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

[mega48man]

snipitty

you've obviously never played an RPG from Japan in your entire life, have you? Most of what you said about RPGs from Japan is either outright false or a misleading half-truth.

By the way, you might want to play FFVII before ragging on it. I know you didn't play it since it met most of your criteria of story/ character goodness and you even got the beginning wrong (no, the game doesn't start with a history lesson. It starts with action). Cloud is not an "emo-fucktard" to begin the game. He's a bad ass, cocky, Soldier. In fact the only small section were he was depressed made complete sense with the storyline. Oh wait, you didn't even play it.

Even Star Wars had a very cryptic beginning that was impossible to understand until later in the movie. The text at the beginning was pure hogwash until the universe was understood.

Did you know that FF borrows a lot from Star Wars (egads!) as Sakaguchi is a huge Star Wars fan?

Anyway, I'm done feeding the troll. Just thought your pointless, lengthy rant was rather uneducated.

i had a debate project due today in gov class about how video games don't have bad influence on kids, i am soooo ready for your shit, BRING IT

1) i had this huge reply written out and acidently clicked on a bookmark and lost everything i typed, god dammit.

2) i've watched the cutscenes for both FF7 games through youtube and watched the FF7 CG movie. yeah, the movie starts off with a history lesson. the game starts off with a giant dragon that you never ever see later in the game, which makes no sense at all. that's anime for you. but yes storyline. yes, if i recall, FF crisis core is a story about cloud old war buddy from back when cloud was a cocky bad ass, the events following the end of that horrible game plus aeris/aerith/ w/e the fuck it is killed friggin owned by the dude in the big black cloak witht he long skinny sword is what made him an emo.

3) YOU GOT LOST WATCHING STAR WARS??? HOW? the good guys get attacked by bad guys while running away, the bad guys want something back that the good guys stole, leia gives the stolen thing to 2 droids (R2-D2 and C-3PO), and those droids escape undetected to the planet where leia thinks the one person that can save them lives. make sense?
if you actually read what i said, i mentioned the hero's journey. in the hero's journey, there are group of characters called the chorus. the chorus, a concept invented way back in greece, are the characters that tell the audience what just happened so they don't get lost. R2-D2 and C-3PO are the chorus of star wars. haven't you notice that C-3PO always repeats what R2-D2 tells him? he's also that redundant when talking to the other characters!

4) enough about FF7 and Star wars, were here to talk about why people have issues with JRPG's, and here's the problem i have: animetards. they make the genre too exclusive because normal people don't feel comfortable with being associated with animetards, it would make them look bad in society. this is why i avoid anime altogether b/c the animetards at school REALLY stand out, and they all look weird and act weird. if you were to ask any one normal kid at my school which kids were in the anime clique, they could point out each one in under 20 seconds (because they always hang around together. they have no other friends, who are they supposed to talk to about anime?)
by animetards, i don't mean people who watch anime, i'm clearly mean the people who really stand out b/c of anime. i'm talking about the kidnd who don't do anything on their weekends except set up camp in the manga section at borders instead of doing something social like go to the mall or to see a movie like everyone else does.

5) last comment. found this chart here http://www.vgchartz.com/ always good to cite your sources in a debate.

American Top 10, 09th Jan 2010
1 wii New Super Mario Bros. Wii 193,822
2 360 Darksiders 185,369
3 wii Wii Sports 160,850
4 wii Wii Fit Plus 133,357
5 wii Wii Sports Resort 126,222
6 ps3 Darksiders 120,730
7 360 Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 99,276
8 360 Bayonetta 90,112
9 ps3 Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 59,800
10 360 Left 4 Dead 2 54,635

see any JRPGs in there? i don't. EMO'S DON'T SELL

PEACE SELLS.... BUT WHO'S BUYING?

 

[archvile93]

I dislike them for their Turn Based combt, while that's not all RPGs, It's most of them.

Why don't you dislike turn-based combat in an RPG?

