Yahtzee vs. the JRPG

[Nhilus]

I like JRPGs, some of my favourite games are JRPGs, but if you asked me why I really couldn't give an accurate answer, same as if you asked me why I like bacon, I could tell you it tastes nice, I couldn't tell you why. FF6 was probably the best of the bunch, and now I'm going to try and save some money to buy a certain book Keep speaking your mind, or I will come and take it away from you until you can treat it right.

 

[Tarkand]

For the lion's share of the game the only real input the player has is during battles (and even that's a loose and uninvolving input)

And how exactly would you know what the "lion's share" of a 40-hour game consists of when you've only seen the first five? I wasn't a big fan of the game either, but I at least finished it before I started making claims like that. At last contextualize it like you did in the video.

To be fair to Yahtzee, if a game isn't interesting by it's 4th Hour, it IS wasting time and as good as FFXIII gets around hour 15, that's still 15 hours of SLOG that you have to get through. It's bad storytelling and it's bad game design.

I agree to an extent, even if it's a game that requires an enormous overall time commitment. I think what bothered me was the way he phrased it. Realistically, he has no idea what the "lion's share" of the game consists of.

That's the funny thing about you guys saying he hasn't played it in full - his opinion is still shared by tons of people who DID play it in full... so really, does it matter?

You don't need to push the needle all the way in to know that it hurts.

 

[ImBigBob]

I still say Yahtzee needs to try some of the less overblown JRPGs. Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey is a good candidate for that review, and I'd be curious to see what he thinks of the Pokemon series.

 

[Dracosage]

I kind of feel the same way about the Final Fantasy series as a whole. While I certainly liked FF7 due to its ability to make a villain actually be fear-inducing just from a specific piece of music playing and the fact that I actually somewhat gave a damn about some of the characters and their ugly 3d models, it was somewhat of a signifying of the downturn of the series. FFXII gave me a hell of a lot of hope since it decided to go in the opposite direction of all the other games (if it wasn't for executive meddling it wouldn't even have you walking around as the pointless bishonen kid), but it seems like Square wants to go back to their pattern of not really trying to make a good game, but a fan-jerk.

 

[Kazedarkwind]

part of me wants yahtzee to review Final Fantasy XI, bad or good, just would like to know opinions because it doesnt generally follow the same kind of formula that the regular FF's do, you start as pretty much joe shmoe and then get thrown into an adventure. yeah its an mmo and takes a long time to get anywhere but would still be interesting hearing some thoughts

good show though yahtzee! ive personally vowed to never buy consoles again and just buy games on steam and upgrade my computer, but what bugs me more a about the new final fantasies (7 and beyond except 11) is that the Main characters are WAY TO FREAKING WHINY but i like the battle systems they come out with and i still hold by my judgement that Final Fantasy XI and XIV are pretty different from the single player series.

 

[Dok Zombie]

My issue isn't so much with the RPG aspect, more the J aspect.

 

[SavingPrincess]

That's one of the problems with JRPGs. When your characters know more than you do and they seem to be going down a linear path regardless of what you do, well it just seems like your watching cinema where you occasionally have to mash buttons to progress through a scene transistion.

Which is better than the "your character seems to have no background whatsoever and has been born into existence at ripe adventuring age and is somehow the chosen one by the king/god to save the world but said person not going to tell you how because odds are something that you could do with that information could end the game within the first five minutes if you'd just happened to kill/take/use someone/something you happen to be right next to at the very start" or the "choose your own background from one of these three stereotypes" game mechanics.

Give me a protagonist with a rich history over a blank/faceless/nameless slate any day. The way I see it, jRPG's tell you a story, wRPG's trick you into thinking there's a story to be told in the first place, but it's actually just a start point and some sort of end point with a bunch of running around doing things that logically would facilitate the antagonists victory if for nothing than time progression alone.

"Hey look, we made a seemingly persistent world where you can run around and do a whole bunch of stuff that is unrelated to your reason for existence. Don't you feel in control? Don't you feel like a real person? Don't you feel free? Awesome... wait... what? You want a cohesive storyline with rich character development and intriguing plot twists? What do you think this is, Japan?"

Freedom is inversely proportional to narrative and always will be until someone can come along and reinvent the way our neural synapses process information. It's just the reality... either you want a story or you want to run around in a virtual "outside" and play with things. You will always sacrifice freedom for narrative and vice versa.

Knights of the Old Republic is linear... Mass Effect is linear. Sure you might be able to visit some different pre-determined plot progression points in the order of your choosing... but regardless, it's linear in story. You could do the same choose your own order of progressing the plot in games like Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy VI, but the games are linear. Yes, the characters around you know more than you because they are not you... nor should they be.

