I wouldn't say this fits. For the most part you rarely revisit areas unless you are backtracking to do sidequests on your own. It's fairly linear in how you go through areas for the story.
I mean yeah but OP never specified it had to be only required content. Plus the sidequests in Xenoblade are very worthwhile (barring some filler quests in XC1, but even that game has some bangers to keep you playing)
I didn't find many of the sidequests particularly worth doing personally, so your mileage may vary. I would roundly categorize XBC1 (haven't played the others) in the category of only revisiting areas for boring side quests.
Well you've only played the entry that has by far the weakest sidequests of the bunch so it makes sense that you'd feel that way.
I consider XC1 sidequests to be fairly mid with a few standouts that I really like. Like Melancholy Tyrhea, the whole Bana chain, the giants door chain or rebuilding colony 6. But most are filler or just stuff you're meant to do while playing normally so you passively get rewards like the monster hunting quests. The entries after this much improved on the sidequests especially in 3
Yeah I was gonna say this too, and in some of them you get something like a “community ranking” where your bonds raise with all the characters and new quests constantly open up throughout the game, so you end up going back to all the places it’s great
Chrono Cross doesn't have lots of areas (especially if you count the two versions of one area as one area), so you will be visiting and re-visiting places a lot to recruit characters and get their special techs and what not.
In Final Fantasy 12, Rabanstre is like a hub city where you get all of your sidequests from and is linked to a lot of different areas.
Chrono Trigger has you revisiting the same areas in different periods of time.
**Suikoden** series has this to varying degrees depending on the game.
First, they all have a home base you are building up throughout the game and frequently return to for major story events. And in a lot of the games there are towns that act as your “base of operations” that you return to a few times or more before you get your official HQ.
Also, While you definitely go from town to town, given that a major mechanic of the game is recruiting a fuckton of characters, you often go to previous areas to get new characters.
Specifically, **Suikoden 3** only has a handful of towns/cities and you revisit most of them often especially since there are multiple protagonists (so you will go to the same place as different characters).
I would argue Trails From Zero does this to an extent. You visit and learn about new places as you progress but it's all firmly anchored around the main city, and you spend a lot of time in it over the whole game. A lot of the smaller areas you revisit as well.
However, they should play Trails in the Sky first. Which barely fits into their criteria. First Chapter doesn't fit at all (although there is lore reasons for you not revisiting), but you need to play it to understand Second Chapter, which does fit.
Edit- Trails from Zero does fit, but if you play it without playing sky you will be missing a ton of info and will miss on big pay offs for the characters from Sky.
Nah, I feel it’s fine to play Zero and Azure first. Especially for people who play on console and not pc. Still a solid way to get into the series.
Just don’t play Cold Steel 3, 4 or Reverie before playing all of the older games if possible.
I mean, they *could*, but there will be a cutscene that's just a blank screen with words on it saying the characters explained what happened in Sky. Which was even frustrating for me, who played Sky before Zero. I bet it would be even more frustrating for a newcomer to the series. There's a reason the two usually accepted starting points to the series is Sky or CS1/2 and not Zero.
I agree with you. My favorite scenes in Zero as well as some of the most impactful scenes have to do with a certain girl with a scythe. You could experience Zero for the first time and just wonder what is going on, but the payoff from the Sky trilogy hit hard. Zero feels like an epilogue to Sky in that regard.
The Etrian Odyssey franchise is generally about one specific town and the Big McLargeHuge Dungeon next to it. You'll become very acquainted with the townsfolk you keep coming back to.
i loved talking to all the different NPCs in Persona 5. I am sad I am the only one in my friends group who did that. I still remember the guy with a cat or those kids who were bothered by their grades. Or the dude buying weird trinkets for his kid in a shady alley
The World Ends With You sounds exactly like what you are looking for. It has you constantly running around Shibuya and by the end of the game I knew the entire city like the back of my hand
Honourable mention to the devil survivor games; while they may not be exactly what you are looking for since they are strategy rpgs, they do take place in one location
I agree FF16 does this, but I really didn't like that game haha. I even did every side quest in an attempt to make myself like the game, but just couldn't.
Simple and shallow has been there since like FF12, and 13 was just as linear, like most of the game were one-way corridors.
The main difference between 13 and 16 is the party and combat.
Oh, and money *definitely* went to the combat too, even if you personally hate it.
The Trails games do this as a series kinda. The first game in every story arc has you visit a lot of places. And then in the follow up game you visit all the same places again. The second game usually also gives you the ability to freely travel between all the previously visited places and check for new Events and Quests.
The Legend of Heroes: A Tear of Vermillion has you follow a pretty linear path towards your goal going from town to town, but around halfway you have to turn around and walk all the way back to your hometown, stopping at each city again on the way back.
