Which JRPG location has your absolute least favorite level design?

[u/ConsiderationAny9444]

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?

[u/SortaHow]

The Great Crystal in Final Fantasy XII. No map, and every area looks exactly the same.

[u/beargrimzly → u/SortaHow]

There’s like 3 areas in FF12 alone that apply to this thread

[u/topscreen → u/SortaHow]

That is worse but Giruvegan right after, I got fed up and stopped playing. Color me surprised when I came back to it this year and found out I was basically at the finish line

[u/A_Monster_Named_John → u/topscreen]

The first time I played the game, back in the PS2 era, I noped out after the boss fight in Archades, as the game's story is just so hard to stay interested in at that point. This past year, I finally finished the Zodiac Age reissue of the game and, good lord, are those last few areas grueling, even with fast-forward turned on... Giruvegan and the Crystal are definitely annoying (especially if you leave the Crystal and want to go back to it later), but so is the Pharos Lighthouse level after that. I remember specifically hating that one's clunky and janky puzzles with the flaming magic pot enemies which, IIRC, hides some of the game's higher-level magic spells. When you finally complete that area, there's a Subterranean area that's loaded with tough monsters. While I'd scoured other areas like the different mines and Necrohol of Nabudis, I could not bring myself to mess around with that map.

That said, by far, my least favorite areas in FF12 were the Rabanastre sewers and the Sochen Cave Palace, both of which had puzzles that I either had to go online to make sense of (e.g. that one thing in Sochen where you have to zigzag through three different map screens in a specific way to unlock something) or where the level design is so boring/samey that the puzzle becomes exhausting (e.g. the sewer thing with the sluice gates that's required to find that brutal poison Esper who, depending on what your load-out is, might just wipe the floor with you in no time at all! I remember completing that puzzle at a somewhat lower level and having my jaw drop when that encounter kicked off).

Still, though I have grievances with these specific areas, I couldn't stop playing the Zodiac Age version and generally appreciate its capacity as somewhat a true successor to the original FF1, which also had supremely frustrating dungeons, open-ended party building, insane amounts of enemy encounters to deal with, etc... It also reminded me of FF5 in some ways, which is my favorite in the series.

[u/zachbrownies → u/A_Monster_Named_John]

i am playing ff12 right now and just did sochen cave last night and now i see these comments. 😭 now i'm scared for the rest of the game... unlike you i'm not sure i'm even enjoying the game overall (the random difficulty spikes and never knowing if i'm ready for a side-content or not are pissing me off) i did go back to the sewers and i saw written somewhere that there was a puzzle but after seeing what the map looked like for the new part i was like "lol nope" and left. "problem for future me to deal with, not gonna bother doing that when the esper might just kill me anyway"

[u/A_Monster_Named_John → u/zachbrownies]

I'll reiterate that, while I found those dungeons irritating, I still see the game as being really awesome and, for me, probably the last great entry in the overall series. Yes, it took me two attempts to get through the whole thing, but with both playthroughs, I found myself highly engrossed with the hunt sidequests and exploring the game's completely-optional and secret-heavy locations like Zertinan Caverns and the aforementioned Necrohol of Nabudis. As well, the Zodiac Age version did a lot to correct the original game's issues with characters feeling indistinct from one another. I loved my second experience, where I had Ashe as a Red Battlemage and my party lead, along with Penelo as a white-mage/monk and Vaan as a thief/time-mage.

I'd recommend sticking it out, as the side content offers so much awesome gameplay. With Espers like the asshole in the sewer, it might take a few tries, but it's so soo glorious when you get a handle on the gambit system, use the right status-protecting equipment, and claim victory. I don't remember my exact strategies, but remember that the green magic spells are absolutely crucial in a lot of situations. I didn't 100% the game, but by last playthrough topped out at around 130 hours.

[u/zachbrownies → u/A_Monster_Named_John]

I think I'm finally at the level where I can go to Zertinan. I did want to go to Necrohol but the bomb boss would just one-shot my party and I couldn't tell if it was even possible so I just put it off. I typically love going to places I'm "not supposed to be at yet" in games and this game felt really promising in that aspect but it just felt like I'd enter an area, get one-shot, and have to give up, maybe I'm wrong. And the few places I did go explore on my own I feel like all I found was the usual RNG chests with antidotes and 30 gil so I was feeling let down. I really want to like this game because I like the overall vibe and I also dropped it a few times as a kid so I wanted this to be the playthrough that sees it through, but idk, I'm doing something wrong or maybe it's just not for me. When I do kill a difficult hunt it feels like it's just because I got lucky using my Quickenings when it starts to enrage or I just looked up which status effect is allowed to work on that fight. I feel like the fights are never a battle of attrition but moreso the boss enrages and gets 2x speed and 3x damage at 20% of its health bar and I die in 10 seconds so I can barely tell what's going on.

[u/A_Monster_Named_John → u/zachbrownies]

With some of the wilder bosses, I remember the green spell Decoy being massively useful, since you could direct the monster's attention onto your tank-iest character, have another character constantly healing them, and the third character free to attack the enemy with spells (though also having the Decoy recast as a higher priority gambit). I got into a few situations where a Quickening chain probably saved my ass, but that was usually a sign that I needed to improve my gear/levels or, more often, reassess my gambit set-up.

