On JRPGs and why I play them

[Jupsto]

You can do all those things in western RPG's and they don't all suck.

I like the direction western RPGs are going, or should I say RPS, which is manual twitch, shooter combat. Cannot go back to auto aim, let alone turn based.

 

[NeutralDrow]

I never, ever pass up the opportunity to link to this vid in a thread like this.

Why did you post that video? To show that not all JRPGs have turn based combat. I did say there were exceptions. Actually come to think about it real time combat is more common in JRPGs nowadays than Turn based combat.

Because I like that video, and regardless of people saying "I know there are exceptions," I get the distinct impression that not everyone actually believes that.

I may have just been reacting to "The JRPG haters do have one good point, turn based combat is boring." That's not a good point. It's just a point.

 

[More Fun To Compute]

JRPG's feel so overrated! It seems like the only thing people have to say about JRPG's is the storyline. I don't find that as an adequate standpoint to call a game one of the best ever.

If it means anything to you then I really like the combat in Persona but I pretty much hated the combat in Oblivion and used a chameleon/invisibility spell to run past almost all of it.

 

[Drokles]

I like JRPG's as they used to be. There was a time when they were made by squaresoft and they were inventive and had brilliant storylines, but that was the time of the playstation so maybe there was more focus on gameplay back then. Nowadays however creating a JRPG follows a few simple steps:
1. Main character must dress like an idiot and be an orphan.
2. Supporting characters must be copypasted from the great book of cliché.
3. Fill the dialogue with ill placed and badly written jokes and wit, preferable whenever possible.
4. Save the world from some villain who is evil for no better reason than the game needs him to be.

I liked FF9 the best. It had the black mages/genomes as a very interesting thought experiment and the way the story was executed was brilliant from beginning to end.

 

[AdmiralWolverineLightningbolt]

turn based combat sucks balls and has only been done well in golden sun and pokemon

This sends me into such a terrible rage of anger when I hear these types of statements because they make little to no sense at ALL. It's even worse considering how fundamental those games combat systems are compared to other JRPG's that have far more robust and interesting turn based combat.

basically, i get bored when devs try to pretend turn based combat is turn based (cough cough FINAL FANTASY)
and i get even more annoyed when youve got a huge party on both teams and have to spend ages cycling througgh menues for each character and then wait ages as you watch them stand around and get hit and do nothing until they finally attack
golden sun has a simple battle system though and the parties are fairly small without long animations for every attack

pokemon is 2 on 2 at very most, and that's rare, it's normally 1 on 1
the battles are quick and the menus couldnt be any simpler

even those games het boring after a while cause, let's face it, turn based combat rapes good games till they become shit

 

[Jacob Trent]

What I found was that there are three things that make me like JRPGs.

1.) Level gaining. It makes me feel a sence of accomplishment to be able to see how far i've gone. And a kind of power rush when I can decimate enemys that used to be hard.

2.) Equipment. I like getting new swords and armor and whatnot. seeing all the different wepons and there graphics, special abilitys ect..

3.) Completion. I like getting everyone the best gear and max level and all that kind of thing. To really conqure the game.

So, for all you JRPG players out there, what are your reasons that you play JRPGs.[/quote]

I see all three of these things in western role playing games. There is level gaining, equipment, and completion in knights of the old republic, Jade empire, castle crasher, and fallout. I think that they are better because they are usually more interactive and fun than Japanese role playing games. They also don't have 12-year-old kids with green and blue crazy hair-dos.

 

[irishstormtrooper]

JRPGs are probably the least liked genre by this community. Just you make a poll asking if Valve or Square is a better company and you'll see what I mean. But I like them, but i've begun to question why. The JRPG haters do have one good point, turn based combat is boring. I know that it's supposed to be tatical, but alot of the time it seems that everyone just attacks untill the enemys are dead, a slower paced version of button mashing combat. And after playing JRPGs for so long you get tired of all the cleched (imagine theres an accent there) storys and charicter archatypes. Admitedly that complaint can be said of all genres. So it's not the gameplay or the story that I like so what is it. (I'm aware that there are JRPGs that dont use turn based combat and have interesting charicters and story, exceptions and rules.)

