Good vs. Bad JRPG intros

[CriticalGaming]

So I have a bit of downtime again after the disappointment that was Callisto Protocall, and still being over a week away from FF7 Crisis Core's Remaster, I decided then to jump into a game that I'd skipped a long time ago Shin Megami Tensi V. I remember trying this game back when it was newly released on the Switch and bouncing off of it pretty hard. Persona had made me a fan of the SMT realm of games, or so I thought, but again in trying to sit down and play SMTV I've come to have the same struggles. I have had similar issues with many other Jrpgs in recent years including Scarlet Nexus, Tales games, and I think I've finally figure out a reason to why.

It's the intros.

For the sake of comparison I'm going to compare Persona V to SMTV because I think they have the best through-lines in order to compare styles and why one works for me where the other one doesn't.

In SMTV you are shown an intro about God and angels and how they let humanity live blah blah. Your character starts in school and is told that there have been some strange attacks lately and you shouldn't go home alone. You then are thrust into a friend group for two minutes before the way home is blocked by another murder, and one of your new friends goes off to take a phone call. You go find them super far away in a tunnel for some reason, the earth shakes and you are in the netherworld where demons are. Then you are attacked and some guy shows up to possess you and the gameplay begins. So immediately this intro serves a couple of problems. Number one being that the set up is basically demon world bad, go deal with it which is simple I guess but i found these plots that explain a bunch of crazy rules for the world you're in to be too jarring to get into. Number two, you have no characters to give a shit about, your group is thrust upon you and then you are taken away from then in minutes and you silent protagonist is meaningless so what's the point?

In Persona 5 your character is silent, but there is story to him. He tries to help a woman and pisses off a powerful political figure and as a result he is sent to a new town to live on probation for a year. He meets his caretaker, gets his room set up, goes to school and learns his schedule while also meeting people in passing who will become his friends. What's great about this is that you are given a reason to care, not just about your character but also the people around him. Then when you are thrust into another world with demons and shit to fight, you don't the first time. Instead you are chased out and the plot thickens, you and Ryuji investigate again and THAT's when your persona awakens and you have the ability to fight back. Not to mention the villain of your demon world is set up in such a great way that you also have a reason to fight him.

Basically it boils down to the set-ups and how each game introduces you to the world and the characters within it, but more importantly it sets up your struggle. In SMTV what's the struggle, sure the demon world might invade the real world but why is that OUR problem? Whereas in Persona 5 the shadow world means nothing to us, but what is important is stopping the evil High School Coach from abusing his students, there doesn't need to be a world wide motivation yet because it's a personal story right now, with the killing of god gradually building up throughout. This motivation for the player is what I think is most important in keeping that player interested in what's going to happen throughout a 60+ hour game. You can't hit someone with "world's ending go save it" right out of the gate because the player isn't going to care about that.

That's one thing that I think Final Fantasy games almost universally do well starting with 4.

FF4 - You are a Dark Knight (which fucking sounds cool), and you attack a village filled with innocent people, wtf are you the baddies? That's a hook, and the torment the character faces right afterwards immediately makes the plot and game hook you.
FF6 - You're a bunch of people in killer robots attacking a village, wtf are you the baddies? Oh but the girl breaks free and she's rare because she can use magic and the evil empire want's her power.
FF7 - You are attacking a reactor that is draining the planet of life, killing guards and destorying the innocent lives of the people in the city near this reactor, whoa WTF are WE the baddies?

Huh...kind of thematic.

Anyway my point stands. Scarlet Nexus had this problem for me as well in the they threw a bunch of terms and weird rules about the world at me and didn't set up the characters at all, then fighting is happening and there is a reason but I'm not really sure what's happening or why, and it's so jarring that it just isn't interesting. Admittedly the Tales games do a better job at Character set up like Beseria was really good because you can feel Violet's rage and hatred and desire for revenege, however where the Tale's games fuck up is that immediately after the intros the game slows to a crawl and the pacing just never seems to go anywhere.

What do you guys think? Am I onto something or totally off base?

 

[BrawlMan]

I don't know too many good or bad opening to rpgs, but one of my favorite openings to an RPG will always be the first Parasite Eve. Best opening ever!

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[meiam]

I don't know too many good or bad opening to rpgs, but one of my favorite openings to an RPG will always be the first Parasite Eve. Best opening ever!

The opening theme score could carry just about anything.

On topic, I dunno. I really like the xenogears opening (I'll link it below) even though its stuff we literally have no way of understanding until like 2/3 of the way into the game. Maybe because its just focus on building atmosphere and mystery rather than info dump you. A lot of JRPG do in media res opening where they essentially just flash forward 10 hours to start with an exciting action set piece before bringing you back to the starting town, which doesn't always work.

