Summary
- Some JRPGs, like Akiba's Trip and Kingdom Hearts, have wacky and hard-to-follow plots.
- Final Fantasy 7 Remake adds confusion with new elements like Whispers, impacting the original plot of Midgar.
- Games like Pokemon Conquest offer bizarre premises, blending different franchises in strange ways.
It's safe to say that a lot of games from Japan have wacky stories, from Metal Gear to something truly wild like Deadly Premonition. Absurd plots do not mean the overall narratives are bad. They can just be hard to follow or may not be recommended for those who don't have the palate for the weirdness of Japan.
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The lore, difficulty spikes, and over-complicated controls make these JRPGs hard to recommend to beginners to the genre.
This is why anime is not widely accepted by a lot of people in the West, who still think their stories are hard to follow. Back on the topic of games, JRPGs, especially, have some of the strangest plots out there. Without a guidebook, it can be hard to know what's going on, but fans still love these games.
There will be some story spoilers.
Akiba's Trip: Undead & Undressed
Strip Teasing Vampires
- Developer: Acquire
- Publisher: Xseed Games (NA)
- Released: August 12, 2014 (NA)
- Platforms: PS3, PS Vita, PS4, PC
Games that try to add to the lore of vampires in a clever new way should be celebrated, and there’s no zanier vampire plot than Akiba's Trip: Undead & Undressed, which does exactly that.
Vampire-like beings are cropping up in Japan, genetically modified to be extremely powerful but still sensitive to light. To destroy them, players have to damage their clothes in battle, thus exposing them to the sun and obliterating them from existence. The wackiness of the narrative has a very heavy anime vibe with plenty of risqué fan service amidst all the clothes-ripping action.
Eternal Sonata
A Composer’s Dream
Eternal Sonata
- Released
- September 17, 2007
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- T For Teen Due To Fantasy Violence, Mild Language, Use of Alcohol
- Genre(s)
- JRPG
Classical music enthusiasts will recognize the name of Frédéric Chopin, a Polish composer who lived in the 1800s. Eternal Sonata imagines Chopin living out his dying days in a fantastical world of anime characters and monsters found within his dreams.
Everything and everyone has a melodic twist to their name, like Beat and Jazz, who are allies. Normally, someone from the 1800s, like Chopin, should be startled by what they witness, but Chopin is cool as can be, which might be the strangest thing about the story.
Final Fantasy 7 Remake
Whisper Of The Heart
Final Fantasy 7 Remake
- Released
- April 10, 2020
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- T for Teen due to Language, Suggestive Themes, Use of Alcohol and Tobacco, Violence
- Genre(s)
- Action RPG
Final Fantasy 7 Remak e covers a very small portion of the original game, Midgar, and the story is then continued in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth. Final Fantasy 7 already had a confusing plot to follow on the PS1, but this was magnified in the remake thanks to the addition of Whispers.
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Ghost-like entities called Whispers appear to stop Cloud and the others from altering events that happened in the original game. Not everyone can see them, and even though they are trying to prevent the timeline from changing, the story still plays out differently from the original Midgar chapter. The full power of the Whispers isn’t even fully explored in this game, and they do not appear in a large capacity within Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth either, which is odd.
Kingdom Hearts Re:Coded
Digital Doubles
Kingdom Hearts Re:Coded
- Released
- January 11, 2011
- ESRB
- Everyone 10+ // Fantasy Violence
- Genre(s)
- Action RPG
The first Kingdom Hearts began simply enough compared to other entries. It's a crossover game between Disney and Final Fantasy characters, mixed in with original characters, too. Sora gets a magical Keyblade, travels around with Donald and Goofy, and then seals Keyholes in each Disney world to prevent monsters, called Heartless, from causing havoc.
It was the sequels that cranked up the oddness, and Kingdom Hearts Re:Coded is the hardest to follow of the bunch. Players have to go through digitally archived worlds to destroy data clusters as a debug version of Sora. Doing so helps the digital worlds become full and unlocks memories for Sora, and that’s just a very surface-level explanation.
Like A Dragon: Pirate Yakuza In Hawaii
Pirates, In This Day And Age?
Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii
- Released
- February 21, 2025
WHERE TO PLAY
The Yakuza/Like a Dragon series is known for having weird side quests but ultimately grounded main dramatic narratives. The same cannot be said about the latest spinoff, Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii, which finds longtime anti-hero Goro Majima with amnesia.
To get his memories back, Majima reluctantly becomes a pirate captain and sails the seas around Hawaii in an old-school pirate galleon. Other pirates are hanging out around the islands as well, with similar ships and costumes. This is a modern-day game with swashbuckling and treasure, so it’s a bit hard to follow, but it's ultimately a good time.
Pokemon Conquest
Conquer Feudal Japan With Pokemon
Pokemon Conquest
- Released
- June 18, 2012
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- E For Everyone due to Mild Cartoon Violence, Mild Suggestive Themes
- Genre(s)
- Tactical, RPG
Pokemon Conquest is a great tactical RPG with a funny, albeit weird, premise. It's a crossover between the Pokemon series and the Nobunaga’s Ambition strategy series, wherein samurai lords use Pokemon to wage war all across Japan.
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It’s odd to consider samurai sitting back while they let monsters do their fighting for them, especially the infamous Nobunaga Oda. This may be why Pokemon Conquest didn’t become as popular on the DS as some other Pokemon games and tactical RPGs did, but it remains a fun little curio for those willing to dig it up.
Project X Zone
Fan Service First, Ask Questions Later
Project X Zone
- Released
- October 11, 2012
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- t
- Genre(s)
- Tactical RPG
Project X Zone has an even wilder premise than Pokemon Conquest and Kingdom Hearts combined. It’s a crossover between Sega, Bandai Namco, and Capcom characters. A game that just crossed over Capcom characters into a tactical RPG would be strange enough, let alone adding two other giant publishers into the mix.
There’s a vague setup involving multidimensional rifts opening up, which is how monsters and villains from other universes are appearing on Earth. Seeing Resident Evil and Tekken characters interact is strange beyond words, and that’s only one example. It’s a game about fan service, with the story feeling like an afterthought and just a way to bridge these properties together.
Xenosaga
JRPG Stands For Jesus Role-Playing Game
Xenosaga Episode I: Der Wille zur Macht
- Released
- February 25, 2003
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- T For Teen Due To Blood and Gore, Violence
- Genre(s)
- JRPG
All of the Xeno games have funky stories, but the Xenosaga trilogy on the PS2 has, by far, the wildest. It all begins in Xenosaga Episode 1: Der Wille zur Macht, with mankind discovering a monolith known as the Zohar. Then, the story rushes ahead thousands of years into space, where colonial marines are trying to fight an invisible alien force.
There are robots, cyborgs, angels, and other cosmic entities all connected by a vague religious background. By the end, it seems like Jesus was involved, somehow. Again, it’s a hard one to parse, even with its lengthy cutscenes, and part of the reason why so many things were left unsaid is that the series was intended to be six games.
