JRPGs are a beloved part of gaming history, but over the years, the gameplay loop of exploration, random battle, boss battle, has worn a bit thin. The reason? Grinding. Repeating the same fights over and over.
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Gamers grew weary, and as a result, many JRPG fans were slowly but surely deterred from the genre as a whole. But every trend resurrects at some point, and over the past four years, JRPGs have jumped back into the spotlight in a big way. Grinding is cool again.
But what are some JRPGs where grinding is actually a fun time? We’ve got ten games that show you just how fun grinding can be in a JRPG.
10Final Fantasy VIII
A New Way To Grind
Final Fantasy 8
Final Fantasy VIIIis adivisive title in the seriesfor many reasons, but one thing it gets right is the grind.
See, enemies level to you in this game, meaning you can’t just artificially power up.
So, what’s the point of grinding, then? Well, the junction system, for one. When you gain the ability to draw magic, you can get magic from just about any enemy in the game.
This often changes from enemy to enemy, and you never know what new spell you might be able to stock up on.
This will let you junction the magic into certain stats, making your attacks fire-based, cause blindness, silence, or various other effects.
Grinding is also great here because of your GF abilities. After each battle, you can see the progress being made with whatever ability you’re trying to unlock, so rather than just seeing an EXP bar fill, you get to see actual abilities getting closer to being unlocked.
9Chrono Cross
So Much to Find
Chrono Cross
Chrono Crossis the least praised of the Chrono series, but it’s still agreat game, and it has the better combat of the two.
Grinding is a joy in this game because it’s fully optional.
Being able to see your enemies on the field means you may grind at your own pace, and there are several rewards for doing so.
you’re able to acquire new materials for making weapons and armor, discover new elements to use in battle, and find new summons.
There is also the factor of leveling up your massive roster of characters. You will need to have a healthy bench of characters, as different fights might require a character of a different element allocation to be in your party.
The battle system is also just fun to use. It works off a set of percentages for each attack, so learning how to flow your light attacks into your heavies and where to take a risk vs an easy hit is an important thing to learn as well.
8Xenogears
Fight Your Own Way
Xenogearsis ahugely praised game, but that’s mostly for its storytelling and characters. The combat doesn’t get much love, and that’s why I need to set the record straight.
Xenogearshas one of the most interactive combat systems in JRPG history.
Grinding is fun because, at the start of the game, all the combos you can execute are only limited by your imagination in many respects.
As you input new combos, you will learn the ones you need to perform deathblows.
That means the more creative you are, the more attacks you can learn, which, in turn, makes the grinding process incredibly rewarding.
Sure, the high number of random battles can wear a bit, but at least they’re very rewarding and can grow your combat abilities considerably.
These days, you can look up all of the deathblows and learn them from the start, but back when the game was released, grinding to unlock them was a lot of fun.
7The Legend of Dragoon
DIY Combat
Legend of Dragoon
Legend of Dragoonis one of themost underrated games of its era, and the combat system is one of the biggest reasons for that.
Highly interactive combat systems are definitely appealing, andLegend of Dragoonexcels in this regard.
It’s all based on the addition system, which involves careful timing to execute a full combo.
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The additions get unlocked the more you fight. That means fighting has a real purpose beyond an arbitrary level increase.
Each character has a handful to unlock, and each combo’s timing is wildly different.
This is important because the boss fights in this game are tough, and even if you’re not trying to unlock new additions, you’re going to want to fine tune this timing for the boss battles as messing up means a lot of damage being left on the table.
6Xenoblade Chronicles 3
Why Don’t You Get A Job?
Xenoblade Chronicles 3
Xenoblade Chronicles 3is anamazing entry in the seriesand boasts possibly the best combat. This is a good thing because the game is action-packed, with enemies in abundance.
If the combat wasn’t good, this would make the game’s grind a chore. Luckily, that’s not the case.
The combat system revolves around the job system, and the more you play, the more jobs you unlock.
The best part of combat is experimenting with different characters and seeing how they fit into the different jobs.
The more you use certain attacks, the closer you get to unlocking them as abilities for other classes.
If you really dedicate yourself to the grind here, the list of combos you’ll have in your arsenal will be extensive to say the least.
There are also a lot of unlockable characters, each with their own class, so you really never run out of reasons to jump into a fight, even against the lower-level enemies of the game.