Trying to think about some beginning that I dislike, and its kinda hard cause they vanish from my memory pretty quick... Wild arms 5 has you go into the mountain with your childhood girl neighbor before a mysterious girl fall from the sky into the lead arms, in a clear statement that the game has 0 originality in it and just want to go straight to cliche town.

I think it mostly come down to, is the game good? SMVT is not awful, but isn't particularly good and is more a gameplay first type of game with a w/e plot just throw in to justify you killing demon in massive dungeon, the video game equivalent to the pizza delivery boy in a cheap porno. While P5 is generally regarded as good (I think its easily the weakest of P3-5, but that's mostly just me apparently) so when you think back to the opening you have fond feeling for it because it setup things that you eventually cared about.

 

[CriticalGaming]

(I think its easily the weakest of P3-5, but that's mostly just me apparently)

You think P5 is weaker than 3!? Wooooow. I'd give you weaker than 4, because 4 is sick, but 3!? No way. Three felt like a mess imo.

 

[FakeSympathy]

Well, I can think two two JRPG openings;

First is Golden Sun. Within first 15 min or so, you are introduced to a world using powers called psynergy. I thought this was nice how well it fits into the world, and not just there for the sake of being JRPG. we also see dangers of its power, seeing how an entire town gets nearly destroyed and four people are presumed to be dead. After that, we began to learn more about fundamentals of the power with Kraden, further cementing in how the elemental powers fit into this world

Second is Kingdom Hearts 1. In the tutorial area you stand on top of stained glass arts of Disney princesses, and then the game throws you onto an island for the next hour or so. Nevermind the intro cutscene has barely anything to do with Disney. So you kinda forget about Disney stuff on the island, thinking it was an easter egg or something.... THEN BAM, Goofy and Donald. AND FF characters too? IDK, until Sora gets to Traverse Town, I just feel game makes zero sense in terms of world-building.

 

[Worgen]

I don't know too many good or bad opening to rpgs, but one of my favorite openings to an RPG will always be the first Parasite Eve. Best opening ever!

There are plenty of really good ones and they can really get you into an RPG.

Suikoden had some amazing openings.

Chrono Cross also has an amazing opening.

I know there are more but those are the ones that always come to mind.

 

[meiam]

You think P5 is weaker than 3!? Wooooow. I'd give you weaker than 4, because 4 is sick, but 3!? No way. Three felt like a mess imo.

I hated most the cast of P5 so much that it felt like a chore to hang out with them, while P3 cast is fine if unremarkable. Also, aside from the first case, none of P5 case had any impact on me and I was just thinking "why the fuck are we bothering with this?!" most of the time. Like, some artist copy his student work, I care because...? Oh yeah some creepy pervert painter, that I hate, cares about that. Zzzzzzzzz

Gameplay wise P3 kinda sucked cause the environment where all the same and you couldn't control other party member, but at the same time there were better mechanics to force the player to leave the dungeon at regular interval, while P5 has none which create some major pacing issue, with long stretch of dungeon followed by long stretch of social. Some of P5 social link are also way too strong, meaning you have to focus them rather than just picking out who you feel like hanging out with. Plus a lot of them were creepy, like teacher maid prostitute.

 

[CriticalGaming]

Plus a lot of them were creepy, like teacher maid prostitute.

You leave my fantasies out of this!

 

[Dreiko]

Some Trails games do an in-media-res intro, where you start at some heavy action part usually half way through the game, if not two thirds, and then after like 20 minutes or so it goes back to the start of it all, it kinda gives you a taste of what's to come and what to expect. Those are always a lot of fun cause it contrasts the very slow regular pace of the games and when you DO finally get to those bits in the story it feels really fun. Persona 5 does this too cause they have you play the casino mission right away, which is around the halfway mark (at least in Royal).


FF game intros vary, for me the best is prolly FFX cause you see a glimpse of Tidus' world before Sin eats it so you get an idea of what happens if you fail on your mission, and also that scene with Auron offering a drink to his buddy while the souls waft up is just unbelievably cool.


As for an absolute best...I'd prolly have to go with BoF3 cause it's such a classic in my eyes. You wake up as a dragon frozen in a crystal, people attack you, you defend yourself, then you're caught and revert to a boy. Sweet, simple, and very to the point. You're a dragon boy in a world full of enemies, go and explore. It's also the only bit in the game where you actually walk around in dragon form. Always fun.

 

[Chimpzy]

Jrpss can be slow burns sometimes, but some of them just take it a bit too far. Kingdom Hearts 2 spends way too long to get going. Just hours of minigames and faffing about in Twilight Town before you even get your first proper battle. Xenoblade 2 has a similar problem, where it just takes forever until you get to the meat of the game.

On the other hand, I'm currently playing Triangle Strategy, which takes about 1,5 hours between the tutorial battle way at the beginning and your first real battle, all of it basically frontloaded conversations and worldbuilding, but it kind of works there.

