10 Great JRPGs Critics Were Totally WRONG About

[@TheGamingShelf]

What’s a game you love that got low review scores? 🤔

[@chilldragon4752]

Look, 9 times out of 10, anyone who says Star Ocean The Divine Force looks like a PS2 game never played a PS2 in their life.

[@TheRavenShadowsWolf]

Just because it looks better than a ps2 game doesn't mean it was a good game. I have both played the hell out of the PS2, and bought The Divine Force (I didn't get very far into it because I didn't do well with the mechanics frankly) I spent more time getting my ass handed to me, and trying to figure out the flight sim bullshit than actually playing much of the game. I'm not a huge star ocean fan. I did play Faithlessness and Intergrity or whatever it was called. I think I almost beat that one, and I still didn't get some of the more nuanced crafting based mechanics.

[@vugu]

1. Harvest Stella - 0:23 2. Tales of Xillia 2 - 2:12 3. Eternights - 4:08 4. Rune Factory 5 - 6:26 5. Star Ocean: The Divine Force - 8:20 6. The Stranger of Paradise: The Final Fantasy Origin - 10:20 7. Atelier Rorona - 12:10 8. Wild Arms XF - 14:00 9. The Diofield Chronicle - 15:50 10. Dragon Valor - 18:16

[@reinsol387]

doing the lords work

[@CannedTuna1994]

I loveee Harvestella, Xillia 1 and 2, RF 5 and Atelier Rorona!

[@iveybullard8988]

So you havent played Harvestella yet? Whys it on your list then? That makes no sense.

[@CalebCrazyVampire]

Because the whole list is lazy clickbait, he just took a bunch of games with an okay reception, and talk about them like they are some hidden gem masterpieces with terrible reception

[@Bargate]

Great JRPGs Critics were totally wrong about: "I did play the demo it was really rough." So the critics weren't wrong then and now you're just going to yap the whole video. Amazing.

[@ryanpledger9333]

Yeah…he didn’t play Wild Arms XF either…doesn’t make sense. Should play the game and then make the video.

[@marudas2021]

And still he is right with some of them. Tales of Xillia 2 is a hidden gem if i've have ever seen one!

[@agamersinsanity]

I did the story was quite solid, but keeping that belly full was kinda meh x) But if they added VA it would have a bigger impact tbh. But Go Shiina made the OST so that was pretty bad ass :D

[@teddibear1153]

The critics were totally wrong! i didnt play the game, only the demo, but ill play it someday... lmao

[@ataridc]

Gotta post something!

[@BeetleSkyGames]

I understand where you're coming from but that's not really how content creation works. These "Top 10..." tend to do well with the algorithm for search and KZbin. Imagine you have have a "Top 10" video planned for the second week of your January content calendar. You need to do research for your script so you spend part of that week looking for underrated games. Now you need to play all of those games but you only have 5 days left before scheduled posting. Still though, you need at minimum 2 days to edit the video, render and post it. How are you going to finish all those games in 3 days? Even if you've already played several of them, it would still take too much time to fit all of them. Like I said, I get what you mean but if you don't like it blame KZbin/Google. All of the content you consume online is made for the algorithm, not for people. Honestly you're just a number on the analytics page (I'm exaggerating a bit but hopefully you get the point).

[@spacepan]

@@BeetleSkyGames this problem is manufactured entirely by the chosen schedule and topics

[@allenc6277]

Sooo. How do you put games on a list you haven't played. Lol your going by what other people are saying is asinine. You Need to play a game to be able to judge if the scores are accurate.

[@Raylightsen]

Surely he just made a super positive script with chatgpt, and then simply read that just to have more content in his channel.

[@Woopbang]

You need to be able to trust the reviewers. Which is part of why videos are so helpful.

[@allenc6277]

No because then I can't trust him because he isn't formulating his OWN opinions.

[@Woopbang]

@@allenc6277 maybe I didn't spit it out well. If you're going to go off of reviewers, you need to be able to trust their taste and judgement. You gotta vet them and need to take in several to get a more full picture. That's how you get a meta review... Or how you judge something without playing it yourself. If that isn't of value to you, then you can skip em. Waaaay back when I had a few reviewers I trusted their taste as it aligned with mine, but that was back when things were more trustworthy from the media. Same time frame I found some reviewers didn't line up at all, so the x/10 scores meant little, but the actual content of why they rated was of value.

[@DaArtsi]

I watched the video and it sounds like the game he hasn't played was harvestella other games were on point like tales of xillia 2

[@gborbe8342]

It's not really the technical issues that made RF5 ranked low. Because compared to the two previous entries, RF5's world looks too bland and has a lot of empty spaces. This includes special events and festive stuff don't look as bustling as they do on RF3 or 4. Instead of making it full 3D they should've done it in 2.5D or something like that.

[@svenseike4496]

The Grafics in 5 arent that bad (and the early Game is pretty easy), but the Socialice is sort of flat compared to Rf 4 😒

[@RenegadeVash]

Legend of dragoon was one back in the day. FF7 fanboys review bombed it for copying. But the the games are completely different and the “similarities” are common jrpg tropes.

[@TheGamingShelf]

I don’t even think to check the scores but yeah it only has a 74! That’s pretty low.

[@RenegadeVash]

@@TheGamingShelfIt was much lower on release. Quite a few gave it 5/10 or less, which is crazy. It was marketed as FF killer which is why so many tried to trash it. Personally story is ok. Visuals at the time was amazing. Gameplay was good but for people hated addition system without giving it a chance. Music was pretty iconic. VA was a bit rough but most things were back then.

