JRPG Questions

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

Well not just JRPGs everything needs to start evolving there has been feck all new done in last couple of years this isn't something that only JRPGS have but also shooters, survival horrors and all other RPGs.

I don't think shooters and survival horror games are in any real danger. Modern Warfare 2 is flying off the shelves and there's a great deal of anticipation surrounding the new Silent Hill offering. Western RPGs are doing perfectly fine. Fallout 3 and Dragon Age are definitely selling very well. There's really no evidence to support your claim that those genres need to make extensive changes.

JRPGs need to change because they are still very, very similar to games that were released ten to fifteen years ago. Fans have grown tired of the endlessly repeated cliches and the vastly unchanged gameplay. Final Fantasy VII was an incredible game for it's time. But JRPG developers need to understand that it's time to stop making knockoffs of it. Lest they risk being out of job.

Well see that's the thing with FF13 they re changing and MW2 is not flying off the shelves on everything everywhere yes it is doing well but it is very copy and paste most of he weapons are just random stats.

Yes there is a new Silent Hill coming out but just look at how it is starting to stagnate in the sense this is saying as they haven't added anything new which JRPGs are with FF13 hopefully being the main and FF12 did add various things.

I mean Oblivion and Fallout3 although made by the same place are almost identical as well as Dragon Age to other Bioware games. So JRPGs are doing fine. Comparitavely speaking as everything is stagnating you just need to look around.

 

[Axeli]

Oh, all these trolls just for me! And now stooping down couple levels..

Sorry to sound droll, but that's just how things are. JRPGs need to start evolving quickly or the entire genre is going to die off.

Sure thing, especially with all these innovations in other genres like:
FPS (Oooh, they can have actually storylines! Amazing!!!)
WRPG (Let's make them FPSes! Bland side-quests are great padding, so let's do a lot of that 'cause that certainly hasn't gotten old.!)
or Bioware RPGs (Never mind we have done this exact same formula like ten times already!)
Action Adventure (Better take away all this stuff that takes brains. We wouldn't want it to be unaccessible! More action! Level design like a straight tunnel!)
Survival Horror... Horror... Action

EDIT:[
I see what you are after here, but really, can't that logic be applied to anything? JRPGs haven't changed any less than most genres out there.

Just thought I'd add this since you weren't actually trolling or otherwise being obnoxious, so that the irony doesn't come out wrong.
]

Because Turn Based Combat sucks donkey balls?

Or an equally great argument: FPS combat sucks donkey balls.

With turn based games it removes the skill factor turning the game into pie charts and graphs.

Harsh but true, turn takings should stay single player.

I'm gonna take a guess here and assume that you do not know how to play chess, for whatever reason that might be, but even card games? Least tell me your parents bought you board games when you were little.

But perhaps most shocking is that you obviously you don't know what pie charts and graphs do. That'd actually be common knowledge unlike JRPG facts, though even the lack of knowledge in the latter should make you think twice before posting here.

And if you are gonna generalize by something as silly as High/Low... Oh boy, could you list all your favourite genres right now? Like in any media ever?

2) No JRPGs on the PC? Well some have said its the market. I say its because PC gamers like western rpgs. PC Gamers are the closest to the table top gamers and hence share a passion to be able to make their own decisions when playing a ROLEPLAYING game. You know, they like to roleplay, if you prefer the JRPG method of simply worrying about the story (i use it very lightly in some cases) unfolding and simply crunching numbers rather than involving themselves in the story, they generally head to the plug in and play of consoles. PC gamers are used to making their own decisions, thats what a PC is good for and this translates to their games.

Where do I begin.

Welcome to gaming. RolePlaying Game refers to a game that involves a lot of leveling and stat building so that both have great impact on and are central for the gameplay. But if you a petty enough to consider the genres name not being word-to-word correct a major flaw, then I suppose I don't have much to add there than my personal expression of amusement about silly neuroses. And don't say you didn't say so there, 'cause you kinda did. Or was it witty?

And regarding choices... Weeeell, I could explain about how those impair good story telling, but let's just say this:

You have found an orphanage!
Do you want to:
-Give all your money to fund it?
-Set it on fire?
-Ignore the options above and recieve no quest of any kind, you frigging bore?

