I disagree largely because it's just constantly jam packed with out-of-context fanservice bologna. I get it, Tora is a pervert and lol girls are awkward.
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JRPGs are too character focused these days
- Thread starter Timeaisis
- Start date
I disagree largely because it's just constantly jam packed with out-of-context fanservice bologna. I get it, Tora is a pervert and lol girls are awkward.
Oh, I see. So my opinion isn't worth much because I'm sick to death of pathetic sexual pandering and developers telling the exact same dumb "THE ONE I MUST PROTECT IS...!!!!!!" narratives six million times, eh?
It's almost like I think RPGs can be more than the basest cliches.
Oh yeah, you weren't a fan of Yakuza after 0 right? (iirc from one of the OTs). Did you get to try Judgement yet? Curious about your thoughts.
I'm still in Chapter 1 of Judgment. Just kind of burned out on Yakuza for a while from playing too many of them in rapid succession. Nothing against the series at all, just need a break for a couple months.
This threads hard to understand an all the people who dun like jrpgs anymore but still wanna fuss about 'em ain't helping lol. If this is about there being way to much fluff banter then I agree in the case of Trails of Cold Steel and uhhhh...?? I've played like 33 jrpgs released in the past 10 years and only like what 3 of 'em gave me the "can you all shutup an let me move on with the game" vibe. Not a bad record. I see Tales, Persona, and Xenoblade mentioned a bunch itt an haven't played 'em myself but I'll continue happily avoiding 'em if they're the types that'd drag down my pretty good jrpg record I got goin'!
I really think that this is the main problem. Otaku works nowadays only really reference other otaku works and so it becomes an ever more narrow group of industries constantly continuing to eat itself. Miyazaki himself pointed this out when he talked about how newer animators were just drawing from otaku works rather than drawing inspiration from the real wold that older ones did.
One thing that I've noticed is that there seems to be a trend of changing how characters are designed and presented to the audience. Instead of building a character's backstory, and coming up with a personality, the new trend is to build characters around charm points, or character quirks designed to appeal to the audience. It's easier to exhibit these charm points in short skits than it is to incorporate them into the greater narrative, so probably why there's been a shift in how character scenes are constructed. As a primary effect, characters built around charm points also tend to be paper thin. This is somewhat disguised in visual media where art and animation can compensate to a degree, but in written fiction, the problems become a lot more apparent.
Exactly. Modern JRPG characters just feel like they let some artist go completely nuts or gave them one or two design notes ("give her big boobs and zettai ryouiki!") and then back-fill the character after they have a character design or a primary cliche to hang the whole thing on.
One of the major priorities of Japanese character design nowadays seems to be to make them as unique as possible with no regard to what said design does for their characterization.
Hmmm. No, I don't think you do. You just see the surface and give up on everything.
If you were actually paying attention, you'd notice that the game actually doesn't entirely approve of Rex's intention to protect pyra (namely the exact superficiality of it that you're critiquing funnily enough).
That's nice. It doesn't change the fact that every single time he or Tora open their mouths I want them to be crushed by a meteor. Like, they're not good characters, they're not likeable characters, and I don't want to hear their shit over and over and over again.
Even if any of them learn a "lesson", there's still dozens of hours of terribly rote power of friendship nonsense to comb through that I just do not have any interest in.
Rex was ok, meh but ok. Tora was the worst character I've witnessed in an RPG this generation (and def top 5 ever). I personally hope the next Xeno game begins with the mass genocide of the Noppon
I still need to play Setsuna, but even when it gets discount to a halfway reasonable price, I'm still just like ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
"Play Shadowbringers" is always the answerSounds to me like some of you folks just aren't playing the right JRPGs.
Tora made me so mad. I didn't think it was possible to hate a character more than Tatsu but they did it.
But I can't handle Rex's bullshit anymore. He's a big dumb puppy like Sora, but unlike Sora, I don't have half my life worth of nostalgia making me forgive his flaws. I just hate him.
Character Focus is the wrong term to use. I think the correct phrase should be socialisation and escape focus.
Persona 2: Innocent Sin and Eternal Punishment (1999, 2000) had well written characters and depth, as well as it kept you moving with the main story. The Hashino Persona games focuses on socialising, simulation, centres the MC and draws away from streamlined storytelling.
