These forums have some serious issues with JRPGs. And it's time to address them.

[Kurokami]

JRPGs..............I'd rather play Morrowind, Fallout 1, Fallout 2, System Shock 2, Baldurs Gate 2, Dragon Age, Neverwinter Nights etc. Much better and more creative than the drivel stories with drivel gameplay that come from JRPGs.

For example: Dragon Quest 8. The naughty and evil jester done some very naughty things in the happy town of spikey haired people land, and turned the jolly king into a frog thing. What a naughty boy. LETS CHASE HIM AND MURDER HIM! The game consists of you running ten steps, fighting in turn based battles, then running five steps, fighting a turn based battle, repeating this through a dungeon which is probably a magical airship/robot dinosaur party then fighting a water/fire/zombie/random mish mash of creatures boss battle with 2000000000 health which kills you and means you have to go and grind for 200 hours and trying again.

Weaboos.....

Weaboos, sounds like a cry baby, which far better represents you.

I too prefer my western RPGs, but I don't feel the need to place myself on one side of a line that says anything that crosses it is stupid. I don't think gamers need to cut down the amount of games that meet their standards with the shit coming out, I'll settle for just good, not good and I'm gonna be a twat about it.

(I hate it when people generalize negatively, so don't take it personally)

 

[Gladion]

I dislike most JRPGs but like a lot, too - there are so fuckin many of them out, there has to be something you like. Pokemon is the first thing coming to your mind. I also like Shadow Hearts for having actually male characters without vaginas but still are believable. But I never liked Final Fantasy games. I liked FF4 and FF12 was okay, but other than that? Most characters were just far too annoying - especially Cloud made me turn off FF7 before having reached the second disc.
But I agree too many people equal JRPGs with Square Enix' games.

 

[Jing the Bandit]

I like a good JRPG, which is, in my opinion, most of them. This may or may not be because I am a MASSIVE OTAKU. But that's not the point. That being said, I hate the newer Final Fantasies because they aren't Final Fantasies III or IV and they've gone slowly from 'Fantasy' to 'Steampunk' and then to all-out Science-Fiction in some aspects. But luckily, shooting fireballs at goblins will never be scientifically explained.
Then again, the whole 'Airship' idea that started in earlier games kind of kills my argument.

 

[Guitarmasterx7]

I think all turn based RPGs suck, and contributing to the story in some way is very important for a ROLE PLAYING game. This immediately kills about 90% of JRPGs in existence.

I have never once played a JRPG with a story that I liked, because let's just face it, Japanese writing is often MUCH different from writing in the rest of the world. If you don't like that style of writing (which I don't,) you won't like JRPG stories. Most of them are unoriginal even in that standard and fall victim to lame cliche anime-esque plotlines.

I see now that JRPGs are moving away from turn based combat, and have taken one step up to shitty combat. Most of the time dodging is impossible, attacking is basically (button)to do your basic attack, and if you want to do anything else you have to open up a menu and select it. Really not much more interactive than its turn based predocessors (see .hack and tales of vesperia) As of now, the only one I've played with gameplay that I could not only tolerate, but actually liked was kingdom hearts.

As I'm obviously not a connoisseur of JRPGs I couldn't give you a complete overview of the genre as a whole, but I can tell you that from what I've seen, none of theme could be considered as "good" by me.

 

[thenoblitt]

They are from japan, hence the j
jrpgs arnt turn based by definition

So jRPGs are any and all games with RPG elements that are from Japan? You're saying that games like Septerra Core and Anachronox aren't jRPGs, while games like Demon's Souls are?

That's it, from now on I'm hating jRPGs out of principle.

Actually yes that is exactly what I'm saying, those games are good examples of games taking from other cultures, rather than just making things that that their country is used to making. If there is a problem Yatzee once used a more correct term for the games he hates as animeRPG. I think its time that a distinction can be made.

you win just because you actually know what septerra core is

 

[mega48man]

i do not dislike JRPG in fact KH is one of my favorite games. But i think that the fact they use RPG to describe these titles seem wrong, its not like you have much choice or anything i mean in every western game that proclaims itself an rpg as you level you can choose what abilities you are using maybe even a starting class and while there are different forms of RPGs i find that calling them JRPGs simply cause they may contain 1 or 2 things that makes a game an rpg does not count as an rpg.

they're called JRPG's b/c they come from japan and they have RPG elements. yes, a ton of Final Fantasy games lack some key RPG elements, like classes, in game speech options (like in fallout 3), etc. seriously, japan doesn't know a good RPG protagonist if one was talkin to them. in every JRPG, let alone every Japanese game, the main character is some push-over emo kid with little or no plot involvment.