Or perhaps:

Tali: "I would like to join you on your quest, if you so will."
Choose- A)OMG!! HAPPY TO HAVE YOU AROUND WITH US! B) Whatever you want to do. C) Fuck off.
A,B,C = "We sure could use some extra help".

Seriously though, these games have like at tops 3 real story-affecting choices. The game pretty much does whatever it does regardless the rest of the time.

3) Personally good and JRPGs are rarely in the same sentence.

Personally would-be witty hater and clever are rarely in the same sentence. That's just me though.

4)No custimization in JRPGs is simple, thats what they are about. Playing a JRPG is rarely about your individual choices, your always getting told what to do and blindly following it to progress. If you want custimization and choice you play a western RPG, no offense to those who like one or the other but thats the way things are.

Horrible spelling aside... Yeah, they offer you usually no choices because your Mary Sue (anyone going to tell me it's only accurate to use this for fan-fics can go f-... browse TVTropes) avatar is rarely a character, so it makes sort of really weird sense that you wouldn't be making choices for the characters that actually have their own personalities. That's called story telling most of the time.
And no customization (in gameplay)? Okay, now you just don't know what you are talking about. Shoo.

See? Wanna troll, I'm game.

 

[Axeli]

double post - sorry

 

[NuclearPenguin]

Snip.

I like you O_O

 

[Deleted]

What does chess have to do with turn taking RPGs. You could bring up a game of High/Low because that is turn taking too, but all luck since its just flipping the top card of your stack.

You said turn based games. Chess is a turn based game. Simple, no?

On the topic of turn-based RPGs not requiring skill, I fail to see how Fire Emblem, Mario RPG or Chrono Trigger entail any more of "pie charts and graphs", or luck, for that matter, than Diablo II, Neverwinter Nights or Oblivion.

Once you bring it online with other people making their own choices, you won't be fighting each other you'll be fighting some boss. It'll always be the same, the character archetypes will the the same, so the metagame would be developed too fast.

With turn based games it removes the skill factor turning the game into pie charts and graphs.

Harsh but true, turn takings should stay single player.

Yes, no skill required AT ALL [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess]

Yeah I guess you're right, but refer to above for it it works online.
What does chess have to do with turn taking RPGs. You could bring up a game of High/Low because that is turn taking too, but all luck since its just flipping the top card of your stack.

Chess and turn based RPGs are actually very simular. They both require countering and being a step ahead of your opponents.

 

[Azure-Supernova]

Also, whats with JRPGs and no customization?

Because the "RPG" part in "JRPG" is used so lightly, it's barely there.

 

[Deleted]

I don't feel like quoting 6 different people so I'm just gonna say, when I said turn-taking mmo I meant like in final fantasy where you click an option for attack, defend, item, and flee. That kind of game is easy to learn easy to master.

 

[Cheesepower5]

Not particularly, Douk.
Firstly, I can attest that many turn based RPGs(Be they J, or W. I don't differentiate as much as most seem to, even if it is still obvious what's from where) are pretty damn hard to master. It's not so much honing your reflexes, glitching(usually) or knowing where what respawns(once again, usually.) It's more the subtler things, like preserving ammo and knowing what weak points to exploit like in an FPS or action game. For example, to beat certain more difficult bosses, you might have to use Fire-based attacks. It's probably made of ice or a zombie, so it's usually kind of obvious. But maybe fire attacks are hard to come by? This is a random example, so don't expect to see that, but knowing how to customize your character(s) is, in the more difficult RPGs at least, is required to beat some bosses or even regular enemies. Knowing what paths to take, what weaknesses to exploit, what things are where, who's best with what abilities, sometimes(like in Star Ocean on SNES or the SaGa series) who to recruit and such things. Mastering the system is different, but it's there and of equally variant scope.

Secondly, the whole Attack-Magic-Item-Flee system has been at the very least heavily varied upon in pretty much every game not riding on being old school, if not outright scrapped like in Tales games and other Action RPGs. The simplified "Attack in turns until one guy dies" argument can be applied to ANY game. First Person Shooter? "Run around and hold the trigger button until one guy dies." Action adventure? "Attack it and run away until one guy dies." We know CoD or Halo are more than that, we know Zelda isn't just that. So why do these kids who never played a game before they got an XBOX fail to apply some logic to RPGs?

