This.
JRPGs ARE anime.
At least to the extent that most people mean.
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Man, I really miss old school JRPGs
- Thread starter SolVanderlyn
- Start date
JRPGs ARE anime.
At least to the extent that most people mean.
I don't know man, all my favorite games are jrpgs and I fucking hate anime.
I love those games so much. Unfortunately they didn't sell enough. If you look at games from the dev Lancarse they can get a bit experimental. Check out Lost Dimension for action/SRPG hybrid or Zanki Zero for first person dungeon crawling - which has a demo by the way on PSN. Scarlet Grace is definitely worth picking up though and honestly the best game Square has put out for me this gen (which isn't saying a lot to me but eh, it stands out and is really fun and challenging; honestly feels like a JRPG aimed at adult audiences, or at least for those of us who have played a lot of games).
Some on 3DS, and there are a few more coming next year. It just became less prevalent as diversity has increased across JRPGs.
I don't think pre-rendered was ever the majority of JRPGs on any era, with it being more affiliated with the high-budget and some mid-budget games on a single platform from 1996 to 2000. Dragon Quest, none of the SMT derivatives, Pokemon, etc. that were popular during that era never made the jump to using them as the primary forms of map movement.
Now it is more affiliated with RPGs that are trying to have a large number of towns without breaking the bank, like Bravely Default. Bravely Default is actually a decent point of comparison for Pillars of Eternity in a bunch of ways.
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What I'm still wondering is why seemingly no JRPG company has tried to pull off something like Pillars of Eternity or Disco Elysium. Western RPG developers in recent years have been going back to middle--budget, isometric games that often mix relatively simple 3D characters with high-res pre-rendered backgrounds. They're deliberately going back to what CRPGs looked like in the late 90's but at modern resolutions, and as a result they're making some of the best games they've ever made.
Why hasn't any Japanese developer tried to do this?
Not modern example but the Growlanser series from Atlus (formerly Careersoft, developers of Langrisser series as well, before they got bought by Atlus) was exactly that - Growlanser 1-4 in the series featured pixels walking on an isometric style camera with pre-rendered backgrounds.
OP
OP
It feels kind of archaic and basic now with what action RPGs have become, but man was it innovative back in the day. I'd love to see another go at it with some tweaks. It was like a very basic rhythm game before, there's a lot they could do with it.
Basic?! Some of the additions I still don't have full confidence finishing.
But yeah I see what you mean. I'd love to see another spin on it today. Maybe using all four buttons?
Maybe in that it used pre-rendered 3D backgrounds, but its battle system was much more similar to that of Chrono Trigger. Honestly, I'd love to see an updated version of Septerra Core. It's such a pain in the ass to get running, especially if you want to play it in windowed mode. I've never been able to get the cursor to move smoothly in windowed mode, regardless of which fixes I tried, and I hate playing the game full-screen because of the low resolution and how it screws with my desktop icons and whatnot. I'd love to see an updated version of it for PC and consoles that did away with the mouse control entirely and didn't require a fan-made hack to get around having to install an ancient version of QuickTime in order to view in-game videos.
I agree with this. But there are 2 sides of it - There are some people who prefer the 20 minute long wall of text to introduce a character, the dialogue quips whenever you get to a new area, the inventory management and loot sorting, the mastering of increasingly-convoluted progression systems and battle mechanics... there are other people who prefer exploration, a simple well-told plot, rapid fire progression of the story... That's the big difference between the oldskool and nu-skool of RPG gameplay. As I get older I get a bit more weary of the overly complicated progression systems or the wall of text dialogue and so playing classic RPGs feels like such a breath of fresh air. I still love the Trails series though.
The Trails series fills that void for me. They're old school JRPGs, but with modern QoL features.
A lot of jrpgs today have no challenge either I went through the whole main story of FF15 and didn't die once, how much more boring can you get than that?
if there's no challenge at all I might as well just watch it like a movie
if there's no challenge at all I might as well just watch it like a movie
Not really. Its pretty easy to avoid the Tales of Persona Neptunia trash and still like many games in the genre.
Let's be real here, how many JRPGs can one really have any trouble with (outside of completionist trouble where you need to follow a FAQ to find every obscure treasure box)?
That's an exception to the rule for the genre. It's an overwhelmingly easy genre to play, made easier by the fact you able to grind to get stronger and buy better equipment which in turn makes it easier - as well as unlocking stronger powers which also makes it easier.
