And Persona is also generic anime otaku-bait, too. It's just very flashy so people give it a pass.
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Old time JRPG fans - what's your current stance on its current direction?
- Thread starter hwarang
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And Persona is also generic anime otaku-bait, too. It's just very flashy so people give it a pass.
I miss the days when JRPGs weren't 90% fan service Otaku bait. Sure, there was often elements of that in some JRPGS before but it's become ridiculous now.
There's a place for that stuff, and if the game is genuinely good I can stomach it, but where are my Breath of Fires? My Grandias? My Valkyrie Profiles? My Suikoudens? You get the picture.
Persona I can deal with because it doesn't feel cheap and low budget like so many JRPGs do now. The stories and characters are actually really engaging too, at least for me.
There's a place for that stuff, and if the game is genuinely good I can stomach it, but where are my Breath of Fires? My Grandias? My Valkyrie Profiles? My Suikoudens? You get the picture.
Persona I can deal with because it doesn't feel cheap and low budget like so many JRPGs do now. The stories and characters are actually really engaging too, at least for me.
It's hilarious that Yakuza: Like a Dragon is so fun to play as a guy who hates most modern JRPGs
The characters are way better written than the generic anime trash you see in a ton of games now
The characters are way better written than the generic anime trash you see in a ton of games now
Yup. It's like designing an RPG for players over the age of 10 helps with writing and character depth.
So many JRPGs are obsessed with selling to the middle schooler demographic first and foremost, and it leads them to having writing that makes Saturday morning cartoons look like legendary novels.
Yakuza: Like A Dragon and Dragon Quest XI are the best games this decade. The other JRPGs are questionable.
The genre is doing well tbh. I don't really get the anime complaints because they've always been like this. Same for sexualization, bikini armor has existed in JRPGs for decades. Like even the tropes haven't changed that much. Also, absolute bangers of JRPGs are still coming out at consistent rate. It really feels like some people's nostalgia and general hate for anything "anime" is keeping them from fully enjoying more of these newer games.
On openings, I feel some recent JRPGs are too obsessed with lore. I see a lot of these games where the official description on the store page is just a small lore dump, nothing about what you're actually doing in the game. And some of these games might start with a lore dump, or start with a grandiose opening cut scene or opening credits sequence that feels like they're still living in the PSX era when JRPGs were the flagships of console game storytelling.
But look at Final Fantasy VII -- the game they're trying to evoke: it starts with you jumping off a train and fighting soldiers. FFX? It starts with a Kaiju attack.
But look at Final Fantasy VII -- the game they're trying to evoke: it starts with you jumping off a train and fighting soldiers. FFX? It starts with a Kaiju attack.
To quote myself: instead of talking about anime designs, or high school settings, or any of that, what I'll say is: I have not played a JRPG in over a decade that I felt really dedicated the energy of its writing towards being about anything complex or interesting without being compromised by fanservice and adherence to tropes, to the point of injuring the narrative. And I don't think that older games necessarily did either, but the technical constraints imposed practical limits on how their narrative could be presented. The last game that felt like it really, at its core, was driven by an interest in people, and how people relate to each other, and their world, and the self-told narratives that mediate that world, and all of the other good stuff that powers an effective character drama was TWEWY in 2007, and that game was a masterwork.
Honestly this has been a problem with lengthy AAA narrative games in general, and it's one reason why the Yakuza games are such a breath of fresh air. I'm not claiming all the Yakuza games are brilliant, but they are so deeply interested in their characters as people, and it makes them amazingly compelling. I haven't started Like a Dragon yet, so I guess that would be the "JRPG" I next expect to give me what I want.