What I found was that there are three things that make me like JRPGs.

1.) Level gaining. It makes me feel a sence of accomplishment to be able to see how far i've gone. And a kind of power rush when I can decimate enemys that used to be hard.

2.) Equipment. I like getting new swords and armor and whatnot. seeing all the different wepons and there graphics, special abilitys ect..

3.) Completion. I like getting everyone the best gear and max level and all that kind of thing. To really conqure the game.

So, for all you JRPG players out there, what are your reasons that you play JRPGs.

With this thread, You are implying that the only RPGs that have those four traits are JRPGs. This is untrue, as many western RPGs do the same thing, but without turn-based combat.

 

[Fraught]

I prefer real-time action more than turn-based (one reason I absolutely love the Kingdom Hearts series) but generally I can bear with that, when the games (JRPGs) have as interesting storylines as they do.

From what I have experienced, JRPGs generally have strong characters and a good storyline, which I don't find in many games nowdays.

Examples:

Golden Sun
Tales of Symphonia
Kingdom Hearts

+10 and cookies for you.

Yes, you can have them all.

 

[Woem]

What I found was that there are three things that make me like JRPGs.

1.) Level gaining. It makes me feel a sence of accomplishment to be able to see how far i've gone. And a kind of power rush when I can decimate enemys that used to be hard.

2.) Equipment. I like getting new swords and armor and whatnot. seeing all the different wepons and there graphics, special abilitys ect..

3.) Completion. I like getting everyone the best gear and max level and all that kind of thing. To really conqure the game.

Interestingly enough what you're saying here also counts for Action RPGs like Diablo II. Do you also enjoy these? And if you don't, what would be the difference between both experiences for you?

 

[HoverWhale]

I haven't played enough Western RPGs to make a judgment, but I have played a lot of JRPGs. I like JRPGs because of;

1. Art. There's often a lot of good artwork. Anything Tetsuya Nomura draws is worth looking at. There's not so much "Brown = Realistic" in JRPGs, there's more colour and it works. It's not as immersive? It's fiction! Immersion isn't the point!

2. Music. Composers like Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu, and Masashi Hamauzu. Take the soundtrack to Chrono Cross and compare it to the soundtrack to Halo or something. Enough said.

3. Story. More than half of the main Final Fantasy games have a great story. So good that I never managed to complete some of them because I kept running from battles so that I could find out what happens next, and thus was hideously under-levelled. Also, Masato Kato.

4. Reasons/Meanings (I can't think of any names for this one). I think probably a lot of JRPGs have good messages. For example; Final Fantasy X is all about doing what you want and not just following tradition.

I'm not saying that these are strictly JRPG things, but that doesn't stop them from making JRPGs good.

Either like or put up with battle systems, forgive a lot of bad English voice acting, and there're a lot of good games. Also, they seem to be able to be good games with minimal swearing.

 

[KamachoMcSagget]

i flippin LOVE THE MEGATEN SERIES!!!
now that i got that off my chest, i like the turn based combat, especially if it's difficult enough to make me think of a strategy, and level grinding. also, just about all the jrpgs i have feature a good story. there are some crap ones i have like phantom brave and chrono trigger (i didnt like it), but the good ones outweigh the bad.

 

[Credge]

There's nothing wrong with turn based combat if it's done right. The problem is, very few games get it right.

 

[Marlomarlo]

I play them because they're there and I like to try different kinds of games. One of these days I'll buy a copy of The Sims.

Final Fantasy 3(6) was my first RPG, and, I guess, JRPG. My first Western RPG was Baldur's Gate 2. I have since played many more of both and noticed a few things that distinguish the Japanese ones from the Western ones.

A lot of people talk about how great the stories are. And in many cases that's true. FF3 was awesome. There were a lot of characters and, more importantly, there was a lot to them. But does this sound familiar: A band of teens and pre-teens band together, lead by a girl with manparts, against the evil empire enslaving or in some other way evil-y using magical creatures or the life force of the planet. Guns are nearly useless compared to impractial swords. And at some point -- at many points if you're unlucky -- characters will spew out monologues that drone on and on with exposition and attempts at sounding poetically insightful and/or sorrowful. It's those monologues that make them worse than the whole super-soldier-program-gone-wrong cliche from, well, I guess both Japanese and Western games.