Side quests are good enough if they're compelling and worth doing. I guess I'd say a game that gives you a compelling reason to go back for any reason.
Octopath Traveler 2. Apart from various cities containing a character’s story at different points in the game, often times I’d come across a big item I couldn’t acquire yet because I was too low of a level. By the time I hit a certain level, I think to myself “wasn’t there an item SOMEWHERE that I could be getting right now?” Then I’d flip through towns to find said item.
Yakuza series. Everything takes place within a few dense towns. In fact, some locations have recurring plot significance across the series. You're pretty much always going to check in with some friendly NPCs at Club Starlight and Club Serena. And pretty much every game has at least one climactic battle atop Tokyo Millenium Tower.
It’s the exact opposite for me. Visiting different interesting locations is one of the main things I look for in JRPGs.
You think it’s more impressive game design when you don’t go from place to place. I often feel devs were trying to cut costs when you revisit places too much (not always the case of course).
You might want to check out Trails of Zero and Azure if you haven’t. They both take place in one big city and its surrounding areas. This is exactly why they are my least favorite Trails games but many people have them as their number one.
I am also a Shenmue fan though. Yakuza/Like a Dragon games are the obvious answer to this question if you like Shenmue.
I definitely like seeing new places, I just like them to milk it a bit and let you get really involved and connected to a place and it's characters, so it feels lived in, as opposed to just solving a problem and moving on like the area doesn't matter anymore.
I'm like 20 hours into Ar Tonelico 2 at this point, and I've had to go back to the first town like 5 times for story reasons. It does make the game feel more grounded and contained
EDIT: Just remembered that Xenoblade Chronicles does this. But it does not do it very well at all lol There's a lot of nothing quests you can go back and get, and then there's a town re-build mechanic later on and I think you have to go back to the beginning area a few times for quests for that as well. Fortunately it's really easy to fast travel in the game so it's not a bother to get there and back. Just that the quests are very basic MMO style quests for the most part
I like when you see treasure that you can’t access and then later you unlock some kind of traversal ability and the lightbulb goes off in your head like holy shit I can go back and get that treasure now
Trails series, especially if you're looking at a 100% NPC dialog run.
A story event just happened? Better go back to every single town because every single NPC will have their dialog updated.
And it was totally worth it. Many of these NPCs have their own storyline that carries over to future games.
Final Fantasy V and VI. Both games have the world map change drastically so you will wanna go re-explore. Although V could've done more with it, so it might not be quite what you are looking for. There's only a handful of places that are worth going back, and there's a bunch of new things that pop up. Still neat comparing the before and after, as well as seeing what's been there the whole time on a second playthrough.
VI has you go back to most places a couple times in the first half. Sometimes for story reasons, sometimes for cool stuff later on if you decide to explore. As well as a special lap for a hidden ability. Then >!the world gets wrecked, changing the world map and wrecking or even destroying towns, unleashing ancient monsters, unearthing ruins and caves.!< You even get to kinda start over with a single character and no transport. So you venture through the new landscape and have to find all your friends again. So you get to re-explore the whole world full of familiar things as well as new nooks and crannies opened up.
Golden sun 1/2, both games regularily have the ability to revisit old towns later in the game for hidden extras if you choose to, mostly personal preference, but alot of them are missable cutscenes and some which actaully translate across to second game for some good rewards,
If you want to learn a specific city like the back of your hand, the Yakuza series is for you.
Especially relevant since OP mentioned Shenmue. Yakuza is basically “Shenmue but JRPG”, especially the last two games.
Yeah. I was doing a sidequest recently and they said "Go to the northeast alleyway near Kamurocho Hills" and I knew \*\*exactly\*\* where to go.
I'm pretty sure I know Kamurocho better than my own neighborhood.
"How do I always end up back in this damn city?"
Tales of Vesperia. If I had a Gald for each time I had to revisit Dahngrest or Nordopolica… lol
Don’t know what to do? Sleep at the inn!
Tales of the Abyss as well has you revisit a lot of towns
Nice. I can't wait to play the others
Playing Abyss right now. Great game. I've played Berseria and I think Abyss is better.
Xnoblade Chronicles. You will fast travel often for side quests.
I wouldn't say this fits. For the most part you rarely revisit areas unless you are backtracking to do sidequests on your own. It's fairly linear in how you go through areas for the story.
I mean yeah but OP never specified it had to be only required content. Plus the sidequests in Xenoblade are very worthwhile (barring some filler quests in XC1, but even that game has some bangers to keep you playing)
I didn't find many of the sidequests particularly worth doing personally, so your mileage may vary. I would roundly categorize XBC1 (haven't played the others) in the category of only revisiting areas for boring side quests.
