eric5h5: There's a demo/prologue on Steam. It's nicely done, but unfortunately reminds me why I stopped playing JRPGs long ago, namely I can't really deal with random battles anymore. If that doesn't bother you, you'd probably like it.
Honestly, I prefer typical implementations of random encounters (where you don't get attacked unless you move) to the most common alternative (where the game turns into an action game when you're trying to avoid (or seek out) encounters, or when you can get attacked after a battle before you've had a chance to manage your inventory or cast healing spells after the battle).
Also, simply having visible enemies that move in real time doesn't prevent you from being repeatedly attacked. In the original SaGa 3, which uses random encounters, I never felt that getting repeatedly attacked was an issue; to the contrary, it was sometimes annoying to get into encounters when I *wanted* to fight. By contrast, in the DS remake, later on it's impossible to avoid encounters without stopping time (something that uses up a resource), and by the end it gets really frustrating (particularly when Flare is so powerful that normal enemies are no longer a threat at that point).
Darvond: I don't mean to bemoan the naming conventions of genre, but the J in JRPG does mean
Japanese.
While nobody gives a cork on toast that Herve is a cheese of protected origion and can only be certified as such if it is made in the Herve area, I do feel there is a slight brow to be raised when one could more tactfully and perhaps more clearly define it as say, Action role-playing game, Tactical role-playing game, or Traditionally Styled Roleplaying Game.
Thing is, JRPG, (and its counterpart term, WRPG, refer to clearly distinct styles of RPG. You can easily have a JRPG developed outside of Japan. Furthermore, you can easily have a WRPG developed in Japan. (Candidates for the latter are Wizardry Gaiden 4 and the Romancing SaGa series; these games have characteristics that are more common in WRPGs than in JRPGs.)
TZODnmr2k5: The walk-two-steps-fight-a-battle gameplay was great in the 90s when we had no other option, but geez that mechanic should be retired already, still, it depends on the frequency of the battles, but I still may get it!
eric5h5: Well, it's not as bad as that. It has a mechanic similar to an old PS game called Legend of Dragoon, where you have a threat level that increases as you move, and when it gets high enough, you'll have a battle sooner rather than later. So not totally random, and less aggravating than some other games, but still not something I want to deal with.
That's actually pretty common, even in earlier JRPGs; it's just that the threat level isn't always visible. (I believe the original Final Fantasy does that, for example. On the other hand, the original Dragon Quest/Warrior does not; if it did, one wouldn't be able to avoid all encounters until the first Metal Slime encounter, even with RNG manipulation.)