The last JRPG I played was Eternal Sonata, which I thought would be cool because it was supposed to be about Chopin's dream on his deathbed. Didn't see how Chopin was essential to the story, though. It could've been about any generic musician's death. And the dialogue... oh God. One character took like 20 minutes to die.

There are some awesome games running with the JRPG crowd, but it's like a minefield of punishing soliloquies. You take one wrong step, and it's like turned based Hideo Kojima with spikey hair.

And I don't think that the best of the JRPG bunch can come close to comparing to the likes of Deus Ex, The Sith Lords or Planescape: Torment. Well, except in terms of music.

 

[Nincompoop]

JRPG's feel so overrated! It seems like the only thing people have to say about JRPG's is the storyline. I don't find that as an adequate standpoint to call a game one of the best ever.

If it means anything to you then I really like the combat in Persona but I pretty much hated the combat in Oblivion and used a chameleon/invisibility spell to run past almost all of it.

There isn't much gameplay... A text based game could be almost exactly the same. The only difference would be that you can walk around in the platform version.

The thing is, I really dislike script. I don't like the idea that I press a button, and then my character jumps high in the air and shoots a beam down at my foes. I would like to make the jump myself, target downwards, and then shoot, not just watch my character do it.

Some people like that sorta gameplay, but I fail to see what's so great about it = /...

Having said this, I might look into FF XIII, it seems to have rather good graphics 8?D!

 

[The_Prophet]

Soon western RPGs are going to suck as much as JRPGS, if people keep liking them enough for companies to just rest on their laurels. Elder Scrolls V, anyone?

w0rd!

I am totally looking forward to TES5! Has anything been released about where it will take place?

JRPG's feel so overrated! It seems like the only thing people have to say about JRPG's is the storyline. I don't find that as an adequate standpoint to call a game one of the best ever.

This and... I don't know, JRPG storylines seem hilariously stupid to me, and I can't stand the turn based combat.

 

[Eric the Orange]

With this thread, You are implying that the only RPGs that have those four traits are JRPGs. This is untrue, as many western RPGs do the same thing, but without turn-based combat.

Not true at all. I never said or implied that JRPGs are the only games with these charicteristics. In fact ive seen things like this from most every diffirent genre at one point or another.

 

[darfjono]

i hate turn-based combat. too many menus.
the stories are often the same "evil badguy from x years ago who was sealed comes back and you have to stop him"
whiny children characters.

 

[Eric the Orange]

Interestingly enough what you're saying here also counts for Action RPGs like Diablo II. Do you also enjoy these? And if you don't, what would be the difference between both experiences for you?

Yeah I like Diablo and other dungeon crawler esque games. And games such as Castlevainia:Symphony of the Night and what not.

 

[More Fun To Compute]

If it means anything to you then I really like the combat in Persona but I pretty much hated the combat in Oblivion and used a chameleon/invisibility spell to run past almost all of it.

There isn't much gameplay... A text based game could be almost exactly the same. The only difference would be that you can walk around in the platform version.

Not really sure what you mean here. Text based games can have an awful lot of gameplay and 3d can have almost no gameplay. In fact, with text based games you often see games with a huge amount of gameplay as so much is left to the imagination and it is quicker to develop. See games like Nethack, Dwarf Fortress and the interactive fiction scene.

The thing is, I really dislike script. I don't like the idea that I press a button, and then my character jumps high in the air and shoots a beam down at my foes. I would like to make the jump myself, target downwards, and then shoot, not just watch my character do it.

I really try to appreciate games for what they are and not what are not trying to be. Turn based games often abstract gameplay to key choices for the player. If a turn based game has a huge battle scene with 100 soldiers then I don't want to play a really boring mini-game every time a soldier swings his sword. I just want to say, this turn, these soldiers should attack and these soldiers should guard the wagons then hit end turn. Either the turn based game is good at doing that in an entertaining way with interesting gameplay choices or it isn't.