Japanese RPGs Need to Change, Says Final Fantasy Creator

[robinkom]

J-RPG's, as they are, largely rely on the reinvention of visuals established by Final Fantasy VII. The look gradually bastardized even more with the continue J-Pop influences thrown in sporadically which has led up to the majority of main or supporting characters being androgynous guys with belly shirts and geometrically impossible hairstyles. This is still, largely, a mid to late-90s appeal in the West which is why it lags behind for the mainstream audience here. It doesn't appeal to everyone.

The last J-RPG I played that had none of this and it was Skies of Arcadia for Dreamcast from 2000. The main character, Vyse, is an adventurous and courageous spirit with a sense of duty to his friends and family, qualities a lot of people can relate to. The majority of protagonists in modern J-RPGs are brooding, dark, emo, angsty, cry-babies and Vyse completely disregards this mold. He's LIKABLE as are his friends.

In my opinion, if they really wanted to be different now, they'd take a page from the J-RPGs from the 80s and early 90s like Shining Force, Chrono Trigger, Breath of Fire, and Phantasy Star... hell, even Final Fantasy I through VI. They abruptly stopped using themes and character architypes from those times as soon as FF7 hit it big. They try to be so stylish and hip that they forget to make the plot interesting or the gameplay engaging.

Just my take on it... of course, I'm not exactly "with it" or "hip." Just an old, jaded gamer.

 

[CD-R]

Truthfully it's one of those things where I feel that JRPGs are more or less perfect for what they are setting out to do as they are now. There is no real need to change what isn't broken, and there are millions of people internationally who play these things.

The only real reason to "evolve" JRPGs is to try and grab a bigger part of the mainstream pie, and I can understand that from a financial perspective, but overall it's just selling out another niche market.

I'll also say that a big part of the problem sales wise is that Japan really doesn't do a good job of marketing their RPGs over here. You see them released so far under the radar that it's ridiculous, and in such limited quantities that if it takes you any time at all to find out about a lot of these games your unlikely to be able to land a copy without paying crazy prices over Ebay.

To put things into perspective, there is a game coming out next month called "Hyperdimension Neptunia" by NIS (the guys who have done Disgaea and so on), how many people even on a site like this are even aware of it? How many people here have heard of "ZHP: Unlosing Ranger vs. Darkdeath Evilman"? There are plenty of others that could be mentioned as well. It took a long time for things like the Shin Megami Tensei series to become known, because the games were released so quietly and under the table. "SMT: Nocturne" was selling for big bucks second hand for a while.

Simply put it's not a matter of the games not having a decent audience, it's a matter of them simply not getting the word out to that audience. With limited quantities, and no real advertising, it's not like JRPG producers can fairly do the "QQ" thing over bad sales.

You might be on to something there. Part of the reason Monster Hunter Tri did so well in the US for the first time was because they decided to finally advertise it. And use an awesome ad campaign at that.

 

[Something Amyss]

JRPGs being unpopular in the west has little to do with emotion and details and a lot to do with men who look like 12 year old girls and stories that make no sense. Turn-based combat doesn't help much either.

I like Turn-Based combat. The angsty 12 year olds with spiky hair do bug me though.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

well, this quickly turned into people thinking they have the end-all, be-all argument for figuring out why JRPGs are stagnating. Although I REALLY wish people would stop using ONLY Square's games as an example as admittedly Square itself is in a terrible state with thinking that their writers outside of Matsuno have any talent.

In regards to Sakaguchi talking about JRPGs conveying emotion well, I do agree. My problem with a lot of western games is their UTTER lack of any conveyance of emotion other than determination, toughness, black humor, snide remarks, and anger. The heroes in general are the worst offenders to this as they rarely if EVER express any sort of negative emotion like sadness, self-loathing, or selfishness. Though I WILL admit that quite a few JRPGs prioritize emotion to the point of stupidity that causes giant plot holes such as The 3rd Birthday, FFXIII, and the Tales of series. There's a lot that BOTH sides could learn from one another. I also commend Sakaguchi on being critical without coming off like a self-xenophobic crybaby like Inafune did.

 

[Sniper Team 4]

One of the staff wrote an article a while ago that explained why I like JRPGs: Character focus and group focus, part of a team and all that. Final Fantasy XII strayed so far from that idea that it killed the game for me. XII brought it back so I like it better than XII, but it still needed work.
Bring back the world of JRPGs. Going to towns, talking to people, secret side quests that reveal information about your team mates. Hidden dungeons, insanely powerful bosses that can only be fought if you went out of your way to track them down. Exotic lands and odd characters. I happen to enjoy how JRPG characters are drawn, and I've never had trouble following any plot. Okay, XII made no sense and Final Fantasy Tactics still confuses me, but those are the exceptions.

 

[Bara_no_Hime]

Bandwagon time.

I like all RPGs, both J and R. My two favorite RPGs of all time are Final Fantasy 7 and Planescape Torment. How's that for complete opposites? Well, other than both being PC games in the late 90s.