Personally I prefer story driven games not power fantasies. Anyway, everyone has their preferences, so each to their own respectfully.
I recommend playing Nier Automata, old Xenoblade games, Zero Escape.
Persona 2: Innocent Sin and Eternal Punishment (1999, 2000) had well written characters and depth, as well as it kept you moving with the main story. The Hashino Persona games focuses on socialising, simulation, centres the MC and draws away from streamlined storytelling.
Personally I prefer story driven games not power fantasies. Anyway, everyone has their preferences, so each to their own respectfully.
I recommend playing Nier Automata, old Xenoblade games, Zero Escape.
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This is a very good point, I think you articulated the main issue I have with a lot of the writing in modern JRPG's. It feels more like the writing is catered towards making superficially likable and marketable characters than anything, and it's very limiting and ultimately not interesting.
Having quirks or being charming is perfectly fine but your characters need more than that to be good. They need actual substance.
Like, I played Planescape Torment recently for the first time ever and the contrast between the character writing in that game was night and day compared to pretty much every JRPG I've played or seen much of this gen. The characters are so unique, have so much pathos and they really surprise you in a way that feels true and earned. It was such a breath of fresh air coming from Persona 5, where the character writing was alright at best, aggravating at worst.
And on that note: I can't speak for everyone but I think it's a mistake to assume that someone who doesnt like the writing in a lot of modern JRPG's wants everything to be dark and gritty.
I like comedy, I don't mind goofiness or idealism. I just saw the Steven universe movie and really liked it. I also enjoy the Mario rpgs's, and a lot of other stuff in that vein.
It goes beyond just preferring a certain tone, there will always be preferences but a lot of people can appreciate stuff from a broad spectrum if it's interesting or done well. A lot of the character writing in modern JRPG's is just lacking and has little bite to it.
I do think it's fair to point out that JRPG's are not really made for jaded 30 to 40 year olds ( which is what most of the people on this forum are), they're made for japanese teenagers and they always have been, so there's gonna be a disconnect there, but even with that said it doesn't make them immune from criticism, especially when a lot of all ages media is better written and more enjoyable.
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I mean, I don't really know if that's the case. Games like the original Final Fantasy titles (really, MOST FF games) aren't aimed specifically or primarily at Japanese teenagers. Final Fantasy as a series is more evergreen than that.
Something like Persona? Yeah, that shit is for teens. But arguing that JRPGs are made for teens ignores the fact that a lot of games in the genre used to have a much wider appeal until around the mid-PS2 generation where developers started to go all-in on the 'TEENS AND OTAKU ONLY' market.
Maybe consider expanding your JRPG repetoire? Go a little ways back? Re-releases? Grab some more niche stuff?
Here's a few suggestions in no specific order.
- Grandia HD collection. The original is a strong adventure story with a much more subtle romance plot going on in the background that doesn't have most of these modern cliches you're worried about (at least as far as where I am is is concerned).
- Lost Odyssey isn't that old and tells a mature story and I believe is Xbox One backwards compatible.
- Last Story eschews nearly everything in modern JRPG's and is a better game for it.
- Octopath traveler has some mechanical issues but the individual stories themselves are great and completely remove themselves from modern JRPG cliches.
- Radiant Historia just re-released on the 3DS not too long ago and that has a great story with no fanservice or power of friendship stuff (at least in the original which is what I played)
- Star Ocean 5 I personally liked however it was a pretty niche release and I'm more hesitant to recommend that one due to the large number of complaints.
- Indivisible releases soon and that's not "technically" a JRPG but it's heavily inspired by classic ones.
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Played all of 'em at release except Star Ocean 5, actually. Believe me, if it's a big JRPG I've probably given it a shot. Except for SO5 (because of how bad SO4 was) and Ni no Kuni 2 (because I really really did not like NNK1), that is.
I'll look into Indivisible when it actually releases.
I feel the negative aspect of JRPGs is how it always ends up as a fight against a god figure. The trope is so rehashed and reheated at this moment that it kinda makes me roll my eyes everytime it's attempted again. I prefer character driven storylines in that sense.
Developers should just learn more from Nier Automata, God of War or Last of Us.
Those games show us that we definitely don't need hours of small talk, childhood memories, conversations about food, telling your imouto is kawaii, and hours of slice of life content to "develop" amazing an interesting characters.