 

[ffxfriek]

Final Fantasy and Chrono Cross/Trigger = awesome

 

[Giest118]

The argument that JRPGs are "not RPGs" is one held by elitists whose only ambition in life is to try sounding clever.

Guess what? It's not clever. It's not observant. It's not the remotest bit intelligent. It demonstrates that you deliberately miss one of the fundamentals of how and why humans communicate the way they do. It demonstrates that you don't think JRPGs even HAVE a genre to define them, which is monumentally stupid.

Also? It demonstrates that you hate happiness and love.

 

[CmdrGoob]

JRPGs are, in general, awful.

My main problems with the genre:

1) The writing. It's so often so unsubtle, long winded, preachy and cliched. The biggest problem is how unsubtle all the writing is, it makes everything else worse. For example, they'll try to have a reluctant/uncertain hero but go so overboard they'll make him a complete emo git. When they have a cute female character, they make them nauseatingly saccharine. When they want to show emotion, they write melodrama. If they want to get a plot point across, they'll write a terribly long winded exposition. If they want to make a moral point, be prepared for long winded preachy dialogue. The poor quality unsubtle writing makes every cliche 100% more aggravating and noticable than usual.

2) The lack of interactivity. It just gets so boring sitting there for so many overly long cutscenes and dialogues in which you have absolutely no input and no interaction. Gaming is an interactive medium. If I wanted to watch a movie, I'd watch a damn movie, and I certainly wouldn't watch a 30+ hour movie as poorly written as the average JRPG.

3) Grinding. Enough said.

4) Combat. There are many JRPG combat systems, and this is probably the least bad area, but still far to often the combat uses far to many bloody menus. Picking things out of menus does not make for compelling gameplay.

Edit: Bonus extra! Character design can sometimes be so horrible in JRPGs. Oh god why would you make a character look like a ridiculous twit before a word even comes out of their mouth? Vaan, Tidus, I'm looking in your directions.

 

[TK421]

Every JRPG I have ever played/seen has at least one ridiculously long cutscene that is right in the middle of the game. This should not be. If there is a lengthy cutscene, it should be at the beginning or the end.

 

[Bad Cluster]

Every JRPG I have ever played/seen has at least one ridiculously long cutscene that is right in the middle of the game. This should not be. If there is a lengthy cutscene, it should be at the beginning or the end.

Huh?
Why?
Elaborate please, because I'm totally confused.

 

[Bofore13]

I blame Bioware for popularizing this idea. WRPGs didn't always have moral choice. They used to be purely about leveling and stats.

Purely leveling and stats aren't what an RPG is.

See Diablo.

See Gothic

Like you said earlier a Tony Hawks game apparently had "RPG elements" but I don't think either of us would call it an RPG. Like that Tony Hawks game Diablo had RPG elements but like games such as Dungeon Runners it now has its own "Hack and Slash" genre.

Games didn't have much of anything until the late 90's.
I gave up on the genre after playing Final fantasy 5-12 I just can't stand that series ever since 92' and besides japan has not done so well in the video game industry compared to america for a while, sure Tales of Vesperia was surely a game to be observed but the genre as a whole is outdated, turn based games have been surpassed by Real time, and stories of other genres ave evolved to a point that are more compelling than a mix of old yeller and titanic, and the characters are not only able to be loved but also hated, but are also clearly defined as one gender over the other, unless they don't want it that way. And the choices that you make are as subtle as one phrase over another. I hereby refer you to Dragon Age: Origins for that one. The rest of the game will be determined by what is said in any given duologue. and character progression is an important part of role playing.

 

[TK421]

Every JRPG I have ever played/seen has at least one ridiculously long cutscene that is right in the middle of the game. This should not be. If there is a lengthy cutscene, it should be at the beginning or the end.