This is what I don't understand about the JRPG hate, people who think turn-based combat is bad for RPGs.

It's boring. I know I jumped on a bt late.

 

[WhiteRat07]

I have an amazing game by Square that is the exception to all those rules, do you want to know what it is?

Are You Sure?

Okay, get ready!

Spoiler

Mans right its a JRPG and its one of the best damn games ever.

 

[Uberjoe19]

I simply don't like the style.

And I played a very nerdy RPG online that was all text.

http://improbableisland.com/

 

[blindthrall]

Fanboy thread. It's a cultural thing. Asians make JRPGs for other Asians, so it's only natural most of the west don't like them. I do think a lot of their popularity comes from weeabos playing them only because they come from Japan. And do you know what choice JRPGs lack? Character customization. I don't want to play just to hear some Pavlovian bell ding when I've slain enough wereferrets. I want to see if you can make a viable mage in heavy plate mail, or a backstabber without stealth. Classes are to be bent without breaking the game, otherwise playing a vanilla class gets far too easy.

EDIT: I don't immediately hate asian entertainment. Some anime is pretty damn good, and Kurosawa and some other Korean directors are awesome.

 

[Thaius]

The fact is, most arguments against JRPGs come down to either a dislike for turn-based combat (which is fine, though I gave it a chance a few years ago and eventually appreciated the strategic elements of it) or a complete lack of understanding of Japanese culture. The other argument I hear is that they're too linear, but that's just stupid. The fact is, linearity allows for a better story. The more control is surrendered to the player, the less authority the creator has to craft a truly good story.

The stories in JRPGs are amazing. The only slightly valid complaint I've ever heard about them is cheezy dialogue, but that really isn't as valid as people seem to think. For one, it always ends up worse when it's localized. English translations usually make it worse, and beyond that the English voice actors usually try to hard to sound like the original Japanese voices. And the fact is, trying to say English lines in the same way someone else spoke in Japanese just doesn't sound good.

Beyond that, cheeziness and cliche-ridden dialogue is commonplace in Japanese storytelling. They love for a character to go off on an anecdote about hope, or give an emotional monologue about destiny. They have some deep themes in their stories, and they like exploring them more blatantly than the rest of us are used to. In fact, American storytelling explores the exact same "cliche" themes, just in a more subtle way. In other words, they have different cultural values in storytelling. And that's all there is to it. It's not bad, it's simply different from how we are used to stories being told. And if you can't appreciate that, that's fine: but don't sit there trying to convince those of us who can that we're wrong.

 

[Axolotl]

It's boring. I know I jumped on a bt late.

But it isn't boring. Maybe for people with severe ADD but for people who can be focused for more than ten seconds turn-based combat has alot of advantages over real time in an RPG.

 

[blindthrall]

Character customization. I want to see if you can make a viable mage in heavy plate mail, or a backstabber without stealth. Classes are to be bent without breaking the game, otherwise playing a vanilla class gets far too easy.

Play FF: Tactics or FFV. In both of those you can make a magic wielding, heavy armor wearing character, if you so choose. Though why you'd want that in any game (inclusing those from the west) seems silly. Sure, a mage in Heavy armor can be better protected, but at the cost of MP and/or magic power, rendering the magic mostly useless. But hey, who am I to tell you how to play a game.

Just an example of customization. JRPGs limit what kind of character you can make along preset paths, probably so people can't make "mistakes". A game like Arcanum, where I could be an robot inventor with a pyrotechnic longbow or a herbalist that's only viable by slowly maxing all stats and only using introductory spells, doesn't exist for JRPGs.

 

[NeutralDrow]

I'm just gonna chip in my 2 cents here and say that the 'Tales of' series is my favorite of all games. With Symphonia being my favorite game of all time.

Nowadays everthing in a game is gonna have some cliches but it's how you work with and around them that counts and the Tales series has always had well-told and interesting story with really, really good characters. Plus the combat is addicting when you're stringing together combos against the enemy of the moment.