5Tales of Arise
Adding to the Arsenal
Tales of Arise
Tales of Arisecan be abrutally tough game, and there is no shortage of enemies to fight. If you’re not careful, the most basic enemies can take down your party or at least drain your items.
The combat is fantastic here, though, and you are thoroughly rewarded for the grind. You will discover items after just about every fight, and that’s a big feature, as this game tends to eat away your item supply like few I’ve played.
As you fight, you will slowly unlock different special moves called Artes. There is a meter you’ll have to fill for each one, and each character has completely different ones. That means if you want the juice, you’re going to have to squeeze.
The combat is highly engaging, with many attacks to pull off, combos to perform, and ultimate moves to unleash.
If you’re like me, you’ll sit through the easy battles just to unlock your new attacks, and experimenting with different Artes combos is an addicting loop in itself.
4Final Fantasy 10
That Sphere Grid is a Drug
Final Fantasy 10
Final Fantasy 10is a darling of the JRPG world and boasts some of the best overall gameplay of the entire series.
Where it really thrives, though, is in the combat system. It’s fast-paced, strategic, and extremely varied, and characters can look a lot different from player to player depending on your journey through the sphere grid.
This system allows you to unlock different abilities throughout the game, and considering its size, this grid is massive.
Finding out the next ability you may unlock is a pull that you don’t find a lot in JRPGs. It’s a system so successful that Square Enix emulated it again withFinal Fantasy 12, and we can’t blame them.
Each character has one, and while some abilities are less than exciting, there are also ones that canchange the way you use characters,and the amount of choices you’ll have to make in this regard is staggering.
Of course, the way you unlock them is by gaining experience in combat. The combat system is a ton of fun to engage in here and is among the series' best, and the monster designs here are second to none.
While it’s not an open world, you may explore tons of areas that each have unique enemies to fight. The game never gets too hard, so the grind is never all that challenging, but it’s still incredibly rewarding.
3Unicorn Overlord
Grow Your Army
Unicorn Overlord
Unicorn Overlordmay be thebest JRPG of 2024, depending on who you ask, and while it doesn’t take the conventional approach to the genre, it still has plenty of optional battles, anime-inspired art, and grinding to make it a prime candidate.
Grinding in this game generally takes place on the open world map, but you can also engage in optional bigger encounters throughout the game as well.
The grind here has a huge payoff, as after each battle, you’re going to get currency of various kinds, with the most important one unlocking the ability for you to acquire additional spots in your squad, or even the option to summon an entire additional squad.
This is hugely important as the size of your army really does matter here, and it also gets you some great practice on how you want your attack setup to go.
You can also discover tons of helpful items, level up your characters to get stronger and, overall, the rewards for grinding here are substantial.
It’s also a ton of fun mixing and matching your units to see what devastating combos you can develop.
2Legend of Legaia
Rewarding Your Creativity
Legend of Legaia
Legend of Legaiais an overlooked gem of the PS1 era, and its combat is some of the best around.
The system revolved around assigning a button to each limb, so you could combine right and left punches with right and left kicks.
The grind here is intense, as random battles were the norm back then, but here, you could experiment with the combat system to great effect.
The more creative you are with your inputs here, the more Arts you’ll unlock.
You cannot unlock these attacks any other way either, so the more you fight, the more opportunity you get to attempt to unlock more moves to perform.
It’s a shame this one didn’t get more love, as it featured possibly the best combat system of any JRPG.
1Lost Odyssey
Work Towards Your Goals
Lost Odyssey
Lost Odysseyis the Final Fantasy we deserved, but never got towards the end of its day in the 2000s.
It was doomed to emulate classic JRPG tropes like random battles, but the combat was so fun,it didn’t stop people from loving the game.
The encounter rate is admittedly super high here, and grinding is a must, but it’s thankfully fun to do here. The best part about the grind is the abilities you may unlock via the mortal characters.
This works because the immortals in your party can learn abilities from normal humans. This, of course, involves a meter that goes up after each battle.
Some of these abilities can be magic attacks, strength boosts, and a variety of other helpful features. The only way to get them, though, is by grinding.
While some encounters can be repetitive, you at least get to sharpen yourself with each battle.
Timing your attacks is incredibly important here, so fighting the weaker enemies can help get your timing down for the big bads out there.
The allure of unlocking more and more new abilities is palpable, though. It keeps you engaged and running around in circles just for the chance to push closer to that next milestone.
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