[@MrFutago87]

The interesting thing about Dragon Valor isn't just the legacy system, where you play as your characters offspring, but that you can choose the characters partners so their offspring and therefore the story of the game changes. Yeah this game is totally underrated.

[@FromBeyondTheGrave1]

A silent protagonist, and a mute protagonist are two completely different things

[@adrianoedmu]

I saw a few weaks ago someone talk bad about adol from ys series just because he don't talk and because of that he don't play ys games but he also said the link from zelda it's good ahah for me that's take was stupid both of them don't talk xd

[@FromBeyondTheGrave1]

@adrianoedmu I'm talking more in Xilla 2 the character is mute, it's not like say Joker, or the Nahabino where they should voiced lines

[@adrianoedmu]

@@FromBeyondTheGrave1 some people say they did that because they wanted us the player to emerge like we was in the main character shoes. If it's true I don't know xd.

[@Ubu90]

@@FromBeyondTheGrave1 no hes not he says things in battle

[@rwm4768]

The Divine Force and Stranger of Paradise were both a blast to play. Both games obviously didn't have huge budgets or great stories, but the gameplay itself is better than a lot of big budget games.

[@b00g3rs21]

i loved the story for SoP honestly, don't know what others complain about. The chaos thing was really just the trailer, the actual game isn't that hamfisted. I'm ride or die for every Star Ocean.

[@michaelc.1710]

You can pretty much add 10 to the Metacritic score of any JRPG, or any Japanese game with an anime art style.

[@sonicmania9993]

Yeah, at least. For decades, up to half of the reviews for JRPGs on Metacritic have been written by people who don't like the JRPG genre. Why these review sources can't find a JRPG fan to do their reviews is beyond me. It is often clear these reviewers haven't played the whole game, and base their scores on graphics, dudebro chatter online, sounding cool & dismissive etc. Basically, I've decided you have to find a few good reviewers for the genre, and triangulate from what they say, ignoring numbers. Very often for me games in the 50s and 60s metacritic are better than many games in the 80s (and certainly 70s).in big and popular western genres.

[@michaelc.1710]

@ I can ignore it when it’s just Metacritic but I subscribe to Edge and it’s especially disappointing to see them consistently score JRPGs low with accompanying dismissive reviews. The exception seems to be Atlus who seem to get a free pass.

[@sonicmania9993]

@@michaelc.1710 I don't want to diss them too hard, since you're a subscriber ... but modern-day Edge reviews are among the worst. Many are literally written by part-time journalists who don't enjoy games. Hopefully you find the rest of the magazine interesting.

[@syaieya]

If there's anything i've learned from decades of playing through these games, if a review says "looks old, plays old" that should immediately spike your interest. We have a terrible way of associating "old" with "needs to be replaced" and that just isn't the case. Cus the moment you remove a game from the new release shelf, it immediately blends with all the other games of the past and suddenly you're asking yourself why you didn't pick up Earthbound or Megaman 5 when they were 20 bucks. Now there can be other things keeping them down like Diofield introducing the main characters 4 seperate times across 10 minutes or rune factory's abysmal performance. But demos go a long way to proving the concept and with future releases giving updates and performance bumps there's no reason to at least keep it on the radar.

[@Lukamusic81]

I just got Harvestella and I love it then I see people talking bad about it on KZbin. Great combat, great music, beautiful world. Engaging story, lots of side quest. Farming is simple and rewarding

[@TheGamingShelf]

Glad you’re having fun with it!

[@AlexanderArts]

I thought Eiyuden Chronicle got written off kinda unfairly, it's a lot like Suikoden, but I think it has enough unique parts and there are so few RPGs going for that style that it still feels special. I actually really liked the characters and story by the end. Lots of fun collecting all the characters. It was especially cool seeing the little plays you could put on at the castle. I was kinda shocked that they had voice acting for every character playing every role in the theater, too.

[@kamiloo86]

You are not wrong, brother, in your assessment. It is still a very good game, unfortunately the shadow of Suikoden 2 (an almost perfect game) made the expectations impossible to bear. Nevertheless, I liked it and finished it ;) almost 60 hours and bought the DLC I am waiting for.

[@mrp1234]

I think part of the eh reviews for Eiyuden was from what I understand an inexcusably bad Switch version, but I agree it got overlooked. it is the definition of a flawed gem for me (even not playing on Switch I think it's very flawed but I still like it a lot)

[@shushyshushy6762]

​@@kamiloo86 You need to treat Eiyuden Chronicles like it's Suikoden 1, which in a lot of aspects suffers from a lot of the same stuff the first Suikoden game suffered from. Both Eiyuden Chronicles and Suikoden are on my Top 10 JRPG list. I hope that they continue Eiyuden Chronicles and that the Second Eiyuden Chronicles game has the same success that Suikoden 2 had and that they do the same with Eiyuden Chronicles 2 that they did with Suikoden 2 back in the day. Overall Eiyuden Chronicles is an amazing game, but the one big thing that sort of bugs me, is that as big as the world is portrayed to be, it still feels incredibly small. The thing that made Suikoden 2 stand out, was how dark and deep the story gets, There were many points in Suikoden 2 that got my blood boiling, or brought on really sad depressed feelings like entering a town you were just in, only to find it was completely destroyed, or having a close friend turn their back on you in such a dark time. Suikoden 1 and Eiyuden Chronicles don't really bring those feelings out to the extent that Suikoden 2 did. Hell, Suikoden 3 and 4 couldn't even rekindle the same feelings that Suikoden 2 brought out, and Suikoden V was a nice attempt at getting back to form for the franchise, but it came out near the end of the PS2's life cycle and then that was it for the Suikoden franchise. Mind you, Eiyuden Chronicles is made by the OG Devs of the first 2 Suikoden Games, so just let em cook.