Did you play the Symponia sequel? I was wondering if its worth my time.

I've seen many different opinions on that game. On the changes to the character system, the monster befriending, the much shorter length, the fact that the ToS regulars aren't gods already and don't level up to be, etc.

Me? I loved it.

Emil and Marta's relationship is very well done. It spans essentially the entire game, from the initial rocky start of Marta basically fangirling over Emil and Emil at a genuine loss for why (unlike a lot of JRPG protagonists *coughLloydcough*, he's perfectly aware of her feelings, so that's a point for him), to both characters' eventual maturation...to say nothing of the interesting love triangle. Emil's development from a wimp even Shinji Ikari would kick sand at to someone with at least a modicum of self-confidence is also good. The original Tales characters (minus Kratos, who only appears in an easter egg scene) reprise their roles well, save that some of them have new voice actors (who admittedly don't quite measure up to the originals). The plot is shorter, but far more twisty than the original Symphonia, and the main villain far overshadows the original one. The combat system borrows some of the best elements of both Symphonia and Abyss, including a more effective (to me) free-running system. The crafting and sidequests (all but one) are easy to get used to. And the monsters at least can be gotten used to, even if you don't delve that far into it.

All just me, of course.

 

[mega48man]

2) i've watched the cutscenes for both FF7 games through youtube and watched the FF7 CG movie. yeah, the movie starts off with a history lesson. the game starts off with a giant dragon that you never ever see later in the game, which makes no sense at all.

3) YOU GOT LOST WATCHING STAR WARS???

5) last comment. found this chart here http://www.vgchartz.com/ always good to cite your sources in a debate.

American Top 10, 09th Jan 2010
1 wii New Super Mario Bros. Wii 193,822
2 360 Darksiders 185,369
3 wii Wii Sports 160,850
4 wii Wii Fit Plus 133,357
5 wii Wii Sports Resort 126,222
6 ps3 Darksiders 120,730
7 360 Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 99,276
8 360 Bayonetta 90,112
9 ps3 Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 59,800
10 360 Left 4 Dead 2 54,635

see any JRPGs in there? PEACE SELLS.... BUT WHO'S BUYING?

2) Play the game. It doesn't start with a big dragon. Argument = ingnorant and invalid.
Protip: It starts with a mission to blow up a reactor...

3) Nope. but as you stated in your original post, complaining that at the beginning of FFXII for example the year was meaningless as it had no context. The beginning of Star Wars and the Trade Federation has no context either and is hogwash until you've watched the movie. Stories in RPGs from the East are much the same.

5) Okay, that's just stupid. How many RPGs from the East are out currently? We are awaiting FFXIII (out in March). I think White Knight Chronicles and Star Ocean 4: International will come out soon. But as of right now, there's none on the charts because there's no new ones on the shelf. (Rolls eyes)

And no, I'm not "emo". I'm too old for that shit. I have a wife and a baby on the way.
Now begone troll and return to youtube from whence you came.

(i am so gonna f**king rip into you for saying that i'm trolling)
no, i'm not gonna play the game, i'm gonna buy the stimulus map package instead. a friend of mine has FFXIII and i watched the zero punctuation for it and they both said it's BOOORIIING. F******K.

why are you talking about episode 1? that wasn't good at all! i'm talking about the first three! those were the best, i think george lucas might of suffered from script retardation when he made episode 1 and 2.

well, FFXIII is out now, let's see if you were right...

Worldwide Top 10, 10th Apr 2010
1 Pokémon Heart Gold / Soul Si... 343,803
2 Wii Sports 241,705
3 Wii Fit Plus 203,538
4 New Super Mario Bros. Wii 189,293
5 Just Dance 155,365
6 God of War III 151,884
7 Wii Sports Resort 147,015
8 360 Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 103,151
9 360 Battlefield: Bad Company 2 91,387
10 PS3 Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 82,622

now just america

American Top 10, 10th Apr 2010
1 Pokémon Heart Gold / Soul Si... 143,428
2 Wii Sports 141,294
3 Wii Fit Plus 112,005
4 New Super Mario Bros. Wii 99,234
5 God of War III 95,325
6 360 Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 72,915
7 Wii Sports Resort 64,272
8 360 Assassin's Creed II 56,054
9 wii Just Dance 55,849
10 PS3 Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 53,732

how about japan?