I like JRPGs when they provide well written, developed, and realized character. This is something that WRPGs often fail at, because they try to make things generic so that all players can create their own experience. In a JRPG, you are controling a finished, complete character who has been fully written. You have no choice in the matter - you are the documentary camera man following the main character around. Every so often you get to play a tactical turn-based combat before getting back behind your camera and following around an interesting, unique character.

That is the ideal. The trouble is, lately, a lot of JRPG characters are carbon copies of old ones. There have been a few excellent ones, but they are getting fewer and farther between. Perhaps that's what he meant by revitalizing JRPGs - getting back to interesting, well developed characters.

I like WRPGs when they provide a true role playing experience where you really can create your own character and make them your own. Where the dialogue options are plentiful and fully developed so that no matter how you want to play, the game is ready to accomidate you.

Again, that's the idea. In too many WRPGs, you can't actually role play or create a unique character. Instead, you're just playing "nice guy" or "ass hat guy" - this is my problem with moral choice systems. Not the moral issue - the fact that there is never a middle option.

Mass Effect actually does a good job about middle of the road - you can choose the "middle" option which gives no points. I'm not always a fan of the paragon and renegate stuff, but at least it's better than most are lately.

Planescape Torment is still my favorite because it gives you so damn many dialogue options - you can almost always find something that fits your character. And that's with a pre-created character who has a strong, plot based story. ... about amnesia.

 

[Kavonde]

Look, Squeenix, if you want to figure out what direction JRPGs need to go, look at Final Fantasy VI and Chrono Trigger. Lose the stupid outfits, the mopey, androgynous heroes, and the weird, trippy, "we are all connected" themes. Just tell a story about a group of heroes saving the world. You want emotion? Look at Cyan and his family, or the coin toss between Sabin and Edgar, or the alienation of Robo, or the redemption of Frog.

Judging by the posts above, there's a whole generation who thinks JRPGs are all about whiny, emo heroes who dress themselves in the dark. You can do better than that.

 

[aeroz]

I like jRPGs, but ironically it was Final Fantasy there turned me off on them. I think they do story alot better then western RPGs because our RPGs stress customization. You cant make a strong player character when you have no clue what that character will act like.

What turned me off is that its essentially the same story, with the same characters again and again. I come to jRPGs because of the story, so when I realized it was the same one over and over I really had no reason to continue playing

 

[Raziel_Likes_Souls]

Sakaguchi's latest game, The Last Story - which he claims is anything but a Final Fantasy rehash

In other news, it turns out Last Story is actually going to be renamed Final Fantasy 7: FES. With the ability to destroy canon by preventing Aerith's death and added social links.

But, yeah, JRPG's need some more outstanding entries to go with all the rehashing and shitty plot. Some Bioshock, and No More Heroes to it's genre.

 

[SBoggart]

From a plot/aesthetic standpoint, I think JRPGs fail in their character development and depth. The emotion is always raw, and affecting, but unless the game is excruciatingly long there's generally very little noticeable growth. This isn't to say the characters are (necessarily) two-dimensional, but they're a little simple. In a way they take the Oscar Wild approach; theatrics and spectacle abound, but for the sake of theatrics and spectacle. This can be a good thing, but where JRPGs are concerned, it usually means flat character writing. Granted, that's completely cultural.
I say this as a person in a part of the world thats literature values intricacy, and if I want intricacy in character and plot writing I play a Western RPG. If I want to abandon constraints of logistics and subtlety and feel something, or appreciate over-the-top scale, then I play a JRPG. The two subgenres are apples and oranges, not dial-up and high-speed.

 

[OtherSideofSky]

FYI Escapist, it seems my initial thought was correct. The thought that the Escapist staff have denied constantly. You're always posting JRPG-stabbing "news" (whether it's truthful from Mr. Sakaguchi or whatever).

You may not intend to make them look like continual JRPG-bashing posts.. But your community does it for you. They also like to twist your reporting and abuse JRPGs in general. I understand members of the staff (John Funk, for example, who I can confirm from previous chats, is a super awesome dude) actually really enjoy JRPGs. That's fine. I don't care if you do or you don't. But when community members are blatantly insulting the genre because "I DON'T LIKE IT SO IT MUST BE TERRIBLE", that's just sad.

Again, I'm not on any "side". If I had to "pick a side", it would be "shut the fucking hell up, kids, or we are NOT going to Disneyland. And you're certainly not getting any ice cream!"

This.
So much this.
I couldn't have phrased it better than that last paragraph so I just quoted the whole thing.

I've gotten so sick of all the bashing that goes on both ways in this argument and the constant stream of topics like this that encourage it. It particularly annoys me that no one on either side ever brings up any of the RPGs I actually like in these discussions when they try to pigeonhole both sides of the argument. It's always people complaining about Final Fantasy and Fallout instead of Shadow Hearts and Deus Ex. It's pretty clear that most people in this debate haven't actually played very many of the games they're bashing. It's equivalent to only playing the latest Call of Duty and then whining that all shooters are inherently broken and need to turn into Strategy games.