Wow... That was more wordy than I usually get. Guess I'm just used to agreeing with people.

 

[kingcom]

2) No JRPGs on the PC? Well some have said its the market. I say its because PC gamers like western rpgs. PC Gamers are the closest to the table top gamers and hence share a passion to be able to make their own decisions when playing a ROLEPLAYING game. You know, they like to roleplay, if you prefer the JRPG method of simply worrying about the story (i use it very lightly in some cases) unfolding and simply crunching numbers rather than involving themselves in the story, they generally head to the plug in and play of consoles. PC gamers are used to making their own decisions, thats what a PC is good for and this translates to their games.

Where do I begin.

Welcome to gaming. RolePlaying Game refers to a game that involves a lot of leveling and stat building so that both have great impact on and are central for the gameplay. But if you a petty enough to consider the genres name not being word-to-word correct a major flaw, then I suppose I don't have much to add there than my personal expression of amusement about silly neuroses. And don't say you didn't say so there, 'cause you kinda did. Or was it witty?

And regarding choices... Weeeell, I could explain about how those impair good story telling, but let's just say this:

You have found an orphanage!
Do you want to:
-Give all your money to fund it?
-Set it on fire?
-Ignore the options above and recieve no quest of any kind, you frigging bore?

Or perhaps:

Tali: "I would like to join you on your quest, if you so will."
Choose- A)OMG!! HAPPY TO HAVE YOU AROUND WITH US! B) Whatever you want to do. C) Fuck off.
A,B,C = "We sure could use some extra help".

Seriously though, these games have like at tops 3 real story-affecting choices. The game pretty much does whatever it does regardless the rest of the time.

Gee welcome to gaming, and your calling me the troll?

Anyway, no a Roleplaying Game has not always been about the SMG (statistical-manipulation game) which its modern day counterparts have been about. Now if we actually look at roleplaying games themelves off of its electronic medium, it didnt not always involve leveling and gear improvements but designed itself around a players experiences. This translating to the electronic medium has limited choice somewhat but good RPGs (you know actually allowing you to make decisions because im taking on the role of a person, im not trying to be witty im stating thats what a roleplay is, your supposed to express your ideas and thoughts while in the shoes of another person.

A western RPG for example provides a user with a series of potential outcomes. Sure a bad one can provide the solutions as above but good ones provide more complete and detailed choices. Take say Fallout 2: a relationship between a farm and village can have you say:

1) Do nothing (as always)
2) Kill the farmer (helping the village)
3) Kill the village (helping the farmers)
4) Rescue villager (helping cool tensions but if you dont not inform them the villagers kill the farmers)
5) Get the village to accept negiotiations with farmers (dont inform the farmers and they kill the villages when approaching)
6) inform both about peaceful co-existance (both negiotiations actually work)

Or say Baldurs gate's character development when confronted with the original games villain who offer to help you out

1) reject
2) accept/trust
3) accept but basiclly have a spell on him that he can never betray you

This appears simple but leads to further character development. Blind trust of the person who once was your enemy makes it easier for you to develop his interactions with the party and allow him to even redeem himself and review who he is and what life brought him to this point

Then there are the simple choices of siding with different factions which depending on ones philosophical outlook or moral compass as the situation requires.

Of course this also confronts with the "what the hell are you doing" some games can cause and make you want to do the exact opposite.

3) Personally good and JRPGs are rarely in the same sentence.

Personally would-be witty hater and clever are rarely in the same sentence. That's just me though.

4)No custimization in JRPGs is simple, thats what they are about. Playing a JRPG is rarely about your individual choices, your always getting told what to do and blindly following it to progress. If you want custimization and choice you play a western RPG, no offense to those who like one or the other but thats the way things are.

Horrible spelling aside... Yeah, they offer you usually no choices because your Mary Sue (anyone going to tell me it's only accurate to use this for fan-fics can go f-... browse TVTropes) avatar is rarely a character, so it makes sort of really weird sense that you wouldn't be making choices for the characters that actually have their own personalities. That's called story telling most of the time.
And no customization (in gameplay)? Okay, now you just don't know what you are talking about. Shoo.

