I, for the life of me, cannot understand the hatred directed at JRPGs...

[crusador90]

No... I can't.

I don't get what's wrong with the genre. It's the only genre of games, Role-Playing Games specifically, that is categorized via where the game is developed.

Does anyone have an idea why this genre is often mocked/ frowned upon? Or does anybody remember the days when they were just seen as RPGs, just like every other RPG game we played on consoles and portable games?

 

[Kahunaburger]

People who vocally dislike the entire JRPG genre have generally not played any JRPGs.

 

[Aircross]

Hatred for many of the modern JRPGs with poor flat cliche characters, EXTREMELY linear game play (corridor random battles), an auto-battle button (seriously?), and the fact that we cannot micro every single character I can understand...

...but how can anyone hate Final Fantasy VI and Chrono Trigger?


EDIT: From my second post...

2. They shove their thoughts and emotions down your throat. Every cutscene I have to be reminded that my protagonist is tormented/in love/etc. No emotion is ever conveyed subtly. They may make a subtle gesture towards another character like handing them a pendant but the game drag it out and cues the background music and makes a big scene out of it and entirely destroys any hope of subtlety to the scene.

One word, anvilicious. [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Anvilicious]

This is one of the biggest factors that has alienated me from JRPGs.

Does Terra (Tina) from FF:VI brood after every boss battle (or worse, every 15 seconds) about how unfair it is that she doesn't really belong in the world or how her was used as a weapon?

NO!

Terra bites her lip and does what's needed to be done!

After the world is destroyed, she learns the meaning of love and fighting for what she believes in, WITHOUT EVER BROODING OR WHINING ABOUT HOW SHE HAS NOTHING TO FIGHT FOR THROUGHOUT THE FIRST HALF OF THE GAME!

The bottom line:

Show, don't tell. Modern JRPG characters need to STFU (except Yuri from Tales of Vesperia, he's a bad ass).

 

[x EvilErmine x]

It's a culture thing. They just have a different way of telling a story and ideas on what makes a good one.

 

[Eddie the head]

People who vocally dislike the entire JRPG genre have generally not played any JRPGs.

I have I just don't like them. Its fine if you do but I don't. I hate the way they tell a story, I don't like the art style and I find all the characters in them unlikable. If you like them then great but don't say my entire opinion on the thing is based on Ignorance.

 

[GigaHz]

Hatred for many of the modern JRPGs with poor flat cliche characters, EXTREMELY linear game play (corridor random battles), an auto-battle button (seriously?), and the fact that we cannot micro every single character I can understand...

...but how can anyone hate Final Fantasy VI and Chrono Trigger?

This.

I haven't seriously considered a JRPG since the playstation era for many of these reasons. I've played a good chunk of them too: Lunar, FF series, Legend of Dragoon, Persona, Grandia, Star Ocean, Xenogears and probably a few more I can't think of at the moment.

While a lot of these games were good, they all felt very similar to each other. While I gave some JRPGs on PS2 a shot (my favourite being FF12), I felt as if many of the games did not grow out of the cliches that originally turned me off. In certain instances (*cough* FF13 *cough*) these cliches have been upscaled to obnoxious levels. To this day, it seems as if JRPGs on the whole have stagnated.

It has lost most, if not all of its appeal for me.

 

[StriderShinryu]

I dunno, sure it's not always the case but I've often seen games like those by Bioware or Bethesda categorized as CRPGs or SRPGs. I also don't see that much hatred. Boredom, maybe, but not hatred. And the boredom doesn't come from them being bad, it comes from them being, often, so similar to eachother in terms of characters and story beats. It really does feel at times that once you've played one JRPG you've played them all.. and this is coming from someone who used to play almost nothing but fighting games and RPGs all the way up through the end of the PS2 generation.

 

[Nieroshai]

For me, I like JRPGs, but compared to games like Skyrim they pale in comparison unless you judge them as interactive movies. I think if you can play a game with one hand, you aren't engaged enough in the actual gameplay. If I could get JRPG storytelling and cinematics with WRPG gameplay, I would never see the light of day again.

 

[MisterShine]

Common (ranging from slight majority to nigh ubiquitous) tropes/features found in RPG's made by Japanese companies, which could put off players:

1. Slow paced 'first act' in the game

2. Main character(s) without any redeeming qualities

3. Lack of innovation on turn based battle system, originating from the 80's

4. Poor quality voice acting

5. Poor quality translating, basically a translation that sticks close to the Japanese as it was said, making the dialog awkward.

6. Lack of actually choosing what role you play, either gameplay wise or story. Rare is a jRPG that lets you decide how the characters actually play, and rarer still is the jRPG that lets you choose a protagonist's actions, even if those choices have little to no consequence. That's a big part of the reason why many people play wRPG's, which do those far more often that not.

7. Anime/Japanese visual styles just turn some people off


Granted, several of these are often done deliberately, but I'm sure its not too difficult to imagine why running into too many of these might cause some people to dismiss the "genre".

 

[FalloutJack]

People fear what they do not understand, or what they're no good at playing.

 

[AD-Stu]

I dunno, I've seen the term "Western RPG" bandied about pretty liberally and it's not uncommon for similar labelling to be found across a range of media (think Britpop, Skip-hop, French New Wave, whatever). So I wouldn't read too much into the fact that people identify them as JRPGs, it's not inherently negative or anything.

