All JRPG needs to be liked again is to be gritty.

[Jeremy Skitz]

The thing I like about JRPG's is that they are fantasy games set in beautiful worlds we haven't seen before and aren't following the current common fantasy formula of dark, gritty and sexual. I also like that the races involved aren't human, dwarves, elves and orcs. They are far more original than that. Though what they suffer from is lack of marketing, and there are so many in existence that it is difficult to keep track of them. Everyone has heard of Final Fantasy though, there are so many of them it overshadows other JRPG's... Better soundtracks too.

 

[WendelI]

As it probably has been mentioned before. Its the turn based combat. That is literally all i hate about JRPGs. I've seen people turned off by persona which is an amazing game because of the combat. Also the lack of REAL class building and personalization of both the narrative and the characters turns people off too.

 

[The Great JT]

Yeah, Skies of Arcadia wasn't gritty and I'd place it as one of the best JRPGs ever.

 

[Ghaleon640]

Yep, just like comic books in the 1990's, they should be gritty with expendable lifeless characters, squinty eyes and...

Its a culture thing. They are japanese games made with Japan in mind, they sell in America because there is a market for them, but that still doesn't mean that we are its prime target. I appreciate JRPG's, and while I do sometimes like a bit of grit, I have no business trying to change them.

 

[gyrobot_v1legacy]

I HAVE seen JRPG's that got really dark in their plots (Vagrant Story, Tactics Ogre, and Xenogears are prime examples), but I wouldn't say they were "gritty." Those games were far mroe varied and mature in their approach then the George R.R. Martin knockoffs I see from the West. Grittiness is what a 12-year-old thinks is mature and JRPG's don't need that.

I mentioned that a lot before about Matsuno's works. That was the reason why people like his works. They are dark, blood hell he wrote the story for Mad World. He knows what the western audience wants. All it takes is a huge leap to CERO Z and he will hold absolutely nothing back. The variety of settings from JRPGs and the grit of WRPGs.

But You still haven't answered everyone's question: why must Japanese developers pander to western audiences? Why must they make an entirely secondary demographic play their games?

If you don't want to be the laughing stock and a running joke about how bad gaming can be, then this is the easiest way to approach to the issue.

 

[Your Gaffer]

Oh please, not more of this "make is gritty, make it dark" bullshit.

I love dark games, I love gritty games. I also love Minecraft and Bastion and Rayman.

JRPG's don't need to go dark and gritty to be successful. They need to get rid of random encounters and they need to totally revamp their turn based combat systems. They can still be turn based but they need to have a deeper level of strategy so we can feel like we accomplishing something when we fight. Last of all they need to have a coherent plot that feeds you more bits and pieces of the story as you progress in the game, thus giving you a reason to keep playing. These are things a lot of JRPGs over the last 10 years have not done a good job with.

I hope there are some JRPG games that do the things I've talked about above, some of them can be dark and gritty, some of them don't have to be.

 

[hermes]

So for JRPGs to be liked again, I recommend tossing in a bit of ASOIAF, some mature content and call us in the morning. We will dismiss the Turn Based stuff as part the genetic makeup of the genre. But the childishness is a disease that needs to be cured

I know that acronyms are useful, but sometimes they go to far. I had to think hard about "ASOIAF" to even understand what you mean, and only did it because you compared it with Tolkien... without that reference, it just sounded ridiculous.

On topic, no. They don't need to be gritty. In fact, the reason why most are disliked is because they are too gritty... That is the reason games like Ni No Kuni or Dragon Quest feel refreshing even when, design-wise, they are dinosaurs. Because after the success of Final Fantasy 7, everything needed to be gritty and angsty and "dark and edgy". Every character needed a tragic backstory to be revealed, some unrequited love, some lost in his life to drive him forward into saving the world. If everything is dark and gloomy, its as unrealistic as all being bright and happy. If you go that route, you end up with Mass Effect 3: a game where the few moments of interaction feel like unnecessary because of the grand scheme of things ("Hey, Shepard! How can you be dancing in the Citadel, when there are people dying by the millions a few blocks away?"). Yes, Vanille is earnest and overly sweet (for the most part), but she is as generic and defined as Lightning and her "angsty and tragic" attitude.

