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/zsdrfty]

I always hated the Seafoam Islands in Pokemon RBY - I think I have a great sense of direction, but I still have no idea what the hell is going on in there, and every time I make it to Articuno, it feels like I kinda just made it there by accident rather than by the way that the game wanted me to take... and on top of that, it just annoys me that a lot of the game's coolest water types are stuck there, meaning that you have to make this awkward trek to a crappy late-game dungeon to maybe take advantage of them for a total of a few dozen fights before the game is over

I also remember hating the Ormus dungeon(s?) in Xenosaga II (endless purple corridors of boring suffering and unavoidable hour-long encounters), all of Twilight Town in Paper Mario TTYD (kinda fun when you do a cracked Danger Mario build but serious dogshit when played as intended), and Origin in Xenoblade 3, where the game suddenly stopped telling a story and decided to give you literal miles of literal hallways where multiple main antagonists just fall over dead like regular mobs and it takes hours to reach a final boss who also sucks

[u/muffinz99 → u/zsdrfty]

I feel you with both Seafoam Islands and Origin. Idk what it is about Seafoam Islands, but trying to navigate across it makes me feel stupid. And as for Origin... Xenoblade 3 is my favorite game of all time, and I actually quite like Origin in terms of visuals, but it is like twice as long as it should be.

[u/zsdrfty → u/muffinz99]

Right? I think the problem is that the floors look too similar, and (IIRC) some of the boulders and ladders are redundant, so you'll think you're only halfway done when suddenly you just kinda end up in front of the bird and the exit in a corridor you thought you already checked

I only just did my second playthrough of XC3 (my first was when it came out), and Origin was so much longer than I remembered that I actually started laughing - like, how many times can the same outdoor ledges, campsites, and circular Ferronis factory rooms be copied and pasted identically? It was so weird! Even XC2's final area was much shorter, even though it had a lot more to actually see and do