JRPGs

[SpaceBat]

What is so bad about games like Final Fantasy

Final Fantasy games are often pretty decent, but I don't regard the series as an excellent one due to often seen weak, stereotypical characters, occasional stupid plot, ridiculous dialogue and lots of melodrama. Of course, this isn't the same for every FF mind you. IV, VI IX and Tactics were excellent games IMO. Here are a few flaws I've heard people mention (I do not necessarily agree with all of them et cetera):

- Incredibly slow gameplay. Random encounters and having to wait fifteen seconds to start every battle and seeing a victory pose after every single battle kinda puts people off.
- The games rarely require any strategy. They often consist out of Scan Weakness the first time you fight them --> Pick appropriate magic attack while attacking them with melee, heal when low on health --. Grinding and buying the best equipment in stores solves all your problems, so very little skill is needed.
- Characters are usually either great (Cid) or just downright horrible (Vanille, Hope, Squall, Rikku, Yuna, Tidus, Wakka, Yuffie).
- Flee from battle and lose a small amount of Gil --> Get attacked in the back by the same monsters you just fled from just two steps later.
- Story is often a hit or miss.

Those are the ones I remember reading about from others. People might hate it, but I don't, even if FF13 is a horrible game.

Tales of Symphonia

Tales of Symphonia is probably one of the best JRPG's I've ever played actually.

Disgaea

Funny and cool, but my god, the grinding...THE GRINDING!

and Kingdom Hearts?

Nothing wrong with this one. There are a few weak games within the series as well, but every series has that.

I used to be an avid JRPG fan, but those times kinda faded away with time. I can't seem to find a good JRPG these days other than Lost Odyssey, Devil Survivor and one or two others. Not exactly an avid fan or WRPG's either (Love Mass Effect 1, like Witcher, like Origins, Hate Fallout 3), but I find that WRPG's have the upperhand this gen.

 

[thedoclc]

Snip

Edit

Something culturally does not connect - think of Frodo - he's comfortable, happy, has prospects in Hobbiton, comes from a wealthy family, and has lots of friends. He's the cool guy at school you all hated because he was popular and utterly without issues. The Japanese enjoy stability, and relish 'same old same old'. Frodo leaving this life of security and running off to fight Sauron is simply illogical to them. Sure, eventually Sauron is gonna come and enslave all the Hobbits too.

But the Japanese will think "Frodo is an insignificant runt - if anyone is gonna save us, it'll be the men of Gondor" and leave it at that. Westerners enjoy the underdog-to-saviour story arc, Japanese don't unless the underdog actually has some super bullshit uber power (despite strength of character, which is Frodo's ONLY strength - and he still needs Sam to carry him half the frickin' way to Mordor).

Edit

This is true. I would love to find out if anyone has looked at this academically, but it seems the Japanese are culturally very into the "chosen one" sort of hero. Being a hero is a matter of being the right person with the right class/caste/fate/karma/breeding. There's actually a kind of disturbing classism in there that many people probably miss. Yanks and Brits at least, and I'd like to think Westerners in general, think anyone can be a hero -or- sometimes that the hero is chosen by god (small G intentional). This is certainly true in Tolkien. Gandalf says as much directly to Frodo.

Westerners flirted with this idea that the hero couldn't be a common man. Our classical lit is full of the nobleman being the hero, from Beowulf to Agatha Christie and how the villain is almost never genuinely upper crust. It just doesn't mesh with modern folks. We never play the "prince" archetype straight anymore. Westerners appreciate a common man origin for their heroes, with powers granted mostly by hard work, training, and effort. Westerners won't make such a big deal about lineage, "fighting spirit," etc.

 

[Chibz]

SUPER SNIP

The best example of customization in an FF game would actually be FF2. It HAS no classes/jobs, and what your characters are good at depend exclusively on what you have them use.

It's an overall fantastic series.

It's just a shame that FF games moved away from epic stories & fantastic characters of the early titles around the time the series moved to PS1...

