Ha, really don't like most turned base combat RPGs, Japanese or western. I liked the desgia(sp?) series because of the turned base strategy, as apposed to turned based combat. I don't care about the characters, I just wish RPGs could choose something could try something different with combat.
I've become dissatisfied by most modern JRPGs they seem to be very formulaic and I just can't get any enjoyment out of a game that suddenly decides you die now no matter how much buttock you were prodding for the rest of the game.
The average story of a JRPG is just that, average.
Blue dragon was awful boring nonsense grinding your way through shit, literally.
Enchanted arms was fun until I came to a point where the only way I would have levelled up high enough to defeat the boss thingy I was fighting would be if I went back to the beginning to grind all the way back.
Lost odyssey was just tedious and the characterisation made me want to stab all of them in the nads.
I've since given up even bothering with them for this generation.
Maybe I just chose the wrong one, but I went with Last Remnant. That game was positively atrocious. I enjoyed the combat system but when outnumbered it quickly became spam high powered attacks and healing.
On the contrary, RPGs are supposed to be about role playing. Calling a level up system an ''RPG element'' is ignorance. Common ignorance, but ignorance none the less.
"Several varieties of RPG exist in electronic media, including text-based MUDs and their graphics-based successors, massively multiplayer online role-playing games. The term is also used to describe role-playing video games using character progression mechanics first developed in pen-and-paper RPGs, though these games do not involve role-playing in the term's original sense."
Taken from Wikipedia article "Role Playing game". Yes, that statement is sourced. Quadruple.
Sorry, sourcing Wikipedia is like sourcing the Daily Mail. The term role-play has been bastardised far beyond it's original interpretation (The PLAYing of a ROLE) and now includes statistics and other such stuff.
Why do you think MMOs are not MMORPGs anymore? RP means to explore the characters motivation over a series of free choices; not step forward, random encounter, level up, rinse and repeat.
JRPGS are railplay rather than roleplay on the whole, and I like them for that. Diablo/Torchlight is equally a railplaying game.
[HEADING=1]Stop the blind hatred.[/HEADING]
[HEADING=3]Some poster in every JRPG thread: "lol, JRPGs. They suck."[/HEADING] ^They will likely show up in this topic before long.^
Look, I'm not going to try and convert you, as I don't really want to. I just want to stop the ignorant bashing of a genre. JRPGs have slipped into decline in the past years, and I've given up on most of them. BUT THAT DOESN'T MEAN THEY ARE ALL THE SAME. Like any genre, it has it's good games and it's bad games. You can't dismiss a whole genre just because you played a few Final Fantasy games and hated them. Or because you played a few Dragon Quest/Dragon Warrior games and hated them.
Do you hate all FPS games because you don't like Halo/Call of Duty (which are supposed to represent the most popular of their genre, as Final Fantasy is supposed to represent the most popular of JRPGs)? Probably not. It's about the game, not the genre.
1. Female looking men:
That's only mostly in Square Enix games. I'm sick of people thinking that all JRPGs are Square Enix games.
2. Turn based combat:
In recent years, JRPGs have tried to get away from that, but as an example of how to make turn based combat feel fast-paced, see Grandia...Where you and the enemy can cancel each other's turns by disrupting one another, and different moves took longer to execute, plus you had to move to the enemy to attack (the game automatically moves you towards your target).
Examples of major releases that aren't turn based: Eternal Sonata (you control directly when turn comes up), Star Ocean: The Last Hope, Infinite Undiscovery, Tales of Vesperia, Tales of Symphonia 2, V Chronicles (you control directly when turn comes up), The World Ends With You, Kingdom Hearts 39539854321865916901/21851985 days, Final Fantasy 12, FF12: Revanent Wings, Blue Dragon Plus
Examples of turn based combat in recent years from big name releases: Blue Dragon, Lost Odyssey, Persona. That's it. They're really trying to get away from it, with real time battles that you can pause to give orders when you want to.
3. Story's lame:
You're kidding, right? JRPGs are known for their sweeping stories. You just don't have any choice over it. Well, there are a ton of cliches, but what isn't cliched at this point? Otherwise, TV Tropes [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FridgeBrilliance] wouldn't exist. They also tend to have FANTASTIC soundtracks [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/view-from-the-road/6935-A-View-From-The-Road-Play-It-Again-Sam].