Japanese Top 10, 11th Apr 2010
1 New Super Mario Bros. Wii 37,846
2 Fist of the North Star 32,147
3 Pro Yakyuu Spirits 2010 31,286
4 Pro Yakyuu Spirits 2010 31,135
5 Tomodachi Collection 22,369
6 Pokémon Ranger: Hikari no Ki... 21,688
7 Etrian Odyssey III 18,877
8 Yakuza 4 17,573
9 Wii Fit Plus 15,472
10 PSP Monster Hunter Freedom Unite 11,526

i heard monster hunter was really good. but still no FFXIII. lets try europe (or others)

Others Top 10, 10th Apr 2010
1 Pokémon Heart Gold / Soul Si... 196,369
2 Just Dance 99,516
3 Wii Sports 98,151
4 Wii Fit Plus 76,061
5 Wii Sports Resort 75,866
6 New Super Mario Bros. Wii 52,213
7 God of War III 51,036
8 360 Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 38,633
9 360 Battlefield: Bad Company 2 37,306
10 Mario Kart Wii 36,020

DAMN there are a lot action games out there! i'm just surprised that Wii is selling out so well when there games are shit compared to such holy grails like MW2 or god of war 3....or half-life (by the way, get your child on the way those games. maybe not GoW3 though)

also, i don't recall calling you emo, but thanks for reminding me to chew out any animetards who are reading this and are ready to start a flame war they'll loose. you're not one, obviously.

listen, the point is mainstream america isn't into 5 hour character development of characters who are completely unrelatable or poor combat interfaces that make you wanna kill your face. now if these games had characters that were relatable, better combat, cooler action, and bigger tits, i think the could make a TON of money.

 

[LPHotspur]

It's boring. I know I jumped on a bt late.

But it isn't boring. Maybe for people with severe ADD but for people who can be focused for more than ten seconds turn-based combat has alot of advantages over real time in an RPG.

It's funny how you insult people with ADD when it actually takes MORE ATTENTION to master a real time battle system. When things are happening in real time, there are more things going on at once. There's a reason why Star Ocean games are generally 10x harder than Final Fantasy games. You have to manage multiple things at once. You have to react quick and adapt quick. You can't always just sit there during your turn. If you don't make your decision quickly enough, your enemy will for you. Seriously though. What are the advantages? I'm not saying there aren't any but what are they? Slower fights? Longer fights? Less exciting fights? Less strategic fights?

 

[Captain Pirate]

I just don't like the art style in most JRPGs. While I respect it being good, it's just not my thing.
I also don't like the combat style of most JRPGs, too cheesy for me.
I also don't like the way they claim to be an RPG, yet it's just one set story. Not an RPG, more like a.... well, fuck knows. Depends on the combat/game mechanics.
Even with the lack of choices, it's still as much a Role-Playing Game as Call of Duty. You play a role, just a different one.

Funny actually, that RPG has become known as something with lots of choices and a make-your-own-character function.
Surely every game in it's own right is an RPG...

 

[Bobbovski]

I don't dislike JRPGs... I just haven't played any because I have a hard time finding JRPGs that sound interesting... Plus 90% of them are for consoles wich is a huge turn off for me since I'm a PC player 99.9% of the time.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Random necromancy!
Months after the topic is dead!

Ahh. I see.

 

[Dexiro]

I dislike JRPGS and the term RPG being included in the title, Roleplay =/= stats

I'm pretty sure the term RPG comes from stat heavy board games like D&D. RPG is used to label games with similar stat systems rather than just games where you actually roleplay.