On JRPGs and why I play them

[Eric the Orange]

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.

Sounds like the story line from Halo to me.


But really as I said all genres fall into patterns. For example most FPS these days are manly men, who are either fighting WW2 or against aliens.

 

[hopeneverdies]

I'm not very creative so having my story given to me in a more linear way is why I like JRPG style over WRPG style. And TB combat is okay as long as either the animations are short or skippable. But Active Time Battle is so damn slow and stupid. Why do I have to wait to hit someone after I already picked that I want to hit them with a fire ball?

JRPGs are in essence a linear scripted storyline, combat or art style has nothing to do with it
WRPGs are nonlinear do what you want sort of games.

And if anyone says all JRPGs are Turn Based then I would like to show you Kingdom Hearts, or if they are all about androgynous 12 year old anime characters then please go to Armorgames and play Sonny which fits the basic JRPG formula to a T.

 

[ajb924]

I play them for the storylines, most JRPG's have a good story. The ones that don't have good gameplay, and the gods of JRPG's (The World Ends With You and other games i can't remember) have both.

 

[The AI]

JRPGs are not the most hated genre out there. Post a thread in defense of sports games and you'll see what I mean. They're actually one of the most popular genres out there, despite the detractors.

I do enjoy a good JRPG, but they've run their course. TWEWY has been the only truly innovative one in years. It wasn't a variation on the JRPG formula, it gave the whole thing a giant "fuck you", threw it out the window, and built something new from scratch. And people wonder why it was so great.

In all honesty, I think the term RPG should be reserved for the "Western" style of RPGs. Modern JRPGs just don't feel like "role-playing" to me. The Final Fantasy series had already strayed a bit from this by the 6th installment, but it was FFVII that perverted the term RPG beyond recognition.

Stats and equipment do not an RPG make. I believe that in RPGs you have to be able to have almost complete control over how you customize your character(s), be able to make your own decisions, and be able to impact the game world in some way (ie PLAYING a ROLE). Thus, FFVII, which was the first true, 100% "JRPG", was closer to an interactive movie than an RPG. Yes, you could use materia to customize your character, but it was severely lacking in the other two departments. Even two of my all time favorites, Chrono Trigger and FFVI, suffer from this. It doesn't make me like them less, it just pisses me off when people call them RPGs.

If you want 'real' RPGs, look no further than Fallout, Baldur's Gate, and the Elder Scrolls series.

 

[Nincompoop]

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.

I didn't phrase that good enough. What is 'less' game play about turn based and text based games is that there are actually less choices if you think about it.

I have no idea how to phrase this...

lol

GTA IV, for example, -- extremely off topic o.o -- an angry man approaches you, and what do you do? Well there are several choices. You can shoot him in the leg, and see him fall down. Or you can just put a bullet in his head. Where in a hypothetically text based GTA IV -- cue faceplant -- you could only fire a shot at him, and damage him for the amount your gun does.

I have no idea how to put this... Imagine a game like Oblivion, same fight system, everything the same except some sort of wound system. When you would hit a guy in the leg, he'd get crippled, or if you were to strike with a blunt weapon on his head, he'd get disorientated. In a text based version you would only be able to strike him as a whole, and see his hit points drop.

A 3D game, done right, has more possibilities than a text based game, since there are more choices involving where to strike, and being able to miss.

--

It feels more rewarding to do a move-by-move stunt, instead of just pressing a button and ordering your character to do it.

--

I apologize for such a ridiculously clumsy comment.

 

[The AI]

I play JRPG's for the storyline. While they may be fixed unlike the the free roaming RPG's like Oblivion, the JRPG's stories are superior. Plus character growth. I'm also a big romance fan, and JRPG's has it included often. The JRPG is my favorite genre, and within my favorite genre lies Star Ocean, my favorite franchise. Star Ocean Second Evolution, rather than the original since it has voice acting, holds the title as my favorite game period.

Wow. Character growth? Story? Romance? You need to play KOTOR or Mass Effect. Now.