[@shushyshushy6762]

@@mrp1234 Yeah the Switch version is plagued with issues, even still. Heck even the PS5 release ended up with a bad update that made it unplayable which tanked frame-rate to an unenjoyable point to where I couldn't even play the game. I know a lot of the bad reviews from also stem from the far right leaning grifters who were screaming their sad pathetic lungs out "OMG THIS ONE OR TWO CHARACTERS ARE GAY, THIS GAME IS WOKE DEI!" or "OMG THIS ONE EDGY GIRL SAYS ONE OR TWO OFFENSIVE CRINGE LINES, THIS GAME IS DEI GARBAGE" and they never played the game (not that they were going to anyways). But what's funny is a lot of those KZbinr Rage Bait grifters shut up real fast once the community started telling them to "stfu" and pointed out that the stuff they've been bitching about has always been in JRPGs from the beginning back from the Super Nintendo Era and so on. So their points and reasons for hating Eiyuden Chronicles fell flat.

[@TheMochan555]

Eiyuden needed to drop the maze-like dungeons and puzzles, they just slogged the game and made it annoying to play. Otherwise the story, characters, and set pieces were awesome. Not quite on the level of Suikoden 2, but nothing is.

[@cloudstrife8]

I also really liked Rune Factory 5. I got a little too efficient and finished the whole main story by end of summer year 1 or early autumn year 1, idr but ik i exploited the whole sleep exploit. As for Stanger of Paradise, played through it with a friend. It WAS great until we both got the dlc and found out it was locked to the highest difficulty (which we were nowhere near good enough to do). I hear they added some sort of god mode or something to "help" players but that's going too far in the other direction. Idk, was disappointed.

[@Worthintendo]

Man Harvestella is soo damn good, it's a shame it bombed the way it did as a sequel would have been great with a much more enhanced farming system and a few more tweeks. Def one of the best games on Switch.

[@repsa1121]

It needs better character customization, QoL to slow the clock that mechanic is honestly killing it for me on alot of games so I mod to play my way at that point, maybe more unique character models alot of re-used asset models for npcs, despite most of its flaws I personally rate it at 7.5 to 8 out of 10 imo.

[@GELTONZ]

Star Ocean: The Divine Force is one of my favorite RPGs of all time even though I FULLY acknowledge it is VERY jank. The fact that it felt more like a PS2 game was a good thing in my book because I really feel like JRPGs peaked with PS2 so that's a compliment (though I admit Rogue Galaxy is basically SO6 but better in most ways). But I also just love anime for BEING anime so tropey anime characters really jived with me. That and the story wasn't depressing as many recent RPGs have decided to try to lean into being dark and I'm just done with it. It was ABSOLUTELY low budget as Tri-Ace literally ran out of money while making it and they only reason they didn't go bankrupt was because they never filed for it. The game, somehow, was low enough budget to save the company! HUZZAH! "Make one of those 3 hour long essay reviews for SO6" has been on my To Do list for a bit now. I just REALLY like it despite innumerable flaws and think there are some interesting elements people miss. Also LOVE the hard swerve the story takes towards the end when your jetpack suddenly becomes the main character.

[@MarkDeSade100]

I played Rogue Galaxy a long time ago but there were two annoying things about it which I still remember: 1. Literally no healing skills, the only way to heal in battle was with potions. I hate using consumable items and try to beat every RPG without using them at all. 2. Getting new abilities for your characters was gated behind rare drops. You had to spend hours grinding on the same enemies because sometimes one "rare drop" item would be needed for three different characters to learn skills.

[@billyfraiser6298]

Uses Time Stamps: 😎 Numbers the Time Stamps instead of labeling them: 🤡

[@J.Crime123]

I think you need to distinct between critics score and audience score. I couldn't care less what the critics score is. I always only focus on audience, be it games, movies or Something else regarding Entertainment. And to this day it has not disapointed me. Especially when there are people that right full text why they liked or disliked it.

[@TheGamingShelf]

The title of the video says critics were wrong. Is that not a clear enough distinction?

[@shushyshushy6762]

@@TheGamingShelf you should totally do a video based off the Audience Score. Would be interesting to see what other Real gamers think and how games stack up when looking at the demographic and not the rage baiting/grifting critics.

[@retromaniaco_br7422]

Review bombing is a thing nowdays. I wont trust audience review. I prefer to try out the game.

[@sunkeyavad6528]

@@TheGamingShelf It is not. Your video didn't really list examples where critic score and user score were vastly apart, just games that you thought were underrated in general. I actually expected this video to be about games that got vastly underrated by critics vs users based on that title but did not see that being what the video was actually about. It would be a good video idea however to make a list of exactly such games. They would certainly deserve the extra attention to balance out the damage those critics have done.

[@LuminousXMI]

It's worth noting that the footage you used for your section on Rorona appears to be from Atelier Rorona Plus. Rorona Plus lools very different from the original, so I imagine that if someone looked at your footage and heard your praise of the game's looks and then went on to play the original version of Rorona, they would not be happy... Rorona Plus features some pretty extensive changes, and actually has an 80% score on Metacritic. That's honestly a pretty good score for such a niche title, and is near the high end of what any title in the series has scored. The original Rorona however, is constantly ragged on whenever it's brought up even by people who are fans of the Atelier series. They have plenty of good reasons for it too. These are people who like the general game loop, time spent in menus, etc. provided by the Atelier series. When the people who like what you're trying to do, and are generally favorably disposed to you say you suck, there's a pretty good chance that you suck. Ultimately, I have to disagree with you on this. The critics just aren't wrong about Atelier Rorona at all. Atelier Rorona Plus (or DX) on the other hand? That game is delightful.