I know people like to dunk on those cranky Miyazaki quotes but ever since I heard "these characters are designed by people who have only been looking at other characters" I can't get it out of my head
Yeah, Yakuza has mostly socially conscience for a long time but like a dragon takes to a whole new level. You start off homeless and it permeates throughout the gameplay early on as well to the point where taking taxis for fast travel turns into a debate about whether or not you can afford to travel!
and the characters for the most part feel like actual people
Ichiban just got out of jail and has trouble getting used to the world. Namba is homeless, not out of "laziness" but because he got screwed over and can't get back on his feet. Adachi is a cop who was tossed aside because he didn't tow the line. Seiko is a barmaid who needs to support her family
even Han, who is more out there in terms of character has depth when we learn about his abusive father and how he shaped Han into the person he is today
Better than they were in the PS3/360 days by far, but not near the highs of the SNES/PS1 days (my favorite period for the genre, or basically gaming in general...)
I don't mind the harem/weeb stuff all that much, though there are a lot of games it doesn't really need to get shoehorned into (I preferred Estelle and Joshua's story in Sky compared to Rean's harem adventures, for instance). My main issues with modern RPGs tend to be how much excessive padding and convoluted, unintuitive systems the games seem to pack on while the scope of the world seems limited. The 'slice of life' character interactions often times feel like filler to me (I know lots of people love this), and I prefer more simple, streamlined turn based (or action) systems to shit like Xenoblade X/2 where you have all these complicated layered subsystems with halfassed tutorials that you barely need to dive into to beat the game. It also is frustrating that a new RPG usually means you have to be committed for around 80+ hours of gametime, and even Ys (normally a very streamlined series) is gaining in length.
But the biggest problem I have with modern day RPGs is it doesn't feel like there are too many original IPs or settings or experimental gameplay anymore. Last gen, for as flawed as it was, had stuff like Resonance of Fate, Valkyria Chronicles, the original Nier... new IPs, new types of gameplay, unique settings. This gen my favorite games are the 8th game in a subseries of a subseries of one of the oldest RPGs ever, the 11th Dragon Quest, the 5th Persona... Was hoping for more along the lines of Octopath - a unique art style with intuitive systems and appeal to oldskool fans.
There are definitely positives this gen though, I think the games are probably more popular than ever in the west (Fire Emblem, Atelier, Persona, Nier have all achieved pretty damn good sales for instance, and the majority of RPGs sell better in the west than even Japan nowadays), and we are getting some amazing re-releases. I just got the Limited Run of the Grandia HD collection in the mail today actually; but we also got shit I NEVER thought we'd see stateside like Moon RPG Remix Adventure, Romancing SaGa 2 and 3... hell the whole SaGa series for as obscure and arcane as it is in the west, has had a huge push here.
I go back and play a lot of old RPGs, this past year I played Traysia (a technically garbage game but it hit me for some reason), BOF2 (didn't like this one much though), and Legend of Dragoon (awesome!), along with a host of older action RPGs/side scroller RPGs (Willow, Legacy of the Wizard, Neutopia, Ys IV Dawn of Ys replay)... LOD was a real nice surprise - flawed in some regards (slowness in battle, load times, poor translation) but it had a lot going for it, the music and the sense of scope in particular.
I don't mind the harem/weeb stuff all that much, though there are a lot of games it doesn't really need to get shoehorned into (I preferred Estelle and Joshua's story in Sky compared to Rean's harem adventures, for instance). My main issues with modern RPGs tend to be how much excessive padding and convoluted, unintuitive systems the games seem to pack on while the scope of the world seems limited. The 'slice of life' character interactions often times feel like filler to me (I know lots of people love this), and I prefer more simple, streamlined turn based (or action) systems to shit like Xenoblade X/2 where you have all these complicated layered subsystems with halfassed tutorials that you barely need to dive into to beat the game. It also is frustrating that a new RPG usually means you have to be committed for around 80+ hours of gametime, and even Ys (normally a very streamlined series) is gaining in length.
But the biggest problem I have with modern day RPGs is it doesn't feel like there are too many original IPs or settings or experimental gameplay anymore. Last gen, for as flawed as it was, had stuff like Resonance of Fate, Valkyria Chronicles, the original Nier... new IPs, new types of gameplay, unique settings. This gen my favorite games are the 8th game in a subseries of a subseries of one of the oldest RPGs ever, the 11th Dragon Quest, the 5th Persona... Was hoping for more along the lines of Octopath - a unique art style with intuitive systems and appeal to oldskool fans.