Huh?
Why?
Elaborate please, because I'm totally confused.

Really long cutscenes should never be needed to explain something in the middle of a game. This should be done at the beginning or the end, or through short cutscenes and/or gameplay.

 

[Double A]

"They also tend to have FANTASTIC soundtracks."

That's just about the only good part of them. But I could always just go to youtube. No need to suffer through a 3 hour boss fight just for some good music.

 

[Bad Cluster]

Every JRPG I have ever played/seen has at least one ridiculously long cutscene that is right in the middle of the game. This should not be. If there is a lengthy cutscene, it should be at the beginning or the end.

Huh?
Why?
Elaborate please, because I'm totally confused.

Really long cutscenes should never be needed to explain something in the middle of a game. This should be done at the beginning or the end, or through short cutscenes and/or gameplay.

How about showing the player something which cannot be done with the game engine as effectively? For example, change of surroundings or introduction of new characters, or some large scale action sequences.
You can't make a rule or generalize based on a few bad examples, like cutscenes showing something which was shown or was done in game many times prior to it, for no apparent reason, interrupting the gameplay flow.

In short, if its done right, why not?

 

[TK421]

or some large scale action sequences.

The exception.

 

[xXxTheBeastxXx]

Bear with me. This is going to be long and, in all likelihood, analytical. However, it is majorly unbiased, so I encourage you to read.

In general, I have no great love for JRPG's. This isn't to say that I have any great hatred for them, either. On the contrary, I've found several that have been more than enjoyable for me (Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy 4/6/8/10, Kingdom Hearts I/II, The World Ends With You, Drakengard [what a great ad for square], and essentially the entire Tales series of games). I am also a huge fan of Western RPG's, too (Baldur's Gate, the Fallout series, Elder Scrolls, Dragon Age, etc.). They all have their fair share of blessings and their fair share of faults. Linear Gameplay vs. customization is really the major line between them. JRPG's have a totally linear story (aside from the ever-popular side quest, but those don't really count, since eventually you're drawn back to that one dungeon/city/tower) while WRPG's possess a more open-ended world, allowing for much more exploration and depth concerning the world itself (which, unfortunately, can lead to an absence of side quests and deep story elements. I'm looking at you, Dragon Age).

One poster used the term "Rail Playing Game." While I don't like the nasty things this term insinuates, as the rail shooter is, usually, something laughed at, it's a rather accurate way to describe them. I'm mainly a tabletop RPG player, so that's where I get my ideas as to what constitutes a Role Playing Game, and JRPG's are not. I don't play a JRPG for an innovative gaming experience or D&D-esque character building. I play it to find out what's going to happen next in the story. It's like reading a book or watching a movie, only with a little more interactivity.

WRPG's are what I play when I want to define a character, when I want to explore the world. I'm primarily a GM (game master) when I tabletop game (I'm D&D turned Pathfinder, for anyone who cares), so I don't ever really get the chance to sit in the character's position. I'm usually the story-teller, so a game like Baldur's Gate or Dragon Age that allows me to put myself in the driver's seat (for the players really are the drivers in a tabletop game, as much as over-zealous GMs might disagree) and allows me to make the choices. It allows me the illusion of control over the game. And that's all I really ask is the illusion of control.

The only JRPG that ever gave me that illusion of control was Golden Sun. It might be said that you never really made any decisions. But Isaac, as a truly silent protagonist, really thought whatever you wanted him to think. His motivations for the quest at hand were your motivations, even if the quest itself was just part of the linear storyline. For this reason and the fact that it was able to pull off a truly epic and immersive story at the same time, I might say that Golden Sun was one of the greatest, if not the greatest JRPG I've ever played. This, I think, is one of the reasons people despise JRPG's so. They want that illusion of control that even a silent protagonist provides. However, in the majority of JRPGs, you don't get that illusion. Your main character has dialogue, and through that dialogue, their motivations are made clear and quite separate from your own. Even if they're the same, they're not yours. (Note: It might be said that Chrono Trigger also has this "silent protagonist" syndrome. However, I didn't nearly have as much fun/of an immersive experience with that game)

Moving onto this "hate" that people have for JRPG's. There are several people who don't like turn-based combat, plenty who don't like the stories, plenty who hate it for androgynous characters, plenty who hate it for any number of game-based reasons. However, I believe that the majority of hate that JRPG's get is based on one reason: the Otaku culture.

