There’s a lot of love forJRPGsthat challenge players in creative ways, be it through deep strategy, limited chances to overpower yourself beyond all reason, or even a robust suite of action-centric elements. I’m with people on this. But I also adore - I mean,seriously adore!- a JRPG that can be broken in half like an eggshell. A game with a notably easy exploit, or multiple such exploits, which can, without a ton of grinding, flip any semblance of hardship on its head.
Having played an almost comically high number of Japanese role-playing games through the years, I can think up plenty which fit the bill. But if I am to isolate the most ridiculous that I can possibly recall, these are my choices. In these games, many of which are terrific, you can still shatter every shard of challenge with relative ease.
11Xenosaga Episode I: Der Wille Zur Macht
While it takes more effort than anything else on this list (which isn’t to say a ton, or else I’d never have chosen it here in the first place), Xenosaga Episode I: Der Wille zur Macht is pretty easily breakable so long as you know what you’re doing. Most straightforwardly, the Erde Kaiser summon and the Brave Soul item’s physical-boost will crush much of the competition once you’ve gotten them.
But Xenosaga Episode I is chock-full of somewhat less-known strategies that can tag along with Erde Kaiser to ruin your enemies' chances at success. Stat buffs galore, unblockable status effects, and some downright silly-good Ether attacks combine to forge the sort of Gnosis-slaying techniques that KOS-MOS was narratively built to achieve.
Xenosaga Episode II: Jenseits von Gut und Bose, on the other hand, can be a good deal more difficult. The final game in the trilogy, Xenosaga Episode III: Also Sprach Zarathustra, is something of a middleground. It’s definitely more breakable than II, but I reigns supreme in this.
10Persona 5 Royal
I’m not citing Persona 5 Royal just because there are some absurdly powerful fusion combos that can pummel almost everything to a pulp from fairly early on in the game. There are. I’m not citing it because it has party-wide buffs that trivialize so many battles. It does. I’m citing it because, in addition to the aforementioned factors, you’ll also begin with the option to grab all the original Persona 5’s DLC Personas. Including the ridiculously strong ones.
you’re able to even purchase Royal-exclusive DLCs to up the ante that much further, but if we’re going with “money buys happiness IRL” standards, there’d be far more games in this article. Still, it’s a thing. But having access to those OG P5 Personas is a game-changer in and of itself, and if you’re hoping for a remotely challenging time with P5R, don’t, uh, summon them.
9Pokemon Red/Blue/Yellow
Pokemon’s first generation is, in some ways, among its hardest. Not that Pokemon games' campaigns have ever been truly blistering; for that, you need ROM hacks. But the limitations of the time, and the generally quite-solid movesets that plenty of opponents' team possess, means a bit of grinding can go a long, long, way in Red, Blue, and Yellow.
Alternatively, you can just use an Alakazam and turn most foes into dust. So, there’s that. But if you can’t trade for one, and you aren’t playing a mod that lets you get one despite that, then look no further than the X Accuracy item. In Gen 1, this stat-boosting consumable works 100 percent of the time onanymove, no matter how terrible its default accuracy is.
Put plainly, then, this means Fissure - with its 30 percent success rate - is upped to 100 percent. You’ll knock out the opposing Pokemon,guaranteed. The only thing holding this back from a higher ranking is that unless you’re using the item duplication trick, you’ll have to buy these in bulk, and that racks up quite a pretty penny over time. If we’re counting beneficial glitches, it’s outrageous. Even if we aren’t, it’s wild enough stuff.
8Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age
The first of three Final Fantasy games here, Final Fantasy XII lets patient players crush the story’s intended difficulty through sheer patience. If you’re willing to spend a few hours leveling Vaan against the Dustia enemy in the Dalmasca Estersand, which requires a spawn condition but is easily exploitable once it appears, then you’ll cruise through the entire storyline at incredulously high levels.
It’s The Zodiac Age, the 2017 remaster, that elevates FFXII from “breakable with patience” to “breakable with ease”. The game features fast-forward options, including a blazing-fast 4x speed. Dustia is suddenly falling four times faster. Better still, the inclusion of a new gauntlet-style battle mode separate from the main game that nets you valuable rewards in the game itself means a little extra work will go a long way.
The rare drops you can port over to FFXII from the 100-floor mayhem (importantly, you can save every ten floors, so you’re not forced to do it all in one go at too-weak levels), will slice all story fights in half.