There are definitely positives this gen though, I think the games are probably more popular than ever in the west (Fire Emblem, Atelier, Persona, Nier have all achieved pretty damn good sales for instance, and the majority of RPGs sell better in the west than even Japan nowadays), and we are getting some amazing re-releases. I just got the Limited Run of the Grandia HD collection in the mail today actually; but we also got shit I NEVER thought we'd see stateside like Moon RPG Remix Adventure, Romancing SaGa 2 and 3... hell the whole SaGa series for as obscure and arcane as it is in the west, has had a huge push here.
I go back and play a lot of old RPGs, this past year I played Traysia (a technically garbage game but it hit me for some reason), BOF2 (didn't like this one much though), and Legend of Dragoon (awesome!), along with a host of older action RPGs/side scroller RPGs (Willow, Legacy of the Wizard, Neutopia, Ys IV Dawn of Ys replay)... LOD was a real nice surprise - flawed in some regards (slowness in battle, load times, poor translation) but it had a lot going for it, the music and the sense of scope in particular.
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Playing a bit of Genshin Impact as I want to check their F2P mechanics and I'm really hating their baby voices. I'll add that to the reasons I don't play jrpg's anymore. Really off putting.
Good openings in JRPGs are a rarity, unfortunately. Final Fantasy games are outliers in a lot of regards, and I think they should mostly be left out of "trend" discussions just due to how they were never indicative of the state of the genre, past or present. High-budget and often with a very forward-thinking attitude.
DQ games almost all have bad/slow openings. Nearly all DRPGs have bland openings almost as the very nature of the genre. I'd argue that Xenoblade 2 has a relatively strong opening, as do many of the Trails "SC" games (actual SC and Cold Steel 4, notably). Persona 5 starts GREAT and mostly overcomes the really slow start that P4 had. SaGa games don't have strong starts from a narrative perspective, but they don't hold anything back with mechanical complexity via gating, so you get right into the meat of the game and what makes each playthrough different right from the start.
I haven't played much DQ but IX and XI at least get you running around and exploring the opening towns quickly.
I don't remember what it was exactly about FF15's opening that I liked so much. Maybe it was that it didn't try to do an action-packed opening, and instead you have this very relaxed mood in the beginning before things start to ramp up. It wasn't a "boring" or "slow" opening like what a lot RPGs have, they really nailed the mood going in.
All I can say is, keep playing. It's a really good RPG.
Mostly good with the direction jrpgs are going major grip being that they can still be too long with alot of the fat trimming being upfront early parts of the games. While harems are not a hard out for me lolis are and they feel like 9/10 chance of showing up in harems.
I'm fairly indifferent about the rise in dating sim/anime style/ect. If its a good game I'll still play it.
I have found myself playing less turn based jrpg's though. They just don't hold my attention like they used to, and prefer more action rpg's. I'll still play turn based jrpg's if they're really good, but I play a lot less overall.
Maybe its just a lot of turn based jrpg's are too long. I'd probably play more if they were shorter.
I have found myself playing less turn based jrpg's though. They just don't hold my attention like they used to, and prefer more action rpg's. I'll still play turn based jrpg's if they're really good, but I play a lot less overall.
Maybe its just a lot of turn based jrpg's are too long. I'd probably play more if they were shorter.
The original PS1 version of DQ7 has like the longest intro ever... you don't fight your first Slime until like 4 hours in (maybe even more if you suck at puzzle solving, since the first dungeon is a big puzzle dungeon with no battles).
How long does it take until you have full control of a character? That's what really matters to me.
I wasn't hyped for FF16 in the slightest. Then I went to the new official site for it. Now I am hyped.
I'm so hyped I'm even trying FF 14 again (my 4th try, lol). That is how hyped I am. I mean that's pretty hyped.