When did people assume that "Role Playing Game" meant "You, Mr./Ms. player, are the hero." To me it always meant you were playing the "role" of a character in a predetermined story, as if you were playing the part of the character in a play, but a play that you were also watching at the same time.

EDIT: ... and it's entirely frightening to me that Yahtzee picked my absolute three favorite RPG's as his example of the genre done right. We agree on something... *checks outside for further signs of the apocalypse*

 

[syltman]

I think Mario RPG, Paper Mario and Mother 3 would appear in my atleast top 15 games

 

[feeqmatic]

For the lion's share of the game the only real input the player has is during battles (and even that's a loose and uninvolving input)

And how exactly would you know what the "lion's share" of a 40-hour game consists of when you've only seen the first five? I wasn't a big fan of the game either, but I at least finished it before I started making claims like that. At last contextualize it like you did in the video.

I got up to hour 15 (chapter 7 i think) and still couldnt control my party i searched the net to see what I was missing. When I found out I had 3-4 more chapters of this nonsens i traded it in. Ill get back to it when i have time to waste. And I love FFs. Possibly the most dissapointing gaming experience for me ever.

 

[RUINER ACTUAL]

Watching my friend play FF13 was excruciating, so was watching him play Dragon Age: Origins for that matter. We pretty much made fun of the games as he played them until he gave up and started drinking.

 

[12capital]

I'm surprised that Golden Sun didn't appear on Yahtzee's list. I don't know if it is because it was a hand held game but Golden Sun is the best RPG anything game I've ever played.

 

[JEBWrench]

*snip*

But it's been somewhere around ten years since a JRPG has produced anything remotely resembling a cohesive story.

 

[SavingPrincess]

Kefka having absolutely no motivation makes him a poor villain in my book. One that I can't relate to, or possibly care about.

Since when is insanity not motivation enough? Can you relate to serial killers? Are they not good serial killers in your book if you can't understand why they murder numerous victims? Do you walk up to them and go... "Sir... I believe that you are a poorly crafted person, for you seem to have no relatable motivation for why you are murdering these people." No, you do everything you can to stop them, regardless of their motivations.

I'm so freaking sick with the idea that bad guys have to be good guys that had something bad happen to them. Sometimes bad guys are just B-A-D G-U-Y-S. Kefka is the BEST villain, because he's a jerk, he's insane, he's constantly in your face rather than some omniscient evil, and he actually DOES WHAT HE SETS OUT TO DO.

 

[Caiti Voltaire]

Which is better than the "your character seems to have no background whatsoever and has been born into existence at ripe adventuring age and is somehow the chosen one by the king/god to save the world but said person not going to tell you how because odds are something that you could do with that information could end the game within the first five minutes if you'd just happened to kill/take/use someone/something you happen to be right next to at the very start" or the "choose your own background from one of these three stereotypes" game mechanics.

Give me a protagonist with a rich history over a blank/faceless/nameless slate any day. The way I see it, jRPG's tell you a story, wRPG's trick you into thinking there's a story to be told in the first place, but it's actually just a start point and some sort of end point with a bunch of running around doing things that logically would facilitate the antagonists victory if for nothing than time progression alone.

"Hey look, we made a seemingly persistent world where you can run around and do a whole bunch of stuff that is unrelated to your reason for existence. Don't you feel in control? Don't you feel like a real person? Don't you feel free? Awesome... wait... what? You want a cohesive storyline with rich character development and intriguing plot twists? What do you think this is, Japan?"

Freedom is inversely proportional to narrative and always will be until someone can come along and reinvent the way our neural synapses process information. It's just the reality... either you want a story or you want to run around in a virtual "outside" and play with things. You will always sacrifice freedom for narrative and vice versa.

Knights of the Old Republic is linear... Mass Effect is linear. Sure you might be able to visit some different pre-determined plot progression points in the order of your choosing... but regardless, it's linear in story. You could do the same choose your own order of progressing the plot in games like Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy VI, but the games are linear. Yes, the characters around you know more than you because they are not you... nor should they be.

When did people assume that "Role Playing Game" meant "You, Mr./Ms. player, are the hero." To me it always meant you were playing the "role" of a character in a predetermined story, as if you were playing the part of the character in a play, but a play that you were also watching at the same time.

EDIT: ... and it's entirely frightening to me that Yahtzee picked my absolute three favorite RPG's as his example of the genre done right. We agree on something... *checks outside for further signs of the apocalypse*

A role-playing game (RPG) is a broad family of games in which players assume the roles of characters, or take control of one or more avatars, in a fictional setting. Actions taken within the game succeed or fail according to a formal system of rules and guidelines.