[@kahbellakyra8137]

i play both and like both, but i agree, was much better on new version

[@UltimateGattai]

I could not go back to the original after DX/Plus.

[@flukeditgaming]

Yeah honestly, 65 feels about right for the ps3 version, now if that was the score for Plus/DX then I would agree that its a bit low.

[@manikaditha6308]

Agree i was confused why meta critic gave such a low score, but then i remember what if it refers to the og rorona? If thats the case its kinda understandable,

[@chronicallychic]

Harvestella and Xillia 2 are some of my favourite games tbh. They are very underrated.

[@Anon-s2q]

Honestly I loved Divine Force - as someone that played every star ocean. Graphics snobs be damned - most sound like they werent even alive during the ps2 era.

[@TalkingAboutGames]

I've been enjoying Eternights a lot! I'm currently streaming it; but it does have a few crashes, every now and then.

[@yawx5]

Harvestella is the definition of hidden gem for me. i loved it while i didn't expect much at the beginning. the story was interesting, especially the second half

[@martinomagic9230]

The score for Harvestella is perfect, it is the true 7 out of 10. The real problem is so many games that have really awful things about them, but other really excellent things are rated higher than they should be. Lets takes FF7 rebirth for example, 90% of people who play it have either not finished it or say it's great, but it has so much padding that it is draining to really do everything. If people struggle to finish it, does it really deserve such a high score? Same with FF16, when I hear people talk about this game they have tons of complaints and the one almost everyone can agree with is the side quests are abysmal. If you can't even put in the effort to make interesting side quests does this game really deserve such a high score? I think most of the games on this list deserve the scores they got, even if I enjoyed some of them. Because all of them have serious turn off points for some people.

[@manamaster6]

I haven't replayed Xillia in years, passed it twice and that was it, then, out of curiosity, I emulated Xillia 2 for like 30 minutes; I would like to get the remaster whenever it is announced, especially if it includes both of them, as I don't remember many details from the original campaign.

[@AzraelAsItGetsVtuber]

Eternights is actually pretty fun. Definitely work checking out, though I haven't finished it, so take my opinion with a grain of salt. I will never understand the hate that Star Ocean: The Divine Force got. I played it on console as someone who has played the previous games and it was almost better than all the games that came before it in the series. The reason why it didn't do too much and was tropey and weird, in my personal opinion, is because the studio most likely was going for a more inviting way to get newcomers to check it out. That may have been part of the reason for the dual protagonist feature to return to the series, but I think most people might have felt it was a lackluster addition to the franchise because now the game is cut in two, so to speak. But it does everything else well, imo. I myself and two others I played the game alongside can attest to that.

[@sunkeyavad6528]

*Suggestion:* How about a a list along the lines of "Here's games with a vast difference between reviewer and user scores." Especially for when the critics rated a game way too low compared with users, as those games deserve more attention. (I was kind of thinking that was what this video was going to be about based on the title.)

[@Mitsux31]

Dood! Dragon Valor mentioned? I played that when I was like 7 years old. I loved their music.

[@greenyxi]

Honestly, harvestella deserves that 7/10. It has its good points but there are so many lows. 70% is still pretty decent though.

[@anduhdrea917]

Wild Arms XF is a great game with many original job classes for your characters. The reviewers, however, are correct in that the game itself is incredibly challenging, especially if your setup does not perfectly match the mission. The battles themselves can last quite a long time, so failing a mission in the crucial final turns because your squad isn't optimized is a bit ridiculous.

[@Katie-hb8iq]

This happens to me all the time. I don't trust critics anymore. I don't even trust user reviews either because I'm sure most of the reviews are being written by people with less experience, less intelligence, or ulterior motives. If I like the gameplay and trailers, I will buy it. If I get it on Steam and it turns out the game sucks, I will refund it. It's that simple. XC2 is a great example. Critics gave it an 83, but it was dragged down heavily by people who hate anime, attractive characters or were not the intended audience for the game. I think this game is nearly perfect, framerates aside. Ever since then, I've divorced myself from these 'experts'. They don't know anything and they have nothing to provide me.

[@TheGamingShelf]

It’s good to go with your gut sometimes!

[@jowysw]

83 is like... a good score tho. That game does have drawbacks that, for me at least, make giving it like 9 or 10 out of 10 not really fair. And I love that game. There are the technical issues, the tutorials, how the early chapters can drag a lot in terms of story and even when talking about gameplay mechanics (just look how late they gave you the option to use the third blade for each character). Even the sexualisation criticism does have a point when talking about how the character design can clash with the story points. At the very least to compleatly disregard other people's opinion seem a bit extreme.

[@SilverShion]

To be fair, XC2 got a good amount of patch to fix most of its problems. Like the minimap, the quest markers, loading times and stuff.

[@Katie-hb8iq]

@@jowysw I side with Enel here-Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is one of the best JRPGs of the past decade and a standout on the Switch. I completely disagree about the early chapters dragging. The first chapter alone is gripping, introducing fascinating lore, compelling antagonists, and Pyra in an exciting way. The pacing builds perfectly to establish the world and stakes. As for the tutorials, they’re minor in the grand scheme of a 200+ hour game. The depth of XC2 is part of what makes it incredible. Learning its systems is part of the fun, and Enel's guides are great for mastering them. On the topic of sexualization, I respectfully disagree. XC2’s characters aren’t defined by their looks. They’re complex, with rich backstories, motivations, and emotional depth. While the designs may be bold, they reflect the vibrant, exaggerated aesthetic typical of anime and enhance the larger-than-life tone of the world. This isn’t an objective flaw, and no game should lose points for embracing a distinct artistic style. As a woman, I personally find the designs fantastic. Regarding technical issues, I agree they exist, but they’re minor when considering the overall quality and scale of the game. The ambition of creating such a seamless, massive world on the Switch is impressive, and these issues didn’t diminish my enjoyment of the experience.