I'm so hyped I'm even trying FF 14 again (my 4th try, lol). That is how hyped I am. I mean that's pretty hyped.
90s RPG fanboy here:
I've never liked the tactics RPGs and I haven't gotten into an anime RPG yet (I do want to try) but Octopath Traveler and FF7R showed me that there's still good games being made. I'm cautiously optimistic about FFXVI.
I've never liked the tactics RPGs and I haven't gotten into an anime RPG yet (I do want to try) but Octopath Traveler and FF7R showed me that there's still good games being made. I'm cautiously optimistic about FFXVI.
It's been a while but according to this let's play video, it's 5 and a half minutes from turning on the game, putting in his name, watching a short fmv clip, and reading a bit of dialogue, before he starts moving: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUCRYVObhak
But the time to fight the first battle is considerably longer...
I used to be a big consumer of Anime until 2014-2015, so many of the tropes in JRPGs didn't bother me much unless they were done in a way it affected the quality of the game, gameplay or story wise. Take for example a series I fineshed recently, Trails of Cold Steel. The game has the relationship of a group of characters as one of the reasons they are able to overcome any obstacle, however, it falls flat when they barely have any relationships with each other unless it is about the Main Character, due the harem/dating sim elements that are present in the game because all the girls have to be "available" to the hero.
Quite a shame since it hurts the game(s) narrative and makes it so superficial, at least to me. One of the many reasons why I cannot place it higher than the older games.
Quite a shame since it hurts the game(s) narrative and makes it so superficial, at least to me. One of the many reasons why I cannot place it higher than the older games.
The old stuff will always have it's place among the greats, but more contemporary JRPG's are fine too. This can be very subjective to get into. Your going to have you mainline Final Fantasy entries that are clearly going in an action RPG direction, but then you'll have you super niche visual novel/SRPG hybrids too. I feel like the genre as a whole, including any subgenres, is in a very interesting place right now. Octopath Traveller became a hit, Xenoblade became a hit, Trails games have more attention now than they did prior, a Suikoden successor is in the works. It feels like the genre is seeing alot more attention now than it did during the DS/PSP abd 3DS/Vita days. My only hope is we see more stuff get localized, and see more old classics get ports.
The direction Trails takes from the Sky trilogy to the end of Cold Steel kinda mirrors much of what this thread has talked about, yeah. I much prefer the narrative approach and purity of the Sky arc. (And the the Zero/Azure games, which have a close-knit party of a few well-drawn characters, even if there is a harem aspect.) There are just so many characters and extraneous systems in Cold Steel, and so many of the characters are obviously intended as objects of the player's lust, and the writing just creaks under the weight of everyone hitting on Rean.
That's a really good point actually. Stuff like this can't just be piled on top of the story and setting. It changes them, and basically always for the worse.
DQ7 3DS remake is the best way to go if you're new to DQ7. You're in control almost immediately and the opening segment has been streamlined and toned down too, so you get into the traditional DQ experience faster too.
Style is substance, and that's what elevates Persona above stuff like Ys, Trails, or Tales.
You're never going to get back to 90s-era prominence, but I feel like things are in a better place than they were for like the ten year 2005-2015 period. FF and DQ have both had very good releases lately, that take things in very different directions with the very modernized FF7R and the very traditional DQ11, Sega/Atlus has been making consistent quality with Persona and now the JRPGified Yakuza 7, Nintendo seems to have a pretty stable JRPG output now between Monolith and Fire Emblem basically being a JRPG now, and then lots of lower budget stuff is happening outside of all of that. Again, hardly the 90s, but also hardly 10 years ago when the genre was largely getting pushed to handhelds, Square was just iterating endlessly on FF13, and Atlus burned a generation's time on P4 spin-offs.
Market-wise I don't think JRPG "prominence" has actually changed much compared to that period. Back then you had FF acting as a flagship for the genre but the rest of them were getting the same sales as usual, and tend to get similar sales today.
