Why do people hate JRPGs?

[Don Savik]

Popular genres tend to be judged by the most overused, over copied games.

For example, people bash Call of Duty for flooding the market with samey brown shooters, ignoring the few colorful gems like Bulletstorm. People bash JRPGS for being full of overused cliches, lackluster combat systems, bloated overdone cutscenes, angsty girly men, ridiculous plots, and dialogue that could peel paint off walls. Again, people ignore the ones that buck this trend, like the Mario&Luigi series.

I think when people talk about JRPGs they aren't talking about all games made by Japan, they're talking about games with an anime-style to their art. Super Mario RPG is not a exception to the staleness of the genre.

 

[370999]

I can understand how they wouldn't appeal to someone, but I still have no idea how mentioning them can lead to people foaming at the mouth and insulting the genre. You can say it's the internet and it happens with everything, but JRPG bashing seems to be a lot more common and even acceptable.

Compared to how ever accepting this community is to military shooters?

Every genre gets mocked.

I would imagine people who "hated" JRPGS did so out of the beleif they were archaic, full of anime stereotypes and generally boring. Which has a degree of truth, same as saying shooters cater to "brain dead jingoistic idiots"

Whatever.

Accept that fact that some people will not enjoy what you enjoy OP and move on.

Was I not clear enough when I typed "I CAN UNDERSTAND HOW THEY WOULDN'T APPEAL TO SOMEONE"? People like different things, I would never expect everyone to agree with me. Also I already pointed out all genres are mocked, and asked why it's more frequent with JRPGs. Most people dislike sports games, but they're just ignored. Why don't people treat JRPGs the same way?

Aye but I am saying that it happens to a lot of genres.

I am sorry though as I meant to type "to the op" just after the line "compared to...military shooters?". The majority of my post wasn't addressed to you, I am going to edit it now, I just wanted to point out that every game get's a ride on the hatedom train.

 

[Machine Man 1992]

Popular genres tend to be judged by the most overused, over copied games.

For example, people bash Call of Duty for flooding the market with samey brown shooters, ignoring the few colorful gems like Bulletstorm. People bash JRPGS for being full of overused cliches, lackluster combat systems, bloated overdone cutscenes, angsty girly men, ridiculous plots, and dialogue that could peel paint off walls. Again, people ignore the ones that buck this trend, like the Mario&Luigi series.

I think when people talk about JRPGs they aren't talking about all games made by Japan, they're talking about games with an anime-style to their art. Super Mario RPG is not a exception to the staleness of the genre.

I was referring to Mario&Luigi, which is a completely different series from Super Mario RPG.

It has all the good parts (huge world, depth, long epic and extremely silly story) and none of the bad (clunky exposition, stupid design, boring combat, etc.)

 

[Kahunaburger]

Popular genres tend to be judged by the most overused, over copied games.

For example, people bash Call of Duty for flooding the market with samey brown shooters, ignoring the few colorful gems like Bulletstorm. People bash JRPGS for being full of overused cliches, lackluster combat systems, bloated overdone cutscenes, angsty girly men, ridiculous plots, and dialogue that could peel paint off walls. Again, people ignore the ones that buck this trend, like the Mario&Luigi series.

I think when people talk about JRPGs they aren't talking about all games made by Japan, they're talking about games with an anime-style to their art. Super Mario RPG is not a exception to the staleness of the genre.

It's an RPG from Japan - i.e., a JRPG. It's not stale. What more do you want?

 

[Terramax]

Because for every remotely ok JRPG you get 20 incredibly bad ones.

Sure, there are lots of FPSs out there, but the majority of them are at least average. Most JRPGs aren't even average. They're a bunch of cliched timewasters.

The genre has gone stagnant and without creativity. That's not so bad on genres like aciton games, racers, where it's all about gameplay, but RPGs are predominantly about story, so if every JRGP is about a some teenage kid trying to save the world from some evil... thing, with his female sidekick, lumped with fanservice women in scantily clad clothing, arbitrary cutsy creatures, and random battles for the sake of turning a 10 hour story into a 60hr one, then they're likely to get some flack for it. And deservingly so.

It also doesn't help that since the advent of voice acting at standard, we're giving the most hammy acting in the history of the planet. Conversations and situations between characters are either extremely stiff or melodramatic.

I live in hope that another great JRPG will come along to revitalise the genre, but in the meantime, we have to put up with trite such as Xenoblade Chronicles.

It's an RPG from Japan - i.e., a JRPG. It's not stale. What more do you want?

It's a Mario game. Is the story that engaging or innovative?

And to all those out there saying 'you're ignoring the ones that 'buck the trend', can you please give some examples? Other than Persona 3/4 (although my understanding is in that game you're playing a/ a group of teenagers, so how different are they?).

And I agree with 370999. JRPGs aren't the only genre to get 'hate'. Pretty much every genre with a big fanbase gets the same treatment.

 

[Don Savik]

Popular genres tend to be judged by the most overused, over copied games.

For example, people bash Call of Duty for flooding the market with samey brown shooters, ignoring the few colorful gems like Bulletstorm. People bash JRPGS for being full of overused cliches, lackluster combat systems, bloated overdone cutscenes, angsty girly men, ridiculous plots, and dialogue that could peel paint off walls. Again, people ignore the ones that buck this trend, like the Mario&Luigi series.

