Changing JRPGs for the Better: What Can Be Done?

[Cenequus]

I don't really have many suggestions for JRPG's beyond saying that they need to grow up a little. That's really the big problem, they seem to always be about teenagers with uberpowers saving the world, and it's always the same archetypes.

Kinda this.

As for OP:Even if I prefer a good game beyond genre or subgenre,most of those things are kinda what makes JRPGs.So having "grown up" characters with "grown up" problems would solve many of jrpgs problems.

And to be honest what you propose is not actually better you just import one trick ponies from other games without the context of why it worked in those games(in Heavy Rain for example it works so well because it's basically a very long interactive cutscene and not an actual game).

 

[Strife2GFAQs]

My contention is that the genre is riddled with effects that seem arbitrary because "that's how it's always been." I find no sensation more annoying than playing a game for fifty hours, just trying to get to the final boss, only to be accosted by more random bugs down a dead end hallway. We've proven we are stronger by now, we get it. The issue is I am more interested in where the game is taking me, but it won't let me get there. I beat your boss. Let me get the next story point. Let me get through a room without having to prove myself by fighting another random chunk of meaningless enemies. Normally, I'll deal with it, but after 10-15 hours, I spend more time obsessing over "Will I get the next room without a fight," instead of enjoying the story or characters.

That's why any game that includes a no battle feature (FFVI, VIII, and X) or allows me to run past enemies (DQIX) are always ones I will gravitate towards. The genre as a whole is getting better, but that's where other factors like "unskippable dialogue" or "visual novel presentation" begin to rear their heads.

 

[veloper]

Xenoblade Chronicles
The Last Story
Pandora's Tower
Radiant Historia
Dark Souls

Five JRPGs from the last year alone that have received abundant critical acclaim.

JRPGs are doing absolutely fine at the minute. Indeed, I'd say titles such as Xenoblade are far superior to the majority of WRPGs that have been released this year, and show far more originality than the Western world's obsession with dragons, orcs and elves.

The problem isn't JRPGs. The problem is western gamers refusing to believe that there is anything more to the genre than Final Fantasy.

The problem may be one of different definitions.
To me JRPG is a distinct genre with strict conventions (those of the type of old skool RPG that merely originated in Japan) and not a mere point of nationality, because you don't need to invent whole game genres just for some localization.

Dark Souls? Not a JRPG, but an action RPG in my book.
A non-japanese company making a Final Fantasy clone? JRPG in my book.

 

[blizzaradragon]

The one problem with criticizing a JRPG is that you're essentially criticizing what another culture likes. While people in the west may get tired of the melodrama and coming of age stories, the east eats that stuff up and demands a second helping. It'd be the same the other way around if people from the east tried to criticize a WRPG for being either about "overpowered fantasy hero X rising up from the dirt to save the land from the tyrannical dragon with his mighty broadsword" or "space commander Y saves the universe from evil alien race hell bent on ruling the galaxy".

Pretty much if you don't like what JRPGs do then either don't play them or research them first to see if they have what you think are problems. Just don't expect an entire culture's genre to suddenly change just because they aren't as popular on the other side of the world.

 

[StorytellingIsAMust]

The one problem with criticizing a JRPG is that you're essentially criticizing what another culture likes. While people in the west may get tired of the melodrama and coming of age stories, the east eats that stuff up and demands a second helping. It'd be the same the other way around if people from the east tried to criticize a WRPG for being either about "overpowered fantasy hero X rising up from the dirt to save the land from the tyrannical dragon with his mighty broadsword" or "space commander Y saves the universe from evil alien race hell bent on ruling the galaxy".

Pretty much if you don't like what JRPGs do then either don't play them or research them first to see if they have what you think are problems. Just don't expect an entire culture's genre to suddenly change just because they aren't as popular on the other side of the world.

You said exactly what I wanted to say when I saw that this thread exists. There's very little about JRPGs as a whole that needs fixing. Would I like some more variety? Sure, it'd be nice. Would I like better quality games? Absolutely. Is there some sort of flawed convention that the majority of JRPGs are following? No. The trends in JRPGs are there because A.) people like them in Japan and other Asian countries and B.) they work for the genre. I don't think that any major change is really necessary.

 

[spartan231490]

*Spoilers*

Here's another I just thought up. Remember how Heavy Rain allowed the story to change if characters died or got arrested? I wish to God they could have implemented that with Hope. It would have worked perfectly in the game too, since it was set up in the plot anyway.

*Lightning and Hope take a break*

Lightning: Get up, we have to go.

*Hope sits in fetal position*

Hope: I don't know what to do, what should I do? *other mopey BS*

Lightning: **** you *leaves*

Hope: She left me.

