Hi all,
Just curious what everyone’s favourite JRPG is that isn’t as big as the usual names?
My vote goes to a really early PS1 game called Guardians Crusade (Knight + Baby in JP).
I absolutely love seeing people discussing this out in the wild. It was one of my first JRPGS and got me into the genre when I was younger
The music absolutely SLAPS and I’d recommend a listen to anyone.
It also had a fun mechanic where you raise your companion monster, feeding it and training it which would allow it to take on the form of other monsters in combat.
Alongside this was the living toys system where you could collect toys that acted as your spells, buffs and debuffs in battle.
I don’t know if it’s lesser known, but it is often considered a bad game, Final Fantasy Mystic Quest. For most standards, I mean yeah, it is not good. It is not even considered a JRPG. Why do is it my favourite?
MQ was made and released as an introductory RPG, easy, simple and straightforward to play, It was literally my second RPG, my first one was Pokémon. As I kid I loved Pokémon and searched for more games of the genre, and I found the final fantasy games. English is my second language, and I found the FF games were too complicated for me to understand, but after trying most, I got into MQ.
Introductory games sometimes are necessary, I have played a lot of games in life, but MQ has a special place in my heart and it is the reason I love videogames and RPGs.
It also helps that MQ has a pretty good soundtrack. Yeah, I loved that game too.
MQ is probably one of the only FF games I haven’t played so I need to check it out!
I agree with your point on introductory games though. Apart from Pokemon there isn’t many games for younger players to get into the genre so I can see what they tried to do with MQ. I feel people are way too harsh on that game considering it might not have been their target audience.