4. Not really Role-Playing if you can't make choices
I thought that RPGs were about leveling up, not moral choices.
Example: When they say a game has "RPG elements", that doesn't mean moral choices have been added to the game. That means they've added a leveling system of some sort. Like the stat bars in GTA: San Andreas.
Edit: Some JRPGs do have moral choices, just few and far between, like Chrono Cross and the whole
Save Kid thing, which determines who can join you later on, cutting off about 10 characters depending on your choice.
i quoted the op so i can go through it point by point.
1. Female looking men:
na - its emo goth looking men. not all of them tho as you say.
2. turn based combat:
having seen ff12 being played by a mate i was happy to see the jrpgs moving away from the turn based to a more modern approach. id agree with your assessment here.
3. Story's lame:
the stories most definately are not lame, however they often dont appeal to a western culture - doesnt bother me tho I like the stories.
4. Not really Role-Playing if you can't make choices
its not. simply put this is for me what is wrong with most jrpgs. i expect a more interactive experience on the developing plotline and my characters interaction and motivations in the world growing around me than simply what super powerup i want to unlock next. i want to CHOOSE to be the good guy or the bad guy or any where in the grey scale between. I want to CHOOSE whether to persue that romance interest rather than seeking my fathers long lost sword of power. Simply i want to play the character - not just direct the fight scenes.
finaly i would like to add a 5th point i think you missed.
5. not another random encounter:
grinding to lvlup to beat a boss is not something i find amusing. I wish to be entertained by a game, to be lost in its story and to have the flow of that story broken by having to grind out random encounters (cheesy music and all) so i will be tuff enough to face the end boss is just annoying to me. A good freind of mine has a saying - he refers to one night stands as jrpg's, just a random encounter.
I dislike them because its been WAY WAY WAYYY to long since a good one has come out.. If a genre fails for more than 4 years then it is officially a failed genre... The only people that look forward to JRPG's now a days are FF FAN BOYS AND GIRLS and Sony FAN BOYS AND GIRLS... The last good JRPG i played was FF3 and 4 on the DS.. But even then those are just remakes... And i dunno about you but the open world feel to RPGS is just boring to me.. Maybe its cuz i grew up in the NES and SNES time area where Turn Based battle was in everything... Hell they even parodied it back then look at Kirby Super Star with the Comedy JRPG boss... But i still have a small slim of hope for this Genre if there really was a good JRPG to come out this year i might buy it... I really doubt it tho.. Most are just trying to be a FF7 Clone... Even tho i hate FF7... Or are trying to be something completely new and fail on all levels...
The thing i hate about the free roaming JRPGS is that there either ONE GIGANTIC SANDBOX which i don't want my JRPGS to be.. I want it to be pretty linear with the option to go and explore if you want to but not making it a must.. A good example of a poorly made Free Roaming JRPG is FF12.. OH GOD THAT GAME WAS BAD!! Unless your blind and def... ESPECIALLY DEF... But a example of a good one is KH and KH2.. The hand-held ones suck.. I gave 2341244141341341341341431/241241414214 a chance but i dunno just couldnt like it... Maybe it was that they tried to make it a 3d game when it should of been 2d... DS just doesn't quite fit those kinds of games yet at least.. So no i dont bash on JRPGS for no reason... I bash on them for a good reason! BECAUSE THE COMPANYS THE PROVIDE THEM HAVE FAILED ON ALL LEVELS FOR YEARS!! AND I CANNOT JUST IGNORE THAT FACT! And is it me or does this generation of gamers have less expectations? Because the games the skyrocket to the top seem to be mediocre at best... WHAT HAS BECOME OF THE GAMING INDUSTRY?
I don't hate JRPG's, they just aren't my thing.
I don't want to spend money on them because chances are I'm not going to like it. I don't like the visual style and I've always found the voice acting and dialogue particularly irritating. I suppose it stems from a genral dislike of anime. This goes for the storytelling too. I've never really cared about any of the characters or what they are supposed to be doing or why.
