Octopath Traveler would have been the perfect game if they cut dialogue in half. One of the things I really appreciated about 1990s/early 2000s era JRPGs was the amount of story they got across with such little dialogue. Suikoden, Final Fantasy IV, VI and IX, Wild Arms, Lunar, are all great examples of this.
Octopath Traverler’s dialogue, aside from not being very good, is just way too much. I stopped playing after the 4th or 5th traveler’s tale. I want to go back at some point, but then I will just want to restart as I don’t remember a whole lot of it.
Jack Move is a just-released JRPG from a western developer I’ve never heard of… About (soromantic.co.uk)
Anyways, this is a great short RPG. It took me 12 hours to finish, but apparently Jab did it in less than 5 hours.
Good story with great pacing and neat environment conversations. Neat QoL helpers, like alternate talk icons showing that the NPC will now repeat what you’ve just heard. OK combat system that has been tuned to be advantageous to the player (not as much as SMT3 press turn). Also great music!
Cosmic Star Heroine is another JRPG from another western developer you might have heard of…Zeboyd. You can actually see the Chrono Trigger inspirations in this game. This one took me 25 hours to finish. Very enjoyable to play.
Old post, but yes I have tried it and I really like it. I don’t know how much replayability there is but here’s what I can say about it: a lot of people talk about “the Stalker vibe,” and where else you can get it, etc. The consensus is generally “nowhere,” but this little game has given me that moreso than just about anything else I’ve tried. Worth it just for that.
I need to go through this thread and pick an RPG to play. I really miss them. I think the last one I played through was The Outer Worlds? And then I started Wasteland 3 but got interrupted, and I haven’t played one since. I should pick a shorter one from this thread and play it.
Oh yeah, The Outer Worlds is a short RPG. I’ll have to look up my play-time when I get home today, but it only took me a month to finish, so it couldn’t have been long. That’s usually my own personal way of judging length. Can I finish it in a month? I consider The Witcher 3 very long because I played it every single day and it took me about 4-5 months to finish.
@Rock8man I haven’t finished it, but much like Pentiment (even more so!) I imagine how long it will take depends a great deal on how quickly you can read. It’s basically all reading.
I enjoyed these two games via Game Pass that I probably would have missed otherwise.
Nobody Saves the World fits the genre mechanics of an RPG but lacks any nuanced characters. It hands out new abilities briskly and opens up to customizable, combo move sets.
Going further steps away from Plato’s ideal RPG, one might consider Record of Lodoss War: Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth. There are levels, weapon choices, and at least half a dozen NPCs. You’re on a quest. No dialog options… Okay, the point is that it’s snappy. Short enough to make up for its RPG shortcomings? Perhaps.