What really happened was other western AAA games came along and started routinely getting sales similar to games like FF7. FF13 and 15 each sold about the same as a big Ubisoft game. JRPGs didn't shrink market-wise, the rest of the industry just grew in comparison. The same goes for Metal Gear and Resident Evil games.
Genre is very bloated now, and quality is all over the place, but mostly bad. The main reason why Persona is so popular nowadays is not only is it a game for young adults (and waifus), but Persona 5 in particular is just a nice double A game. Budget is above the schlock of Atelier or Tales games, and below something like FF7 Remake.
It's bloated now? Doesn't feel like that to me at all, but that's probably because I filter JRPG's with generic anime art styles and otaku bait out of existence so it feels like a desert for the most part
90's and early 00's I obsessed over the genre.
Does feel like part of me is disengaged with the design direction many games have taken, the other is just aging. Hard not to feel ive grown out of saving the world and flirting with teenage anime tropes as most games feel they do.
Then you have FFXV giving a middle finger to thoughtful combat in favor of tepid air juggles and cooldown meters, and half baked scripting to just move on from dev hell.
If I were younger again, I'd probably adore the Trails series as I once did Lunar. I'd probably obsess over Persona 5R. I did enjoy a chunk of it this year, but fizzled after 60 hours and realizing I had 100 more ahead of me. Xenoblade as well, but I came close to wrapping it, but I burnt out hard in the last third and the various reveals in the endgame left me cold rather than mindblown. I'm just too old.
*Have not played DQ11 or FF7r yet, which is insane given how I've played damn near every prior release in each franchise.
Does feel like part of me is disengaged with the design direction many games have taken, the other is just aging. Hard not to feel ive grown out of saving the world and flirting with teenage anime tropes as most games feel they do.
Then you have FFXV giving a middle finger to thoughtful combat in favor of tepid air juggles and cooldown meters, and half baked scripting to just move on from dev hell.
If I were younger again, I'd probably adore the Trails series as I once did Lunar. I'd probably obsess over Persona 5R. I did enjoy a chunk of it this year, but fizzled after 60 hours and realizing I had 100 more ahead of me. Xenoblade as well, but I came close to wrapping it, but I burnt out hard in the last third and the various reveals in the endgame left me cold rather than mindblown. I'm just too old.
*Have not played DQ11 or FF7r yet, which is insane given how I've played damn near every prior release in each franchise.
This is wild. There was a time, maybe back in the early 00's, when I think Tales was the #3 RPG franchise in Japan behind DQ and FF.
Something happened after Vesperia. Maybe people who keep up with Namco staff can elaborate.
I haven't played much this gen only Persona 5, Kingdom Hearts III, Final Fantasy VII Remake, and Nier Automata, but Octopath Traveler, Golf Story, Yakuza Like a Dragon, Dragon Quest XI S, and Cosmic Star Heroine look lit.
But seriously, aside from Persona and the Cold Steel games (which are very inspired by Persona), I can't really recall any other big RPG series that do the whole harem thing. I'm sure there are probably a lot of niche or lesser known ones that I'm forgetting about (maybe the new Sakura Wars?)... Love triangles seem to be much more common in the genre.
Maybe not explicitly harem but like games that do away with telling a story with a more traditional romance and instead focus on having a large cast of female characters the player can romance seems to be growing in prevalence.
I think Cold Steel and Persona are the most egregious (Persona having explicit harem route shenanigans).
Granted there aren't ALOT of big RPG series out there period but you're seeing this in mainline SMT now (w/ SMT4A), you're seeing it in Yakuza LAD, Fire Emblem, you even see this in a mild extent in Dragon Quest.
I don't really think it's that these series are changing to be more harem/dating focused, many of these series have been doing stuff like this for years if not generations now, but it seems that as RPG series die off these are the series that survive.
Starting to think the GBA was the perfect middle-ground hardware for old school JRPGs. You were basically playing SNES RPGs with more cartridge memory.
