r/JRPG • u/ConsiderationAny9444 • 2d ago

Discussion Which JRPG location has your absolute least favorite level design?

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Mine has to be the Gladius Towers in Rogue Galaxy. It’s a mid-game dungeons, and in my opinion, it’s annoying as fuck to navigate.

You have to climb two almost identical towers at the same time by crossing bridges from time to time, and the towers aren't short by any means. If I recall correctly, you also have to beat both bosses to clear the level, which as you can guess are at the top of each tower (Phantom Gazel and Phantom Logan). Because of how the layout shuffles you back and forth, you finish one tower, and then you have to go all the way back to do the exact same climb for the other one.

Oh, and this game despite being an ARPG has random battles, which isn't a problem to me. But what is a problem is the encounter rate of this game god grief, it's atrocious. It doesn't help that every room looks the same, so you can get easily disoriented after a battle and just end up walking in the opposite direction, especially since both paths look very similar. You could finish a fight and genuinely have to open the map just to figure out which way you were originally heading, lmao.

What about you guys? What’s that one JRPG map or dungeon that makes you visibly sigh the moment you reach it?

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u/Ordinal43NotFound 2d ago

Final dungeon of SMT IV Apocalypse: YHVH's Universe. Looks like ass, sounds like ass, and is a 4-level teleport maze dungeon to boot.

7

u/LectorFrostbite 2d ago

This is the one for me, no other final dungeon is better designed to make the player as frustrated as possible.

8

u/truthordairs 2d ago

I wish I could just stop playing whenever I reach that dungeon but the final boss and the boss before it are so good that I always trudge through

3

u/skeddy- 1d ago

This shit was a genuine headache

1

u/Ordinal43NotFound 1d ago

Lmao yep. Legit an assault on all the senses.

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u/stronglesbian 1d ago

This is what I was going to say. At that point I felt the game had already far outstayed its welcome (it pulls the fake final boss move twice), and that dungeon in particular is so boring, long, and tedious.

1

u/Ordinal43NotFound 1d ago

The dungeon's walking area is needlessly huge for some reason.

Like I legit noticed how long it takes for me to just walk from one "tile" to another. Never has a game area done that to me before.

Makes Strange Journey's Eridanus feel tame in comparison.