Why so many care about the art style (Would TF2 be any better with different graphics)

I care less about art style than I do about character design. Angsty androgynous teens annoy me for example.

 

[The Madman]

Spoilered for the sake of not spamming up this topic.

Spoiler: Reply to TheEvilCheese, which by the name would make for a great band name.

1. Finish Chrono Trigger. (I got part way through a couple of times but when I finally completed it I was like 'How have I not done this before?')

It's on the to-do list, though I'll have to pick up another copy since I'd only been borrowing the previous and haven't talked to that guy in years.

2. Fire Emblem is always worth a try if you liked advance wars. (Fire emblem (GBA) is my favourite)

I'll look into it, I absolutely adore Advance Wars and would love something similar.

4. Generally have a look at the less popular stuff, for an interesting battle system something like 'The World Ends With You' might be a good choice, but it is angsty-teenager-with-silly-hair-character-driven-story. (Lots of story... LOTS OF TEXT) The characters do show more than one dimension though, as the story progresses. It's one of those love-or-hate games. I love it.

Looked at that game awhile back and it simply doesn't appeal to me. Thank you for the suggestions however, I'll have to take a look into this Fire Emblem series. I've heard the name before but never payed any attention, but the thought of a fantasy-ish Advance Wars is a tempting one.

Spoiler: Reply to Chibz, which sounds suspiciously like a sour candy treat you could buy at the corner store

Well, I see you didn't play Secret of Mana which is available on the Wii. Final Fantasy 4 on the virtual console too. Might as well pick up FF1, as long as you understand that it might not have aged well.

Secrets of Mana I might look into, but I've honestly no urge to replay any of the other Final Fantasy games. I dabbled with them a fair bit years ago and only 6 really managed to stand out to me. The others were quickly forgotten. Maybe one day, but I've little real drive to delve into the whole Final Fantasy series again.

I'd also recommend Phantom Brave: We Meet Again. It's a fantastic Tactical JRPG, and some Sakura Wars: So Long, My Love wouldn't be a bad bet too.

Sorry, but looking up youtube videos of both of those I couldn't sit through trailers of either. It's shallow of me, but when during the trailer an underage looking cartoon girl popped up saying she wanted to be my friend but she had to believe in me first I just snapped it off. The other trailer had a similar breaking point for me as well... I'm just not a huge fan of anime, especially when it seems so 'in your face'.

Genesis? Phantasy Star. Definitely Phantasy Star games.

I'll take a look, though trying to get a copy of a specific genesis game is a bit of a pain and so truthfully it's not likely to happen anytime soon. Still, food for thought!

Oooh, you've got a DS. Final Fantasy 3, Dragon Quest 9. I'm fond of the Pokemon games (THEY COUNT), and Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker. But your milage may vary.

When I was in Japan awhile back posters and ads for Dragon Quest were absolutely everywhere and truthfully it didn't look too bad, though I've no bloody clue what the series is about. Still, I didn't even realize it was for the DS, I'll see if a buddy of mine owns the game and if so I'll see if I can't borrow it.

And no I don't own a PS2, I've never owned a Playstation console. Not out of any dislike, if I were to buy a modern console I'd almost certainly go for the PS3 over the 360. I've just never seen the need, my PC has always kept me more than satisfied as far as games go and my Wii works well enough for friendly get-together.

If anyone else has any suggestions feel free to share em. Definitely going to look into the Fire Emblem series, it actually looks kinda charming from the trailer I watched on youtube, despite the protagonists stereotypically blue hair. Still such a minor cheesy detail wasn't enough to turn me away from Advance Wars so it'd be stupid to let it stop me now. Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon is without doubt on my 'to buy' list now. Older DS games also tend to be not hard to find and dirt cheap too, which is fantastic considering how poor I am these days.

Is it really a 'jrpg' though? I mean I don't typically consider games like Heroes of Might & Magic nor King's Bounty 'western' or 'computer' rpg despite a few elements which carry over, and I've certainly never heard anyone call Advance Wars a jrpg.