 

[xPixelatedx]

JRPGs being unpopular in the west has little to do with emotion and details and a lot to do with men who look like 12 year old girls

I would hardly call western character design an improvement.

I do however agree that it is not as simple as adding emotion, if anything they have too much as it is (they are so emo). Unfortunately the differences that could be fixed in order to make them west-complient are all cultural things, and nothing that will be fixed with hard work. The rpgs made in japan and the west are both based on the story telling principles of each region. We make ours similar to our other story telling methods while japan does the same, thats why JRPS are like animes. Thats exactly what you should expect from a very story driven game from Japan, isn't it?

Jrpgs will always do bad here just like War FPS's will always do bad over there, with a few minor exceptions on both sides.

And yes I do know some of those people in that image were designed by a Japanese person, but it's pretty obvious we know which audience they were trying to captivate with that design choice.

 

[gardyna]

i belive that the main problem that´s hurting JRPG´s is that a lot of developers are gettin (in my opinion) arrogant and not exactly knowing what it was that made their previous games great.

let´s compare two recent titles i´ve played Final Fantasi XIII, final fantasy X (my first FF game), and persona 4 (can´t say enough good things about that game)

the thing that Persona and FFX had was a big world now take FF13 the world looked big but never got the oportunity to feel big (in X there was a huge backstory with myths and legends that gave the world a grandiose feel while Persona took place partly in reality)

the next thing X and Persona had was a strategic logical combat system X´s turn based system trunps persona´s in strategy couse the game asks the player to manipulate the turns to his advantage killing off the small foes that are next in line to cut down on unnececary damage( in FF13 there was the paradigm system which is a solid concept but the problem there was the auto-battle option it means that the player can keep tapping X and the game will do the strategy for you rendering the player as an accecory to the experience)

the third and final thing i´m gona highlight is exploration couse both Persona and FFX reward exploration (in persona you´r exploring people and getting to know them (unique kind of exploration)) (and in X there´s often a side-quest or something more intresting than a treasure chest (for example the hidden ayon´s and ultima-weapon´s dungeon))

i´ve just touched on three thing that JRPG´s had over WRPG´s (besides some of the having incredibly well writen and unique story´s that i love and characters with actual personalities) so JRPG developers do need to rethink their priorities and cutos to westrn developers making leaps and bound to get better at the things japan used to do better than you

P.S. so i´m not all hate on FF13. the CG in that game was drop dead gorgeous so i REALY want to see more movies from square couse that realy was incredibly beautiful.(and the thing that kept me going through FF13 couse it sure wasn´t the gameplay, which didn´t even want me to be a part of it)
P.S.S. please forgive spelling/gramatical errors English is not my first language so if anyone spots a realy bad error from me then please PM and i will try to fix it (and practice makes perfect, right?)

 

[alexelric]

Really I think a big part of the problem is their audience has largely grown up, while your average jRPG is "A bunch of teenagers angst their way through saving world". Compare that to Mass Effect or Dragon Age, which tackle mature themes in an intelligent manner.

All you have to do to see everything that's gone wrong with jRPGs is look at FFXIII - you don't need to have your character babble on melodramatically about their feelings for 20min to convey emotion. They've forgotten how to be subtle - they're all flash and no substance. They're still marketing to teenagers when those of us who fell in love with games like FFVII or Chrono Trigger are now in our mid 20's to early 30's.

for the first part, I kind of disagree, not ALL JRPGs are like that (granted, a lot of them are), but Persona 4 tackles subjects that most western games still shy away from (homosexuality, gender roles in society), Mother 3 is one of the darkest, most deconstructive examples of what a being a Hero entrails....

However, franchises like final fantasy have long lost their edge, from the greatness of FFVI history (I still have it as one of my all time favorite RPGs), to the downright mediocre FFXII that was a MMO withioth the multiplayer and offline (grindfest with an excuse plot) or the just barely OK XIII with a story that makes little to no sense since the game does not explain ANYTHING and most of the time you are just running away... No clear antagonists (Cid Raines was wasted, the Big Boss is just a Evil Eldritch thing that comes from pretty much nowhere) there is a BIG downfall.

And yes, they have forgoten how to be subtle, most Jrpgs nowadays are all about the Impressive Graph engine, the simplest combat system so western audiences don't complain, and fanservice for the guys and girls. What happened to thes games that made you care for the characters? how is it possible that a 16bit sprite and a text in a little box can provoke more empathy than a full-3d-Prfectly-rendered-human-model with full surround voices?

Square enix has beeen going downhill fast and hard, let's just hope the rest does not follow, Atlus still makes amazing JRPGs, and Nippon Icchi games are just great with their sense of humor and off beat, completely crazy characters and plots. Please let them become the norm, and not the exception.

 

[Something Amyss]

The angsty 12 year olds with spiky hair do bug me though.

So your only experience with the genre is one bad parody then.

False, but whatever floats your boat.