[@R3GARnator]

Veilguard reviews made me give up on official critics altogether. SkillUp's review was the first I watched and all I needed. Regular people reviews have at least a chance of being accurate.

[@sunkeyavad6528]

2:40 Making the MC quiet was an incredibly clumsy move by *Xillia 2.* They were worried that his voice would give something away, but they really could have solved that problem in so many other ways. Like by instead altering a different voice instead. Silent protagonists work very poorly in dialog heavy games too because you get these immersion breaking awkward conversations where 1 side has to carry the entire conversation. Regardless I found Xillia 2 still to be excellent in spite of that being a big issue for me.

[@sunkeyavad6528]

I have a few aswell: *Scarlet Nexus.* Now it's not _that_ badly rated at currently 7.6 at metacritic, but to me that is ridiculously low. 8/10 is the lowest I could reasonably see this game with a harsh rating. The story was great, it has one of my favorite overall character rosters of all time, rivalling Tales of Xilla 1 and I found nothing wrong with the gameplay. I was fully expecting it to be rated well above 8, yet somehow it is not. *Utawarerumono: Prelude to the Fallen* would be another one that's weirdly low rated, espeically since both of its sequels are pretty highly rated. *Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World* is another one. People seem to hate it alot because it wasn't really that much of a sequal to Symphonia. The old characters only visit and the story is very independent of it and could have also worked without them, and the middle where alot of the game was cut doesn't have deep antagonists, hoever the final main antagonist, the story are still great and for me it had the highest quality of skits of the entire series. I found them to be very funny. Overall it's among my favorites in the Tales series. (My other top tier ones being Xillia 1,2 Abyss and Graces f) *Resident Evil Reveleations 2 and Resident Evil 6 and Resident Evil Zero.* I actually liked those quite a bit, because of their story. Re0 even being one of my favorites of the series. Yet alot of people really hate those. For Re0 it seems to be primarily because of how hard it is, which for me was a big plus, not a minus, but for the other 2 I don't even have a grasp why some people hate them so much. Not a game but I'll also mention that I had no issues with the Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time water temple and to this day don't even know why everybody say that one is so awful. (They never mention why. They just say it like it's a universal truth that everybody instinctively knows and I'm like "I don't get it. It was fine for me. Some other dungeons were definitely harder."

[@granderwishes]

I love how people still can't get through their head that 7/10 is NOT a poor rating. 7/10 is ABOVE average, hell 5/10 is AVERAGE, not bad.

[@drgxiii]

I remember playing Xillia 1 and 2 with my sister. Good times.

[@drakoan]

Xillia 2 had amazing combat IMO which hooked me back in the day

[@AlexanderArts]

Oh cool! I remember reading about Dragon Valor back in the day and being really interested in the premise, I never actually got to play it and forgot all about it! Maybe I should check it out next time I'm in a PS1 mood.

[@arikari3672]

I'll always sing praises about Harvestella, i was kinda Harvestella defender when the reviews came out lol, it's one of ny fave games. But for some reason they trashed the hame so so bad at release, people responded my comments saying I liked trash, glad the hame is receiving nowadays a more positive opinion.

[@cyanmage1]

I need to go back and finish this game I was at what I'm guessing was the final dungeon but something else came out and got distracted but I'm totally willing to restart it I had a blast playing it the first time and enough time has past I won't remember all the details so I might get even more out of it

[@Djax111]

I had a great time with Diofield Chronicle, plotwise. And even tactically. I wish you had more characters to use and the twist was cool!

[@TheGamingShelf]

Agreed, not a huge cast. I would love a sequel but I seriously doubt we’ll get one.

[@Djax111]

@TheGamingShelf right! It was challenging using 4 players, and not what I am used to given I am a fan of fire emblem like games. But the real time tactics and summons was pretty unique. I agree too, maybe no sequel, but it was a solid game.

[@calendar6526]

I was trying to play and love SO DF, but just like Ryza 3 the DoF/blurry screen is a deal breaker for me. At least in Ryza 3 after some updates they gave the options to turn it off. I just hope in Yumia they gave the option day 1.

[@uppernimbus]

I definitely think Harvestella is very underrated, so I'm glad you've got it here on this list!

[@TheGamingShelf]

I agree! It's a shame it got overlooked.

[@ocoom8328]

I think one thing that we consumers need to reset on is what constitutes a “bad” score. For me, 6 (or 60’s) still translates to an okay experience. I think the scoring system to a lot of people has become scrunched up to where okay, good, great, and excellent are all jumbled into 8/80+. I don’t think there’s any games in this list that have a meta score of that would’ve turned me away.

[@vagrant2863]

What are you taking about Chaos is the best part

[@skydancer9198]

I just loved Harvestella. Not the best farming but it had the perfect mix of story, combat AND farming which I haven't seen a pure farming game do.

[@TheGamingShelf]

I'm glad you're enjoyedit!

[@jorgemiguelajala5005]

The cringe in final fantasy on the list is what save It, give him a unique charm

[@michaeldehart3253]

Stranger wasn’t a remake of final fantasy 1. It is a prequel to it.

[@TheFLAMEXD]

Well "prequel". It shouldn't be considered as canon, but it's still fun.