Case in point: Persona 4. Now, that game has some heavy stuff; between the murders, characters with confused sexuality, coping with social expectations, mysticism, etc, nobody would call it a "child's game". But I wouldn't care about the characters a fraction of what I do if they didn't also have some genuinely charming, funny and lighthearted moments. If there wasn't a school festival or a trip to the bathhouse, and all their lives were defined by the mystery case and their tragic backstories, they would be as flat as the happy and naive characters you seems to hate.

 

[hermes]

But You still haven't answered everyone's question: why must Japanese developers pander to western audiences? Why must they make an entirely secondary demographic play their games?

If you don't want to be the laughing stock and a running joke about how bad gaming can be, then this is the easiest way to approach to the issue.

Every time they try to act like they know what westerns want, they are the laughing stock. Whenever they go out of their way to have "more guns", "more drama", "more grit", without any idea of the sensitivity behind anything western, they turn beloved franchises like "Resident Evil", "Silent Hill" or "Devil May Cry" into running jokes.

 

[daibakuha]

Oh please, not more of this "make is gritty, make it dark" bullshit.

I love dark games, I love gritty games. I also love Minecraft and Bastion and Rayman.

JRPG's don't need to go dark and gritty to be successful. They need to get rid of random encounters and they need to totally revamp their turn based combat systems. They can still be turn based but they need to have a deeper level of strategy so we can feel like we accomplishing something when we fight. Last of all they need to have a coherent plot that feeds you more bits and pieces of the story as you progress in the game, thus giving you a reason to keep playing. These are things a lot of JRPGs over the last 10 years have not done a good job with.

I hope there are some JRPG games that do the things I've talked about above, some of them can be dark and gritty, some of them don't have to be.

I completely agree with this. If Japanese developers want the west to appreciate and buy their games, they have to tell a good story well and make their game fun to play.

I will say this, however on the subject of maturity: I think all games, regardless of country of orientation, need to be more mature. Not in the gritty grimdark way, but in a way where they realize the audience for their games are adults. Right now it feels like most of the stuff being made is for teenagers and little kids and very little of it is being made for those actually make up the majority of the gaming population(or at least the so-called "hardcore" demographic).

So when the OP said that he wished that JRPGs would be more like ASOIF, I can sort of agree, but I wish ALL games were more like ASOIF. Not because it's dark, but because it's mature and adult. It knows it's audience and caters to it.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

No.

While grittiness works in otherwise flippant genres once-off because it's a contrast, making everything the same is never the solution. You don't just make an entire genre gritty and expect that to sell.

Honestly I think the problems JRPGs generally have are the same problems any game has. Poor characterisation, lack of investment in characters or what they're doing, boring gameplay, overly blatant dialogue, forced emotion, lack of being a good game, any one of these things, but they're all just problems to do with games. JRPGs are not inherently bad, and making them all gritty wouldn't fix it. It's like instead of childish, ridiculous characters you have serious unsmiling ones. Neither is particularly inspired to me.

 

[Keiichi Morisato]

I would HATE to see a dark and gritty JRPG. Of all the things that are wrong with JRPG's of late I think a lack of grittyness is not among them. I HATE it when things are arbitrarily made dark and gritty.

every "Tales" game get morally grey towards the end, in tales of vesperia the bad guy ends up helping the party save the world from the destruction he wrought. and the is why i love the "Tales" franchise not only that but the characters normally grow out of their starting archetypes by the time you get to the end of the game.

 

[Arcane Azmadi]

Wow... when I read this thread title I was thinking it was satirical.

But no, you're actually serious. You honestly think the problem with JRPGs is that they don't have enough butchery, incest and backstabbing.

Dude... no. Just no.

 

[nykirnsu]

But You still haven't answered everyone's question: why must Japanese developers pander to western audiences? Why must they make an entirely secondary demographic play their games?

If you don't want to be the laughing stock and a running joke about how bad gaming can be, then this is the easiest way to approach to the issue.

Every time they try to act like they know what westerns want, they are the laughing stock. Whenever they go out of their way to have "more guns", "more drama", "more grit", without any idea of the sensitivity behind anything western, they turn beloved franchises like "Resident Evil", "Silent Hill" or "Devil May Cry" into running jokes.

Ninja'd
That pretty much summarizes my thoughts here, except that even western games don't understand what makes their styles interesting most of the time.

 

[Vault101]

Well lets think for a moment why people hates JRPGs? Because it doesn't fit the current standards expected by the current attitude towards the fantasy genre.

no...thats really not why...

