why do a huge protion of jrpgs future teenage kids as main protagonists?

[Juventus]

why? you're telling me a simple kid can acquire magic powers/strong enough party to take on the might of the entire big baddies forces when other more experienced adults couldn't? it's tiresome when a lot of games do it too.

that's not to the say the games are bad. i'm just sick of the whole teenage kid being becoming a god like super powered knight.

any jrpgs beside the mario ones that future actual adults as protagonists?

 

[RedEyesBlackGamer]

Guess who the target audience is for most of these games is? Teenagers and young adults. So the protagonist of these games usually reflect their age group to help them relate to the main character. Simple, really. Try Lost Odyssey. The main character is an adult.

 

[Lucane]

Outside of Super Mario RPG and the Paper Marios Mario's storied games are considered Action/Platformer/Adventure.

JRPGs in general featuring kids/teens as the hero (Final Fantasy has only rarely done this out of 13 times:FF8 had 18year odd students mostly FF9 you weren't really a normal human and FF12 had 2 seemingly over 18 younger than 21 pair too. So 3 out of 13 Not counting pick-up characters later on.) But they likely go with a younger cast of chartacters to give a good reason as to why they don't know a lot about the world/war/politics/combat besides that they likely want to appeal to the audience they are marketing to by having characters near the add of the player or like them,and with older characters they are usually written to have a back story and set ideals which younger people might be more flexible about.


Making older characters likely means a more linear story line that isn't flexible about how the character is between players.

 

[mireko]

Future teenage kids?

Anyway: Strange Journey, Valkyria Chronicles, Tactics Ogre, Lost Odyssey, Tales of Vesperia, (technically) Disgaea, most Final Fantasy games (have a protagonist in their 20s), Digital Devil Saga, Phantom Brave (the main protagonist is a small child, the rest are adults/ghosts), lots more that I'm clearly forgetting.

 

[Katana314]

I'm not sure why they do it that way. Even as a kid, I could see that a 15-year-old beating up armies of soldiers didn't seem very realistic.

A character could still look fairly middle-aged and experienced, but have all his actions and mannerisms somewhat relatable to a kid's. Random example: Phoenix Wright is not often such a "commanding" voice, and his manner of speech is kind of immature and confused at times. He's around 24 in his first game.

Just as an example, I'm sure there have been RPGs where all of your party members appear to be younger kids, but one is technically several millenia old, as some super-slow-aging last of a race of oracles or something. Technically, they're older; does it matter?

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

Have you noticed that triple A games now feature protagonists in thier late 20's early 30's rather than teenagers and kids which it was in the 1990's

That's becuase those who grew up with computer games ie: born in the 80's are now 30 odd years old or either side and the developers know that.

I guess JRPG's makers think that teenagers are thier target audience, but hey even the cast of final fantasy is getting older. Compare 8 with 13 for example.

 

[mireko]

I guess JRPG's makers think that teenagers are thier target audience, but hey even the cast of final fantasy is getting older. Compare 8 with 13 for example.

Not sure that works. Compare 7 with 9.

 

[Nerdygamer89]

Because most of the plots are allegories for an individual "finding themselves" or otherwise becoming an adult. Teenage years are typically the time to do such things, particularly in Asian cultures.

 

[dex-dex]

Japanese game companies need to appeal first to the Japanese audience and then adapt their work for a north american release.
Japanese audience will not accept any other type of character type. They don't buy games where there is a 30 year old dude taking names and kicking ass.
so it is a cultural thing.

 

[Pearwood]

It's just the way anime has evolved, I can't really think of much else to say. When you're talking about a small group of people doing what an entire army couldn't you always need some suspension of disbelief. Demon's Souls is a good exception, it has character customisation so you can pretty much set the age however you want. I don't think you can make someone who looks much younger than 20 though.

Japanese audience will not accept any other type of character type. They don't buy games where there is a 30 year old dude taking names and kicking ass.

Sure they do, it's just less common. Same way there's a few Western RPGs with a child or teenage protagonist.

 

[scorptatious]

Final Fantasy 7's protagonist, Cloud, is 21 years old. So he is technically considered an adult.

I guess one reason for the vast majority of JRPG's having teenagers as the protagonists is because the game's target audience, which usually consists of teenagers, could have someone to relate to.

 

[Zetsubou^-^]

what's the beef? honestly in a world of magic and monsters, i find it entirely plausible even a little kid would become a strong combatant if they traveled a lot and downed a bunch of monsters.

most games featuring young adventurers have their story set in a semi olden days kind of setting, when the age of expected maturity is much younger. ff9 is a good example. zidane is supposed to be 16, but figuring his job and backround hes probably been thieving for many years. eiko is 4, but until the party meets her she only had moogles to live with. garnet and vivi hadn't traveled so they are very inexperienced, but their latent power gives them an edge.

this example even makes my next point: almost all these games have older members there. steiner,freya and armarant are all older. older characters are almost always there to provide teaching/assistance/protection when necessary. the same could be said with 4,8,10,12 as well. its rarely a full group of naive kids.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

I guess JRPG's makers think that teenagers are thier target audience, but hey even the cast of final fantasy is getting older. Compare 8 with 13 for example.

Not sure that works. Compare 7 with 9.

well 8 everyone is about 17, the playable characters anyway aside from maybe Quistis. Then in 13 you have Sazh, Lightning, Fang and Snow all coming off like they are at least 20 or over The exceptions being Hope and whatever Vanille was supposed to be.

9 always seemed a bit ambiguous age wise to me.

 

[Zetsubou^-^]

technically laguna and his group are playable too, although they arent ever directly partied with squall and co. ff8 tried to reason that because the garden was a combat school, sending teenagers to battle was fine =D

 

[mireko]

well 8 everyone is about 17, the playable characters anyway aside from maybe Quistis. Then in 13 you have Sazh, Lightning, Fang and Snow all coming off like they are at least 20 or over The exceptions being Hope and whatever Vanille was supposed to be.

9 always seemed a bit ambiguous age wise to me.

Alright, fair point.

The series does love its ex-military protagonists, though.

 

[thenamelessloser]

Guess who the target audience is for most of these games is? Teenagers and young adults. So the protagonist of these games usually reflect their age group to help them relate to the main character. Simple, really. Try Lost Odyssey. The main character is an adult.

Even that game forces two children into your party...

 

[Herbsk]

Guess who the target audience is for most of these games is? Teenagers and young adults. So the protagonist of these games usually reflect their age group to help them relate to the main character. Simple, really. Try Lost Odyssey. The main character is an adult.

Even that game forces two children into your party...

But what is your point with that? That kids are in the game or that the majority of the party are teenagers? That's most definately not the case in Lost Oddyssey - 2 of the characters are kids, then there are the 4 immortals and 2 other adult characters - that's not exactly huge evidence that the main protagonists are all kids.

 

[Chemical Alia]

I think that's one of the reasons I always hated jrpgs that aren't Paper Mario and anime. I've always hated main characters that are kids/young adults, even when I was one.