[@fortheqynn3503]

Visions of Mana is a good shoutout amongst recent games; feels like an easy 80-81 and its a 75 on MC

[@KrsJin]

Yup, SO TDF, Stranger of Paradise, and DioField are definitely in this bucket for me, too. Cool video idea and great picks!

[@TheGamingShelf]

Glad you enjoyed the video! I'm happy I'm not alone in loving those games!

[@unlucky_thir13en]

DRAGON VALOR! This is the first video I think I've ever seen that gave DV its laurels. I remember the lineage bit and actually being able to impact your bloodline with some of your choices blew my mind at the time. Absolutely agree its a hidden gem that should have gotten more love.

[@RavenHinamori]

Being a stripped down version of Persona is the best part of Eternights. I don't have to have 30 tabs open to make sure I don't botch my whole playthrough on a random Tuesday. I loved P5, but I honestly don't know if I'll ever touch the others because of how much time I had to sink into planning how to use my time. If Eternights gets a sequel tho, I'm there day 1.

[@hollyreid3852]

If I recall correctly, Xillia 2 was already being worked on because they needed to release Xillia because of deadlines I think? Part of why you hear a whole lot of the name "Kresnik" but not much about it until 2, so Xillia 2 fills some of those plot holes. Personally if they remaster 1 without 2, im gonna be big mad. ((Especially since they included Symphonia 2 with the Symphonia Chronicles and well.... 😤))

[@MaliciousMalcontent]

The worst review I remember reading was along the lines of "They forced me to review this game, so I'm giving it a 4/10. I hate RPGs" Nothing has changed since then, except that the industry is more corrupt and expects kickbacks for good scores. That's the review that made me not care about critic scores on anything, they're almost always based on politics, money, or personal grudges, and offer nothing to the customer. Same goes for movies, books, plays, and music. User reviews, clips, and videos are where it's at. Breath of Fire 5 Dragon Quarter is an amazing moody dungeon crawler with great combat but it got bad scores because it wasn't the game the reviewers wanted.

[@TheGamingShelf]

Wtf someone actually wrote that!? That’s insane! I’d fire their ass before they could post the review.

[@MaliciousMalcontent]

@@TheGamingShelf Not verbatim of course, but they did start the review with "I don't like RPGs", and then he continued to bash all mechanics as boring, because action is better, and gave the game a terrible score. This was way back and I don't even remember the game anymore but that poe's law of a review always stuck with me.

[@aaronallen5439]

I didn't realize that diofield scored so bad. I loved that game. The ending was wild. We need a second, and we'll probably never get it 😔

[@DiscoSamurai]

Hi, first time viewer here! I agree with you in mostly everything except for Final Fantasy: Stranger of Paradise. First, asking a FF fan to ignore the story doesn't really work, so I get why said fans downvoted it to oblivion once they saw what they were getting (plus the whole "Chaos" thing wasn't bad; it was both cringe AND bad!). Second, doing a "retell" of a beloved game with that kind of story just doesn't quite cut it -- not even for the combat alone which, at least for me, was really pretty average. The rest, though? Agreed. Indeed, those are really misunderstood gems. In any case, I'm subbing in. Keep up the great work!

[@zg-it]

Since you number your sections, it would be cool if you put the name of the game up in the corner. I'm curious what game while I'm watching this passively and I have no way of knowing without backtracking to the beginning of the section.

[@mjdf122]

JRPG time with The Gaming Shelf another good video

[@TheGamingShelf]

Haha thanks for watching, dude!

[@biggy-sama]

This is a great list. I’d personally add Radiata Stories and Grandia III here, but maybe they didn’t score quite low enough. Also, after seeing it in the footage I just have to add that Visions of Mana definitely belongs here and I’ll die on the hill that it is a better quality game than FFVII Rebirth. Additionally, going to echo your sentiment on Strangers of Paradise. That game’s job system is the gold standard and I would love to see CBU3 implement some version of it in the next mainline installment.

[@myrrical2203]

Great video! I feel like whilst critics aren’t perfect, usually if they rate something especially highly I trust that. There’s countless examples of games where there is a consensus that they’re good. The “bad” games tend to just be debateable, or personal preference; give a try but maybe not for everyone. That’s just life imo

[@MattMillerMacLeod]

Diofield is 48% on Steam! I liked the demo but after seeing that score, I couldn't spend $60. Maybe $15? I do want to get Harvestella at some point, probably on deep discount though.

[@TheBenignSeraphim]

Sweet! Between you, me and the reviewer, that makes 3 people who have played Dragons Valor

[@Rosa_Canina]

As a kid I loved Evolution Worlds, which always was described as a "bad mush up of two mediocre dungeon crawlers, cutting out almost all of the first game" and while its no masterpiece these reviews are just... dumb. Because the actual game doesnt cut any story but instead makes 30h+ of dungeon crawling from the first second of the game into a game with a "tutorial" (aka shorter) dungeon, giving the story enough room it needs but also improving the flow of the game dramatically.

[@Jake-po4sp]

Stranger of Paradise is one of my favorite FF games! I loved it. Including the characters and story. Fantastic prequel to FF 1. Also had a ton of fun with Star Ocean VI.

[@jonate79]

I remember Monster Hunter on ps2 was hated. But I loved the game so much that I was shocked the critics disliked it. Look at the game now, it's doing great and I couldn't be more happy about it.

