Yahtzee vs. the JRPG

[The Thief]

I'm glad he mentioned Chrono Trigger. It's one of my favourite games and in my opinion it is a shining example of a JRPG done correctly. However, Chrono Trigger, Earthbound, Pokemon Blue, and Final Fantasy VII are the only JRPGs I have completed, so I am far from an expert on the subject.

As far as Final Fantasy goes, I haven't completed any installment other than VII (and despite what people say about it I still love it), but I always check out the new installments. So far none of them have appealed to me. I even played XII for the first hour or so before I couldn't stand it any longer; The characters, story, and gameplay were very underwhelming, yet seemingly overcomplicated at the same time. The XIII trailers I have seen do not convince me it is anything different. I'm going to stop getting my hopes up for another good FF game.

Though I have been meaning to check out VI, but I always get sidetracked. I'm more inclined to give it a whirl with Yahtzee's recommendation, because if somebody who hates Final Fantasy likes it, it must be doing something right.

 

[PhunkyPhazon]

I can respect that.

By the way, if you never did finish Chrono Trigger Yahtzee, you should try the DS remake. I know that that you hate remakes, but the New Game + mode makes it much faster to tackle the bosses for subsequent runs and to get the other endings, even if you still need to finish them the traditional way the first time.

...New Game+ was already in the original, and this is more of a port with some extra content rather then a remake.

Anyways, which boss fight takes a half hour to complete? The only one I can think of that takes that long is the final boss. Golem, maybe?

 

[King Kupofried]

It seems like Final Fantasy Thirteen went out doing one of two things. A overly flashy battle system that 'looks' very actiony and exciting to try to convince people that it's faster-paced than the usually JRPG, that when you actually play you realize you have so little control of it's hard to bear. Then the actual story of the game which seems meant to hook in thirteen year old girls who spend all their time writing Final Fantasy Fan Fiction by making the characters only able to develop by constantly making them depressed or using typical anime 'humor' (Tee-hee! My Tattoo is on my butt!).
Choco-fro guy was surprisingly charming and interesting though, making him seem wildly out of place, if the game focused on him it would've been a hundred times better.

 

[jinsting]

Yahtzee after seeing quite a few games get shot down by you that I enjoy to play, and then all of the sudden you turn around and say you liked my top 3 favorite games of all time. I believe I gained quite a bit more respect in your opinion. Your show is one of the only reasons I come to this website, keep up the excellent criticism.

 

[dreadedcandiru99]

Personally, I gave up on FF13 just as I got to Pulse (you know, the "BUT IT GETS GOOD TWENTY HOURS IN!!1!" part that the fanboys keep bellowing about). Besides the fact that I'd had an increasingly difficult time giving a shit about any of the characters already, I realized that the ending would probably come along after I was done doing whatever the game wanted me to do in its one and only non-hallway section, that FF games tend to have massive difficulty spikes at the end, and that to have any hope of winning, I was probably going to have to start grinding here--and I hate goddamned grinding. So yeah, one day I went to turn the game back on, and I realized that I just didn't want to.

Also, even twenty hours in, I still wasn't completely sure what the fuck the story was about, and no, I wasn't interested in reading the mountain of crap in the "datalog" to find out. Yes, the Mass Effect games have the same thing, but at least they don't force you to read it in order to know what's going on. I never had to; everything I needed to know about the story was actually included in the story.

 

[VGFreak1225]

I can respect that.

By the way, if you never did finish Chrono Trigger Yahtzee, you should try the DS remake. I know that that you hate remakes, but the New Game + mode makes it much faster to tackle the bosses for subsequent runs and to get the other endings, even if you still need to finish them the traditional way the first time.

...New Game+ was already in the original, and this is more of a port with some extra content rather then a remake.

Anyways, which boss fight takes a half hour to complete? The only one I can think of that takes that long is the final boss. Golem, maybe?

I stand corrected.

Also, forgot to mention: Look into Golden Sun as well. Still one of my favorite JRPGs of all time, and old-school to boot.

 

[The Critic]

I'm in the same boat, so to speak.

Western RPGs (Fallout 3 in my case) and CRPGs (KotOR I and II, though II isn't strictly defined as a CRPG) have pretty much destroyed any promise that JRPGs can ever hold in my eyes (I suppose that which games bring this revelation to your eyes is a matter of personal taste, so I'll leave my other opinions out of this).

Granted, I still play Pokemon games, for some inexplicable reason. Probably nostalgia, but I could be missing something.

