Japanese Role Playing games are mostly about figuring out where to do what. The most important clues are found in cutscenes and dialogue that can be seen only once. If you forgot about them, pickung up the game after a long time can get frustrating, as you wander around aimlessly, fight hundreds of random battles, all in the vain hope to find your next goal.
(Christian’s most vivid memory of this is of one time he picked up Lufia 2 after a long time, finding his party in the middle of nowhere on the map. The airship was nearby, so you could already go anywhere on the world. After unsuccessfully looking and asking around in a bunch of very similar looking towns, he decided it was best for him and the cartridge to just leave the things as they were und go on to something else.)
Thankfully, nowadays you can look it up on websites like gamefaqs.com (if you can live with the fact that you learn about all the things you’ve missed so far and spoil yourself half of the story until you finally find the spot you’re stuck at), and newer games usually have a feature to let you learn about what happened before by reading a journal or asking the characters in your party, like in Tales of Symphonia and Dragon Quest 8.
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