At one point I was determined to try and play through all the "great" jrpg's I'd missed over the years. It started out well: Chrono Trigger really is an excellent little game and in that same vein so is Final Fantasy 6. Final Fantasy 7 was also pretty good although I don't think I'll ever quite understand all the adoration it gets.
Things went downhill from there however. I'm sorry, but Final Fantasy 8 was horrible. The plot was both somehow over-dramatic to the point of being silly and completely incompetent at the same time. For example there's this grand dramatic battle to assassinate some witch involving all sorts of zany situations not limited to a stereotypical hesitant sniper and a run-in with your old 'school' rival who predictably had decided to join the enemy or whatever. Long story short the main character dies... but he doesn't, instead he's just hurt in a hospital after having been stabbed through the heart or somesuch. The consequences for your actions are almost nil and frankly it stunk of poor storytelling... and really, teenage combat school? The premise of the game was silly to start with, but that was the turning point where I tossed the game aside.
Similarly every attempt to play a jrpg since then has resulted in utter failure.
Methinks they're just not for me. Then again I'm not a fan of anime in general either so that's likely the source of the problem right there. As graphics enhance and storytelling 'improves', and I use that word lightly, it becomes harder and harder to escape from the anime roots and stories of these games. With FF6 just enough was left vague; the visuals stylish but not overtly anime, the story simple but enjoyable in a fairy-tale sort of way that really the player could fill in the blanks for themselves and enjoy the experience all the more for it. Same with Chrono Trigger and even FF7 to some extent. The dialogue is simplistic at best and the plot full of holes, but there was just enough wiggle-room left that the player could again fill in the blanks for themselves in order to enjoy the experience.
Not so with newer games. You receive the *exact* experience the developers want you to get and frankly, I'm just not compatible with those. And so jrpg's in general are just not to my liking at all, not the new ones at least.
And for all two people who read all that, my congratulations.