I enjoy JRPGs, but they're like comfort food to me, nice for a cold winter day, but they aren't going to get me frustrated or challenge me the way a game like Hollow Knight will or some other genre that relies more on precise platforming or has you not being so crazy OP.
There are plenty of JRPGs that offer good challenge. Play Octopath Traveler, SaGa Scarlet Grace, DQXI on Stronger Enemies, Fire Emblem games on harder difficulties, etc.
I said a lot not all of them I have played octopath, that one would have been really good if the story was good, they nailed combat and difficulty and forgot the story. turning on stronger enemies in dragon quest 11 isn't the same thing
I don't like difficulty settings, feels so fake
I looked at scarlet grace but reviews weren't that great
Yeah, because Western reviewers tend to not like open and difficult JRPGs. If you limit yourself to the opinions of Western reviews for RPGs, you're mostly going to get more guided and simpler gameplay experiences.
God forbid developers give players options to tailor their experience via difficulty levels.
I'm at about 85 hours into Scarlet Grace, third playthrough. If you like good gameplay and difficulty in open RPGs, the game is essentially the pinnacle of the genre.
Is the story good? Is it classic turn based combat? Does it have world map? Sound track as good as some older rpgs? does it require play through of other saga games?
You seem to want super specific narrow things from games, so you should probably just play through those older ones rather than expecting every new game to conform to your super specific set of demands. It isn't a story focused game. It is the GOAT turn-based system, and is independent of other SaGa games. It wins an award for Most World Map in an RPG. But it mostly succeeds on its own merits and trying to pin it into a single specific structure of sub-genre that it doesn't even try to be will lead to disappointment. There's a lot of games that it is remiscent of, but those games are either other SaGa games or RPGs that aren't JRPGs.
You seem to really want linear, story-focused games, but those are inherently going to lean on the easier and simpler side just as a basic result of the constraints placed by linearity.
I just want to die a few times, I know most aren't considered hard but they are beyond easy they are very easy like babies could beat them
- The game's writing and woldbuilding are very good. "Story," in the traditional overarching sense, takes a bit of a back seat to exploration and gameplay.
- Yes, it's one of the best turn-based battle systems ever.
- It takes place almost entirely on the world map. There are no towns and dungeons to explore in 3D—rather, you're exploring the world map, entire provinces. Towns are many, but menu-based, and you interact with people, events, and locations on the world map.
- Yeah, the OST is great.
- No.
You will die in Scarlet Grace. And it'll be extremely satisfying when you beat battles while hanging on by a thread.
But if your condition is just dying a few times, you're basically on the razor's edge of game balance and somebody slightly more experienced or better would slide through without dying, and those worse would die a lot.
The answer is... difficulty levels, but you hate those too. You just want the entire RPG genre to be designed to your own super-narrow expectations and yours alone.
Yep, that's one of the reasons why I like bloodborne, dark souls, octopath traveler etc
being able to change my difficulty cheapens the whole difficulty experience to me esp ones that let you change it anytime you want
i replayed Suikoden 1 & 2 this year, might end it with Mother 3 - for decades, JRPG's were my favorite, but i played too many mediocre ones and honestly burned out on the genre. if it's a medieval-y setting and doesn't do something interesting with that (lovecraftian shit a la berserk/souls shit/SMT 3) i'm probably not fucking with it. i just spent too much time with forgettable settings/characters/plot and am way pickier these days...on a related note, i can't wait for next year's port of disco elsyium
FF VII remake looks fantastic, and ill likely gameshark my way through Xenogears 2.0 (fan effort) soon, i haven't played it since in the day but can't do the grinding forever again. it's also been far too long since Lunar 2.
i finally nabbed a copy in like 2014 or so and goddamn is this game short & beautiful. i support people playing it by whatever means they can.
also related: the Shining Force III translation effort (still ongoing!) from Shining Force Central is a joy, no fan should sleep on the rest of that series
i wanna argue here, but yeah - Phantasy Star, Lunar, Cosmic Fantasy II etc - it was evident from pretty early on, but i do feel we were talking about different art styles/troupes. Phantasy Star II looks more like the era of Space Adventure Cobra, Golgo 13 and such then when everything started looking like Tails games for a while there.
by the 32-bit era, the anime influence felt undeniable, and when unique aesthetics showed up (Vagrant Story comes to mind) they would stand out as a result
FF VII remake looks fantastic, and ill likely gameshark my way through Xenogears 2.0 (fan effort) soon, i haven't played it since in the day but can't do the grinding forever again. it's also been far too long since Lunar 2.
