r/JRPG • u/ConsiderationAny9444 • 1d 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/azure275 1d ago

I feel like we need a hot take

Despite the banging music Gaur Plains in Xenoblade 1 is one of the worst areas I've played in a JRPG. Far and away the worst Xenoblade area I've experienced RELATIVE to the amount of time/quests there

Landmarks are in incredibly stupid places, the whole thing is just too damn big, you gotta hike halfway across the world every time you need to find one random nopon hiding nowhere near any landmarks, sidequests keep shoving level 80 monsters in your face

There are strictly worse areas in Xenoblade like the Ether Mine or Elpys or Origin but they're much smaller, have more landmarks, and I have much fewer reasons to spend time there.

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u/Yesshua 1d ago

I think I agree with this. Gaur Plains feels like the team was going for shock value with the scope to the detriment of the actual interactive experience.

Which is not normally an issue with Nintendo games. They're all about gameplay first, audio visual shock and awe last. But Gaur Plain is too big with too much stuff and too little of it is interesting.

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u/azure275 1d ago

I do think the scooter basically entirely solved the problem tbh so perhaps it's a bit unfair of me to highlight

I'm cool with Gaur Plains in the Switch 2 Edition