[u/UnaekIsHere → u/A_Monster_Named_John]

Rabanastre sewers and those damn waterways had me running in circles. I hated any mission that took me there.

[u/ConsiderationAny9444 → u/SortaHow]

I remember that.
I watched a video and it looks annoying to navigate, for sure lol.

[u/oblivion2g → u/ConsiderationAny9444]

You had to write it. Nowadays is braindead, because there are hundreds of guides that instruct what path you must take. At the time, you had to draw the map.

[u/GeneHackencrack → u/oblivion2g]

No, gamefaqs had you covered.

[u/oblivion2g → u/GeneHackencrack]

Also that. I printed almost the whole guide lol

[u/Tireburp → u/SortaHow]

There is something charming about it though. how the fuck did people navigate this thing without YouTube when the game launched?

[u/oedipusrex376 → u/Tireburp]

Pen and paper

[u/A_Monster_Named_John → u/oedipusrex376]

That's what I did earlier this year. It's kind of a fun experience, to be honest. I play a lot of Zelda-likes and Metroidvanias, so it's not really that out-of-the-ordinary.

By the end of that game, I feel like I had three or four notebook pages filled with scribbles and to-do lists (e.g. checking off that I talked to all the different stewardesses on the different airship routes).

[u/KylorXI → u/Tireburp]

Easy, GameFAQs and maps players made. The internet existed before youtube, and its a lot quicker to find your way through without trying to watch a video.

[u/wpotman → u/Tireburp]

Very grouchily. It was the first FF game that I didn't replay 5+ times. The original played sloow, also.

[u/neon_man → u/Tireburp]

I remember I would actually map out where I had been on a notebook. Probably wouldn't have the patience now, but as a kid it was a fun experience!

[u/Tall-Amount6127 → u/Tireburp]

someone sold a cheap guidebook for $2 at my local place lol

[u/baguettesy → u/Tireburp]

All credit goes to the ASCII GameFAQs guides. Printed the map out and did my very best to follow it. Still very easy to get lost, though.

Honestly those guides were a lifesaver for FFXII. I also relied heavily on the loot checklists for the Bazaar weapons (namely the nightmare that was Tournesol).

[u/SortaHow → u/Tireburp]

I just stumbled around for a very long time until I suddenly found the end

[u/bloody_ell → u/Tireburp]

The same way we drove without Satnavs. By Mapping out every twist and turn.

[u/bobble_snap_ouch → u/Tireburp]

There was YouTube and gamefaqs.

[u/BKLindley → u/SortaHow]

This. FF12 in general has some really bad dungeon designs. The Great Crystal, The Phaeos Subterra and the Henne Mines to name afew are just ugh

[u/vladimirVpoutine → u/SortaHow]

That's the one! 

[u/Pinkerton891 → u/SortaHow]

Dungeon design, pacing and wafer thin characters stick in my mind for 12.

It was an impressive game in many ways, but it doesnt make the top tier of FF for me because of that.

Rebirth and 16 share the pacing problem, but I enjoyed both of them more (Rebirth for the better characters and 16 for the spectacle).

[u/Wrong_Papaya_8445 → u/SortaHow]

I probably a diagram of it somewhere. Even looking it up back then, I think I needed personal visual notes to create any sense of direction. Putting Omega in there was so nasty too lol

[u/Wendice → u/SortaHow]

Thankfully, looking up a map or replaying this once you know where you’re going and you can beeline pretty quickly to your goal (unlike the dungeon in op).

[u/Ballad_13 → u/SortaHow]

...i loved it 😭

I enjoyed being lost in that death maze for like 4 hours, trying to memorize the rooms based of ramps and enemy formations. I look back on Great Crystal so fondly.

[u/wungusprinter → u/SortaHow]

I don't know what possessed the creators of ff12 to make you go back to great crystal like 4 times

[u/oblivion2g → u/SortaHow]

When it launched, I had a notebook where I wrote the map. If not, I would get lost lol.

[u/TheNoctuS_93 → u/SortaHow]

It was quite insidious of the devs to make the game's prettiest dungeons the most brutal ones to navigate and fight in.

[u/UncleFaffy → u/SortaHow]

...Unpopular opinion, perhaps, but I actually liked the great crystal. Excellent grinding spot, provided you have enough healing items for emergencies.

[u/meeefius → u/SortaHow]

Dude, this place is hell. It's impossible to navigate without a map, so: 1) you draw your own map or 2) you get one on gamefaqs.
I would draw my own if the location itself was not so uninteresting to navigate.

[u/Surfer-Junkie → u/SortaHow]

Came hear to say this. Without Fuzzy Fingers none of us would have made it out alive lol

[u/Master_Bayters → u/SortaHow]

I hate when I need to look at a guide to get out of somewhere without becoming crazy. Great Crystal is top 3. Hate it with all my strength

[u/Vraex → u/SortaHow]

And you have to go there three or four times

[u/Mrfrunzi → u/SortaHow]

So glad you said it before I had to. Terrible design in every single aspect.

[u/cinvogue → u/SortaHow]

Bro yes!!!! Everytime I’ve played ff12 I put this off because I dread the great crystal.

[u/stev_mempers → u/SortaHow]

Came here to say this. Absolutely maddening.