See? Wanna troll, I'm game.

So my informing of the reader that im going to be biased agaisnt JRPGs and the thoughts must be considered of that mindset is wrong?

Only bad rpgs do they play a "Mary Sue" character. More often than not you are given plenty of options to express your personality within party discussions and through your decisionmaking. Also, what decent RPG actually has you make decisions on behalf of your party, most of the time they object to your actions if they disagree with them and can even cause direct conflict, violence or even rejection of you as their leader. These people are individuals and should respond in such a way. Thats not storytelling (well technically it is, simply very bad storytelling) which means the author is incapable of actually factoring in different, and often conflicting) ideas.

He said no customization (the OP) i assumed he meant in the visual aspects?

I dont understand you, im offering an opinion, not insult anyone and even stating clearly that i do not enjoy many JRPGs whilst at the same time saying that it doesnt matter that other people enjoy different things. If fact you yourself are more likely to be a troll bringing hate into a discussion which previously contained very little.

EDIT: Yes, genre names should indicate what is contain in that genre. Im someone who believes that when a word means something, it should be used in that way. If something deviates from that core definition but due to genre classification people are extremely hesitant to rename they add little side notes, hence the JRPG to RPG, its different and cant really be called an RPG but originated from the same ideas.

 

[Daedalus1942]

Well, first of all
Why is there no turn based MMO's? As far as I know FFXI isnt turn based. I think that turn based would be perfect for MMO's, tactics would get extremely advanced.
Second of all, why is there hardly any JRPG's on PC?
And third of all, what are some good pc/ps3/wii/360 turn-based JRPG's?
Also, whats with JRPGs and no customization?


And what are some good JRPGs for iphone? Turn based or not, I dont care.

Turn Based MMO's don't exist, because they are a bad idea. Imagine being in a battle online, and you have to wait your turn to attack an opponent who has gone off to the toilet or his internet connection's cut out and his character is stuck in MMO limbo.
They just would not work, simple answer.

 

[Dark Knifer]

I never liked turn based combat, regardless if it's a JRPG or not. The only JRPG I liked was kingdom hearts. Maybe because the combat worked well and the bosses were fun. The story is kinda complicated though...

This isn't too helpful is it...

 

[kawaiiamethist]

I think the reason JRPGs rarely go to PCs is that the market isn't there. From talking to PC gamer friends, they're just not interested in that style of play.

JRPG recs:

Xbox360
- Lost Odyssey (YOU MUST PLAY THIS!!!)
- Eternal Sonata
- Last Remmant (also available on PC)
- Blue Dragon
- Infinite Undiscovery
- Enchanted Arms (also available on PS3)
- Star Ocean The Last Hope (also available on PS3)
- Magna Carta II

Funny how Microsoft have been leading the way with JRPGs this generation. I'm embarrassed for Sony. And a little peeved they turned me into an Xbox owner. >:\

 

[NuclearPenguin]

Well, first of all
Why is there no turn based MMO's? As far as I know FFXI isnt turn based. I think that turn based would be perfect for MMO's, tactics would get extremely advanced.
Second of all, why is there hardly any JRPG's on PC?
And third of all, what are some good pc/ps3/wii/360 turn-based JRPG's?
Also, whats with JRPGs and no customization?


And what are some good JRPGs for iphone? Turn based or not, I dont care.

Turn Based MMO's don't exist, because they are a bad idea. Imagine being in a battle online, and you have to wait your turn to attack an opponent who has gone off to the toilet or his internet connection's cut out and his character is stuck in MMO limbo.
They just would not work, simple answer.

You didnt think too far I take it. Just give them a timer on their turn.

 

[Amethyst Wind]

Well, first of all
Why is there no turn based MMO's? As far as I know FFXI isnt turn based. I think that turn based would be perfect for MMO's, tactics would get extremely advanced.
Second of all, why is there hardly any JRPG's on PC?
And third of all, what are some good pc/ps3/wii/360 turn-based JRPG's?
Also, whats with JRPGs and no customization?


And what are some good JRPGs for iphone? Turn based or not, I dont care.