It's not often that I'm gripped by the story in a WRPG either, but there is a bit more choice in your actions.
On the contrary, RPGs are supposed to be about role playing. Calling a level up system an ''RPG element'' is ignorance. Common ignorance, but ignorance none the less.
"Several varieties of RPG exist in electronic media, including text-based MUDs and their graphics-based successors, massively multiplayer online role-playing games. The term is also used to describe role-playing video games using character progression mechanics first developed in pen-and-paper RPGs, though these games do not involve role-playing in the term's original sense."
Taken from Wikipedia article "Role Playing game". Yes, that statement is sourced. Quadruple.
Sorry, sourcing Wikipedia is like sourcing the Daily Mail. The term role-play has been bastardised far beyond it's original interpretation (The PLAYing of a ROLE) and now includes statistics and other such stuff.
Why do you think MMOs are not MMORPGs anymore? RP means to explore the characters motivation over a series of free choices; not step forward, random encounter, level up, rinse and repeat.
JRPGS are railplay rather than roleplay on the whole, and I like them for that. Diablo/Torchlight is equally a railplaying game.
So by your definition JRPGs aren't actually RPGs? Sorry but the whole gaming industry says otherwise and there's not much you can't do about that.
RPGs without actual role playing defined the genre so that role playing is not actually essential. That's the way the genre evolved, and so it stands. Games may be defined by genres, but games define genres just as much. JRPGs have defined RPG genre to consist what it consists, and it's far too late to cry about how they don't fit the definition at this point.
They made the definition.
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 comes 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 try again.
I hate being ambushed by invisible critters. Just because you can't see a 100-foot bone dragon, doesn't mean that there isn't one three steps in front of you, poised to poof into existence and immediately chomp your face off. Random encounters are a feature that date back to when RPGs were written for technologically primitive game systems. Today's consoles and PCs are powerful enough to render enemies while also showing the rest of the world at the same time. To keep up with steadily advancing technology, since its creation, the JRPG random-encounter system has been tweaked and carefully molded in no ways at all.
Plus there are only two types of characters with the emotional stability and time-tested leadership it takes to head a group and confront the challenges in JRPG stories.
1. The dark brooding quiet type with a mysterious past and a penchant for not responding to direct questions.
You'll know you're playing with this type of a hero when the character you're playing isn't blonde.
2. The spunky optimistic kid who wears his heart on his sleeve and really wants to help. And is usually obnoxiously cocky.
You'll know you're playing this type of hero if he's been raised by a kind-hearted grandpa and begins the game by oversleeping. The weirdness of old people will have rubbed off on him causing the kid to jump at any chance to deliver anything to anyone. His eagerness to please is only matched by the emotional intensity of your actual cringe when Gramps tells you to take a bushel of tomatoes to all 25 villagers. Oh yeah, and all young heroes grow up in small isolated villages. Duh.
And nearly everything comes down to stats. The problem with turn-based combat is that when it isn't your turn, your characters don't do anything. Who goes first is mostly likely determined by some obscure statistic buried under tons of relevant but ignorable menus. But what's the point of having a 60" 1080p flatscreen TV if I have to imagine what's happening on it?
Instead of watching a battle, I'm left flipping through menus, while my guys stand in place, caught in a looping four-frame animation that lets me know they're ready for me to hit the attack button. FUCK THAT.
Oh yeah, and the plots suck ass. I don't think I'm alone on this - although I might be the only one mature enough to admit it - but I have no idea what I did at the end of FFVII. Since 1997 my confusion has only grown. Plots have gotten so out of hand that each new game is desperately trying to one-up the pack by adding even more extra twists and extraneous plot devices. There's always an evil puppet master revealed towards the closing act, the main character will discover at least one brother, someone will discover their mother was a robot and their father was a potato. Nothing is surprising, because no one knows what the hell is going on anyway. The plots are a mish mash of pointless crap nobody cares about.
Oh yeah, and man rabbits. JRPGs and tentacle rape hentai videos alike are full of stupid rabbit people. What's worse is that it always seems completely unremarkable to anyone in the game. If I've got all my facts straight, there's only one way to produce a man-rabbit, and frankly, I'm disgusted that it's such a common practice in JRPG worlds.
