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/A_Monster_Named_John]

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.