Whatever the case that's one game I'll be picking up, so yay! Thanks for the suggestion. I'd never really payed any attention to the name before and had no idea it was like this or I'd have probably picked it up earlier.

 

[Chibz]

SNIP

Double checking something. Yep. All four phantasy star games are available on Virtual Console.

As for Phantom Brave, believe me. It gets pretty dark at times and has a lot of examples of Kicking the Dog. In fact...

Spoiler

The "Another Marona" is the same story, if the male lead (Ash) isn't actually around. It ... Well, leads to the logical conclusion which involves "breaking the cutie"

Yes, yes, I know the world it's in looks incredibly sweet/adorable. Trust me. The world's really not that good. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CrapsaccharineWorld
Believe it or not, but it's a serious drama. Marona is... excessively optimistic but would you rather she be an angsty teen?

Actually, checking out the trailer to it. Trailer seem that bad. However, it's gameplay is absolutely amazing.

Most of my favourite JRPGs are PS2 exclusives unfortunately.

 

[IWCAS]

If you don't like JRPG's Play Persona 4. You'll change your mind. If you DO like JRPG's and have never played an SMT title... Well go fucking get one. NOW

No.

I Have saw the art style for that game, And to me it appears animeish, I'm not otuching it with a ten foot pole.

Well you're shit outta luck then. Pretty much all JRPG's are anime-like... Because they're from Japan. It's not really something you're going to find a way around.

 

[Gildan Bladeborn]

Mostly because the characters have this annoying tendency to be effeminate, 12, and annoying wankers, while your typical JRPG story is a string of nonsense tied together with "the healing power of love!" or something equally ridiculous, and all the while the game expects you to grind away in draining turn-based combat that drags on and on and on[footnote]Not that there is anything inherently wrong with turn-based combat mind you - I loved turn-based games like Fallout and Fallout 2 - but somehow every JRPG I've sat down with has managed to suck any of the fun possible out of the system and replace it with drudgery; grinding away at random encounters for hours because otherwise you'll lose to unfair random bullshit during a "story encounter" that you can only counter by having ridiculous levels of health or whatnot is just about the least entertaining thing I can think of to do in a video game.[/footnote].

Obviously there are exceptions, but for the most part I look at the genre and can't even begin to comprehend why anyone would even want to play those games, let alone profess to love them, as people do in fact profess. But then I find many Westerners obsessions with anime just as baffling, so it occurs to me that what I see as tiresome drudgery through anime nonsense would perhaps be appealing to that crowd of Japanophiles for whom the most banal products of Japanese pop-culture are "unmitigated masterpieces".

No, give me a quality Western RPG any day if it's a choice between that or "Angsty McSpikyhair saves the world through the power of friendship!" - there are Western roleplaying games that suck every bit as much as I think your typical JRPG does, but those tend to be awful for reasons that can't be applied almost universally to the Western RPG genre; the issues I have with JRPGs that prevent me enjoying them are just shy of being all-encompassing.

And thus I don't play JRPGs.

-snip-

The various Infinity engine games (Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, Planescape) weren't turn-based systems at all, from the player's perspective at least, and suggesting they were is grossly misleading. Yes, all the various actors on the screen are taking turns and obeying the whims of dice-rolling mechanics, they're based on D&D rules after all, but those are background details being handled by the CPU - the actual control of your adventuring party plays exactly like a Real-time Strategy game that simply lets you pause the action whenever you want to issue commands to your units (instead of making you pause and issue commands for every one of your team members in order before yanking control away from you while the monsters have their go).

In point of fact that's the same mechanic that's been present in pretty much all of Bioware's RPGs up to the present day: KOTOR, Mass Effect, Dragon Age - all of those are played in real-time but give players the ability to pause and assess the situation, and also issue commands that will then be executed when you resume. The original Fallout games, now those were turn-based in both the underlying mechanics and the presentation to the player - as soon as combat started all the actors on the screen actually took turns (though you still only controlled yourself) - if you're going to dredge up examples of Western RPGs with turn-based combat that no one seems to complain about then I'd use those instead, since that's actually true.

