I Can't Believe I DROPPED All These JRPGs!

It’s only within the past few years that I’ve been able to DNF books that I actively hate. I think I’ve only stopped one game and that was Final Fantasy 13 due to life events (two very young kids and I had no brains to sort out battle system 😅)

I think it is okay to drop a game if it does not resonate with you. I give a jrpg about 10-12 hrs to hook me in, and if it doesn't, I move on. I really tried to like Octopath Traveler... to the point of giving it 20 hrs. Too grindy and boring to me. I have SMY IV and Folklore on my pile of shame, and your video isn't going move Folklore higher on my list. Now, about this business opportunity I have for you... 🙂

Ok so here are my thoughts on these games:1-Phone game so nope.
2-I'm kinda interested in the remake.
3-I played past the beginning, but dropped it after that might go back later.
4-This is a indie right? Ive heard of it, but don't really care.
5-I have PSP version so I'm not interested in the remastered remake, but I've played the PSP version a bit to chapter 2.
6-Thats a PS2 game right? Yea i don't have a PS2 also doesn't really seem that interesting.

I had difficlty with SMTIV for teh same reason you did. The overworld map was so consusing and it was really diffiuclt to figure out where to go, particulalry later in the game. Apocolypse I played through like four times, but i only beat IV once, I think.

I've watched a handful of your videos in the past but the opening 30 seconds was enough for me to sub.

Every time you say "game too hard" it just makes me appreciate that you're honest. I'm the same way. I was just telling a friend the other day that I'm at the age now where I'll put a game on easy mode as long as I can still enjoy the game. Otherwise I'll drop that game.

First Fantasy Star. I literally kept trying to play it as a kid with no direction and made it to level 32 without leaving the first town until I found talking to the store owner about an object.... This was before Internet.

Honestly, I dropped Final Fantasy XII after a while just because it became a slog getting anywhere in the story. Your list seems pretty solid, I was very on the fence with Mato Anomalies but just decided that I wasn't going to try it.

I never finished the original star ocean 2. Think i've reach the final dungeon but was wipped out so much that I gave up.

Some games just can't hold attention well. I did however really enjoy Folklore and finished it. And actually liked the battle system. Tactics games in general dont hold my interest. Games i own but never finished include Final Fantasy 13-2 and 13-3. Finished the first one barely, but the next two i barely touched.

You're not alone on Star Ocean. Star Ocean, for me, is "I desperately want to love this game but it's making it so damn hard for me to love it" the game. I liked Star Ocean 2 back in the day, and dropped it because I just lost interest in dealing with the difficulty spikes. I got nearly to the very end of Star Ocean 3 and dropped it right before the final boss because the game's "twist" annoyed the ever living hell out of me.

Fun fact: did you know that every Star Ocean game after Star Ocean 3 (that is, 4, 5, and 6, the divine force) is a prequel to Star Ocean 3? The twist was so bad that it ended the future of the Star Ocean universe and they can only do prequels now, because there is no future for the series past 3. It just annoys me that as I'm playing second story R or Star Ocean the divine force, I'm thinking "Star ocean 3 is this universe's future."

Star Ocean 6, the divine force, I got fed up with the insane difficulty spikes that game had and I quit. Seriously, if there's one piece of advice I can give game devs, it's make sure your game has a smooth difficulty curve. Chrono Trigger achieved this in the 90s on the SNES using midi technology, don't tell me for a second that you can't also do it if you wanted to. There are precious few things that make people give up on a game more than the game's difficulty feeling unfair.

So, yeah, Star Ocean, I played 2, 3 and 6 before I played Second Story R, and Second Story R was the first Star Ocean game I actually finished. That's got to be a personal record: Star Ocean, the series I quit on three different times before I finally finished one.

I Can't Believe you DROPPED All These JRPGs!