A good game/movie can express a lot about the personality of the character in minutes.
In God of War for example with just a few words and scenes you can learn exactly what kind of relationship Kratos has with his son.
The same thing happens in Nier Automata. We did not need slice of life cutscenes to "develop" the relationship between 2B and 9S.
Saying a game like Trails in the Sky needed so much slice of life content (even a high school chapter) to be able to build it's story and world is simply not true.
That is why this game will always be a niche game.
Those games show us that we definitely don't need hours of small talk, childhood memories, conversations about food, telling your imouto is kawaii, and hours of slice of life content to "develop" amazing an interesting characters.
A good game/movie can express a lot about the personality of the character in minutes.
In God of War for example with just a few words and scenes you can learn exactly what kind of relationship Kratos has with his son.
The same thing happens in Nier Automata. We did not need slice of life cutscenes to "develop" the relationship between 2B and 9S.
Saying a game like Trails in the Sky needed so much slice of life content (even a high school chapter) to be able to build it's story and world is simply not true.
That is why this game will always be a niche game.
Good thing we are not talking about movies and we can recognize that the general long nature of this medium let´s of have this small moments between characters that as hard as it is to get through some of you do appeal and have large emotional value to a large amount as demonstrated by the success of recent JRPGs. Or I guess you can dismiss a large group of people for being "dirty otakus" ruining mah videogames.
Like I get it modern JRPG certainly appeal to specific demographics and it kinds sucks were you no longer fit in that group, but holy shit this cynical attitude of demonizing the audience as people that will eat whatever shit they are fed is not healthy.
I am saying this as an Otaku, I watched almost every single relevant anime and I even learned japanese lol
So, as a fan of the japanese media, I am getting disappointed with the way this is going for the past years.
I think this kind of media should improve, instead of using the same artificial character archetypes and backgrounds over and over and over and over again.
It was ok when it was a new thing, but it feels like most writers are not trying to be original anymore.
Recently I started reading Fata Morgana, after many users in resetera said this was a new masterpiece.
The story starts with hours of content between a man and his airhead little sister, and how they both love each other, with hugs, buying presents, and even waiting for the big brother to come back from work like a little pet waits for its owner... Don't you get tired of this?
The problem is not even the content itself, but the repetition and the transformation of JRPGs in dating visual novels.
This. The character focused stories feel less like interesting character explorations and more like 'which waifu do you think is most kawaii? cooking girl or clumsy girl?'
Reading the art book for Valkyria Chronicles 2 was the moment that broke me on a lot of modern JRPG writing and character tropes. Seeing the artists and directors just being like "we wanted a girl with big boobs so this one has big boobs but we didn't want her to be hotter than the protagonist so we gave her glasses lol" was such an eye-opening experience as far as how little actual care goes into character creation in modern games.
Coming from someone who more or less agrees with the gist of what you're saying:
Personally I don't really think the Mellie and Nell storyline is a good example of what we're talking about (also the game picks up a lot after that, everything after is a lot more interesting). It might come across as a bit saccharine but it isn't like modern JRPG's where it's just fluff and not really relevant or interesting, it serves a purpose of introducing what their relationship is like so that the game can show how it falls apart. Fair enough to not care fof it or think that it might have needed trimming but it's apples and oranges in regards to the discussion at hand.
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I think part of the problem is how JRPGs tend to use voiced text boxes and how those are recorded by one actor at a time, due to the size of their scripts and whatnot, so a lot of character interaction doesn't feel as authentic as if the scenes were being recorded together and the actors could play off one another (or have like actual comedic timing), so the humor tends to fall a bit flat.
(Another issue is that humor in JRPGs tends to be pretty stale? I don't know, I'm just, like, over JRPGs treating sex as this joke that only exists for one character to get flustered and slap another one)
i remember reading the shin megami tensei 4 artbook and they were like "yeah we needed a cool older guy in the cast, so that's why we created this guy"
You know what, Shin Megami Tensei 4 is a good example of this phenomenon:
It is by far the most character focused of the main SMT titles. Your alignment companions are with you for nearly the entire game, are constantly chattering about what's going on, weigh in on each story beat, and you'd think that would help build their characters, and you'd be able to see how their time in Tokyo is shaping their alignment views, and yet: It doesn't. When the time comes for them to go Alignment Crazy, they flip on a dime and are suddenly advocating for shit that seems completely out of character. Walter hating the caste system? Cool, seems like a good jumping off point for a Chaos Hero. Walter suddenly deciding that unleashing demons on the surface so the new world order will be only the strong survive? Completely out of nowhere for his character. Literally nothing that happens before that point makes it seem like that's something he'd be ok with, but goddammit if he isn't going to talk constantly throughout the rest of the game.