7Final Fantasy II
As with Final Fantasy XII, Final Fantasy II also benefits greatly from more modern quality-of-life tweaks. Final Fantasy II: Pixel Remaster, the 2021 re-release, omits the bonus content from the Game Boy Advance era’s version. That’s a shame. But it also grants a suite of much-welcome changes, including - again - an option to speed things up substantially.
Now, with the other five Pixel Remaster classic Final Fantasy revisits, you may also just… raise the EXP gained from battles up to four times the normal amount. That’s not really how Final Fantasy II operates, since it’s based on raising your party’s stats based on what you have them do in battle. So, the usual approach is out the window.
But. You can use the fast-forward functionality to have your party do what needs doing (often including beating themselves up, amusingly enough) to max your stats rather swiftly. In an hour or two, you’ll have four party members primed to darn near one-shot whatever comes their way. Yoinks!
6Bravely Default: Flying Fairy
Bravely Default: Flying Fairy is a heartfelt ode to the mainline Final Fantasy games of old, specifically those with Job Classes. Which is to say, Final Fantasy III and Final Fantasy V. The quartet of playable characters gains access to a variety of Job Classes over the course of the story, some of which are dramatically broken. I mean, beyond all reason.
Much ado has been made since Flying Fairy’s 2012 release about the Thief’s Godspeed Strike, and rightly so, but there are even better ways to obliterate everything in the game. Fresh players are quickly discovering that for themselves courtesy of the Nintendo Switch 2 remaster of this now-classic love letter to all-the-more-classic games.
5Bravely Second: End Layer
Bravely Second: End Layer, the direct sequel to Bravely Default, is a case of “more, and thus, more ridiculous”. For the same reasons as its predecessor, End Layer allows players to outfit themselves with game-breaking setups. End Layer just has more of everything. More Job Classes, more abilities, more equipment (I think)… more ways to be absurd, to shake the heavens.
4Final Fantasy VIII
Most Final Fantasy fans probably think of Final Fantasy VIII first when the topic of breakable JRPGs arises. Understandably. I just hope you’re not conjuring up painful memories of drawing 100 of every spell in order to junction your characters' stats to 255, because there are better, far less time-consuming, ways to get those same spells.
Triple Triad and the Card Mod ability are the two big ones. Play Triple Triad. Get outstanding cards. Get more cards from the Card command itself in battles, and from enemy drops. Use Card Mod. Get 20 Tornado spells within the firsttwo hoursof this epic-length PS1 Final Fantasy. Get 80 more from four more uses of Card Mod. Junction 100 Tornado to HP. Your HP is in the 7000s range.
The same can be done for the other stats. It’s outlandish. You needn’t level up even once in FFVIII; in fact, it’s advisable to avoid doing so, as enemies get stronger relative to your own level range. Instead, you can safely rely upon 9999-damage blows to the competition by the end of disc one. Final Fantasy VIII is the most quickly and laughably breakable entry in its legendary series.
3Star Ocean: ‘Til The End Of Time
The Star Ocean games are big on crafting all sorts of things, from curative items to alchemical materials to useful foodstuffs to equipment of all kinds. It’s that last part that breaks Star Ocean: ‘Til the End of Time, the third entry in the series.
So long as you know what you’re doing, you can get your hands on the materials necessary to craft mega-powerful weapons a mere ten hours or so into a story that can easily span 60-70 in all. I’m not sure you’re supposed to notice this, but once you have, there’s no going back. The internet is chock-full of recommendations on how to tear open Fayt’s enemies with the right setup, and believe me, getting those setups is easy as pie.
2Star Ocean: The Second Story
What’s easier than pie, then? Star Ocean: The Second Story, especially its modern remaster, Star Ocean: The Second Story R. The acquisition of the necessary materials is easier than ever, and the original version was already simpler than its sequel mustered. Orichalcum. That one word will ring bells of glory in the minds of any Star Ocean 2 diehard.
You just need to do a few things all proper-like in the early going. About a sixth of the way (at most) into The Second Story’s narrative, you may thus craft equipment that will carry you into the endgame and even the early postgame. There are some genuinely tough fights in this game, but they’re a cakewalk with the right gear. And there are other ways to crack it all open, too. A plethora of ways in which to break this game. It’s honestly part of its timeless charm.