 

[More Fun To Compute]

I have no idea how to put this... Imagine a game like Oblivion, same fight system, everything the same except some sort of wound system. When you would hit a guy in the leg, he'd get crippled, or if you were to strike with a blunt weapon on his head, he'd get disorientated. In a text based version you would only be able to strike him as a whole, and see his hit points drop.

A 3D game, done right, has more possibilities than a text based game, since there are more choices involving where to strike, and being able to miss.

It's actually waaaay easier to do this sort of thing in a text adventure than a 3d game.

Imagine someone making an Indiana Jones game. The spec starts as Indiana Jones is in the streets of Cairo and can shoot swordsmen. Text adventure team quickly knocks together a game that accepts commands like 'go east' and 'shoot swordsman'. 3d team spends 1 year and 10 million dollars creating lifelike models, animations and a game engine with realistic ballistic models for shooting men with guns.

The game designer says, "Wouldn't it be great if Indie could trip a swordsman over with his whip." Text adventure team says, "sure it will take me about half an hour to implement whip legs. I can do pistol whip and elbow face at the same time." 3d team says, "we don't have the budget left to do the animations and it's going to be near impossible to do that properly with our physics engine."

It feels more rewarding to do a move-by-move stunt, instead of just pressing a button and ordering your character to do it.

Yeah, I'm not saying that no action game can be enjoyable just that not every game has to be an action game to be enjoyable.

 

[FinalHeart95]

JRPGs are not the most hated genre out there. Post a thread in defense of sports games and you'll see what I mean. They're actually one of the most popular genres out there, despite the detractors.

I do enjoy a good JRPG, but they've run their course. TWEWY has been the only truly innovative one in years. It wasn't a variation on the JRPG formula, it gave the whole thing a giant "fuck you", threw it out the window, and built something new from scratch. And people wonder why it was so great.

In all honesty, I think the term RPG should be reserved for the "Western" style of RPGs. Modern JRPGs just don't feel like "role-playing" to me. The Final Fantasy series had already strayed a bit from this by the 6th installment, but it was FFVII that perverted the term RPG beyond recognition.

Stats and equipment do not an RPG make. I believe that in RPGs you have to be able to have almost complete control over how you customize your character(s), be able to make your own decisions, and be able to impact the game world in some way (ie PLAYING a ROLE). Thus, FFVII, which was the first true, 100% "JRPG", was closer to an interactive movie than an RPG. Yes, you could use materia to customize your character, but it was severely lacking in the other two departments. Even two of my all time favorites, Chrono Trigger and FFVI, suffer from this. It doesn't make me like them less, it just pisses me off when people call them RPGs.

If you want 'real' RPGs, look no further than Fallout, Baldur's Gate, and the Elder Scrolls series.

Does it really matter whether or not they are "RPGs" or not? You said yourself that you still love Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy VI, even if you wouldn't consider them RPGs.

I don't play JRPGs because they are called JRPGs, I play JRPGs because I like JRPGs. And hell, everyone saying that it's like an interactive movie needs to take a gander at MGS 4. Everyone just seems to ADORE that game.

 

[Nincompoop]

It's actually waaaay easier to do this sort of thing in a text adventure than a 3d game.

Imagine someone making an Indiana Jones game. The spec starts as Indiana Jones is in the streets of Cairo and can shoot swordsmen. Text adventure team quickly knocks together a game that accepts commands like 'go east' and 'shoot swordsman'. 3d team spends 1 year and 10 million dollars creating lifelike models, animations and a game engine with realistic ballistic models for shooting men with guns.

The game designer says, "Wouldn't it be great if Indie could trip a swordsman over with his whip." Text adventure team says, "sure it will take me about half an hour to implement whip legs. I can do pistol whip and elbow face at the same time." 3d team says, "we don't have the budget left to do the animations and it's going to be near impossible to do that properly with our physics engine."