You can compare this to Shin Megami Tensei 3, where the time you spend with other characters is limited to maybe three or four conversations per character in the entire game, but you can still see how Isamu and Chiaki's worldviews are shaped by their time in the Vortex World (or rather - how their brains break in the specific ways that they do). The first time you run into Chiaki in the Vortex, she talks about how she's trying to deal with the fact that she's one of the last humans alive. When she explains her Reason in the next encounter, you can infer that it's built on her trying to justify her survivor's guilt: I survived, no one else did, that's just how things work. I survived because I'm a survivor, I deserved to survivor because I'm a survivor, I continue to survive because I'm a survivor, the people who didn't survive deserved to not survive because they weren't survivors. It's a Just World. Same deal with Isamu: When you encounter him, he's having A Real Bad Time with demons, and so when he talks about his Reason being about isolated and happy makes sense, because every interaction he's had in the Vortex has been horrible for him.
It is by far the most character focused of the main SMT titles. Your alignment companions are with you for nearly the entire game, are constantly chattering about what's going on, weigh in on each story beat, and you'd think that would help build their characters, and you'd be able to see how their time in Tokyo is shaping their alignment views, and yet: It doesn't. When the time comes for them to go Alignment Crazy, they flip on a dime and are suddenly advocating for shit that seems completely out of character. Walter hating the caste system? Cool, seems like a good jumping off point for a Chaos Hero. Walter suddenly deciding that unleashing demons on the surface so the new world order will be only the strong survive? Completely out of nowhere for his character. Literally nothing that happens before that point makes it seem like that's something he'd be ok with, but goddammit if he isn't going to talk constantly throughout the rest of the game.
You can compare this to Shin Megami Tensei 3, where the time you spend with other characters is limited to maybe three or four conversations per character in the entire game, but you can still see how Isamu and Chiaki's worldviews are shaped by their time in the Vortex World (or rather - how their brains break in the specific ways that they do). The first time you run into Chiaki in the Vortex, she talks about how she's trying to deal with the fact that she's one of the last humans alive. When she explains her Reason in the next encounter, you can infer that it's built on her trying to justify her survivor's guilt: I survived, no one else did, that's just how things work. I survived because I'm a survivor, I deserved to survivor because I'm a survivor, I continue to survive because I'm a survivor, the people who didn't survive deserved to not survive because they weren't survivors. It's a Just World. Same deal with Isamu: When you encounter him, he's having A Real Bad Time with demons, and so when he talks about his Reason being about isolated and happy makes sense, because every interaction he's had in the Vortex has been horrible for him.
I still feel like writing capped out at SNES/PS1 era because they couldn't distract or dangle the shiny keys in front of you with graphics/movie like things previously. While I'm not as down on games like Xenoblade 2 as the majority of this forum seems to be, I'm not beyond stating that the second half feels much more like the "old era" than the first half for sure.
That being said a lot of people have talked about it but fans making media for other fans is a bad idea in the first place. There's a lot of people wanting to make their own "FF to be a new ff" and emulate others success instead of their own story. It doesn't help that writing in general has gone further and further down hill in anime/movies/etc as time has gone on in a lot of ways.
I remember before I got into Game dev at all I was writing books and such and shifted when I played FF7 and was like "this is a book you can interact with!" And don't feel a lot of games since that era have come close. The worlds, characters, and dialogues had to carry a lot of the games on their shoulders. Nowadays people will hail anything as "good" if it has a "Theme" or something that a youtube video can pass off as positive for the writing.
FF7 is very much a character focused RPG with the premise of "Who Am I" running throughout almost all the key character interactions and developments throughout their journey. Even if the ending is sort of your typical anime "gonna kill god" type stuff the journey there is filled with some great plot points and great moment to moment writing. So I don't think being character focused is really the problem.