From Wikipedia, the free enyclopedia that anyone can edit.

Roleplaying since its 'formal' inception in the original edition of Dungeons and Dragons has always been about creating an avatar or persona that you shape and mould. You assume that persona and you develop that character over the course of their adventures.

If "roleplaying game" means simply "taking on the role of a character" then that becomes a pretty broad brush which you could also apply to first-person shooters, third-person shooters, adventure games, real-time strategy games, turn-based strategy games, many mindless browser games, candlestick makers and perhaps even partridges in a pear tree.

I'm not sure, though, why I'm making this post since, you clearly don't have much of a grasp on what the genre is supposed to encapsulate. I feel like someone just tried to tell me that Linkin Park is heavy metal, except I'm not overcome by uproarious laughter.

 

[gothic wolf]

i wouldnt really class the ff series ar JRPG's now. no matter what from what ive heard (i havnt played one of the ff games in around 8 years) ur always playing as an already established character like cloud, or in this case lightning or whatever. ok you can custmise there attacks to an extent but your not really roleplaying, your always the same character with the same flaws and the same powers as last time. if your roleplaying you should make the character, you should choose thier attacks, you should choose thier alignmnet. its the same thing with most other JRPGs though, your always some skinny, crazy haired, scandily clad teenager with some kind of angst because your dads dead or your an orphan. or even because they cant kiss that girl from across the road.

 

[mjc0961]

Granted, I still play Pokemon games, for some inexplicable reason (see my avatar). Probably nostalgia, but I could be missing something.

Probably because that Pokémon is one of the few (maybe only even, I don't know) JRPGs that actually allows for customization. Sure, you're always the same kid doing the same thing every time if you keep restarting the game... But you have 493 different monsters to choose from to be on your team (AKA party to those who aren't familar with Pokémon), and of the many various moves they can learn, you can only get 4 per monster. There are so many different combination to come up with there, it's frightening. And that's even BEFORE you toss that EV stuff into the mix!

So, yeah. Pokémon isn't just another ho-hum watch a lot of boring cutscenes of people with stupid outfits like a lot of other JRPGs are.

 

[Grampy_bone]

Saying you don't like RPGs because they aren't as good as FF6 or Chrono Trigger is kind of like saying you don't like movies because they all went downhill after Citizen Kane and Shawshank Redemption.

When it comes down to it JRPGs tend to be vastly more complicated than their western counterparts. A typical JRPG contains character customization mechanics and/or item crafting systems which would make the typical Oblivion player's eyes bleed. Just look at the sprawling skill system of Tales of Vesperia or the funky crafting mechanics in Star Ocean 4 and you'll see what I mean. There simply doesn't exist a western-made game with the kind of depth afforded by Final Fantasy Tactic's Job system.

As an aside: in Yahtzee-speak turn-based combat is boring and unrealistic but real-time combat is non-interactive, pointless button mashing. Hmm.

People can't complain that the games are too hard or too complex because that makes them seem stupid, so instead you end up with boilerplate rants copy-pasted from Something Awful; i.e. "dur dur emo fags dur dur cutscenes derp derp derp."

 

[SavingPrincess]

*snip*

But it's been somewhere around ten years since a JRPG has produced anything remotely resembling a cohesive story.

If by jRPG you mean Final Fantasy that's fine... though the most cohesive story in recent series history was Final Fantasy XII and people loathed that game because it was a political story (much like Final Fantasy Tactics) rather than a Cloud/Squall/Tidus story. Have you played any of the Mistwalker games? Have you played any Monolith Soft games? Any of the Persona/Shin Megami Tensei series? Shadow Hearts? Jeanne D'arc? What are you basing that on?

 

[Caiti Voltaire]

*snip*

But it's been somewhere around ten years since a JRPG has produced anything remotely resembling a cohesive story.

If by jRPG you mean Final Fantasy that's fine... though the most cohesive story in recent series history was Final Fantasy XII and people loathed that game because it was a political story (much like Final Fantasy Tactics) rather than a Cloud/Squall/Tidus story. Have you played any of the Mistwalker games? Have you played any Monolith Soft games? Any of the Persona/Shin Megami Tensei series? Shadow Hearts? Jeanne D'arc? What are you basing that on?

What, there's gameplay to Shadow Hearts? I must have missed something in the four hours that lasted me before I fired the CD into the sun.

 

[Jared]

Well, I still love 13. But, I cannot disagree with what was Dias, you are more watching a film at times rather than a game.

However, it's story, and characters were intresting enough to make it really enjoyable for me at least