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

I mentioned that a lot before about Matsuno's works. That was the reason why people like his works. They are dark, blood hell he wrote the story for Mad World. He knows what the western audience wants. All it takes is a huge leap to CERO Z and he will hold absolutely nothing back. The variety of settings from JRPGs and the grit of WRPGs.

-wacks upside head- No, people like his work because he's GOOD at his job. He did that FAR before all the GRRM copying. You claim he knows what the West wants. Well...no, no he didn't. He NEVER catered his writing specifically towards the West. He made Tactics Ogre in 1995, a full YEAR before Game of Thrones was released and before JRPG makers ever gave a shit about "Western" appeal. It was pure coincidence, nothing more. I still think he doesn't really care about what the West thinks. And thank GOD for that.

 

[Xarathox]

Well lets think for a moment why people hates JRPGs? Because it doesn't fit the current standards expected by the current attitude towards the fantasy genre.

But what do people expect from the fantasy genre now? To emulate ASOIAF, the political intrigue, the brutal cynicism and ultimately be as mature as possible. The funny thing is that JRPGs at one point was like that with Ogre Battle, Valkyrie Profile and Xenogears which served as the greats of JRPG. When JRPGs made the shift to making stuff lighter in content, WRPGs picked the ball up, using ASOIAF rather than Tolkien as their inspiration and has sold well compared to JRPGs which is becoming mostly kiddier.

So for JRPGs to be liked again, I recommend tossing in a bit of ASOIAF, some mature content and call us in the morning. We will dismiss the Turn Based stuff as part the genetic makeup of the genre. But the childishness is a disease that needs to be cured

What JRPGs need to be liked again is to just be... good. I don't care if a game is colorful, flashy or just plain over stylized. If it plays like shit, then it's just shit. And JRPGs are mammoth piles of shit. The rest of the world has moved beyond turn based combat, developed intuitive controls for people with five digit hands and sailed that boat to fucking awesome town. The Japanese simply do not know how to make games for non-mutants.

Hell, I'd play an MLP game if it didn't handle like a drunken rhino on roller skates. I'm not even a Bronie.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

I would HATE to see a dark and gritty JRPG. Of all the things that are wrong with JRPG's of late I think a lack of grittyness is not among them. I HATE it when things are arbitrarily made dark and gritty.

every "Tales" game get morally grey towards the end, in tales of vesperia the bad guy ends up helping the party save the world from the destruction he wrought. and the is why i love the "Tales" franchise not only that but the characters normally grow out of their starting archetypes by the time you get to the end of the game.

Yes, but that's the thing, you can have a deep meaningful story that deals with heavy issues without being dark and gritty. Take Dragon Quest V for example, the Dragon Quest games are certainly about as far removed from dark and gritty as you can get, yet about an hour into the game

Spoiler

your father is murdered in front of you and you're sent away to work slave labour for 10 in-game years.

 

[gyrobot_v1legacy]

I mentioned that a lot before about Matsuno's works. That was the reason why people like his works. They are dark, blood hell he wrote the story for Mad World. He knows what the western audience wants. All it takes is a huge leap to CERO Z and he will hold absolutely nothing back. The variety of settings from JRPGs and the grit of WRPGs.

-wacks upside head- No, people like his work because he's GOOD at his job. He did that FAR before all the GRRM copying. You claim he knows what the West wants. Well...no, no he didn't. He NEVER catered his writing specifically towards the West. He made Tactics Ogre in 1995, a full YEAR before Game of Thrones was released and before JRPG makers ever gave a shit about "Western" appeal. It was pure coincidence, nothing more. I still think he doesn't really care about what the West thinks. And thank GOD for that.

Still, said coincidence is a good thing, that is a good indication of what Japan should go for more often.

 

[Gatx]

I completely dig the aesthetic of JRPGs but the storylines have gotten ridiculous and always revolve around crazy MacGuffins and a bunch of random terms. They just need likeable characters in relatable situations but in a fantastic settings rather than fantastic characters in fantastic situations in a fantastic setting.

Also I never feel like the settings are fleshed out enough. The settings of a lot of JRPGs now are essentially a weird abstraction of basic RPG systems - towns with inns and shops, dungeons, monsters in the wilderness, and some kind of demon lord. There's nothing to make me believe that a slime or a giant rat or whatever really fits into the world naturally like seeing a troll in its lair does in Skyrim.

Also there's plenty of political intrigue and mature storylines in JRPGs already (despite what some of the colorful visuals would have you think), but it's not something that people absolutely demand in any game, and there's no point in making things dark and bloody just because.