 

[meiam]

Jrpss can be slow burns sometimes, but some of them just take it a bit too far. Kingdom Hearts 2 spends way too long to get going. Just hours of minigames and faffing about in Twilight Town before you even get your first proper battle. Xenoblade 2 has a similar problem, where it just takes forever until you get to the meat of the game.

On the other hand, I'm currently playing Triangle Strategy, which takes about 1,5 hours between the tutorial battle way at the beginning and your first real battle, all of it basically frontloaded conversations and worldbuilding, but it kind of works there.

KH2 has the extra issues that if you don't play chain of memory nothing makes any sense. And it introduce so many crap that you don't need in the first few hours, but thats tied into KH getting overly complicated for no reason.

 

[Dreiko]

KH2 has the extra issues that if you don't play chain of memory nothing makes any sense. And it introduce so many crap that you don't need in the first few hours, but thats tied into KH getting overly complicated for no reason.

I'd argue that even if you do play CoM it still doesn't make much sense, but that's KH's charm for you.

 

[thebobmaster]

I hated most the cast of P5 so much that it felt like a chore to hang out with them, while P3 cast is fine if unremarkable. Also, aside from the first case, none of P5 case had any impact on me and I was just thinking "why the fuck are we bothering with this?!" most of the time. Like, some artist copy his student work, I care because...? Oh yeah some creepy pervert painter, that I hate, cares about that. Zzzzzzzzz

Massively downplaying what Madarame was doing. He was in a...whatever the painter's equivalent to a writer's block was, but rather than just accept that, he had students paint their own work, then take credit for it. One student tried to get out from under him, and had his career destroyed because Madarame had the pull to get him blacklisted, while another student got so caught up in despair over his effort not only going uncredited, but actively having the credit stolen, that he committed suicide. On top of that is the heavy implication that he only took the "creepy pervert painter" under his wing to have a more long-term artist to use and abuse, and let his mother die from a seizure in the process.

A bit more serious stuff than just "some artist copying his student's work".

OT: I find a fair few JRPGs do the thing of "drop you into a world, let you figure out what the story is as you play along". I also bounce off from a lot of those, because even if the motivation is shallow, I like to know why I'm doing something in a game. Pokemon? OK, I'm trying to help the local professor out with his Pokedex and raising Pokemon as a trainer in the process. Simple, neat, I know what I'm doing and why, and the story can catch up to me at that point.

Code Vein...I've tried a few times to play through that game, but after the tutorial, I just feel like I don't know WHY I'm in these sewers fighting demons with my very carefully personalized anime character beyond "because that's the game". I therefore kind of drift off. I have the same issue with anime sometimes, for the record. I give an anime two, maybe three episodes. If all it's managed to do in that time frame is establish a world and a few characters, I'm probably not going to be interested in the long haul.

 

[meiam]

Massively downplaying what Madarame was doing. He was in a...whatever the painter's equivalent to a writer's block was, but rather than just accept that, he had students paint their own work, then take credit for it. One student tried to get out from under him, and had his career destroyed because Madarame had the pull to get him blacklisted, while another student got so caught up in despair over his effort not only going uncredited, but actively having the credit stolen, that he committed suicide. On top of that is the heavy implication that he only took the "creepy pervert painter" under his wing to have a more long-term artist to use and abuse, and let his mother die from a seizure in the process.

Sure, but as far as "bad thing happening in the world that would require the use of paranormal power to forcibly brain wash someone (ie assassinate them)" its so low on the list of priority as to being insignificant. I figured the game would move on to tackle the dirty politician that got the main character in trouble in the first place, but instead you just tackle essentially unrelated stuff, mostly insignificant one at that (ultimatly relying on a fucking internet poll of all thing). There's no continuity in your action nor any logical progression, you could change the order of most of the case you do and it wouldn't matter at all other than which character you recruit.

 

[CriticalGaming]

Sure, but as far as "bad thing happening in the world that would require the use of paranormal power to forcibly brain wash someone (ie assassinate them)" its so low on the list of priority as to being insignificant. I figured the game would move on to tackle the dirty politician that got the main character in trouble in the first place, but instead you just tackle essentially unrelated stuff, mostly insignificant one at that (ultimatly relying on a fucking internet poll of all thing). There's no continuity in your action nor any logical progression, you could change the order of most of the case you do and it wouldn't matter at all other than which character you recruit.

But isn't this the same as 4 as well? Like a murder in your town is a mystery but it has nothing to do with a bunch of high school kids. And like in P5 it doesn't involve your group until it does. Until a friend is on the midnight channel or someone you know is being abused and taken advantaged of in P5.

P3 doesn't quite have that, but it's premise is equally problematic with it being about the Tarterus and midnight hour, but I don't remember it ever explaining why your character should give a fuck.

