On the JRPG and what it means to play the role of a teenager as a late twenty-something.

[Deleted member 46958]

Recently, I admit, I was beginning to wonder if my love for the JRPG genre was beginning to fade. I didn't yearn to play as much of them as I used to. "Why is this?" I thought, as I was going through Tales of Vesperia's re-release. I still like the genre a lot, but I feel less intense about playing than I once did. I began to wonder if this was natural due to maturity (I'm 26), or if it is because the genre has become second nature to me, like eating or sleeping.

Then I wondered if it was due to the young casts that are present in most JRPG titles, and if I am displaced enough from being a teen that I just don't resonate or identify anymore. I just recently picked up Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel for the Ps4. Clearly my passion for the genre is still there, and smoldering (I plan to pick up Cold Steel II as well).

But what does it mean to play as teenagers in a role-playing game at 26? Is there a psychological aspect present, a refusal to grow up? Am I interested in the narrative these games weave, the characters, the world? What am I in this for? Why am I spending the cash on this? Am I insecure that I still like what I do as someone in their late twenties? Being oneself is absolutely important, and I'm trying to figure out why I'm questioning why I am considering all of this.

I think part of it is me feeling like I shouldn't be down for playing as younger characters, and I should move on to titles that are have older characters that I can relatively relate to? I'm unsure. Then another part of me considers this absurd. After all, these are role-playing games.

What are Era's thoughts on this and do fans of the JRPG genre identify with what I'm writing? Discuss.

 

[Tohsaka]

I still enjoy JRPGs as much now as when I was a teenager. I've never really felt a need to relate to or identify with characters in any game, so the ages don't bother me at all.

 

[Imitatio]

I love Persona games because I can feel like a teenager again, at least somewhat. The fun and quirky nature of most interactions between MC & friends is why I like those games so much (and other, similar ones, like Tokyo Xanadu e.g.). They are great to escape the sometimes rather boring real life imo.

 

[Bengraven]

It was weird when I was in my twenties but not as weird as now, as a 40 year old.

 

[Ouroboros]

Play Lost Odyssey.

 

[skeezx]

It's why I don't really play jrpgs anymore. I feel like they're primarily aimed at the teen through early 20s demo. Obvs not every single jrpg but generally they're not made "for me"

 

[Philippo]

I generally play JRPGs for the gameplay mechanics, the world and aesthetics, the "vibes" of them all.
Sometimes they have good characters or story beats, but a lot of times there is wave of tropes (and lots of fanservice).

That said i do get your point, i too sometimes wonder if i just play them out of habit (considering they mostly go against all the maturity we are seeing in other genres and western titles which i look in most titles), especially now that i am approaching the age where i would be considered the "old guy" in the party (like that one thread from a few weeks ago).

 

[LordGorchnik]

I still enjoy JRPGs as much now as when I was a teenager. I've never really felt a need to relate to or identify with characters in any game, so the ages don't bother me at all.

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Were done here. I am 34 and can easily seperate myself from the role the game (JRPGs) want my to place myself in as a character.

This isn't new for you or anyone else.

 

[BocoDragon]

Isnt every millennial kinda into kids/adolescent stuff into their 20s, 30s and beyond? You're not exactly alone here, and jRPGs aren't the only popular kids pastime that people haven't left behind as they aged. Everyone in their 30s that I know is still playing video games and talking about Marvel movies, let alone 20s.

Personally I'm so old that I don't even have a crisis over playing games starring teenagers. As long as there is a certain richness to the storyline and world that still engages and challenges your mind (ie Persona) there's nothing wrong with it.

 

[ASaiyan]

When you consider that pretty much every JRPG is just a bildungsroman leaning on the standard Hero's Journey plot, the themes are pretty universal. The characters' growth is presented by the story in terms of their physical "growing up", but really anyone can grow as a person at anytime and learn important life lessons.

The fact that the characters do not look like you anymore need not be a distancing thing.

 

[Cornbread78]

Nah, I'm getting older as well and the ages don't bother me so much. It's the same in anime, so it's all good.

I just want a good story, with a sense of real fantasy to the story to get drifted away from reality when I play. I think this is why I have always gravitated towards sci-fi/fantasy games rather then the GTA types, just because I could care less about the real world and when I'm playing games I want new experiences/worlds/cultures to explore.