I don't feel like this is really specific to JRPGs either, and just specific to writing in general and audiences changes. The biggest example being a company like Blizzard and the writing shifts from WoW, Warcraft Classic, Diablo 1 and 2, and the stuff they do now. I don't think being character focused is the problem, I just think a lot of people care more about graphics and waifus then they do about writing. And that's a bummer.
You think of games like Valkyrie Profile where every character you recruit is basically going to die when you meet them and stuff like that and compare to say the more recent RPG offerings and it's painfully shallow in comparison due to its execution. Either due to wanting to meet certain metrics or selling points or just plain not focusing on the writing in general.
I could go for days about how the character writing in FE:3H is great in what they're saying but how they're saying it is a bit meh, while also comparing the overarching plot and pacing being a rushed mess but I still like it. But people don't really seem to care as just the imagery of Dimitri alone against a castle wall or fanart/fanfics/headcanons do so much for people these days.
Call me old fashioned but I prefer the writing to do more of the talking personally. Nowadays I feel too much is left to extra media, side stories, art books, data logs, codexes, and fans(maybe due to social media I dunno).
That being said a lot of people have talked about it but fans making media for other fans is a bad idea in the first place. There's a lot of people wanting to make their own "FF to be a new ff" and emulate others success instead of their own story. It doesn't help that writing in general has gone further and further down hill in anime/movies/etc as time has gone on in a lot of ways.
I remember before I got into Game dev at all I was writing books and such and shifted when I played FF7 and was like "this is a book you can interact with!" And don't feel a lot of games since that era have come close. The worlds, characters, and dialogues had to carry a lot of the games on their shoulders. Nowadays people will hail anything as "good" if it has a "Theme" or something that a youtube video can pass off as positive for the writing.
FF7 is very much a character focused RPG with the premise of "Who Am I" running throughout almost all the key character interactions and developments throughout their journey. Even if the ending is sort of your typical anime "gonna kill god" type stuff the journey there is filled with some great plot points and great moment to moment writing. So I don't think being character focused is really the problem.
I don't feel like this is really specific to JRPGs either, and just specific to writing in general and audiences changes. The biggest example being a company like Blizzard and the writing shifts from WoW, Warcraft Classic, Diablo 1 and 2, and the stuff they do now. I don't think being character focused is the problem, I just think a lot of people care more about graphics and waifus then they do about writing. And that's a bummer.
You think of games like Valkyrie Profile where every character you recruit is basically going to die when you meet them and stuff like that and compare to say the more recent RPG offerings and it's painfully shallow in comparison due to its execution. Either due to wanting to meet certain metrics or selling points or just plain not focusing on the writing in general.
I could go for days about how the character writing in FE:3H is great in what they're saying but how they're saying it is a bit meh, while also comparing the overarching plot and pacing being a rushed mess but I still like it. But people don't really seem to care as just the imagery of Dimitri alone against a castle wall or fanart/fanfics/headcanons do so much for people these days.
Call me old fashioned but I prefer the writing to do more of the talking personally. Nowadays I feel too much is left to extra media, side stories, art books, data logs, codexes, and fans(maybe due to social media I dunno).
You can have character narratives that aren't tropey or pandering, though. I feel like a lot of otaku media uses character skits as replacement for social interaction, which means emulating only the most base and superficial version of 'dating' or 'friendship' to cater to shut-ins and kids. These character focused 'narratives' lack any depth beyond opening the character's quirks up to the MC, letting you pick and choose your favorite pokemon wife instead of actually exploring the character with any nuance.
What if I told you there were various character driven jrpgs I liked narrative wise this gen that I feel have depth
I would believe you because I too have played good JRPGs this gen. However, I think the issue is lack of diversity. The genre has simply grown smaller and more insular and only continues to grow more so.
It is sad but I think psychologically speaking you nailed it.
I agree with you. I am probably not in the same generation as you, but I can see ton of current JRPGs don't focus on the story as much, they just leave it up to fan speculation or have manga/animes/spin-offs to fill in the gaps...which is darn lazy.
It's not only games but also movies, TV shows, anime and music suffer similar. They don't give off that unique charm anymore. Post-2000 it's all about pandering to the fanbase, money rapacity and becoming popular.
Artists in the past followed their hearts and passion. They mostly cared about expressing their work and put soul into it.
Creative genius is rare nower days.