I don't really hold that as a negative towards game, because sometimes things have to happen to your character in order for the video game to happen. P5 is very good because it does a good job in making you care about your friends and you do the things in the game mostly for your friends which is fine. I'd rather save the world because I like 5 people in it, than save the world because I have a hero complex or something.

 

[meiam]

But isn't this the same as 4 as well? Like a murder in your town is a mystery but it has nothing to do with a bunch of high school kids. And like in P5 it doesn't involve your group until it does. Until a friend is on the midnight channel or someone you know is being abused and taken advantaged of in P5.

P3 doesn't quite have that, but it's premise is equally problematic with it being about the Tarterus and midnight hour, but I don't remember it ever explaining why your character should give a fuck.

I don't really hold that as a negative towards game, because sometimes things have to happen to your character in order for the video game to happen. P5 is very good because it does a good job in making you care about your friends and you do the things in the game mostly for your friends which is fine. I'd rather save the world because I like 5 people in it, than save the world because I have a hero complex or something.

In P4 you're trying to stop a murderer that's using the paranormal power for his own twisted ends, in P5 you are the murder using the paranormal for no real reason other seemingly boredom. The case in P4 is unsolvable without using the paranormal power, which only your main characters have, in P5 the cases are all solvable in the real world (when there's even something to be solve) the main character just don't bother and immediately use their power without trying any alternative.

And I really didn't find P5 did a good job at making you care for your friend, out of the 5 I liked 1 of them and outright hated even being near two of them. I'm perfectly fine with game where I'm not saving the world, If instead most of it had being like Futaba case I would have liked the game a lot more.

 

[CriticalGaming]

In P4 you're trying to stop a murderer that's using the paranormal power for his own twisted ends, in P5 you are the murder using the paranormal for no real reason other seemingly boredom. The case in P4 is unsolvable without using the paranormal power, which only your main characters have, in P5 the cases are all solvable in the real world (when there's even something to be solve) the main character just don't bother and immediately use their power without trying any alternative.

And I really didn't find P5 did a good job at making you care for your friend, out of the 5 I liked 1 of them and outright hated even being near two of them. I'm perfectly fine with game where I'm not saving the world, If instead most of it had being like Futaba case I would have liked the game a lot more.

I love me a little Makoto.

 

[Dalisclock]

On the other hand, I'm currently playing Triangle Strategy, which takes about 1,5 hours between the tutorial battle way at the beginning and your first real battle, all of it basically frontloaded conversations and worldbuilding, but it kind of works there.

I just realized about about 90 min into the game before I stopped which means I'm probably right about where the battle happens. Is it the tournament they keep going on about?

 

[NerfedFalcon]

in P5 the cases are all solvable in the real world (when there's even something to be solve) the main character just don't bother and immediately use their power without trying any alternative.

What's the point in trying? Given your circumstances, you have absolutely no reason to believe that the shitty adults in your life (which is all of them) will bother to do anything other than sit around scratching their ass and frowning at you at best, and attempt to ruin your life some more at worst. And since you can't do anything in the real world yourself, and nobody will help you there, why not go straight to the supernatural option? Which, I'll add, you and Ryuji are initially wary about until the situation escalates to the point where you have to do something - to the point where they actually do try to deal with Kamoshida in the real world first, and then go to the Metaverse after that catastrophically fails.

You aren't just missing the context, you're also missing the text.

 

[meiam]

What's the point in trying? Given your circumstances, you have absolutely no reason to believe that the shitty adults in your life (which is all of them) will bother to do anything other than sit around scratching their ass and frowning at you at best, and attempt to ruin your life some more at worst. And since you can't do anything in the real world yourself, and nobody will help you there, why not go straight to the supernatural option? Which, I'll add, you and Ryuji are initially wary about until the situation escalates to the point where you have to do something - to the point where they actually do try to deal with Kamoshida in the real world first, and then go to the Metaverse after that catastrophically fails.

You aren't just missing the context, you're also missing the text.

Every cases that involved criminal act would easily be solved in real world. If you were to call just about any journalist and say "The former Olympic athlete that coach our volleyball team is physically attacking his student, we can easily get video of that, and also sexually assaulted a female student who then attempted suicide, which you can verify easily" all you'd hear back would be a loud explosion has he'd cream his pants followed by "Pulitzer here I cum!!!!!!". The group in P5 is really the epitome of "we've tried nothing and are all out of idea".

If the idea was really to go after people that couldn't be touch the regular way, then they should have actually done that. Like people who were tried for something but then had their case dropped for unclear reason or because the prosecutor messed up badly, or maybe because they were pass the statue of limitation. But every case you go after would be like catnip to any journalist and the hardest thing would be to fight off the horde of journalist trying to interview you to get the info. Things could even have been setup so that instead of brain washing people, you'd go into their dreamland to steal information about their crime (which would be more in keeping with the thief motive) and then would use that info to make them suffer consequence in the real world.