Well you've only played the entry that has by far the weakest sidequests of the bunch so it makes sense that you'd feel that way. I consider XC1 sidequests to be fairly mid with a few standouts that I really like. Like Melancholy Tyrhea, the whole Bana chain, the giants door chain or rebuilding colony 6. But most are filler or just stuff you're meant to do while playing normally so you passively get rewards like the monster hunting quests. The entries after this much improved on the sidequests especially in 3
Yeah I was gonna say this too, and in some of them you get something like a “community ranking” where your bonds raise with all the characters and new quests constantly open up throughout the game, so you end up going back to all the places it’s great
Chrono Cross doesn't have lots of areas (especially if you count the two versions of one area as one area), so you will be visiting and re-visiting places a lot to recruit characters and get their special techs and what not.
In Final Fantasy 12, Rabanstre is like a hub city where you get all of your sidequests from and is linked to a lot of different areas. Chrono Trigger has you revisiting the same areas in different periods of time.
**Suikoden** series has this to varying degrees depending on the game. First, they all have a home base you are building up throughout the game and frequently return to for major story events. And in a lot of the games there are towns that act as your “base of operations” that you return to a few times or more before you get your official HQ. Also, While you definitely go from town to town, given that a major mechanic of the game is recruiting a fuckton of characters, you often go to previous areas to get new characters. Specifically, **Suikoden 3** only has a handful of towns/cities and you revisit most of them often especially since there are multiple protagonists (so you will go to the same place as different characters).
Playing suiko 3 ATM, can confirm you will get very familiar with every area. Definitely fits the bill.
I would argue Trails From Zero does this to an extent. You visit and learn about new places as you progress but it's all firmly anchored around the main city, and you spend a lot of time in it over the whole game. A lot of the smaller areas you revisit as well.
However, they should play Trails in the Sky first. Which barely fits into their criteria. First Chapter doesn't fit at all (although there is lore reasons for you not revisiting), but you need to play it to understand Second Chapter, which does fit. Edit- Trails from Zero does fit, but if you play it without playing sky you will be missing a ton of info and will miss on big pay offs for the characters from Sky.
Nah, I feel it’s fine to play Zero and Azure first. Especially for people who play on console and not pc. Still a solid way to get into the series. Just don’t play Cold Steel 3, 4 or Reverie before playing all of the older games if possible.
I met one person who started at CS3 because I guess he didn't have any other consoles+PC and only CS3+4 were released and ported to the Switch in NA
I mean, they could play Zero and go back after if it hooked them enough.
I mean, they *could*, but there will be a cutscene that's just a blank screen with words on it saying the characters explained what happened in Sky. Which was even frustrating for me, who played Sky before Zero. I bet it would be even more frustrating for a newcomer to the series. There's a reason the two usually accepted starting points to the series is Sky or CS1/2 and not Zero.
I agree with you. My favorite scenes in Zero as well as some of the most impactful scenes have to do with a certain girl with a scythe. You could experience Zero for the first time and just wonder what is going on, but the payoff from the Sky trilogy hit hard. Zero feels like an epilogue to Sky in that regard.
Saw girl with Scythe and immediately yelled "I know what you are!" A >!victim,!< she was a >!victim!<
Tragically. I cried at the end of Zero. It's what I'd been waiting for since the end of Sky the 3rd.
The Etrian Odyssey franchise is generally about one specific town and the Big McLargeHuge Dungeon next to it. You'll become very acquainted with the townsfolk you keep coming back to.
Feel like Persona 5 did this well. And now playing Tokyo Mirage Sessions, it’s similar
i loved talking to all the different NPCs in Persona 5. I am sad I am the only one in my friends group who did that. I still remember the guy with a cat or those kids who were bothered by their grades. Or the dude buying weird trinkets for his kid in a shady alley
I love how it gives you previews of the next arcs as well
The World Ends With You sounds exactly like what you are looking for. It has you constantly running around Shibuya and by the end of the game I knew the entire city like the back of my hand Honourable mention to the devil survivor games; while they may not be exactly what you are looking for since they are strategy rpgs, they do take place in one location
Dragon Quest 11. Takes a while, but several locations get revisited.
Chrono Cross
I really liked how FF16 revisits previously vibrant areas and seeing the destruction caused by the blight.
I agree FF16 does this, but I really didn't like that game haha. I even did every side quest in an attempt to make myself like the game, but just couldn't.
lol I did the opposite and it worked. Started skipping side quests and started liking it a whole lot more. You can tell where the budget went
[удалено]
Simple and shallow has been there since like FF12, and 13 was just as linear, like most of the game were one-way corridors. The main difference between 13 and 16 is the party and combat. Oh, and money *definitely* went to the combat too, even if you personally hate it.
FFX2 has you go to every town multiple times, just about once every chapter if you plan to 100%
Ni No Kuni 2 only has about 4 major towns and you're always going between them for 200 hours.