[@CannedTuna1994]

Ur kidding me, Rorona is the ONE I come back to when I needed to unwind! X"D

[@CannedTuna1994]

FYI, I replayed it in PS 3 and Switch for more than 5 times LMAO

[@Undeadspelldragon]

Phantasy Star 3 for me. It has that mechanic you mentioned in the last game, playing through generations. Very much the black sheep of the series, but better than you think

[@metastase895]

The issue with both Harvestela and Rune Factory 5 is that for anyone who has played Rune Factory 4 the only thing they have going abut them is GFX and story. Dragon Valor was fun but as you said, very short and not remarkable. Wild Arms XF is REALLY annoying and grindy but the OST and characters were really nice. I don't regret playing it but I would never play it again.

[@Mr._Matt]

In regard to Elle from Xillia 2 and that "you can't help but love her," the part where she accuses the main player character of being a pedo to help herself out was pretty freaking scummy and did not amuse me.

[@b00g3rs21]

talk about internalizing, yikes.

[@Calruxio]

Harvestella is incredibly well done. The premise of the story sucks you in and the characters are well written. The best thing is you can focus on either the story or your farm at your own pace for the most part. The biggest gripes i have is that the combat was a bit of a slow start just to get strong enough to get to the second town. Also, and this is more personal, i dont like how all the characters are super feminine. Specifically most of the dudes look like women with a couple exceptions. Other than that, it's a great game.

[@Turnoutburndown]

For me I will often watch a movie that I like that got low scores on Letterboxd (Comedies and Horror get hit especially hard in aggregate scores.) But for games that hasn't really happened for me. Like in your reviews of games they will often do OK in opencritic scores, it's not like any of the games on your list got absolutely dumpstered and you still liked em.

[@LelouchRika]

For some reasons I couldn't get over the debt system in Xillia 2 which made me sad since I was a massive Tales of fan at the time. I also bought Harvestella, Star Ocean 6 and Diofield after really enjoying their demos but never got to playing the full games. I really should.

[@TheGamingShelf]

Oh man, those are all great games! You really should try them.

[@filialuvssquigly7447]

Bru i looooooved harvestella honestly my favorite in that rune factory/star dew genre (dont know the name for it) really wish they will make a sequel or turn it into a series but given it did so badly i doubt it. Game compines dont take risk theses days

[@BlueLightningSky]

Diofield has effectively killed real time with pause tactical RPGs for another decade. Sad because this is a rare genre within a rare genre

[@spacepan]

14:30 this sounds like a serious problem for any Tactics game because the battles are so long

[@texx8205]

Having Rorona on this list is insane, it's one of the best Atelier games with lovable characters and mechanics. Some people have problem with Arland series deadlines but they are actually pretty easy and put in a nice challenge. If you just had limitless time to do whatever the crafting system and all tasks would make no sense as you would just create the best equipement right out of the way.

[@Gabrielfrota]

It's because he is using clips of the wrong game, that in the vídeo is Rorona DX for the vita and ps4 and was well recived, for the original Rorona in the ps3, 68 is a great score, that game is horrible i would put It in the 50s range

[@texx8205]

@@Gabrielfrota I see. Rorona DX had some really great improvements including new character models, reworked recipes, character ending requirements, new battle system (dropping element levelling completely) and improved assignments among other things. Still wouldn't place it to 50%, the story and characters are still good, it's just it's very hard to play for some people.

[@saitoXamaterasu]

Even said that Rorona was huge success for Gust, this game raise the value of the series and they improvement from there

[@manikaditha6308]

​@@Gabrielfrotai was actually confused when playing atelier arland trilogy and started with atelier rorona plus. When i play totori and meruru, why is it have worse qol than rorona? Turns out its a remake. Same what happened to me for god eater series, i was baffled by discovering they removed devour style from god eater resurrection when playing god eater rage burst 2, turns out resurrection was GE burst remake and came out after GERB2 lol, Weird it happens twice to me.

[@threeswordssama]

I really want to pick up Diofield Chronicle. It looks like a cool tactics concept.

[@Raylightsen]

Are you out of your mind?, stranger paradise is a soulslike game (like every other soulslike game, only souls fans will like it). Is it NOT an JRPG.

[@femtrooper]

Great list! HARVESTELLA!!! One of the greats!

[@AvalosTokyo]

Harvest Stella low reviews came out of the Square Enix ridiculous price tag for a budget game. Tried the demo also on switch but I would not pay that much for that. With all the farming sims out there this was mid but with a high price tag. I've gotten the exact same feeling this vid conveys about review scores mainly because I have specific genres I like, and if you notice these genres are all over the place. I like them all except Atelier. Like you there was a shortage of JRPGs on the PS3 and I ended up renting an atelier game and they're a pretty boring alchemy genre. Boring mainly as kid friendly characters and story lines. So I would have definitely given it a bad review as a first time player of the series. I think that's what happened to Star Ocean 6, where SO4 had a good budget and was better for the time it was release, SO6 had a massive budget cut and it's amazing what they did with it. Space JRPGs are limited but I love that niche genre to put up with shortcoming, but for many it's the other way around. Not in the niche which amplifies the short comings. I think that's literally all the games in this list.

[@CandyOnAChopstick]

I am forever in your debt for helping me discover Harvestella

[@mrp1234]

I played Harvestella and didn't like it! not trying to be mean but I genuinely don't understand the JRPG KZbin love for it. it's beautiful but the gameplay is so barebones that it often feels like... an alpha build or something. except when they're interrupting you to go to sleep grrrrrrrrr. the story is fine but I find the "omg such an incredible story!" takes MUST be coming at it from a level of extremely low expectations or something. it is Just Fine. I think a critic score of 73 is... about right.

[@marioappelius4489]

Classic 😂😂😂! That's why I like to learn about the arguments behind why critics consider a game good or bad... Great video, as always!