Oh god, don't get me started on pokemon. In fact... do get me started

Platinum:65 hours
Platinum2:60 hours
SS:60 hours
Diamond:550 hours
Fire red:10 (yeah i know slacker)
emerald: 40 hours.

My pokewalker sits next to my glasses as the second thing I put on in the morning.

Not so much for the story line aspects of it. The competitive and multiplayer aspect is just sooo good. Are you familiar with serebii, or smogon?

Can't say I am familiar.

Like you, My Pokewalker is pretty much one of my daily essentials. Nintendo really did make that little gadget pretty darn addictive, didn't they?

Maybe that's the reason why we still like Pokemon, it's a far more involving game as compared to the standard JRPG. Not in the story sense, mind you (though having a thin story like this might actually work in Pokemon's favor), but in terms of interaction. You constantly interact with your little monsters via your 'walker, and you always have the option to interact with other people playing the game, in multiple ways, too. That's the ticket, then, interactivity and player involvment! Youmight not have the immersion of Western RPGs/CRPGs, but at least you're getting a similar livel of involvment (and, therefore, fun) in the game.

 

[MowDownJoe]

Hmm... Yahtzee mentioned the Mother 3 Fan Translation... wonder what he thought of it... I'm still on one of the last chapters.

 

[carpathic]

I Hate JRPG's


I have tried and just cannot make myself like them - even the ones listed by Yahtzee here.

Hardly worldshaking, I know. But those are my 2 cents.

 

[BlueInkAlchemist]

Let it not be said that Yahtzee doesn't like good quality games just because they happen to be a JRPG.

Chrono Trigger's the bomb.

I haven't played Earthbound, which makes me feel like I should hand over my secret gamer decoder ring, but I know there's a SNES emulator out there and sooner or later, I'll mark that off of the list.

 

[domicius]

Just a request Yahtzee: when the inevitable Yahtzee-like review of your book appears on the internets, please post a link here because you're the only website I go to ever (gush gush gush).

 

[wadark]

I pretty much disagree on FF13. Yes, the fact that the game doesn't get good until several hours in is certainly not a point in its favor, but there are some people who can put up with that, Yahtzee is clearly not one of them.

But Mogworld looks AWESOME.

 

[onibaku101]

I find it actually kind of funny to see people come to judgement of his work as if their word is somehow meaningful, not to be insulting. But he is indeed a different style of gamer he plays to review and get it done, I'd trust his 5 hours of gameplay on this one game is enough for him to call whether it is indeed time worthy or not. Furthermore I will never wait 15 hours for a game to get "good" and I use good loosely because really does it get better? okay story develops, characters are more than just boobs with swords and pissy attitudes but either way If I want good story I could in fact turn to Chrono trigger a much better game. If I want flashy cut scenes and "Good" story I'll watch the movie Metal Gear Solid 4

 

[Insideout Ink Demon]

Man, I think I'm in the minority for enjoying turn based games.
Maybe i should take up subuteo [sp] or chess

 

[Arkhangelsk]

I can respect that.

By the way, if you never did finish Chrono Trigger Yahtzee, you should try the DS remake. I know that that you hate remakes, but the New Game + mode makes it much faster to tackle the bosses for subsequent runs and to get the other endings, even if you still need to finish them the traditional way the first time.

New Game + already existed in the SNES version.

 

[ShakerSilver]

I respect his point of view, and I myself am not a huge JRPG fan to argue with him.

Although he is right about how a lot of JRPGs are being very obnoxious with their story telling style and characters.

[sub]But why didn't he mention Pokemon?[/sub] WE MUST KNOW HIS OPINIONS ON IT!!11!!!one!

 

[MisterColeman]

I've liked everything else Yahtzee has done, including all his own games made with AGS. This is the first thing where I haven't agreed at all with what he is saying.

As he has been told and conceded to in his video you do 'play' the game after about 20 hours in. Sitting through all of the pure convoluted (until you hit a certain moment where you realize why they did it the way they did) story for 20 hours was too much for him, so everything he says is basically his impression of a tutorial/story section that went on for too long.

Now, the game may have played better if they hadn't done that, but they were trying to take this one idea and make the story as good as they possibly could, and if you can stand it (I had to stop every 5 hours for the first 10, at around 12 hours I think I finally caught on) they do succeed.

Still, best villain ever is Tall Man, and I did get more enjoyment out of Trilby's Notes than FFXIII, but this isn't as terrible a game as you make it out to be.

 

[BehattedWanderer]

Not that I really care, but I'm inclined to ask what the other top whatevers for the gamecube are for you. Eternal Darkness? Metroid Prime? Barbie Horse Adventures, for the sheer number of times you've mentioned it?