Glad you liked my recommendations!
Feel free to ping me for more suggestions, I'm a massive JRPG fan and have played a ridiculous amount of games in this genre.
Persona 3 Reload and Persona 5 Royal both are available on Switch
Reload is not available on the Switch. 🙁 But since it's available on the XSX OP can still get it.
I'm seconding most of your recommendations, except I'd recommend Atelier Sophie 2 instead of Ryza mainly because it's a more traditional turn-based battle system instead of the action/turn-based hybrid Ryza uses.
Please, if you know other awesome JRPGs or other turn-based games, tell me about it. :)
Oh boy, I could spend hours talking about these. So instead let me give some recommendations on different styles of JRPGs.
Fairly easy, there's a plenty of fast-travel spots around the map and some upgrades like the double jump and slide unlock a lot of shortcuts.
I wanted to spend my last weekend of vacations playing Trails Through Daybreak II but my copy is stuck in Customs. 🙁
Finished Rabi-Ribi!
Cutest metroidvania I've ever played, and it's quite a good game too! Extremely non-linear and open, I finished the "main quest" with only 50% map completion! Between that and some post-game content there's still plenty for me to do here. Oh, and it also has a ridiculously catchy OST that will definitely get stuck in your head.
Had a ton of fun with this one. Easy recommendation to metroidvania fans, and I even added Tevi from the same developer to my wishlist.
Playing Fantasian Neo Dimension!
Slow progress but still following my plan of doing short sessions completing a quest or two. Getting brickwalled by some of the optional bosses though, got my entire party one-shot from full life a couple times already which is never fun. 🙁
Double-posting since I forgot to add this to my initial post, but I replayed Metroid Prime when the Switch port was released and I was quite impressed. Yeah, it has some outdated aspects like the map, but it's kinda crazy how well it plays considering it's more than 20 years old. The port is also really impressive, one of the best looking games on the console while also running smoothly at 60FPS.
But my favorite thing about the game is the atmosphere. It nails perfectly the feeling of a lonely explorer in a wild, dangerous planet.
It’s always nice when a game respects your time.
Definitely. And while writing that I was thinking that main I issue I have with Fantasian is that a lot of things in the second half of the game feel designed in a way that wastes your time.
High random battle frequency with low rewards, gimmicky bosses which you often have to fight twice, constant need to shuffle around in menus rebuilding your party with different skills/equipments to be able to work around those gimmicks.
Finished Ender Magnolia: Bloom in the Mist!
What an amazing game. A massive improvement in almost all areas over Ender Lilies, which was already a damn good metroidvania.
I love most things about it, starting with near perfection in all technical aspects - flawless controls, beautiful visuals and music, and stable 60fps performance on the Switch. Exploration is an absolute joy with the main movement upgrades (dash and double-jump) getting unlocked early in the game alongside with a well designed open world where you almost always have multiple paths to explore.
Another great thing is how this game respects your time, making backtracking as painless as possible. Fast travel between save points is unlocked early and the map lets you know when a room was fully explored so you can try to find as much as possible in your first run though. The map is also quite detailed including information on whether or not you have the abilities required to open a specific door and even the basic platform layout of each room, making it easy to tell if you are ready to traverse it or not.
Combat is really good with a lot of different loadouts to experiment with, though the balance between combat abilities is uneven with some abilities being far better than others. And my one big issue with the game is also related to combat - I hate the system of having a weak protagonist that dies in 2-3 hits combined with a bunch of healing items. But I know that's popular among games in this genre, and I knew what I was getting into when I purchased this one so I can't complain much about it.
I highly recommend this game, easy 9/10 and a must-play for fans of this genre.
Playing Fantasian Neo Dimension!
Resumed this one after finishing Ender Magnolia. Doing good progress and I'm still having fun with it, but I have to pace myself to avoid getting burnt due to the high random battle frequency and difficulty on bosses, so I've been aiming for shorter sessions doing only 1-2 quests.
Since the second half is mostly open-world it's hard to say how far I am in the game. I do have the "Communication Network" area unlocked which seems to be the path to the final boss, but it's recommending level 50 which is 5 or so above what I am right now, so I guess I should still go exploring and sidequesting more in preparation for it.
Playing Rabi-Ribi!
Current side-game, a very cute metroidvania which comes with high praise from fans of the genre. Only played a little bit and finished the prologue since I'm focused on Fantasian right now.
Looking great and from the same people who did SoR4? Hell yeah, I'm hyped.
I’ve got to (probably) the last “to be continued” of Great Ace Attorney collection. The twists at the end are definitely hitting the Herlock Sholmes ideal of whatever you haven’t eliminated is the truth, no matter how improbable. I’m in the middle of walking to the ice cream shop or I’d be racing to the end right now.
GAA2 is so good, IMO one of the best AA games alongside AA3 and AAI2. That final case also has one of my favorite moments in the whole series.
spoiler
The final "Dance of Deduction".
I don’t think there will be any gameplay patch for this kind of thing, so guess will have to play as it is.
I'm a bit more hopeful here, they seem to be doing good post-launch support with the control fixes and major Switch performance improvements in the last patch.
Random battles and difficulty in the second half are by far the biggest and loudest complaints you'll see for this game, so I think there's a chance we'll get some tweaks to this in a future patch.
Favourite game of the genre
Favorite in recent years. 😅 Which is still a big deal considering how many good games we've been getting in this genre.
Worth mentioning that I'm on the minority of the metroidvania fans that don't love Hollow Knight - I've beaten it, think it's a great game, and I can certainly see why people put it on on a pedestal, but it didn't click with me as well as other games in the genre did.
What were your Top 3 most played games this year? Here's mine:
Harvestella was a really good surprise for me this year. It felt really unimpressive to me at first, but kept growing on me as I played and I ended up with a quite positive opinion of the game at the end.
Atlus has a habit of releasing "upgraded/improved" versions of their games:
The "upgraded" version effectively obsoletes the original version as they include expanded storylines, improved QOL and so on.
Other games like P5 Strikers or P5 Tactica use the same cast but with a different gameplay style. They're usually meant to be played after the original game and should be treated as as spin-offs or sequels.