked up there with some of my favorite Ps4 games overall, despite being ports and remakes. Trials of Mana, Langrisser, and Ys Celceta are just amazing!
You've gotta get Odin's sphere. I only have the ps2 version which has many problems and was crazy hard like Eric said. Even when I wanted to rage quit, I couldn't because the story is that good! The ps4 version is vastly superior and even adds more content and abilities for the characters. It's not cheap but worth it. I love vanilla ware games🙂.
@TheOutkast4ever The thing I liked about her was that "Moral Code" that She and her pupils followed. It kinda reminded me of the "Moral Code" of the Justicars in ME Trilogy.
Tokyo Xanadu Ex+ was a great port of the still really great Vita version, with beer performance and a good bit of new content. Oooh, and the Kingdom Hearts HD Collection porting/remaking a ton of games.
Best remaster/remake jrpg on PS4 for me: 1. SMT III Nocturne HD Remaster featuring Raidou Kuzunoha from Devil Summoner Series (technical issues should be fixed in western release) ATLUS add in patch 1.02 MANUAL SKILL INHERITE IN DEMON FUSION, no more wasting 100 hours on random skill inherite like in original. 2. Valkyria Chronicles Remastered - the best tactical JRPG with VC4. Game is cheap, have good mature story (no more cliche teenegers save world), still awesome graphic and very unique gameplay. 3. Final Fantasy VII Remake 4. Odin Sphere 5. Dragons Crown 6. Legend of Heroes Trails of Cold Steel 1-2 7. Neptunia VII 8. Tales of Vesperia 9. Trials of Mana 10. Ys Memories of Celceta
I don't think you understood the purpose of FFVII Remake. It was never intended to be a direct remake. Certain characters were able create new outcomes. The whole intent was to tell a new story based off of what happened the first time that closely follows the events of the original.
I'm playing through dot hack right now and I'm loving it so far. I will say that I wish there was more depth in the combat system combos but oh well. I LOVE the story and the world building. It really feels like this MMO is a real thing. 💓
I still have Vita version of Trails of Cold Steel I and II, replayed them a lot and still replaying them. I’m a bit confused. Is Sword Art Online based or inspired by the Dot Hack series? They both have virtual MMO RPGs.
Its basically inspired by .hack But the world and presentation of sword art isn't as serious. Its more of a harem than it is an action adventure series. It does have some cool fights tho.
Oh man I'm playing part 3 of .hack GU right now and I frickin LOVE this trilogy! I can't wait to see how the story plays out. Each part has ended up starting in a way that I did not expect. I would assume one direction and then they did something random on me that I ended up liking anyways. The battle system was fun but I would recommend not over leveling too much unless you want to make every boss battle ridiculously easy for the entire game. Really good story telling overall so far and I pretty much like all of the characters tho I had to go with Japanese over English just because Atoli's English voice acting just hurt my ears. lol Its too bad because everyone else was pretty damn good on the English side. Even had the dude who played Vash the Stampede from Trigun as Kuhn. The soundtrack has been pretty damn good as well. Ovan's theme is epic.
Trials of Mana is so good. I even platinum'ed it, and I rarely do that. Even the original Trials of Mana is good, and way better than Secret of Mana, in my opinion.
I must be one of the only people who doesn't care for vesperia. I like Yuri and judith but didn't care for the rest of the cast and the story never gripped me.
Thanks for reminding me I need to finish my second Trials of Mana playthrough (to get all the character endings), Langrisser 2, and Tokyo Xanadu Ex+'s end game. Which, if I'm being honest, is a wayyy better Falcom port than Celceta. It's faster but still has the speedy Ys style combat. The characters are better. The graphics are better. And the end boss is so much better. The end game content sullies the emotional impact of the ending a bit, but the resulting bosses are awesome. And yeah, Odin Sphere is amazing. One of my first platinum trophies. I never really got into .hack GU though. Mostly because Haseo is such an unlikeable character.
I have been dying to play the .hack games and been waiting for original series to be remastered. Would it make more sense to wait and play original 4 or go ahead and start with GU?
I like tactical turn based so much, action jrpg more less... Trails of cold steel has a big problem to me: i don't like the setting, at all... too much modern. However, very good list!!
I tried playing Valkyria Chronicles Remastered. But the strategy part was kind of taken away. When I revolved around luck whether they hit or not. And Sniping is one of my favorite things, and they had a bigger cross hair then Alicia did. I enjoyed the story, so if anyone has tips that for that game, I'll take em. But I did see 3 games in this list I would like to try... So thanks
Also, now that I think of it, would Tales of Berseria and Ys 8: Lacrimosa of Dana also be considered ports since they came out on the PS3 and Vita, respectively, in Japan a bit before the PS4 versions came out? Ditto for Digimonstory Cyber Sleuth/Hacker's Memory.