Well, I just made a simple example. You can choose to hit the leg or head in an text based game. But you can't choose to hit 3 inches above the knee, from a 30 degree angle whilst 3 feet in the air, and the ability to do the same again, just 3,36 inches above the knee at an 28 degree angle.

The fact that it is easier/cheaper is not a valid argument from my point of view. I think games shall always strive to the extreme, use the best technology cost what it may.

The sole reason I might buy Red Faction: Guerilla, is too use their destruction engine to break things, differently every single time.

Physics engines are my turn on o.o...

I want to point out that you have a great arsenal of arguments =).

 

[More Fun To Compute]

Well, I just made a simple example. You can choose to hit the leg or head in an text based game. But you can't choose to hit 3 inches above the knee, from a 30 degree angle whilst 3 feet in the air, and the ability to do the same again, just 3,36 inches above the knee at an 28 degree angle.

The difference is that one type of game design can add several choices that makes a difference to how you can play the game. Another type of game design can add an unlimited amount of choices that are not meaningful at all. Like, a guy who spends all day peeling potatoes has the best job in the world because all potatoes are different and he can peel each one differently? Nah.

The fact that it is easier/cheaper is not a valid argument from my point of view. I think games shall always strive to the extreme, use the best technology cost what it may.

Well, not all games can afford to. Not all games need to. You can either enjoy those games or not but this probably doesn't have anything to do with turn based combat as you can max out hardware and budgets just as much with a turn based game.

 

[Mr.Squishy]

I'm sure noone will read this post, but I'll post it anyway.
I like JRPGs. I could go as far as to say I fucking adore them. Despite their flaws, their positive sides makes up for it by far. That being said, I haven't played a JRPG in long and I think FF VII is overrated while FF VIII is one of my favorite games of all time.

TL;DR - JRPG fan

But, hold on

A couple of years back I plowed my clumsy way through days and days of Oblivion and I loved it. Creating a Dunmer spellsword was very satisfying, especially with mods.
Nowadays, I've been on the lookout for some good games, so I lurked a couple threads on the escapist. Mind you, my PC is outdated crap and it chugs when I play GTA: SAN ANDREAS (Which I like a lot by the way). I saw KOTOR (1&2) and Baldur's Gate highly recommended, and got them. I played through both KOTOR games in...I'm not sure, but I think it was 2 weeks. I am now halfway through Baldur's Gate. I've been playing it for...gods know how long, but I just love the characters, the storyline, the battle system etc.
I didn't care it was a WRPG when I started playing.
To this day, the KOTOR and BG series are among my top games, and so is FF 5, 6, 8 and 10.

My Point?

I like both for different reasons, but I honestly don't even think about it being J/WRPG when I fire up Baldur's Gate for example (Hell, I'm playing it at the moment). Why is it so hard for other people to do the same thing?

 

[KaiusCormere]

I hate calling games "J" RPGs. They are RPGs. I find fun games created across the world and I never care where it's from.

 

[Nincompoop]

Well, I just made a simple example. You can choose to hit the leg or head in an text based game. But you can't choose to hit 3 inches above the knee, from a 30 degree angle whilst 3 feet in the air, and the ability to do the same again, just 3,36 inches above the knee at an 28 degree angle.

The difference is that one type of game design can add several choices that makes a difference to how you can play the game. Another type of game design can add an unlimited amount of choices that are not meaningful at all. Like, a guy who spends all day peeling potatoes has the best job in the world because all potatoes are different and he can peel each one differently? Nah.

To me it IS meaningful.

e.g. In GTAIV, I shoot a man in close range with a shotgun and he went through a car window and just hang there. It has NEVER happened since. Something unique can happen each time.

'Ragdoll' effects has a huge impact on how much I like a game. It's amazing seeing how the bodies react to e.g. a shotgun.

EDIT: "... effects have* a huge..."

Using a massive million dollar budget on a turn based game seems waste of resource to me, since they don't have any real-time physics engine.