Interesting list i can see why you didnt stick with any of them. But of them all folklore is one of my favorite games. Its nastolgic probably cause the combat is similar to lost kingdoms which i also really liked. It was weird and different. My only issues with folklore was the grind, and i never liked waggle controls. Still dont.

Never have any hesitation with dropping a game if I’m not enjoying it. Life is short, there are plenty of other games, and you could always try it again later when you might be more in the mood for it. As for revisiting a game you dropped, it’s a bit of crapshoot. Sometimes you don’t like it any more the second time round, but once in a while you’ll find one of your all time favorite games that way.

Hey Brandon, yeah I understand quite well how sometime final boss that are way to hard can be a show stopper, just thinking at one I did recently, Labyrinth of Galleria, man I am still angry at that boss, but I told myself I be back, just need to grind a lot...

For me the last that I dropped is Xenoblade Chronicles 1. I said it in the group therapy

What happened to you with Star Ocean 2 happened to me with the first Mario and Luigi RPG on GBA

I can relate to your SMT IV situation. I was playing Inuyasha Secret of the Divine Jewel on the DS. Loved my time with it and then I got lost and couldn't figure out where I was supposed to go. Unfortunately trying to play it now, the rate of encounters is just too much for me to get through the opening hours of the game. Guess it wasn't meant to be.

I think I placed Folklore's demo... it looks familiar but definitely didn't stick with me.

I also rage quit Star Ocean second story on the PS1 at the same point 😂

Folklore had such a unique aesthetic and gameplay system, a shame the devs could not refine and explore these ideas further in a sequel before getting shut down. The monster catching combat must have been inspired by Chaos Legion and Castlevania Curse of Darkness which then further influenced the likes of Astral Chain and Bayonetta 3.

I like to think of myself as a mediocre videogamer, so you saying you had trouble with Tactics Ogre makes me feel good about myself. Thanks, Brandon!

Awesome video! I love that you also don’t like the serious medieval plot thing cause man…NO. 100% agree!

FFT almost making breaks my heart 😭 great vid!

Your not an idiot for not understand the smt iv world map. It's pretty terrible so I don't blame you. A great game is in there though, you just have to push through.

Persona 5 I gave up in the last dungeon. It was hard. Persona 4 I got up to the final boss and gave up. Got all the way to Skull Kid in Zelda Majoras Mask and didn’t even fight him. FF 7 I couldn’t beat Sephiroth.

Great video, nothing wrong with dropping a game you don't like, I have trouble doing it as well. I did drop Tactics Ogre Reborn but not for the same reason as you. My problem with it is that I feel like they take away your control with your characters. You're level capped at each store level, and you have no control over opening up new jobs. It IS one of the best stories in all JRPGs though, and it is by far the most anti-war game I've ever played.

I agree with you on all of them except SMT IV! The issue is they’re all so grindy or uninteresting, they boil themselves down to plain mid. I’d rather play games that excite me… I really hope you pick up SMT IV again because it’s honestly one of the greatest. So worth it.

I was half-expecting you to have dropped SMTIV because of the Minotaur, but to drop it because you got unfathomably lost? You know what, that's fair actually. But I hope you go back to it someday. Such a good game. Ended up being my second-most played 3DS game (after Pokémon Y).

I am going to get myself in trouble here, I played Harvestella (on your tip) and got to the final boss, Gaia, play time around 100 hours. During battle I ran out of healing items and died. After that I could not pull myself to farm any longer to build enough healing items to win.

As soon as you said SMT 4 I knew it was because you got lost, that is what almost killed it for me. Thankfully I was able to find a guide to direct me to the next area and now I’m almost done with the game.