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Can't comment on other media so much but is that really the case with JRPGs? I mean, FFXV did this and it's a massive monolithic example of some multimedia DISASTER plan but there's not many other JRPGs in recent memory that sorta require ancillary media to focus on the story. On the contrary my impression is that alot of JRPGs are getting heavier on the story; everything's getting bigger and bulkier and the stories are getting longer and longer with honestly a bit of bloat.
I think we can see this in like a huge amount of RPG franchises. It feels like every major RPG release that isn't a smartphone release seems to be getting longer outside of maybe Square's stuff.
Like off the top of my head... Kiseki series has doing an absurd quadrilogy with the same running narrative, the Ys games are not actually sporting long plots, every SMT game since 4 has been more story and character focused especially with SMT4A which feels like Persona-lite.
The Persona games seem to be getting longer and bigger, not to mention all the new re-releases. I'm not sure if DQ11 is bigger than the previous DQs but that game has like three acts and is humongous in length. Tales of Berseria has like 9 hours of skits and is the longest Tales of game... hell even Nier Automata compared to Yoko Taro's previous works is pretty damn long and fairly cutscene heavy. Fire Emblem Three Houses is an ABSURDLY huge game compared to it's predecessors and with a much more involved plot.
Hell god damn Pokemon has graduated from "win the pokemon league" with more and more involved plots, like Lillie in Sun and Moon has a character arc in a pokemon game.
It's hard for me to think of many examples or recent releases that buck this trend. JRPGs seem to be releasing less frequently but it's almost like people expect epic length crap and devs try to outdo their previous works, and the few short RPGs like Tokyo RPG Factory ones seem to not be well received.
In general, RPGs have focused on story more, PS4 exclusives are an example and there are good works. But most mediums these days, the quality of writing has dropped.
Story focus isn't the issue, it's the 'degression' of writing.
I haven't played SMTIV and A but I have heard mixed reviews on it. Older fans disliked the direction the game took, and newer fans liked it. From what I hear, the main reasons for the dislike, was the poor writing and that the story was dumbed down (I can't give a true opinion as I haven't played those games).
There are different variations of the storytelling, games that are action focus can still offer a good story. Soulsborne games for instance, the environment does the storytelling for you, absorbing players into a world. The old SMT games follow this approach too through NPC dialogues. I can see it being the case, as I am currently playing SMT 1.
I am not a fan of absurdly long video games, but a few exceptions can be made if the world exploration, writing and gameplay are top-tier...they come in a rare package.
Another factor is age, when we're younger we could invest more time in games but as we get older, time is scarce. Games that drag on too long ruins the pacing, and on many occasions, fillers ruin the experience.
Nier Automata is the longest title in its franchise but as a single game it has good optimum length, 60 hours avg completion. FE: 3 Houses garnered good reviews due to gameplay and story, which FE: Fates lacked so much of, and both games are roughly the same length.
Finally it's preference. Most current JRPGs follow the mainstream direction, to service fans with familiarity. The familiarity is anime. Anime itself isn't bad, but the hyperbolic of it is. It can strip away a franchise's image, core principles and identity.
If a JRPG from it's birth intended to be cliche, fan-servicey, at least it sticks to the core of it's identity. But with most JRPG franchises, they are radically changing themselves to desperately appeal to a specific audience (young people, otakus etc). When they don't get that their winning attributes was their own uniqueness.
Creators for current mediums, seem to generalise young people that they are "all into the same thing", which isn't entirely true. There is going to be a point that people will be sick of repetitive tropes, and demand originality. Many of us has grown out of cliches, simplicity. We want to see impactful works.
Rampant shifting and fanservice, results to messy storytelling. Another reason why FE: 3 Houses succeeded was because it deviated from that intensity, compared to Fates, which was overblown of it.
FE: Awakening had fanservice, but not bad as Fates (minus the dragon loli). The story of FE: Awakening was fantastic and 30-40 hours avg long.
So in summary, games do not need to be longer to make a story good. Quantity shouldn't be the emphasis, it's Quality.
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I don't care of they are character driven as long as those characters are well written. I lose interest whent hey start going HARD on the Japanese stereotypes of cardboard cut-out giggly girl, shonen hot-tempered youth, stupid posing after saying the name of their attack or after an inspirational speech, and shit like that. Urgh.