I remember when FF7 first came out and all the high praise the game received. People everywhere talking about how intense and emotional the story was, how exciting the game was and what an evolution for RPGs everywhere.
(...)
I realize that this rule doesn't apply to all Japanese RPG games, but I have certainly seen my share of vague and convoluted story-telling, which to me is even worse than just a bad story.
The biggest reason Final Fantasy 7 received so much praise when it came out was that it was the first real contact western gamers had with the series and that type of game in general. It wasn't really known too well around here by the large majority of gamers, and it was completely different from anything ever seen on the west, so it was a pretty big surprise. There's nothing particularly amazing about the storyline in 7 when compared to the rest of the series though. The game right before it, 6, really pushed the boundaries of stories in that sort of game(considering this was made in the SNES era of mario-esque platformers, shooters and adventure games), but it never got much recognition here mainly because it wasn't marketed here at all.
The thing you really have to understand about japanese RPGs is that only recently they've been starting to "Westernize" themselves. Japanese storytelling has very very different roots than western storytelling, so it really will be hard to understand them if you look at them in the same way you look at games like Baldur's Gate. If you don't remember these stories being very good, chances are you weren't really looking at it in the right way back when you last remember playing it. You should try playing any of those games again now, this time paying very close attention everything that happens within the story.
They like adding several nuances and connections in the storyline that aren't that easy to notice the first time you're playing it if you're not used to that kind of storytelling. This has already happened to me with so many games now, I'm beginning to lose count: I first played the game years ago when I was younger and just enjoyed it for the gameplay. When I play the game again now, I start noticing tons and tons of extra depth in the storyline that I just had never noticed before, simply because I wasn't used to it and I was too young to appreciate things like that.
There's plenty of examples(and [Spoiler warning goes here], if you've never played these games before, skip to the next paragraph): in Final Fantasy VIII, if you pay attention to the way the characters talk to each other near the end of the game, you'll notice that they're basically telling you that Laguna is Squall's father. In another part of the game ( a bit earlier), if you follow the storyline, you'll notice that Ultimecia (the villain you fight at the end of the game) isn't just some random person - it's actually Rinoa. Hell, for Xenogears they even realeased a book in Japan(in japanese only, unfortunatly - there's a partial translation of it here [http://www.gamefaqs.com/console/psx/file/199365/29716]) that went into detail into everything about the storyline that they put into the game, especially the things people might have failed to notice. When you play the game again after reading it, you notice that it actually
is all there, you just might have not realized it the first time.
To put it in other words, I guess you could say that JRPG storylines are sort of an acquired taste. You really have to be around them for a while to start appreciating everything they have in them, because the best parts are usually not obvious from the get-go. Only recently with FF12 they've started to move away from that type of storytelling, in an attempt to lure in more western gamers that just don't identify with that.
The real problems I have with Japanese games(...):
1. Savepoints
2. Repetition
3. Rough bosses
4. Rough bosses
Not being able to save everywhere makes it actually matter how you do in the dungeon before you get to the boss and it makes the entire thing a part of a whole, instead of isolating the boss fight and the dungeon as two separate events. In other words, it's part of the challenge.
I'm not sure what you mean about the repetition and the rough bosses though. Any specific game you're talking about? Most RPG games are fairly easy on the normal storyline (
especially the newer ones). Generally the only "cheap" bosses are the optional ones, which are meant to be like that as part of the challenge of killing them, since they're usually at the end of the game. I can't remember the last time I fought a
regular boss in an RPG game that relied on luck and not on figuring out how to counter the boss's attacks.
Say, for example, you're fighting the Emerald or Ruby weapon boss in FF7 - sometimes they'll do some attack that will normally kill your entire party in a single turn. If you have someone equipped with with the right materia though, you can prevent it from killing you (Final Attack + Phoenix, for example, which casts Phoenix when you die, reviving you in turn). Figuring out how to fight in a situation like that is part of the challenge of these fights though. I'm glad they exist, especially since RPGs seem to be getting easier and easier latetly.
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