There are plenty who despise this culture. I feel a certain amount of "racism" toward it, myself. They cannot stand the immature "aura" that groups of Otaku quite often emit. And before you bash me for that statement, I did use the qualifier "often." While that may sound like a cop-out, it's really not. It was put best in Men in Black: "A person is smart. But people are dumb, panicky animals and you know it." The same applies to Otaku. I'm sure that any one member of a group is very mature on their own. However, in the group, the group mind does take over, and in my experience(which is considerable), discussions in a group of Otaku are not about deep, powerful issues so much as they're about what Phoenix Wright's attacks would be if he were in Brawl.

Back to the main issue (I ramble), this general hatred of the Otaku culture causes a hatred of anything related to it. Someone who has met particularly obnoxious Otakus will, most likely, begin avoiding anything to do with it. They'll shun anime like the plague, manga like it's cancer, and the JRPG like it's AIDS. Thus, we get the "haters" that can't back up their arguments with anything other than what Yahtzee says (sorry to Yahtzee, but it's true) simply because they haven't played them and will never play them due to their bad experience with Otaku culture.

I've got more concerning Otaku culture. But it doesn't really belong in this thread. Maybe I'll make my own for it. I wrote a 15 page essay for my Comp 102 class on the hatred and flak that D&D and its players got in the 80's and 90's. Otakus, in recent years, have been kind of getting the same sort of rep (minus the demon-worshipping bit).

Thanks for sticking with me. Hopefully I wasn't too offensive to anyone.

 

[DracoSuave]

I personally find it halarious when a company complains that Japanese roleplaying games never embrace innovation while they steal one of the best mechanics from a recent JRPG hit (the Gambit system), change the name (Tactics), and stick it in their own game.

I'M LOOKING AT YOU BIOWARE

Seriously tho.

jRPG?

Demon Souls is somehow the same type of game as Final Fantasy? Somehow both are Valkyria Chronicles? Or Suikoden?

Sorry. They're all different. To claim that 'jRPGs have such and such an element' as some manner of consistancy is false.

Look at Dragon Quest, probably the best example of consistancy across an entire series. Really, you're playing the same turn based RPG, with very minor changes in the system between them. And yet, have you ever played an old school wRPG? Like Ultima, or Wasteland? You'd find that there is much in common, the exception being that Dragon Quest has a streamlined control set for consoles.

But if you then took that, and set it beside Final Fantasy, you'd find the series had some things in common in 1 and 3, but 2 and 4 on completely diverged from it. Final Fantasy games have a formula... kinda of... but really, they're all different. Most people who claim they're all the same, however, picked up 7, then later on picked up 7 again, and went 'Wow, all jRPGs must be the same.' Seriously.

Then, of course, you get to games like Valkyria Chronicles. jRPGs are menu heavy, you say? Where's all them menus? Of course, it's 'turn based' in the same sense that X-Com was turn based. Hey... remember X-Com? -That- game's tactical battle system is FAR closer to ValChron than anything you'll find described here.

And that's without pulling out the wierd ones, like Earthbound (one of the first games-as-art games around).

And wRPGs have an open story now?

You know, I must have missed the part where I could change the outcome of Oblivion... it seemed to me that no matter how many guilds I went through, or how many arena battles I won, or how many children I saved from zombies... that not a damn thing changed the predestined quest of entering Oblivion a million times, closing portals, and eventually being -allowed to sit and watch- some supporting character finish the big bad for me.

Please, do not confuse 'open story' with 'allowed to piss away hours of gametime doing crap that doesn't actually do anything other than be crap you can do on the side.'

There's very few games which give you a measure of choice in that regard on -either- shore.


And Turn Based is somehow bad?

Funny, some of us LIKE to sit down and play a game that isn't to test our reflexes, but a more methodical strategic mind. Some of us want to play a game with one hand on the controller, and the other on our cigarette/beer/energy drink.