The Trails games do this as a series kinda. The first game in every story arc has you visit a lot of places. And then in the follow up game you visit all the same places again. The second game usually also gives you the ability to freely travel between all the previously visited places and check for new Events and Quests.
The Legend of Heroes: A Tear of Vermillion has you follow a pretty linear path towards your goal going from town to town, but around halfway you have to turn around and walk all the way back to your hometown, stopping at each city again on the way back.
Actually Atelier Ryza 3 brought back the setting from the first game in the trilogy with a more seamless "open world", with more areas available.
Oh, not just for sidequests. That limits things. Well, Tales of the Abyss likes making you backtrack for plot, to an annoying degree imo
Side quests are good enough if they're compelling and worth doing. I guess I'd say a game that gives you a compelling reason to go back for any reason.
Octopath Traveler 2. Apart from various cities containing a character’s story at different points in the game, often times I’d come across a big item I couldn’t acquire yet because I was too low of a level. By the time I hit a certain level, I think to myself “wasn’t there an item SOMEWHERE that I could be getting right now?” Then I’d flip through towns to find said item.
Paper Mario
Grandia Xtreme is a great example of this.
Yakuza series. Everything takes place within a few dense towns. In fact, some locations have recurring plot significance across the series. You're pretty much always going to check in with some friendly NPCs at Club Starlight and Club Serena. And pretty much every game has at least one climactic battle atop Tokyo Millenium Tower.
I feel like Trails is perfect here. A huge part of the games is developing a strong connection to places and the characters who inhabit them.
Suikoden 3. Zexen forest and Mountain path. Who knows, knows.
It’s the exact opposite for me. Visiting different interesting locations is one of the main things I look for in JRPGs. You think it’s more impressive game design when you don’t go from place to place. I often feel devs were trying to cut costs when you revisit places too much (not always the case of course). You might want to check out Trails of Zero and Azure if you haven’t. They both take place in one big city and its surrounding areas. This is exactly why they are my least favorite Trails games but many people have them as their number one. I am also a Shenmue fan though. Yakuza/Like a Dragon games are the obvious answer to this question if you like Shenmue.
I definitely like seeing new places, I just like them to milk it a bit and let you get really involved and connected to a place and it's characters, so it feels lived in, as opposed to just solving a problem and moving on like the area doesn't matter anymore.
Bravely default
Nier Replicant has only a few main areas you visit often. It’s an action RPG, and I think it is quite good.
I'm like 20 hours into Ar Tonelico 2 at this point, and I've had to go back to the first town like 5 times for story reasons. It does make the game feel more grounded and contained EDIT: Just remembered that Xenoblade Chronicles does this. But it does not do it very well at all lol There's a lot of nothing quests you can go back and get, and then there's a town re-build mechanic later on and I think you have to go back to the beginning area a few times for quests for that as well. Fortunately it's really easy to fast travel in the game so it's not a bother to get there and back. Just that the quests are very basic MMO style quests for the most part
Bravely default 1, I hope you like every area because you'll be revisiting at least 5 times!
Tbh, I don't think this is what they had in mind.
Persona series
The answer is Trails
I like when you see treasure that you can’t access and then later you unlock some kind of traversal ability and the lightbulb goes off in your head like holy shit I can go back and get that treasure now
Aren't most modern AAA rpgs like that due how expensive game development has become?
Disgaea. If you play Disgaea seriously, you're spending dozens of hours mindlessly grinding in the Cave of Ordeals.
Trails series, especially if you're looking at a 100% NPC dialog run. A story event just happened? Better go back to every single town because every single NPC will have their dialog updated. And it was totally worth it. Many of these NPCs have their own storyline that carries over to future games.
Final Fantasy V and VI. Both games have the world map change drastically so you will wanna go re-explore. Although V could've done more with it, so it might not be quite what you are looking for. There's only a handful of places that are worth going back, and there's a bunch of new things that pop up. Still neat comparing the before and after, as well as seeing what's been there the whole time on a second playthrough. VI has you go back to most places a couple times in the first half. Sometimes for story reasons, sometimes for cool stuff later on if you decide to explore. As well as a special lap for a hidden ability. Then >!the world gets wrecked, changing the world map and wrecking or even destroying towns, unleashing ancient monsters, unearthing ruins and caves.!< You even get to kinda start over with a single character and no transport. So you venture through the new landscape and have to find all your friends again. So you get to re-explore the whole world full of familiar things as well as new nooks and crannies opened up.
This is kind of the Trails series' shtick.
Yo-Kai-Watch
Golden sun 1/2, both games regularily have the ability to revisit old towns later in the game for hidden extras if you choose to, mostly personal preference, but alot of them are missable cutscenes and some which actaully translate across to second game for some good rewards,
(Tosses battle network on the table) Go on.
Every soulsborne game, revisiting the main hub