World of JRPGs

I liked Legend of Dragoon on PS1, at least what I played of it. My save got corrupted during my playthrough and it was like 5 hours in. Maybe eventually I will be motivated enough to restart it.

I hate most JRPGs for two reasons:

1. I hate random battles
2. The turn based menu combat is boring because it gets repetitive fast

The random battles can occasionally get a pass, as long as they dont interrupt my exploration too often and when they are not overly repetitive.

Legend of Dragoon addressed these two in different ways.

1. Random battles didn't really interrupt my exploration excessively compared to other games like Final Fantasy. FF almost feels disrespectful of my time in that regard.

2. The combat stayed interesting because of the QTE-style bonus damage on some moves, and the 3D environments of the battles varied often enough that it didn't feel overly repetitive.

Another recommendation is Racing Lagoon. This one tackles both issues as well:

1. Random races happen but not too often. You can see the cars coming since they flash their lights and honk their horn. You can pretty simply avoid them if you dont want to race them by moving out of the way (they follow the direction of the road based on which side they are on).

2. Races aren't really repetitive, there is a multitude of race tracks that are sometimes repeated in reverse for extra variety.

My main issues with Racing Lagoon are the poor visibility due to the PS1 hardware limitations, and the physics unfortunately. Early on, cars feel absolutely horrendous to race with. Once you get good upgrades they get significantly better, but boy does it feel like you get pummeled in races for the first few hours of play. But get past that and the game is pretty good. Unexpected and a very unconventional JRPG.