 

[Iwata]

If you don't like JRPG's Play Persona 4. You'll change your mind. If you DO like JRPG's and have never played an SMT title... Well go fucking get one. NOW

No.

I Have saw the art style for that game, And to me it appears animeish, I'm not otuching it with a ten foot pole.

Well you're shit outta luck then. Pretty much all JRPG's are anime-like... Because they're from Japan. It's not really something you're going to find a way around.

I'm by no means trying to be a smart ass, this is an honest question, but would you consider Demons' Souls to be a JRPG? I mean, it seems to fit the description, as in, it's an RPG, from Japan.

Also, I don't remember who said it and I'm too lazy to fall back and check, but Valkyria Chronicles is most definitely NOT a JRPG.

 

[Silvianoshei]

Preference is part of it, but I think for the most part I can understand where people are coming from.

Don't get me wrong, I loved Kingdom Hearts, pretty much all the FF's (except for X-2 and XIII, X was my fav closely followed by XII and VII), Chrono Cross/Trigger, the Persona games (ABSOLUTE FAVS), Fire Emblem, and Disgaea.

But in terms of character design, there is usually at least one character in every FF game that gets on my nerves. Usually it's not the main character, but it can be. I spent most of FFXII telling Vaan (verbally, no less) to shut the hell up. No really. I literally was annoyed by his personality to the point where I cracked and started talking to my PS2. Same with Hope from FFXIII (except x10000000000000 RRRRGGHHHHH SHUT THE HELL UP ARRRRGHHHH)

I really like tactics games (Frozen Synapse being my new favorite) so I don't mind the battle system, and I really enjoy JRPG's epic worlds, more than anything else. The stories can be eh, but as long as the world is epic, I don't really care. Also, Balthier was badass.

 

[Manji187]

My biggest problem with JRPGs is that contrary to popular belief the J does not stand for Japanese...but for "Just fakkin go with it aight!"

Reality? Logic? (narrative/ plot-wise)....often you can just forget it.

Some minor (but frequent) examples:

-Most strangers (NPCs) talk to me as if I'm their friend...or at least a good acquaintance...divulging information (often of a personal/ sensitive nature) I did not even ask for. I'm sure it's a mental condition that can be found in the DSM.

-Hardly anybody locks their doors and they sure as hell don't mind me barging in their homes and rummaging through their stuff in search for spoils... Those Elixirs under their beds and in their drawers? Mine for the taking without repercussions...like police.

I am still to see a JRPG that makes sense on all levels...prolly never gonna happen.

 

[Sordak]

i simply do not like them. they are linear the main protagonists are angsty teens with HORRIBLE haircuts and the combat systems are more ofthen than not horrible at best.

 

[Hagi]

While I agree that cliches are well... cliche, this is not a problem that just exists within JRPGs.

The spunky girl: Tali, Sierra, Shale
The lone warrior: Shepard/Garus/Wrex, You, You/Sten
The love interest: Ashely/Liara, Amata, Everyone
The evil overlord: Saren/Sovereign, President Eden/Colonel Autumn, The archdemon

That's Mass Effect, Fallout and Dragon Age, 3 big WRPGs with the same cliche casting.

You're not honestly saying that Tali and Shale are anything like each other at all?
Or that Garus is anything like Sten at all?
Or that Liara and Ashley have carbon copy personalities?
Or that Saren and the archdemon are in any way or form similar?

WRPGs do follow some stereotypes, but those aren't them.... at all....

 

[madwarper]

While I agree that cliches are well... cliche, this is not a problem that just exists within JRPGs.

The spunky girl: Tali, Sierra, Shale
The lone warrior: Shepard/Garus/Wrex, You, You/Sten
The love interest: Ashely/Liara, Amata, Everyone
The evil overlord: Saren/Sovereign, President Eden/Colonel Autumn, The archdemon

That's Mass Effect, Fallout and Dragon Age, 3 big WRPGs with the same cliche casting.