Carts were big enough so the story and English translation (which expanded the size because Roman letters need more data to deliver the same information as Japanese kana) had room to breathe, but not so big they could rely on a bunch of FMVs to tell the story.
Carts were big enough so the story and English translation (which expanded the size because Roman letters need more data to deliver the same information as Japanese kana) had room to breathe, but not so big they could rely on a bunch of FMVs to tell the story.
Classic JRPGs were horny as hell, they just didn't have the resolution to make it as obvious (and even then, sometimes they'd get pretty risque). Dating sim aspects have definitely become more prominent, but they've always been there in some capacity; there's just been a fusion of the visual novel and JRPG genres that's crossed a few wires, I think. The success of games like Persona 4 and Fire Emblem: Awakening paved the way for other games to do the same. The death of the genre is certainly overstated, though I will say that modern JRPGs feel less... grimey? Their aesthetics are generally more appealing at the cost of some flavor and variation in settings, I think.
Dragon Quest XI S and Yakuza Like a Dragon make me optimistic for the future of the genre. I'm so happy to come in here and see so many feel the same way about these games. I just wrapped up Yakuza and I was thinking the entire time how I adore this game and the new ideas it brings to turn based combat, and DQXI, while much more traditional, is something I've been actively thinking about since the switch release simply due to how it all came together exceptionally awesome. Hope we can see more exceptional games like this that innovate in the genre.
Y'all know those character models would have looked like that back in the 90s if they could have made them look like that.
I mean. Tifa.
So I judge the genre not by its character models. I can look past that if it isn't a constant topic in the game. I also quite enjoy an anime every now and then so I am not objecting to the style in general.
That being said, I think some series that used to be in their heyday back then declined. Like Final Fantasy (7 Remake excluded, but I will only judge that once we have all its parts). The Tales of Series to a degree (Berseria was good but nothing compares to Symphona and Abyss story-wise). I still love all of the games though and am putting my hopes into Arise (aka Tales of "We finally gave them a budget and time").
But others have just emerged after the 90s or gotten better over time... Xenoblade for example or the Persona series.
So I'd say they haven't gotten worse in general. Some once popular series clearly have entered a phase of identity crisis that they need to overcome, but I believe they will at some point. 7 Remake to me is a great indication for Final Fantasy finding what it wants to be in this era of gaming, and the fact that Arise got a budget and time gives me hope (you gotta remember Tales of Titles used to be yearly series between 2002 and 2009, and after that the longest they have worked on one title was a little over 2 years, but that was with their own engine.... they now use Unreal AFAIK, and still it's been more than 4 years since Berseria's JP release... so I think it's reasonable to have expectations).
So alas... there is still good games. You just gotta know where to look for them.
I mean. Tifa.
So I judge the genre not by its character models. I can look past that if it isn't a constant topic in the game. I also quite enjoy an anime every now and then so I am not objecting to the style in general.
That being said, I think some series that used to be in their heyday back then declined. Like Final Fantasy (7 Remake excluded, but I will only judge that once we have all its parts). The Tales of Series to a degree (Berseria was good but nothing compares to Symphona and Abyss story-wise). I still love all of the games though and am putting my hopes into Arise (aka Tales of "We finally gave them a budget and time").
But others have just emerged after the 90s or gotten better over time... Xenoblade for example or the Persona series.
So I'd say they haven't gotten worse in general. Some once popular series clearly have entered a phase of identity crisis that they need to overcome, but I believe they will at some point. 7 Remake to me is a great indication for Final Fantasy finding what it wants to be in this era of gaming, and the fact that Arise got a budget and time gives me hope (you gotta remember Tales of Titles used to be yearly series between 2002 and 2009, and after that the longest they have worked on one title was a little over 2 years, but that was with their own engine.... they now use Unreal AFAIK, and still it's been more than 4 years since Berseria's JP release... so I think it's reasonable to have expectations).
So alas... there is still good games. You just gotta know where to look for them.