JRPGs with kid(s) as main character(s)
 

Hey, I want to choose a game for a very young person with a main character they can identify with, and recent comments in this forum section about JRPGs featuring adolescent characters made me think the genre is likely to feature even younger ones…

The age of character(s) shouldn't be anything beyond 12-13. Only translated ones, of course, the person in question is learning English, not Japanese :)

Off the top of my hat, I can only remember Swordcraft Story games and Ni no Kuni. Anything else? (Western RPGs would be ok, too, if there are any with preteen protagonists, but I doubt they exist)

Cronotrigger?

I never played Chrono Trigger (that will be fixed, I swear!), so I'm going to have to ask you to elaborate. About the main character Crono the wiki states that

Fortune Summoners?

There's always Recettear, but the girl seems like she's about 14-16…

Thanks, I'll look into Fortune Summoners.

Recettear was quite difficult even for myself (the sales part), so regardless of ages, I'm not sure it would be a good game for a preteen, haha.

My bad. He is 17. For some reason i thought he was younger.

Really? To me it was the other way around, the combat part was difficult but the store part was great.

Lucky you :) I couldn't understand the mechanics of pricing. I don't remember the system clearly now, but you were supposed to set prices differently each time and for different customers. There was some kind of perfect zone to increase customer's appreciation, which I failed to calculate how to get in. As a result, the popularity of the shop wasn't high and people weren't buying well.

Gotta go with Chrono Trigger. It's a tale of young friendship and sticking together. I played it when I was a kid and it was literally a life-changing experience. I loved it so much and it has heavily imprinted me to be the person I am today. Love that game and I'm sure other young people would adore it as much as I did. :nod:

I agree Fluent.:nod:

Chrono Cross was also good but the final boss battle to get the true ending was a nightmare. You had to attack him in a certain way, or you got the normal ending.

Edit: Elel you can also check out Dark Cloud 1&2 plus the Secret of Mana games.

I should mention that I'd like a game with nice graphics. Not super graphics, just nice. The little girl lives in a modern world and isn't accustomed to old games! So I'm a little dubious about Chrono Trigger and Secret of Mana.

Although I could always obtain ChronoTrigger anyway. I planned to play it myself. So I guess I'll check it out and show it to her to see the reaction.

As a present Fortune Summoners looks good. And it's on PC (and currently on sale), which makes things even easier.

About Dark Cloud: is Dark Cloud 2 a direct sequel or can you play it standalone? I think she'd be more interested in 2 b/c of its girl character.

If you have any more suggestions, don't be shy to post! :)

The cool thing about Chrono Trigger is that it is such a classic, enduring RPG that it keeps getting modernized and brought out on current-gen systems. While I'm not aware of an "official" PC version (yet), there's absolutely a DS version that will work on 3DS. And it's only slightly modernized. If she's a modern kid she may not enjoy the emulated version, though…maybe she would!

Well, if the age should be below 15… earthbound is the game I guess….

Totally forgot about this one. I remember seeing a public outcry to port this game on PC and they never did it. I really wish it was ported to check if the game is *that* good.

If the child isn't illiterate, grab them Legends of Heroes: Trails in the Sky cheap on GOG.
If is still learning to read, put them away from machines.

I heard it was directed by Miyazaki himself, which is, like, a stamp of quality. :)

Why did I not think of that?.. I already have that game and played it myself, so I can vouche that it's good, even if characters are above her age.

I wonder if she'd be ok with complex "walls of text" in Trails in the Sky, though. She's learning English, you see, but she loves it and is good with it, it's supposed to be a present to capture both her love of games and love of languages.

GOG also has another good DRM-Free JRPG called Pier Solar.

Link - http://www.gog.com/game/pier_solar_a…eat_architects
Hope this helps Elel.:)

Do these games even have adult characters in them? Last one I remember was a guy with an afro and a small chicken living in his hair.
Seriously.

Bobo, I wanted games with preteens, not teens, which aren't easy to find even among JRPGs.