You said, quote; "Another type of game design can add an unlimited amount of choices that are not meaningful at all". To some extent this is true, but that is because game developers haven't made the game enough interactive, compared to the advanced engines they use. The problem is, it can NEVER happen with a turn based game, but it can with a none turn based game.

a guy who spends all day peeling potatoes has the best job in the world because all potatoes are different and he can peel each one differently? Nah.

It isn't fun peeling a potato. However, shooting is fun, but it isn't fun if it happens the same way every single time.

 

[More Fun To Compute]

Using a massive million dollar budget on a turn based game seems waste of resource to me, since they don't have any real-time physics engine.

It isn't fun peeling a potato. However, shooting is fun, but it isn't fun if it happens the same way every single time.

There are turn based games like Silent Storm that have a physics engine but that is fairly rare. I don't know if you are assuming that all turn based games have deterministic rules like chess which isn't the case at all. A lot of turn based games model chance and have random effects that are not just the typical roll a dice to see how much damage you can do.

One example might be overheating in a Battletech game where if your mech gets too hot you have a chance of triggering an ammo explosion that could blow the arm off. Another example might be in Silent Storm where your guy could botch a throw of a grenade and accidentally blow up a case of explosives that levels a building and leaves his team mate who was inside bleeding to death on the floor.

 

[Kiroshima]

Personally, I like most of Square's work. Turn battle is just fine, if done properly. Often, turn battles get broken like in FFX due to extensive use of Quick Hit and similar moves. This is why I prefer RPG's that use the ATB gauge and similar styles. A lot of people dislike FFXII, but I like it mainly because of its battle system. It combines dimension (ranged, distance, area of effect) with the ATB so you can't do a ton of stuff and completely disable enemies. The problem with ATB is order. A lot of older games that use ATB get messed up ordering when multiple characters fill their gauge, ESPECIALLY during long attack or spell sequences. That usually is what kills things.

 

[Akihiko]

I think all Genre's have their haters, however I agree RPG's do seem to get trashed a lot more than other genre's like for example FPS'. I think what bugs me most about hater's is that the gripes with RPG's that they come up with aren't problems of RPG's, they usually have the same problem with other games... I'm going to use FPS' as comparison for now, as its the other genre which I know the most about, as I do enjoy playing them also. Eitherway, Turn-based combat, "You're always just pressing one button and it gets repetative".... In Fps' you are also just pressing one button, the shoot button, with an occasional press of the reload button. Yes, you do occasionally press other buttons to do other things, but you do in RPG's too, so, there you go. Repetative? One could call shooting the same mobs 500 times in same styled maps repetative too.. "Story and Character's are always cliché" You're right, they do often borrow elements from other games, and have a bad guy whos taking over the world... But, you know what? I'm sorry to say, FPS' also have overused stories... Fighting as some sort of soldier in a war? Been done atleast 5 times in the past year...

My point with this post isn't to slate FPS', by all means I love playing them too. But it's more to show that every genre has problems, it just depends on what you want out of a game. Life would be boring if everyone liked the same things.

Back to the original meaning of the thread, however, why do I play RPGs?

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.

I feel a little rush of gladness knowing that I'd be one of the few who vote for Square.

Also, I play JRPGS for a number of reasons:

The Story - In most JRPGs there is a fantastic and large storyline, making the game longer without needless additions, like collection quests, although they're usually there too, for the completionists.

The Side Quests - Yup, I'm a completionist; I have to collect everything, and I damn well enjoy it. Often JRPG side quests are much more inventive than other games, or at least presented in a much more appealing manner. A good example of this is the Mark system in Final Fantasy XII, which, in reality, is just a hunt and destroy quest, but the way its presented in fantastic, and one of the things that kept me going at the game.

The Challenge - Often, I find JRPGs to be some of the most challenging games out there, if only because of the sheer amount of stuff to do.

The Animation - The art style of JRPGs is amazing, although my opinion is helped by the fact that I like the anime/manga art styles, which many JRPGs are animated in, which is also coupled with fantastic amounts of colour, which many western games neglect in favour of 'realism'.

And that's some of the reasons why I like JRPGs.

