8 JRPGs That Totally Reinvent Themselves Halfway Through

JRPGs are one of the most interesting genres in gaming, solely because they introduce so many strange mechanics and environments, and they can totally change on a whim.

A lot of the time, it can throw in new characters, mechanics, and even entire new storylines at the halfway point. While not all JRPGs do this, the ones that do stand out more than most, because of their ability to surprise you even when you thought the game was out of tricks.

We're going to check out some of those games that reinvent themselves midway through and kick it into a whole other gear.

8 Tales of Symphonia

Another World

Tales of Symphonia is an amazing JRPG and one of the true classics of the genre, but at a glance, you might wonder why. Because on the surface, it just looks like your typical JRPG adventure, but around the midway point of the game, you get introduced to literally an entire new world, which seems like you've almost fallen into a different game.

It's here in Tethe'alla that the story takes off, and you learn of the conflict between two worlds, one steeped in your classic anime fantasy and the other, a technological marvel that feels like it literally fell out of a different genre.

This amazing dichotomy between the two changes everything about what you thought the game was going to be like. It's the "A-ha" moment of Tales of Symphonia and one of the driving forces towards making it one of the all-time greats.

7 Chrono Cross

The Dark Side

Chrono Cross is one of my all-time favorite games, and it's controversial for a few reasons, but one of those reasons is that it rips the rug out from under you at the halfway point of the story. You're building towards this epic showdown with Lynx. What you see when you start the game becomes the halfway point, and you get to the fight, and it's suitably epic, but then what?

Well, the shock of all shocks happens as Serge and Lynx switch bodies, and all of a sudden, you wake up in a strange world as Lynx, without all of the companions you've worked towards recruiting, without anything. It's square one, but you're now in the body of the main villain. It comes with a new moveset, a new group of party members, and even a new element for your character to have. It's a jarring switch, but one that ultimately serves this story well and stands as one of the more shocking gameplay shifts in any game, let alone JRPGs.

6 Final Fantasy VI

The Villain Wins

Final Fantasy 6 has one of the boldest second-half turning points for any game out there. It takes expectations and subverts them in the best way. Here, Kefka, the maniac hellbent on world domination, actually achieves what every villain sets out to do. Destroy the world. He succeeds, killing countless people in the process, and during his ascent to godhood, the world is shattered and obliterated, leaving a mostly empty husk in its wake.

The look of the world changes, the world map looks different, and everything takes on this much morediree tone that sticks with you until you finally take down Kefka for the last time. It's one of the only games I can think of where the story shifts so drastically and introduces a whole new set of rules for you to deal with. There is a reason Final Fantasy 6 is so incredibly well regarded to this day, and bold moves such as this are a big part of why.

5 Tales of Arise

To the Sky

Tales of Arise was a return to form in 2021 for the Tales series, and at around the midway point of the game, a story that felt rather grounded in political ambition and themes of slavery and dictatorship gets completely thrown out the window here. All of a sudden, instead of beautiful plains and amazing-looking mountains to explore, you're sent into space, suddenly dealing with alien civilizations and technologically advanced races.

It's a wild change and really gives the story an epic feeling that it otherwise was kind of missing, in my opinion. Now, the story that takes place in the second half is far less compelling than the new areas to explore for sure. But I respect a game for taking a big swing, even if the result is ultimately less than the sum of its parts.

4 Final Fantasy XV

The Unfinished Story

Final Fantasy 15 is a great game in my opinion, but there is no hiding the fact that the second half of the game reinvents itself, and it was not necessarily a good decision to do so.

After having this incredible-looking open world to wander around with your companions, you get thrown on a train and essentially get fast-tracked through a wealth of important story bits. Suddenly, the game has a horror segment out of nowhere that lasts far too long, important villains are brushed aside in a matter of minutes, and you get thrown into a time skip of epic proportions for seemingly no reason at all.

When you wake from the time skip, the world is shrouded in darkness, full of dangerous monsters, and all the towns you've visited are barren and empty of life. It appears the end of the world has come,e and the game wastes little time with fast tracking you to the end of the game from there. Later updates would increase the length of the second half of the game considerably, but it didn't do enough to erase one of the more infamous second halves of any game ever.

3 Nier: Automata

Erase, Rewind

Nier: Automata is a wild journey that tackles existentialism, religion, and all sorts of deep themes before the final credits roll. About midway through the game, the entire map of the land you've been exploring changes significantly, allowing for even more exploration and new enemies to take the stage as well.

It does it pretty subtly, too, because you don't feel like this is a new world or anything, but just a slight progression of the world you've been in into something pretty new and different. a wild journey

It gets even crazier, too, as with each playthrough, more and more of the story is revealed, and eventually, the entire world becomes a terrifying, unhinged hellscape that makes the pristine land you initially land in something that feels far in the past. It's part of what makes Nier: Automata one of the most compelling and overall best games ever made.

2 Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

A Gut Punch

There are bold moves at the midway point of games, and then there is what happens in Clair Obscur. The main character, Gustav, is killed off at the end of Act 1 in one of the most brutal and heartbreaking scenes of all time.

To that point, the whole story had revolved around Gustav. From the opening moments seeing his ex-girlfriend gommaged, to him being the first character you control, it's clear that this is going to be the heart of the story. Except it's a fakeout. As soon as Gustav is gone, Verso takes his place, introducing a brand new moveset and overall style of fighting.

From there, he and Maelle take the main stage of the story, revealing a ton about the game world in the process. It's a jarring shift, but in the process, introduces even more depth to the already awesome battle system and gives us a character who manages to equal and even outdo Gustav in the process. It's not often that you can kill off your main character and get away with it, but Clair Obscur is no ordinary game.

1 Xenogears

The 2nd Disc

Xenogears is the in many ways, the best game that Square Enix has ever created. It's a fascinating journey with epic characters, a jaw-dropping story, great exploration, and some of the coolest-looking graphics of the PS1 era on top of all of that. But when the 2nd half of the game starts, on disc 2, everything changes.

The open world exploration is basically gone, and instead of finding new places, you're watching the main character Fei sit in a chair and basically tell you the story that is happening instead of watching it unfold. It is a jarring shift, and it's part of the reason it's one of the most polarizing 2nd halfs of any game ever.

It seems to speed through crucial story points, and crazy things happen in the span of text, rather than experiencing it for yourself. It eventually gets back on track towards the end of the game, but still, it's a wild shift from the huge amount of exploration available to you in the first half of the game.