Turn Based MMO's don't exist, because they are a bad idea. Imagine being in a battle online, and you have to wait your turn to attack an opponent who has gone off to the toilet or his internet connection's cut out and his character is stuck in MMO limbo.
They just would not work, simple answer.

You didnt think too far I take it. Just give them a timer on their turn.

Unless you're so shallow as to play a game just for easy wins that's still not going to be satisfying. Solitaire is not fun when you really want to play Blackjack.

On topic: My personal preference for JRPGs over WRPGs is simply because the character you play does, over the course of the game, reveal their history and therefore their motivation for doing what they are doing, which makes them much easier to connect with, while in Western RPGs you are (for the most part) playing a faceless, emotion-less self-insert who's only motivation comes from what you decide from the beginning of the game onwards.

Some WRPGs don't do this (Mass Effect was thoroughly enjoyable for me, although I was given a name and actually-explored-background which made it easy to connect with Shephard), but others (like Fallout or Oblivion) felt almost like the character I was playing didn't actually have a place in the world, they just appear, do their job, then leave without any real development.

 

[NuclearPenguin]

Well, first of all
Why is there no turn based MMO's? As far as I know FFXI isnt turn based. I think that turn based would be perfect for MMO's, tactics would get extremely advanced.
Second of all, why is there hardly any JRPG's on PC?
And third of all, what are some good pc/ps3/wii/360 turn-based JRPG's?
Also, whats with JRPGs and no customization?


And what are some good JRPGs for iphone? Turn based or not, I dont care.

Turn Based MMO's don't exist, because they are a bad idea. Imagine being in a battle online, and you have to wait your turn to attack an opponent who has gone off to the toilet or his internet connection's cut out and his character is stuck in MMO limbo.
They just would not work, simple answer.

You didnt think too far I take it. Just give them a timer on their turn.

Unless you're so shallow as to play a game just for easy wins that's still not going to be satisfying. Solitaire is not fun when you really want to play Blackjack.

..What?
And in a turn-based RPG it would be extremely far from easy wins.

 

[Amethyst Wind]

Well, first of all
Why is there no turn based MMO's? As far as I know FFXI isnt turn based. I think that turn based would be perfect for MMO's, tactics would get extremely advanced.
Second of all, why is there hardly any JRPG's on PC?
And third of all, what are some good pc/ps3/wii/360 turn-based JRPG's?
Also, whats with JRPGs and no customization?


And what are some good JRPGs for iphone? Turn based or not, I dont care.

Turn Based MMO's don't exist, because they are a bad idea. Imagine being in a battle online, and you have to wait your turn to attack an opponent who has gone off to the toilet or his internet connection's cut out and his character is stuck in MMO limbo.
They just would not work, simple answer.

You didnt think too far I take it. Just give them a timer on their turn.

Unless you're so shallow as to play a game just for easy wins that's still not going to be satisfying. Solitaire is not fun when you really want to play Blackjack.

..What?
And in a turn-based RPG it would be extremely far from easy wins.

Putting a timer on a turn wouldn't help if the person isn't there. They'd skip their turn and you'd get another go, great, so they sit there and are killed by you/something else without moving a muscle. Is that fun?

 

[Jory]

If you have an Xbox 360, try Lost Odyssey, it is a good game, its really long.

And a big turn based MMO sounds like a free one that you could get straight of the internet or something like that.

Lost Odyssey I found okay. But I also found myself not caring about any of the characters. Kaim is just so boring. Also, most of the length comes from cutscenes I would say.

 

[Remleiz]

If you want some good JRPGs i recommend:

Skies of Arcadia
Grandia 2
Panzer Dragoon Saga
The Shin Megami Tensei series
Disgaea 3
Cross Edge

need i go on?

 

[Axeli]

Anyone saying turn-based can't be challenging is free to try FFXII, for example. Also, isn't any pausable RPG in essence turn-based? Sure the speed stat might affect how often you get turns or the turn timer might be hidden, but it's still turn based all the same.

snip

I think you might have missed the irony I was trying to convey, which is a bit odd considering I told what I was doing twice.

And think about why I'm not even bothering to argue with you. Apparently anyone isn't.

 

[JediMB]

People need to stop referring to gauge/command-based RPGs as "turn-based".

If other characters can attack during your supposed "turn", it's not turn-based.