[@Pichuscute]

Entirely agreed on Diofield Chronicle. It's a super cool game. Valkyrie Elysium is the same situation, I think. Think SE was shitting out games around the time of Harvestella so much that I think they caused some fatigue for some people. It feels to me like they made a lot of great games around this time, but no one was willing to actually to play any of them. Their loss, I guess.

[@TheGamingShelf]

That was such an odd strategy. I don’t know why they did that.

[@NepstationYoutubeChannel]

Yep! There's this one game I really loved. It was amazing, but this one reviewer was so wrong about it that it disgusted me! Here's the review in question! You know what to do fans! kzbin.info/www/bejne/e5m1o5ewdsp5prs

[@Priomful]

You know, conceptually, diofield reminds of those spin off games you'd get on the DS. Like the FF12 or Blue dragon one.

[@AlpacaLipzMeow]

Rune Factory 5 was fun, but the biggest issue I think with it is that it was basically Rune Factory 4; and as someone who already had Rune Factory 4, I was a bit underwhelmed. That said, you don't need to play those games in any order. Story lines aren't connected, so just play the one you prefer.

[@jesserivera2043]

I'm a strong believer that the Steam Deck impacted Nintendo Switch game scores. Once people realized you can play a version of that game or other games in general that perform and look better, that naturally translate into gamers being tired of switch games having performance issues, as well as believing the Switch 2 should have come out a long time ago. Also, it's undeniable that there is a lot of politics in gaming, which is why so many KZbinrs rate games highly even if they themselves aren't really fans.

[@DurkeyTheJellicleCat]

Waltaquin is the best character to come out of SquareEnix in quite a long time.

[@TheGamingShelf]

🗣️PREACH

[@SarifFice]

Loved diofield... What amazing characters. Walter Quinn and the protagonist. Wild how he used and manipulated his troops.

[@kahbellakyra8137]

i was young when rorona was release, but my brother says that rorona was the first game of this series with time managment for everything you do, and alot people didn't like that at time. maybe that is why get a low rating

[@steviedee9826]

I enjoyed Dragon Valour as a kid. I never thought it was anything special, but it was a solid action game for its time. Probably a 5/10 when you compare it to what came after, but I'd say it was a solid 7 when it released.

[@sierrakobold6896]

Its amazing how 70s or 7/10 is considered a low score by younger people, a 7 is a good game, the number scoring is attempted to be translated or equivalent to academic scoring, especially here in the US whoch I find odd, the video did not do this I dont believe but just the overall sentiment among those in the gaming hobby

[@Genethagenius]

100% agree about “FF Origin: Strangers of Paradise”! I love “FF” and Souls-likes, and I thought it hit out of the park as a “Final Fantasy Souls-like”! Probably the best non-From Software Souls-like besides “Lies of P”.

[@dontavoidthenoid]

OMG Dragon Valor. I played that ages ago and really loved it but could never remember the name of it. Now I have to see if I can find it somewhere

[@TheGamingShelf]

Haha nice! Glad I could help you remember it :D

[@LuckySevn717]

I bought RF5 for both Switch and PC (first on Switch, couldn't stand the lag, so I tried it on PC). Technical issues aside, I just couldn't get into it. I didn't like any of the romance options (besides Ludmilla), Placing objects in your room was entirely wonky, I disliked the equipment, they got rid of some features I absolutely LOVED in RF4 (dungeon crops, running your own shop for NPCs, etc), the world was empty, and the list goes on. I can see why it got low reviews. I have seen the trailer for the RF6 features that dropped a couple of days ago, and it is looking amazing. Can't wait for May to get here.

[@Hijikata-T7]

Try complete a game, and then go back and find a "review" by those mainstream media, you will understand.

[@HelLDeWs]

strangers of paradise is legit my fav final fantasy Game since FFX it getting reviewed that low is insane. game had a wicked fun story fun combat is an absolute blast to play with friends. also the combat is a lot of fun ppl say it plays like Nioh but never played that so cant really say much on that front. but its got awesome set pieces with fun as heck boss fights and levels are generally pretty enjoyable to go through. music fits vibe to love the remixes and the nods to mainline FFs is very fun. if you like dissidia or FF nave havent played SOP your missing out. also its more of a prequel to FF1 then trying to be a remake. its a prequel that is heavily tied into dissidias continuum but it makes sense by the end and is really cool overall. i think my two issues with it is itemization sucks crap in the post game specifically (you can legit just auto equip when running the story anyways) and it not having crossplay and being so platform locked (IE Steam version cant play with epic) is beyond stupid. i own it on Xbox (which runs totally fine) then i have a friend that has it on epic and another on steam and we just cant play together.

[@TheBloodyNights]

My thing is...that the internet has made the rating system so skewed that it's ridiculous. 5 out of 10 is average, Completely mid, turning that 10 into a 100 = 50 is average and in the middle, anything thing higher than that is above average. So when most of this list is games with a 6-7 score rating I'm just like what? So these were reviewed as decent rpgs for people to play with some issues... I'm guessing the ones that actually scored below 5 aren't good enough to recommend? Because that's below average and not good at all generally speaking. It's alright for games to just be decent, not every game needs an 8 or 9 or somehow getting a 10 (No game is a 10 unless it's a personal favorite so it's a 10 for you) I mean do you think any of these games are on the same tier as like Persona 5 Royal? or Re:Fantazio, or acclaimed rpg X. Probably not and that's okay.

[@anon1692]

Another game I think that got unfairly destroyed by critics was Valkyrie Elysium. I think the biggest complaint I saw was that it was too easy. I just started playing and I put it on its hardest difficulty. Currently having a blast!