I think when people talk about JRPGs they aren't talking about all games made by Japan, they're talking about games with an anime-style to their art. Super Mario RPG is not a exception to the staleness of the genre.

It's an RPG from Japan - i.e., a JRPG. It's not stale. What more do you want?

Its an n64 game, so its not helping the current direction that JRPG games are heading if you see what I'm saying.....cuz it was one game.....for the n64....

Also a lot of the tropes associated with anime-style characters/setting don't apply to Mario and Luigi because they are.....well, Mario and Luigi.

 

[Kahunaburger]

It's an RPG from Japan - i.e., a JRPG. It's not stale. What more do you want?

It's a Mario game. Is the story that engaging or innovative?

Is the story of Dungeons of Dredmor that engaging or innovative? What story?

Is Dungeons of Dredmor a breath of fresh air for commercial WRPGs? Yep.

And to all those out there saying 'you're ignoring the ones that 'buck the trend', can you please give some examples? Other than Persona 3/4 (although my understanding is in that game you're playing a/ a group of teenagers, so how different are they?).

Off the top of my head: Demons' Souls/Dark Souls, Devil Survivor, Ni No Kuni, Recettear, and a variety of ports. I barely play JRPGs, though, so someone who actually is into the genre can probably give you more examples.

 

[Don Savik]

It's an RPG from Japan - i.e., a JRPG. It's not stale. What more do you want?

It's a Mario game. Is the story that engaging or innovative?

Is the story of Dungeons of Dredmor that engaging or innovative? What story?

Is Dungeons of Dredmor a breath of fresh air for commercial WRPGs? Yep.

And to all those out there saying 'you're ignoring the ones that 'buck the trend', can you please give some examples? Other than Persona 3/4 (although my understanding is in that game you're playing a/ a group of teenagers, so how different are they?).

Off the top of my head: Demons' Souls/Dark Souls, Devil Survivor, Ni No Kuni, Recettear, and a variety of ports. I barely play JRPGs, though, so someone who actually is into the genre can probably give you more examples.

I never said those things! Please get your quotes right people!

 

[Kahunaburger]

It's an RPG from Japan - i.e., a JRPG. It's not stale. What more do you want?

It's a Mario game. Is the story that engaging or innovative?

Is the story of Dungeons of Dredmor that engaging or innovative? What story?

Is Dungeons of Dredmor a breath of fresh air for commercial WRPGs? Yep.

And to all those out there saying 'you're ignoring the ones that 'buck the trend', can you please give some examples? Other than Persona 3/4 (although my understanding is in that game you're playing a/ a group of teenagers, so how different are they?).

Off the top of my head: Demons' Souls/Dark Souls, Devil Survivor, Ni No Kuni, Recettear, and a variety of ports. I barely play JRPGs, though, so someone who actually is into the genre can probably give you more examples.

I never said those things! Please get your quotes right people!

Huh, that's weird. Those were supposed to be Terramax quotes haha - I wonder why that happened. I'll fix that in the original one.

 

[OManoghue]

I just hate the characters all JRPGs go to nowadays, I still dig old 16-bit Final Fantasy and god damned mother fucking Chrono Trigger, but like, Final Fantasy 7 until 13-2 has been angsty girly men in stupid outfits.

 

[Mr Pantomime]

Well theres lots of people, and theres lots of reasons, so theres no one difinitive reason people hate JRPGs.

Personally, I blame Tri-Ace.

 

[lord.jeff]

I think I see way more bashing of shooters then JRPGs. Also I happen to like JRPGs myself.

 

[Sid7Zero]

Found this thread at two in the morning after having too many beers to care about reading all three pages of posts... why do people hate JRPGs? Because they embody every ridiculous stereotype within a genre to a point beyond self parody. JRPGs are simply the Asian video game market catering to all the stupid shit Americans love about Anime and all the other weird off-color pop culture that they've managed to sell to us.

Why do people hate JRPGs? Because they're not nearly as good as little fanboys and fangirls think they are, despite the ridiculous amount of their parents' money they spend on this content. They're actually the same game re-skinned many times over the last several decades.

 

[zefiris]

The stories tend be shoved into game mechanics that aren't that engaging.

Exactly. This is why Dragon Age 2 and Mass Effect are falling short, unlike JRPGs, where good or even average examples don't have these problems.

JRPGs are fine. Some people just can't handle men that aren't scowling muscle mountains as main characters. It's a kind of overcompensation, since these players are usually male, and far from muscular themselves.

It's no surprise that the JRPG genre is so demonized when you look at the demographics. Oh dear, women like it. It must be icky! Eeek women cooties!

Just look at western RPGs. The last western RPG with an actually good story was Planescape Torment. You could beat the game by fighting only two enemies in the entire game.
And look at the critics. They cried emo tears about *gasp* dialogue. In a RPG. One where you have to make choices that have different outcomes. No wonder things led to Mass Effect 3 and Dragon Age 2.

 

[wintercoat]

People don't hate JRPG's, they hate the JRPG cliche. It's like when people say they hate FPS's because they're all CoD clones.

And could people please stop using the "they're so cliche'd" argument? WRPG's are no less cliche'd out the ass than JRPG's, and they pretty much both pull from the same cliche pool. Personally, from both crowds, I'm getting a bit sick of being The Chosen One [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheChosenOne]. It's the go-to for heroes, and used way too often. Give me more Unchosen Ones [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheUnchosenOne] like Cmdr. Shepard.