@@lnsflare1 The Japanese versions of Berseria were developed at the same time and came out on the same day, so it'd be considered multi-platform as opposed to a port. A port implies a large gap in the timeframe, and separate developments. With Y's 8, it's a little harder to tell, since their releases were staggered a bit. It's possible the PS4 version was just delayed.
@@almightycinder Good point about Berseria, but I'm pretty sure that Ys 8 wasn't just a delay, what with the fairly huge amount of content it added to the base game (most/all of which the Vita probably could have handled just fine, irking me that it wasn't added as a DLC patch).
@TheOutkast4ever SPOILERS It is a sequel though, since the entire reboot is predicated on Sephiroth somehow jumping back in time from after the end of the original FF7 and giving Aerith and Cloud visions of the original timeline in order to trick them into killing the beings who were trying to keep that timeline in place. FF7 Remake's timeline is entirely dependent on the original game's timeline having occured first.
@TheOutkast4ever SPOILERS It would be a pure reboot if it wasn't for the inescapable fact that the entire story is based around post Final Fantasy 7 Sephiroth being there and using the memories of the events of the original Final Fantasy 7 in order to change his own past, with the entire story being filled with spiritual beings who are aware of the events of the original game and are trying to make sure that they happen again, at least in the broad strokes. A reboot would be a story that might use the same characters and settings, but isn't tied to the original canon (see: DmC compared to Devil May Cry 1-4), which is explicitly not the case in this game, seeing as it is completely contingent on the original FF7 having happened first (see: Persona 2: Eternal Punishment being a sequel that is inextricably tied to Persona 2: Innocent Sin messing with the timeline). FF7: Remake is a possibly deliberately misleading name since it isn't actually remaking FF7 using modern assets and design, it's the original Sephiroth from after the original game using time travel to remake his own past.
I liked Dragon's Crown, and the two weeks I played it, I played online (I paid a monthly subscription for my niece, who wanted play Fall Guys, played three times and then abandoned it entirely; glad I didn't pay Plus for a year!) and it was great. I played Trails of Mana but I abandoned after 45 minutes. I hated every minute of it! I would like Valkyria was not a boring game to play because the premise and the graphics, are amazing. But the battle system is boring! I played the Odin SPhere demo and liked it, but the full game es really expensive and I will wait for a good sale. I haven't tried Vesperia but I loved Berseria because it has a great story and cast of characters. Vesperia reviews mention its story but it's like an average fantasy story, while Berseria is darker and more adult, and not in the bad way (not gory or sexual, but deep). Why do you think Vesperia is better?
@@SeventhheavenDK there were consistent deviations from the original’s plot flow. Each time the deviations were seemingly significant, those spectres showed up. Those things were annoying for sure 😆 As for the fillers, those were side quests and plot development. All meant to enrich the experience. 😊 No different than grinding and completing side quests from the original. 👍
I know Valkria Chronicles is a good game, but I couldn't play it. I hate when my characters die for no reason, at the point at left the game the grinding wasn't viable, and I couldn't make them stronger, so instead of playing the game as I choose I had to play specifically for not loosing. I got bored and didn't continue with the game. The story wasn't bad, but it didn't resonate with me.
It was less about strategy and more about puzzles. I hated that the best way to earn higher xp/items was to make suicidal plays to finish maps fast as you can, instead of playing tactically and keeping your soldiers safe. Did not feel like xcom at all and you end up using only 1-2 characters a lot because of the limited command... overall could not continue with the game
I think I recognize the the red hair character from the cover of Nights of Azure 2: Bride of the New Moon. I haven't played the game, but it looks like her.
FF7 Reminiscent Memories (not remake because the story is told in a different sense and should've been mentioned that Cloud is telling his own version of what went on)
I mean... It's been remade into something else? Let's be honest you know a helluva lot of changes are coming in part 2. Ppl survived who weren't supposed to and we have time traveling shenanigans
@@morriganrenfield8240 Yes it has Morrigan and i wouldn't be surprised if people wind up just being so confused about everything in part 2 so i don't see it being as engaging as the original FF VII game was plus summons plus materia would be used in a weird way.
@@gozucritic4546 I like this version a helluva lot better than a 1 to 1 remake. The original ff7 had one of the most lackluster endings to an amazing game.. Ever.
Have to disagree on FFVII remake. Love the original but the remake was packed to the rafters with filler. So much of that game could've been cut out and nothing would be missed. And I would agree character and boss models look great but there are so many ugly textures in that game too.
Something about the art style and graphics of most newer JRPG's really put me off. I can't take the stories seriously cause it's coming off so cheesy with kiddie dialog