The game could prompt you and say, "would you like to continue Hope's story or let him fend for himself?" They could end the scene there, never to be seen again, have other party members save his sorry *** like they did in the game, or even develop a third option that actually turns Hope into a badass and saves us from more melodrama.

This is my solution to hope:
*Lightning and Hope take a break*

Lightning: Get up, we have to go.

*Hope sits in fetal position*

Hope: I don't know what to do, what should I do? *other mopey BS*

Lightning: **** you *stabs annoying little bastard with sword*

Hope: *gurgles*

Seriously, god did I ever hate that character. Every cut-scene I watched and if he even poped up in the background I went and got some snacks or mountain dew and repeated said action until cut-scene was over.

OT: You're changes seem like they would make the genre appeal more to people who aren't JRPG fans, but it also sounds like you would pretty much make them WRPGs with Japanese animation. Doesn't that kinda defeat the point of having a seperate genre?

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

The problem may be one of different definitions.
To me JRPG is a distinct genre with strict conventions (those of the type of old skool RPG that merely originated in Japan) and not a mere point of nationality, because you don't need to invent whole game genres just for some localization.

Dark Souls? Not a JRPG, but an action RPG in my book.
A non-japanese company making a Final Fantasy clone? JRPG in my book.

That's faulty logic though. By definition, the difference between JRPGs and WRPGs is their geographical point of origin.

By the same logic, Mass Effect isn't a WRPG. It's a sci-fi shooter with a few RPG elements thrown in.

With such reasoning, you end up creating a Catch-22 for JRPG developers. Western developers can create pretty much anything and have it lauded as a great example of WRPG originality and innovation. Yet if a JRPG developer creates a game that actually does new things with the genre, all of a sudden it's not a JRPg anymore. You end up defining the genre not by its mechanics, but by its flaws, and it therefore becomes technically impossible for anything to happen to the genre, simply because as soon as anything does happen, people class it as something else in order to avoid the stigma.

Dark Souls is an RPG. It was created by a development team based in Japan. In my opinion, that means it fulfils every definition that matters for a Japanese Role Playing Game. It may be different from other JRPGs, but that only serves to prove the breadth of the genre itself. If Dark Souls is not a JRPG, then Mass Effect, Jade Empire and Fallout 3 are not WRPGs. And that is a whole bucket of semantics which I'd rather not get stuck into.

It is a style that is mainly done in that region and all of those games are classes as WRPGs in the overarching extremes of RPGs due to moral choice and faceless main characters but are subclasses as stuff like ARPGs.

You could just look up wikipedia on Role-playing video game on what is the accepted general definitions. They are just different distinct styles that have no little or bearing on their region any more they are only called as such due to the geographical slant of devs in the areas. They also used to be called console rpgs(JRPGS) and computer as in PC rpgs(WRPGS).

OT: We've had this before many times but it has been a long time so I'll bite. You are basically trying to turn JRPGs into lite WRPGs. First point you have basically just given every type of main JRPG combat system and said pick one how is that an improvement in any way?

Second point is a WRPG thing and if you don't like stories being told through dialogue in cut scenes don't play JRPGs. While there are some that go against this many choose to do it like this so either you have to go out of your way and try to find otherwise and let the genre stick with something that works with it. People like to rave about HL being great in this regard but it just ends with loads of unskippable scenes that become very, very boring on subsequent playthroughs. There is the story through environment but that is in most games and I find it hard to not find that in a game if you look hard enough.

Third point ok instant health regen? What you want a forced easy mode? Some of us liked the fact that in JRPGs and WRPGs for that matter you actually had to plan your trips and stock up with potions beforehand otherwise you be sent crying back to the town with a sore arse after having it kicked to death several times from being unprepared and/or having a shite strategy. JRPGs are linear so a fast travel would not help a good few have something akin to the FF airships. Generally after you have been to an area you won't need to return unless the game returns you there itself.

Fourth point is that not the point of exploring and alternate paths? You know some are dead ends but there is nice treasure. So what you want the game to make you run in a straight line or just have treasure on off the road paths rather than fights. Not everything you find should be great when exploring it should be different or else it would be boring as it wouldn't be exploring.

Fifth point just no there are as many if not more tropes and clichés as everything else in this world ever as JRPGs I mean Bioware has been using the same character templates for years and fucking no one calls them out for it they just suck it all up and think it is the best thing since ever and so unique. They aren't bad but far from unique at this point.

Sixth point well that is the point of JRPGs being JRPGs they are not WRPGs nor should they ever be. Moral options really has no true place in a JRPG game and those social links in Persona are more than just an affection meter and have an actual affect on gameplay. I don't know anything about Catherine though.