You're not honestly saying that Tali and Shale are anything like each other at all?

They are both female, they are both 'spunky'. Do you disagee?

Or that Garus is anything like Sten at all?

They are both warriors, and prior to joining the team, went it largely alone. Do you disagree?

Or that Liara and Ashley have carbon copy personalities?

They're both love interests. Do you disagree?

Or that Saren and the archdemon are in any way or form similar?

They're both villains. Do you disagree?

WRPGs do follow some stereotypes, but those aren't them.... at all....

My point is that making broad archetypical character definitions, then finding and assigning characters to those categories is not something that is purely in JRPGs, especially when those broad archetypical character definitions describe WRPG characters as well.

Cliche casting is cliche casting. It doesn't matter whether it's done in either the East or the West.

 

[Hagi]

You're not honestly saying that Tali and Shale are anything like each other at all?

They are both female, they are both 'spunky'. Do you disagee?

Or that Garus is anything like Sten at all?

They are both warriors, and prior to joining the team, went it largely alone. Do you disagree?

Or that Liara and Ashley have carbon copy personalities?

They're both love interests. Do you disagree?

Or that Saren and the archdemon are in any way or form similar?

They're both villains. Do you disagree?

WRPGs do follow some stereotypes, but those aren't them.... at all....

My point is that making broad archetypical character definitions, then finding and assigning characters to those categories is not something that is purely in JRPGs, especially when those broad archetypical character definitions describe WRPG characters as well.

Cliche casting is cliche casting. It doesn't matter whether it's done in either the East or the West.

You forgot the cliche that they all have voices. They're also all bipedal, I mean how overused is that!?

Cliches require a bit more then both characters being human. Or both characters wearing clothes. Or both characters being female and heterosexual.

A good 75% of the human population is in one way or another a love interest. A rather large percentage of people above 15 have the option of forming a relationship with another person. They're all love interests. That's not a cliche....

Being a warrior isn't a cliche either. That's a profession. It doesn't carry any personality aspects with it at all. You could be a law enforcing dirty harry who worked in the police force (and not alone) like Garrus. You could also be a professional soldier with an extremely strict code of behaviour from a very class-based society like Sten (who was part of the Kunari army and not alone previously).

Tali is curious, relatively young and has an overall serious attitude. Shale is very old, slightly bitter and rarely serious (with a few exceptions about her past). Some minor parts of their personalities may coincide but that's not what a cliche is.

Being a villain has absolutely nothing to do with cliches. It just means you're the antagonist. You could be a homicidal traitor like Saren. You could also basically be a force of nature like the archdemon who doesn't really even have a personality.

A character cliche means that two characters have extremely similar personalities. Not just one single aspect of their personalities, multiple aspects in such an amount that it composes the majority of their personality.

If you want an example of that in WRPGs then look at Wrex and Canderous Ordo. Both are veteran mercenaries. Both come from a race of brutal race of warriors that respect strength and self-reliance above all. Both have war stories to tell. Both later become leaders of their respective people. Both their people have fallen from being respected and feared by the entire galaxy. Both work to restore the honour and strength of their people when they assume the role of leaders.

Those are very, very alike. The examples you gave? Not at all.

 

[Kahunaburger]

The examples you gave? Not at all.

I'm pretty sure that was the point of his post. It was pointing out the flaws in the "all JRPG characters are the same" argument.

 

[Midnight Crossroads]

It's personal taste taken way too far. A lot of the criticism thrown at JRPGs are the same things with different trappings thrown at WRPGs by fans of JRPGs. They're basically the same thing through different lenses.

 

[Hot Madness]

JRPG's are aimed at a higher class of people, it doesn't surprise me in the slightest to see that peasants don't enjoy them.

Picture related, and confirmed, as 100% fact.

Mmmmmm... Smell that troll bait

 

[Raideh]

Cleaned.