i finally nabbed a copy in like 2014 or so and goddamn is this game short & beautiful. i support people playing it by whatever means they can.
also related: the Shining Force III translation effort (still ongoing!) from Shining Force Central is a joy, no fan should sleep on the rest of that series
i wanna argue here, but yeah - Phantasy Star, Lunar, Cosmic Fantasy II etc - it was evident from pretty early on, but i do feel we were talking about different art styles/troupes. Phantasy Star II looks more like the era of Space Adventure Cobra, Golgo 13 and such then when everything started looking like Tails games for a while there.
by the 32-bit era, the anime influence felt undeniable, and when unique aesthetics showed up (Vagrant Story comes to mind) they would stand out as a result
This is being disingenuous. You know EXACTLY what people mean when they mention anime in regards to video games. That's why people tend to list of the JRPG's that they do like. Someone in the thread made a good post about it but it's an accumulation of modern tropes and cliches that have become particularly pervasive over time. People need to stop bringing this up as if ever JRPG is exactly the same or something. I like JRPG's and even I don't have time for another "passive teenage boy adventures with cute girls (atleast one that is particularly young) and his male friends that range from comically serious to just comical".
Personally I am really vouching for a JRPG that features an older cast that both acts and looks appropriate for their age.
Gonna have to give this a shot I guess. I like difficult RPGs but totally agree with the dude who said turning on stronger mobs or whatever is not the same thing. A well balanced RPG with no difficulty options will always be better than a hard mode that just ups values.
Dragon Quest XI is a total failure of a game when it comes to difficulty. The default mode is even easier than Pokemon ffs.
But it plays just fine. I've put over 100 hours into the game on stronger monsters and have found it to be very satisfying and have to actually use my head for boss battles. The problem with DQXI's default difficulty is the enemies don't do enough damage and are way too squishy so they fall before they can do anything. Stronger monsters addresses this problem and you actually can encounter fights where enemies will push back, and things like the forge and the character builder can be used to their fullest potential.
DQ11 has the most amazing difficulty options of any JRPG I've ever played. Playing with harder enemies + other modifiers like no shops & no overleveling completely transforms the gameplay. The fact that you can also turn everything off and turn it into something that my 10-year old could enjoy is just another point in its favor.
SaGa Scarlet Grace doesn't have traditional difficulty options, but is the entire game just a bunch of difficulty options?
In terms of tailoring your own experience, there's
- Four very different protagonists and main quest structures.
- The world scales with how many battles you fight, so you never massively overpower or underlevel the main game.
- Out of the hundreds of battles/scenarios you can choose at any time, there's Easy/Normal/Hard which have increasing rewards, both physically (crafting components) and to character HP/skills.
- Every battle has multiple optional objectives to earn more rewards.
- Every one of the main quests has multiple story branches
- Every one of the main quests has some type of mechanic that gates into different difficulties for the final boss.
- An actual difficulty slider for which there's very little documentation about, because it doesn't' actually change the battles themselves. It just messes at the rate at which the world/encounters "progress" (In game parlance, Battle Rank increases faster or slower). So it is requires re-approaching the game and can be really tough at times, because stuff gets harder before you've had time to really prepare.
I thought DQ XI's difficulty levels were generally really, egregiously bad. Beyond many or most players missing it as a side button prompt at the character naming screen, the awful decision to lock players out of enabling it mid-game (which was awful in FE: Three Houses, too) leads to a weird difficulty curve.
I absolutely adored Stronger Monsters for Act 1, but the game wasn't designed with difficulty levels in mind. In a game without difficulty levels, there's a difficulty curve, whereas in a game with difficulty levels there tends to be a flatter curve since the player can put it closer to their liking. The designed curve with a post-launch difficulty mode grafted on top made Act 1 awesome but contributed to the overall repetition and poor pacing of Act 2/3. Act 2 works a lot better if you're breezing through the content repeat content, just as why Hard/Nightmare are so bad in Trails in the Sky SC-- they designed a long, breezy, repetitive part that gets mangled by post-launch difficulty levels that the games weren't designed for.
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I love old school Jrpg and I also enjoy some modern Jrpg like DQXI which blend old school with new school. I played with the classic battle system and I didn't regret it :)
Miss older style JRPGs as well. Reason I always pick up new titles that build on that old JRPG feel.