Nothing can be done about JRPGs they are fine as they are. They have some turds and some good ones we just need to point out what is done right in the good ones rather than bitching about the shit ones. You know like instead of saying this female character is a horrible oversexualised stereotype say this female character is good and more should be similar to this one.

 

[Battleaxx90]

Well, if the battle system is the most important thing to you, I recommend Xenoblade Chronicles. Real-time battles on the overworld which (for the most part) you choose when you want to fight, health comes back on its own outside the battle so you don't need too many potions, and it's totally optional when and what you want to fight. I'm not sure about most of the others, but it does also handle #6 a little with "heart-to-heart" talks...

Seconded.

I don't care what ANYBODY says, Xenoblade Chronicles is one of my favourite games EVER. The story's awesome, the battles are engaging, the scenery is jaw-dropping (SATORI MARSH AT NIGHT, BITCHES) and the music is PERFECT. If you like JRPG's, this game is for you. NO QUESTIONS ASKED.

 

[Infernai]

Fun Fact, I'm actually working on creating a JRPG styled game in the vein of some of the more classic ones (Read FF7 and before). In my opinion, alot of it has to do with the type of characters and the plot the characters follow. Allow me to give a rundown of NEARLY every JRPG post the PS1 era: A wide-eyed and idealistic young man is forced to go on a journey of self-discovery and save the world from disaster, forging bonds with those closest to him in order to do so.

My opinion? Change some of the character types instead of relying on cliches: Experiment, try new things and see how certain characters may react to different situations. Honestly, alot of the problem with the genre stems from the repeating of plots and character archtypes and i think if designers experimented a bit more and took some risks with plots and characters, we could get some truly good JRPG's.

 

[Lunar Templar]

I'm going to just say

look at White Knight Chronicles, then don't do any of that, like, ever again

its such a train wreck of suck i wouldn't even know where to start with it, but its good for 'things wrong with the genre', like Turok was for Yahtzee a few years back

 

[DalekJaas]

Remove the J. Seriously, cut out everything that makes them remotely Japanese. I can just imagine if Golden Sun wasn't a JRPG with stupid looking characters, it would have been amazing.

 

[Jurian]

Well I always liked the retro kind of jrpgs but like said before, random encounters are a big deal and occur way too often, so maybe some sort of slider option in the menu with which you can set how often you want random encounters to occur.

like this:
No random encounters (unless scripted) -------I--------------------- Random encounters happen often

Players who would want to grind to battle that hard boss just a few rooms from now will want to up the bar a bit, but players who just want to get that final treasure chest somewhere in the back of that cave they passed a while ago might want to tone it down.

I could see something like this implemented in pokemon or the inevitable final fantasy remakes.

 

[Aurgelmir]

SNIPITTY

You know reading your post we have an example of a game taking away all that OP wanted taken away (except mabe turned based combat) and it's called Final Fantasy 13, and it sucked... Point is JRPGs don't need to change much, but so many modern JRPG makers seems to think they do, and churn out games that has removed so much of what made Final Fantasy 6-10 so fun...

Remove the J. Seriously, cut out everything that makes them remotely Japanese. I can just imagine if Golden Sun wasn't a JRPG with stupid looking characters, it would have been amazing.

So you would rather have Golden Sun be the same looking characters in similar armor run about? because thats what WRPGs do.

Sure I would like to see some more variation on both sides. But I will give the Japanese cred for designing the more interesting looking characters. Where as most WRPGs just use a character generator for all their characters, then maybe give some of the more important ones an unique design. Mass Effect 1 and Dragon age 1 was all just created through their creator, at least ME2 and DA2 made some unique looking people.

PS: Golden Sun is a great game regardless of their Japanese design philosophy, just a tad to much meaningless jibber jabber as I stated earlier.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

I get the sense that the genre has stagnated over the last generation. I know titles have come along that are spectacular for their time (Radiant Historia, Persona 4), but the glut of titles now seem to suffer from cliche overload (gaming or anime based), bad characters, or archaic design choices (Random Battles, Active Battle System, Visual Novel Presentation). Maybe I'm growing old, but I think part of it has to do with the "pre-teen, coming of age ******** stories like Hope from FFXIII that start this. I've thought about this for a while, and I think I came up with suggestions to change the formula (and possibly) the perception these games have currently. I'll post something big here in a second. It was from another topic, but felt it approprate here. Also, I make reference to games that teeter the line between RPG and other genres, but they are applicable to the situation.

The makings of a great game in the genre have yet to be totally balanced. Here's what I would do.

1. Choose fast, clunk free turn-based (RH, SMT) or real-time (Tales, Star Ocean) and have the fight occur in the overworld (FFXII) but allow for avoidance at all times (TWEWY).