A big reason I play RPGs is for the chance to pretend to be someone that I'm not. Nothing ruins that faster than when the game actually forces me to stop being that character and watch a short film showing what "I" am doing. As gaming systems evolve, the extra processing power is being used to make longer, prettier cutscenes. Wouldn't it be better to incorporate more things that used to require a cutscene into actual gameplay? Recent games, such as Lost Odyssey and Eternal Sonata, have exactly the wrong idea and it's entirely possible to spend more time watching than actually playing the game. Lost Odyssey nails you to your chair with nonstop movies. Opening a door often earns you an elaborate "door opening" scene. Uncovering the next memory from your mysterious forgotten past earns a screen full of text to read. Apparently Japanese gamers would secretly rather be watching TV or reading, but just play games for, you know, the chicks
Another reason I play is for the choices. You know "ROLE PLAYING GAME." Japanese RPGs have you on rails and give no actual role playing other than saying "yes" or "no" but you usually end up having to say yes anyway.
I'm just gonna go down the list because I'm too tired to be creative:
1: Soundtrack.
Say what you will, if JRPG's can't do anything else right, at least they always nail the music. Pretty much all of my favorite game OST's were from JRPG's, and a lot of people agree with me (notable exception: the one entry in my top-10 that isn't from a JRPG was Jet Set Radio Future).
2: Graphics.
Graphics are the least important part of a game, but every single JRPG I've played looks absolutely gorgerous. In-game, cutscenes, AMV's, it's all brilliant stuff. Beautiful stuff.
3: Story.
It's true that JRPG's suffer a fair bit from cliche-syndrome but that doesn't change the fact that their stories remain brilliant in spite of this (incidentally, it's not like Western RPG's don't carry any cliche's either, Morrowind being a fine example). In his Little Big Planet-review, Yahtzee mentioned that he preferred levels created by PROFESSIONAL FUCKING LEVEL DESINGERS. Well the fact is, some us prefer stories created by PROFESSIONAL FUCKING WRITERS. If a game has a brilliant story in and of itself, then complaining about a lack of player-interactivity is like saying the same thing about a book or a movie. If we allow players to influence the story, that will help them craft the game to their own idea's. But it also means that, as 99% of the population is an unimaginitive nitwit, the story won't be nearly as epic, dramatic or touching as the original.
4: Gameplay.
Turn-based combat is indeed not very immersive but it's gradually disappearing nowadays.
And loads of turn-based games gave you the option to play using the menu-based controlls but with the fight happening in real-time i.e. turn-based but without having to wait for the opponent's turn. I suppose turn-based comabt will always repell certain players but really, it gets far more schtick than it actually deserves.
5: Hours of entertainment.
There is a reason people spend thousands of hours on JRPG's.
The main story is always long and intruiging, with plenty of twists and turns.
And let's not forget the insane, MOTHERFUCKING INSANE, amount of side-quests they have to offer. I've found that they consistenty beat Western RRPG's in this field, time and time again. The fact is that if you like a JRPG, it will guerantee you several dozens of hours of entertainment if you're casual, several hundreds if you're devoted, and several thousands of hours if you're fanatic. Not a lot of genre's can make that claim.
That really made me seem like one of those idiots who only like ultra violent stuff...
I like everything from Braid to Serious Sam. Some of my favorite games are Assassins Creed 2, Fallout, Braid, Viva Pinata, Prof. Layton, TF2, Diablo 2, Morrowind...
omega 616 said:
99% of games are the same as atleast one other, so all the stories you have heard a million times before.
I have only played one JRPG and the story is better than most games I have played, same goes for MGS.
Well I tend to like both types of RPGs. The way I look at it is this: JRPGs are like most novels, you get a story that you have no control over. To me that is one of the things that I think makes a JRPG a JRPG. WRPGs are more like the old "tell your own adventure books", you can change the story a bit. You also tend to get more choices in your character. In the end it is a matter of opinion. I understand why some people can hate them, I'm not a fan of grinding either.
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