As for why people hate the genre... meh, it's just horses for courses. I love driving games, but I know they bore the tits off other people. As far as JRPGs go I wouldn't say I hate them per se, but they don't really do anything for me either. The one game that I plowed a major amount of time into (Final Fantasy VIII) had an insane, nonsensical plot, exactly zero likeable characters, and I still for the life of me can't understand why combat requires the good guys to line up on one side, the bad guys to line up on the other, and then everyone takes turns trying to hit each other. Life's too short and I've got no shortage of other genres and games that I actually enjoy.

 

[TehCookie]

Neither can I. I can understand why people dislike them, but I do not know why people call the genre shit because it's not to their taste. I despise all RTSes but I wouldn't call all of them shit, I'd say it's not my cup of tea. I wouldn't say Starcraft is a bad game because I personally hate it, I can still recognize it's a good game. It's just a good game made for a different audience. Why is it that non-JRPG fans flame the genre because it isn't made to appeal to them?

Besides it's hard to compare different genre to each other, I often hear how people don't like them because they're not like WRPGS. Well no shit sherlock, that letter in the front makes it an entirely different genre. Why should they aspire to be like WRPGs? I like them they way they are. If I wanted a WRPG I'd play a WRPG, what's wrong with having diversity?

 

[AyreonMaiden]

I like JRPGs a lot, for everything they are and all they're not. From Chrono Trigger to Radiant Historia to the Tales series. Love 'em.

But then, I'm not an RPG gamer. I don't play every last RPG on every side of the world, so while I know what the RPG cliches are, I'm not as affected because a) I'm easy to immerse in a story if I like the characters, no matter how often I've experienced it or how unoriginal it might be, and b) a cliche is only as annoying as the frequency with which you see it. I'm not always playing JRPGs, so I'm not always thinking about the cliches, and when I do, it's in a halfway endearing manner.

I'm currently adoring Tales of the Abyss, and that series is the Call of Duty of RPG series: Cliches galore.

 

[daveman247]

Because they seem to be stuck in a rut (WARNING massive generalisations incoming).

-Anime art style does not appeal. Im not talking about the more "realistic" (sort of) anime style. Thats ok but not common. But the "cutesy" anime style. You know, giant eyes, silly hair, big swords - etc. Why dont they ever try any other kind of art style? Something different like they did in Dark spire or something.

- turn based combat and random battles. I generally dislike turn based combat because it disconnects me from the battle. i dont like a random number determining if i succeed or not. Random battles just piss me off when i just want to get somewhere. even pokemon got a bit much when going through the caves...

-Text conversations. They did this back in the day because of lack of memory. Having to read reams of text now just has no exceuse.

- Lack of choice in how plot develops. Nowadays this has kind of become expected in RPG games. If i am to play a "role" in a plot i should have some say in it. Even old "flip to page 2" RPG books let you do this. It would be easy, with all the memory they saved on the 2D artstyle and lack of voice acting.

Theres other things too which are less concrete, japanese culture is just quite different to western, so its all a bit alien to me.

They should really start styling them in a more western vain. Some truly outstanding games have come out because of this, resident evil, vanquish, binary domain, yakuza, dead rising, lost planet, metal gear. (Different genres i know, but roll with it). But still have the *flavour* of their culture, just it appeals more to the average westerner (me).

 

[daveman247]

People fear what they do not understand, or what they're no good at playing.

come on man. Everyones allowed to dislike something without the defenders having to pull the "you just dont understand it" and "you just suck at it" card. Most here have posted perfectly logical reasons as to why they dont like them.

 

[Kahunaburger]

People who vocally dislike the entire JRPG genre have generally not played any JRPGs.

I have I just don't like them. Its fine if you do but I don't. I hate the way they tell a story, I don't like the art style and I find all the characters in them unlikable. If you like them then great but don't say my entire opinion on the thing is based on Ignorance.

That's like saying you don't like movies from Canada. There's enough variation in the genre that there's something you would probably like.

 

[BathorysGraveland]

Well I have never really played any, so I can't say from a gameplay perspective. That said, the Japanese video game art style(s) absolutely annoy the shit out of me. So that would be my reason for not getting into any of them. Might be a silly reason to some, but take it as you will.

 

[Eddie the head]

People who vocally dislike the entire JRPG genre have generally not played any JRPGs.

I have I just don't like them. Its fine if you do but I don't. I hate the way they tell a story, I don't like the art style and I find all the characters in them unlikable. If you like them then great but don't say my entire opinion on the thing is based on Ignorance.

That's like saying you don't like movies from Canada. There's enough variation in the genre that there's something you would probably like.

No it's not JRPG is a genre. It's like saying I don't like first person shooters. I like games made in Japan just not JRPG's. It is completely possible that some people don't like certain genres.

 

[Suicidejim]

Just like any genre, there's a lot of unoriginal and dull games in there, but there's also some games that I love. I'm currently playing through Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor 2 (one hell of a mouthful), for example, and loving every moment of it.

 

[Kahunaburger]

People who vocally dislike the entire JRPG genre have generally not played any JRPGs.

I have I just don't like them. Its fine if you do but I don't. I hate the way they tell a story, I don't like the art style and I find all the characters in them unlikable. If you like them then great but don't say my entire opinion on the thing is based on Ignorance.

That's like saying you don't like movies from Canada. There's enough variation in the genre that there's something you would probably like.

No it's not JRPG is a genre. It's like saying I don't like first person shooters. I like games made in Japan just not JRPG's. It is completely possible that some people don't like certain genres.

Genres are huge, and things are slotted into them mostly for marketing reasons. I'm not of the opinion that "I don't like literally every single thing in genre X" is something someone can reasonably base on their experience of things from that genre.