Oh well, I was referring to the chicken. :P
Well, Brumbek is bound to log in and I'd stake my life he'll know a thing or two. ;)

Not really a JRPG (it's made by Ubisoft Montréal, but design wise it is basically a JRPG), but Child of Light main character is a young girl -she's supposed to be pre-teen, at the start-.

It does require Uplay on PC, but runs on basically everything (PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Wii U and PC versions exist).

edit:
There is a video of Making of the Music of the game (it has an awesome soundtrack).

I have to ask, how much talking does Child of Light have? I wanted an RPG originally b/c of many dialogues most of them have. An ordinary action game won't be an equally nice present for her, even if it's very good.

The game is a love letter to JRPGs, although all the dialogue are in rimes (that might be a minus depending on the person). The protagonist comment about location and people she encounters. There is also a voiced narrator. There are dialog with various NPCs, written stuff and even companions too. You can also look at a let's play on youtube (part 2 has more dialogues) to see if that fits what you are looking for (all the people doing let's play have to speak out load the dialogue, can be annoying lol).

It's not a very long game though (15-20 hours).

Elel >> Maybe Grandia?
The main character is 14 (I didn't play the whole game, but the beginning seemed really "kid-friendly" to me).

EDIT: as already mentionned, the characters of Pier Solar are also pretty young, but I think that the hero is more 16/17 than 12/13. Otherwise, I played the game and don't really remember parts not appropriate to children (but the combat are really hard, and random encounters really numerous, which can be frustrated for a kid).

ANOTHER EDIT: I also remembered of Gurumin. I've never played it, but it seems for kids! (it also exist on the PSP)

EDITS NEVER DIE: And what about Pokémon?

Great suggestions. Thanks!

Pokemon! Gah, why didn't I think of that??

Resurrecting an old thread just to say that I did choose Fortune Summoners. It looked very cute and kiddy. And…. it turned out that it's totally hardcore! Dark Souls with cute kids and lots of dialogues. I had to play it myself, haha. That was tough…

I'd never heard of Fortune Summoners, so I had to look it up. It seems interesting, something that might appeal to me more if it were only turn-based instead of straight-up action. It also looks like it might have some platform elements, though I'm not sure on that.

It's got jumping, but I didn't find any difficulties with that. It's not like, say, Prince of Persia on NES. But fighting is difficult. At first it was deceptively easy, until I met the very first boss. It was unbeatable by just by attacking it. I had to learn to block and time my own attacks. Btw, if it sounds stupid that I wasn't doing that before, well that's how all action games play, you never need to bother blocking or thinking about strategy. This is why action games are mostly relaxing in a dumb serene state of mind. Well, not this one. Even simple trash mobs can kill you unless you fight them with a brain turned on. There's later more complex stuff.

But it's not like I recommend this game, unless you like things like that. I've seen this game compared to Ghouls & Goblins, if that tells anything to anybody.

It's basically an RPG with a side-scrolling perspective, with a linear story and rather tough battles. I'd say it's rather deceptive that the story is about a very young girl ( a kid), but the fighting is… like that. :) It's surely refreshing, I just wish it was advertsed as a difficult game, lol. Most people who bought it probably expected it to be an ordinary click-without-thinking action-RPG.

I looove the Trails saga. Can't wait for Cold Steel III to release on PC. I heard they're bringing back Estelle and Joshua back in the fourth one. I literally screamed when I first read the report!

What about Prince of Persia 2008. Gorgeous art, interesting characters and a rather simple combat mechanism?

It's not jRPG with kid.

Wow, that's really excellent, if both Estelle and Joshua are going to return in the Cold Steel series!! When that hits the computer market, it just might wind up being a day one purchase for me.

And I'm still having a great time once again replaying the Trails in the Sky series. I'm about ten hours into the third game and trying out a different squad than I used previously, just to learn more on strengths and weaknesses.

Oh right.

Well there is Huniepop. Not sure if RPG, though. Has a character progression system ( well, sort of).

FF Tactics Advance. From Wikipedia "The game's story centers on four children; Marche, Mewt, Ritz, and Doned."

Hmm, the thread is a couple years now so I suppose Elel may not be looking for suggestions anymore. Oh well :)