Grind sensation is the product of transition between overworld and battle, which adds more frustration to having closed combat. We can't "fight when we want to" because most games continue to force battle on us. Above all else, give free movement to the player. We are not watching a movie...don't treat your battles like them either.

2. Tell stories through overworld narration (Nier, Arkham Asylum), making cutscenes interactive (FFVII and VIII). If cutscenes or dialogue happen, one button press to skip everything (RH).

Even in Persona, you get the sense nothing occurs in cutscenes. There's no sense of death, tribulation, or urgency. People are standing around. Cutscenes have shifted storytelling mechanics. Arkham provided minial scenes of spectacle, while plot points or objectives were hammered out while walking halls. If you want to draw attention, make short opening shots of the area or enemy, then let us get back to work.

3. Institue warp/exit features, auto save/instant save into any area or dungeon.

I don't want to feel like I am forced to backtrack through somewhere I just completed. I don't mind forced battles or stealth if the game's plot warrants it. Give me the ability to escape, save, or return to whatever floor at my leisure. Add instant health regeneration after battles or via save points, but that might be asking for too much.

4. Avoid dead ends.

One of the few things XIII did well was eliminate "dungeon dead ends." Every path either led to a treasure or checkpoint. Old school RPGs pad out game time by forcing you 3-4 fights if you so much as BLINK towards the wrong direction. If you have a maze, once again, make it part of the plot, or give us incentive to trudge through it. Same goes if you include puzzles.

5. Cliche cutbacks

With the overabundance of anime based games, JRPG cliches (amnesia, pre-teen wuss heroes, swords > guns) have been further tainted by anime tradition. Harems with ONE and only ONE main guy or girl outcome, and effeminate males learning to "like or love" girls as the payoff is one. Guys dressing as transexuals and speaking with *** lisps or claiming to be female is another. Cliche borders on the ridiculous. Make characters act with conviction towards justifiable outcomes. Don't pull the Nintendo "princess in distress" **** either. If they do, make it a small scene like the original FF, then move on. I would assume saving the world or seeking revenge is enough motivation for most main characters. We don't need the world to hinge on the inability of some douche to function if he can't save his girlfriend...who won't have sex with him anyway.

6. Morality Matters

There's a sense in P4 that no matter what you do, you will max every social link or be everyone's friend. You're the be all end all answer to everything. Add in Catherine. I loved the game to death, but it had a glaring flaw (aside from the death only occurs in Nightmare mode). The game doesn't change if you choose Catherine. I worked towards change, but I got the super happy ending anyway (or vice versa). More than anything else, JRPGs have failed to latch on to the idea that WRRGs have had for years. If they've gone through the trouble of "affection meters," what's stopping them from allowing freedom to choose allies, pick sides, affecting endings, and overall game flow? I want that sense of freedom, but with the JRPG trappings and ambience. I know it can be possible.

Most of the issues you have here are non-issues for me. Simply put, JRPGs aren't stagnating, you're just not playing the good ones apparently. Did you try Disgaea 4? Cross edge? Valkyria Chronicles? Resonance of Fate? Atelier Rorona/Totori series? Ar Tonellico 3?



None of them really are about a coming of age story except maybe for the atelier series you know and they all have epic battle systems in their own fields.


As for the visual novel thing, that's just your own taste, I feel it's great. Same goes for the cut-scenes I personally love the campy style of storytelling and the anime-like air in which it takes a lot of episodes for things to happen. Things like the omelet cooking contest for Nanako in Persona 4 for example are some of the most fun events in a game although not all that action-oriented, if you were really into the story and characters as I was you came to enjoy them beyond mere battles or action scenes, as a new form of fun unique to these games, a fan I do not want to lose no matter what.









As for the things like saves or teleports or other such convenience things, nah, not even random encounters are bad. If you can't control the encounters then you feel more powerless and that's part of the feeling you're supposed to have when playing the game. It needs to feel dire, otherwise you won't get in the proper emotion you're supposed to be in as you play and during the cut scenes. It's also helpful when you're kicking ass eventually since you feel so much more powerful by comparison to your earlier days.

SMT3:Nocturne is one of the biggest clusterfucks with truly labyrinthian maps and harsh harsh methods of saving and other such things, yet it was still loved despite all of the above.


As for being able to alter the way things turn out, oh boy, you sure haven't played deep enough my friend, especially not in persona 4. There's 4 different endings,

Spoiler

one where you murder someone innocent and the killer goes free even, I'd say that's a pretty horrible ending

so yeah...that final part is flat out false. Oh and in Disgaea 2's worst ending

Spoiler

You kill, dismember and eat your cute little brother and sister after having turned into a demon of loneliness....

I'd say that's a bad enough consequence, wouldn't you?