Lil bit spoilers on explain the story 😕 other that good vid

I havent played a lot of jrpgs so I'm gonna mention other janres. So
Kingdom of amalur reckoning - jaring facial animations were constantly pulling me out of the immersion zone, but more importantly the combat system didnt click with the rest of the game for me. Felt like i can do a lot, while the enemy cant keep up with me at all even if they were multiple levels above me.
The sabateur - way too easy. I was standing there, getting shot at in the middle of an enemy base plaza, and doing my thing like noone was there... And finished the mission... On hardest setting. so it felt like im in a running simulator, planting bombs while i was hearing gunshots.
Rizen - dont know what was the issue. just didnt click with me. People were prazing it immensely, but i didnt see it. Maybe i was too "young" of a gamer, since i havent been playing much of rpgs at that point and it felt too open ended for me, so i didnt know what to do, or more like i couldnt stick to one path. I started learning regular combat, then started learning magic... I didnt have any direction. So this could he entirely on me and my limited understanding of more open games.

Go beat smt 4.

i agree with you on the strategy/tactics games. i enjoy them for what they are and they are usually really good games. but i'm an older gamer now. i'm 40 and i need action. when i was 13 i had all the time in the world and patience for ff tactics. now i just can't.

I feel bad for you dropping smt 4 it's a great game but like any smt game sometimes it doesn't deliver on presentation please play it again I'm sure you will find it enjoyable.

I appreciate the honesty of this video. I think every one has dropped a game everyone else loved because it wasn't doing anything for them personally. Definitely about to watch all your videos

I dropped SMT V because i was sick of reengineering my entire party for every boss encounter. I got to a boss and most of my party was weak to his elements and ailments. I was gonna have to create an all new party to fight this guy and it hadn't even been an hour since i engineered my party for the last boss i had fought. It was too tedious and it was the game loop. I'll go back to it eventually.

First time watching i'm real high plus just subscribed

I dropped tales of bersaria 35 hours in due to unsatisfying combat. Dropped Valkyria Chronicls after 11 hours due to frustrating combat. Dropped Crystar 20 hours in due to overly repetative game loop. Dropped Valkyrie Elesium 5 hours in because it felt like a crate smashing simulator. Had high hopes for all those games. Generally if I'm not having fun I throw in the towel no matter how deep i am into the game.

First time dropping by. I like your honest approach without coolness blather. There's also some FOMO in my own brain, but there are also budget restrictions, so this helps a lot. My particular bête noire is Vagrant Story. The story and characters are amazing, and they pushed the graphics of the PS1 beyond its perceived limits. But the amount of time to set up battles with just the right things, buffs and debuffs, etc. while constantly having to shift through layers upon layers of counterintuitive menus caves my head in every time. I pull it out about once a year now and end up with the same frustrating result. It might be time to sell this one since it's ao highly prized and it's gathering dust here.

I dropped SO2R hard. That final boss is ludicrous and honestly most of the advice I've gotten is "Good luck"!
Nah screw that noise

PLEASE finish SMT IV. It's one of the best in the series.

Bullying in the 80s: “Look at this geek playing video games”

Bullying in 2024: “Look at this chump, can’t even finish their backlog”

I enjoyed Mato A. I enjoyed the story (it is pretty wild) and gameplay was fun. Dungeons do need some spiffying though. 😉

if you’re giving something a fair chance and it just isn’t clicking at all, of course its fine to drop it. fun is subjective

and you’re totally right about star oceans endgame. was barely making it through dungeon’s and had to ask my brother for help. he was like bro… how’d you even get this far🤨 not a single character even knows the familiar speciality. and i was like uh… speciality? lmao

I got stuck in an eternal sonata dungeon with some rotating map puzzle and just never went back. Not to mention the glut of 6 out of 10 rpgs that clog my shelf out of fomo that theyre "hidden gems"

I'm genuinely curious how you got lost in SMT IV. My sense of direction is so bad I get lost in my own one-bedroom apartment, and yet I never had trouble navigating the world of SMT IV.

lol i had the exact same experience with smt iv. after two full sessions of wandering around aimlessly i found i didn't care anymore.

I dropped Mario and Luigi brothership. It went on for too long doing the same thing. It doesn’t have any novelty past the first few hours and should have wrapped up by hour 35.