That's why I play em, Kudos to you DemonGuy for saving me the trouble of typing it out.

I have to admit though, I no longer have Square as my single favourite RPG developer. I also enjoy Atlus and Namco Bandai(When they bother to release their games in europe) who make some amazing RPGs which easily rival that of Square. As for western publishes, Bethesda and Bioware always produce some epic games.

 

[Ace of Spades]

The only JRPG I ever liked was Skies of Arcadia: Legends on the GCN. Somehow I was able to look past the turn based combat system and let the experience suck me in.

 

[Nincompoop]

There are turn based games like Silent Storm that have a physics engine but that is fairly rare. I don't know if you are assuming that all turn based games have deterministic rules like chess which isn't the case at all. A lot of turn based games model chance and have random effects that are not just the typical roll a dice to see how much damage you can do.

One example might be overheating in a Battletech game where if your mech gets too hot you have a chance of triggering an ammo explosion that could blow the arm off. Another example might be in Silent Storm where your guy could botch a throw of a grenade and accidentally blow up a case of explosives that levels a building and leaves his team mate who was inside bleeding to death on the floor.

'

It's still just percentage of chance that triggers something... It's not because you attacked from that specific angle, or used a weapon with a specific amount of kinetic energy, resulting in a unit being pushed down some stairs. When I launched a guy in GTAIV through a door window, it never happened again, but under the exact same circumstances, it would.

I'm sure that the random effects that can be triggered in some turn based games, are effected by factors, but there aren't nearly as many, as in a 3D game with a good physics engine. Think about the thousands of calculations in just a body being shot.

When I say physics engine, I mean, like rag doll effects and destroying property, and interactions between those. e.g. you destroy a building, and debris falls on a unit, and it damages/dies. Or an explosion, resulting in a cocktail of bodies and debris, getting launched in the air.

Silent Storm seems interesting, however not adequate. That might just be because it was released in 2003, and didn't have a really advanced physics engine. But I found it interesting, that you can stand behind a wall, covering from enemy fire. A rag doll effect in a turn based game, surely would turn my interest towards it, as it would get more enjoyable. However, it would still not be me doing it, it would be a persona which I indirectly controlled.

 

[More Fun To Compute]

It's still just percentage of chance that triggers something... It's not because you attacked from that specific angle, or used a weapon with a specific amount of kinetic energy, resulting in a unit being pushed down some stairs. When I launched a guy in GTAIV through a door window, it never happened again, but under the exact same circumstances, it would.

I'm sure that the random effects that can be triggered in some turn based games, are effected by factors, but there aren't nearly as many, as in a 3D game with a good physics engine. Think about the thousands of calculations in just a body being shot.

When I say physics engine, I mean, like rag doll effects and destroying property, and interactions between those. e.g. you destroy a building, and debris falls on a unit, and it damages/dies. Or an explosion, resulting in a cocktail of bodies and debris, getting launched in the air.

Silent Storm seems interesting, however not adequate. That might just be because it was released in 2003, and didn't have a really advanced physics engine. But I found it interesting, that you can stand behind a wall, covering from enemy fire. A rag doll effect in a turn based game, surely would turn my interest towards it, as it would get more enjoyable. However, it would still not be me doing it, it would be a persona which I indirectly controlled.

There is nothing stopping Rockstar north from putting a turn based interface end on GTAIV if they wanted to for an experiment. I gave you an example of a turn based game with physics and you can only tell me that it's inadequate because it isn't the same as GTAIV. Fine, be like that.

If you can't personally enjoy games where you don't directly control a character then I don't have a problem with you admitting that but saying that turn based games are inferior as a conclusion doesn't fly with me.

 

[Tales of Golden Sun]

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

This video makes me wish I had a Playstation 2.
Gotta love the 'Tales of' games.

I really really REALLY love unlocking new skills, that's why I like JRPGs.
Hell, it's the sole reason I buy 'Tales of' games! (Well, that, and of course the story, the characters and stuff)