 

[SturokBGD]

I've never felt the need to "identify" with the characters I play as (I mean I'm a boring middle aged white dude, why would I want to?)... I think the difference is not so much that the games feature younger characters, more that their stories are intended for younger players. Sometimes the gameplay or the hook is enough to make it not matter - I mean, I love Pokemon and Yo-Kai watch - sometimes it's just these games tap too much into teenage angst to connect with me now.

 

[Omegamon]

You people really care about this

 

[Deleted member 48434]

I just want some more variety.
Playing as teens all the time gets old.
When you do get the ocasional game where you are an adult, like Octopath or Strange Journey, it makes them stand out.

 

[Brivs]

Man, just wait until you're 40. Then you realizing you're being asked to cozy up to characters who are less than half your age! (Thank goodness for Kawakami-sensei.)

 

[Mesoian]

Play Lost Odyssey.

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Actually this.

You people really care about this

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Why wouldn't we?

The fact that focused narratives in story based games almost solely target children leave a lot of people who age out in the dust.

 

[Deleted member 16025]

OP I hear you. I'm 38 and I'm tired of seeing Japanese games where anyone older than 19 is considered some sort of geezer. It actually annoys the hell out of me when I imagine a character is roughly early twenties and then I find out the developers claim the character is 18 or 16 or sometimes even younger. The obsession with teenagers is a nuisance.

Valkyria Chronicles is a great example of a game where some of the older characters don't feel ancient. Largo and Elanor are both in their late 30's and they feel like they are done tastefully. I really appreciate that. However, the game also has like 15-yr olds who can join your squad and I'm like WHY?

Anyway, yeah I am less inclined to get into JRPGs when I feel like its the same tired retread of a high school setting or a military academy or some sort of setting that focuses on teens.

 

[mute]

The whole self insert/role playing thing isn't something that I've done or have ever appealed to me. I'm just here to appreciate the story/characters like any other narrative based game/media.

So there could be huge gaps in age/whatever between myself and the main characters but it doesn't really make a difference to me, so long as they are interesting.

 

[DarkChronic]

I don't find it super weird - in my head canon, I tend to age up the characters in my head anyway.

i.e. playing through Final Fantasy X, I always consider Tidus to be in his mid to late 20s. Wakka and Lulu in their early 30s, etc.

 

[Mesoian]

When you consider that pretty much every JRPG is just a bildungsroman leaning on the standard Hero's Journey plot, the themes are pretty universal. The characters' growth is presented by the story in terms of their physical "growing up", but really anyone can grow as a person at anytime and learn important life lessons.

The fact that the characters do not look like you anymore need not be a distancing thing.

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This is very true, though sometimes seperating the age from the act from the character is a little much.

For example:

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This is Miranda from Grandia 3. She's 37. ::SHRUG::

It feel as weird as when 20 and 30 year olds were playing high school students in movies in the 80's.

I kind of wish that the whole "you're over 25 and therefore, too old to do anything fun or meaningful with your life" trope would exit japanese media entirely because it's some dumb bullshit that people get fucked up over, but...it's not going anywhere as long as the primary markets are 12-18 year olds and people lusting over 12-18 year olds.

 

[Sheentak]

Ignore the ages late teen charecters are often written as somebody in their late 20s

 

[Pau]

I can see how this would get boring and weird if you play a lot of JRPGs or the majority of games you play are JRPGs. I treat it like I do YA novels or comics. It's nowhere near the majority of what I consume, so it's nice to go back to something aimed at younger audiences and with younger protagonists.

 

[Jeeves]

I'm soon to be 30 and I'd say you're waaay overthinking this. Just enjoy what you will, OP.

That said, I feel like I've outgrown Tales games specifically, or at least my tastes have. I think it just has to do with the writing style. Still love other JRPGs.

 

[Deleted member 18379]

I'm not sure, but you better overthink it. Just enjoying the games for what they are would clearly be the more difficult and tedious option. You're not even 30 yet, quit acting like you are ancient and completely disconnected from youth ffs.

 

[ChristianH94]

Ignore the ages late teen charecters are often written as somebody in their late 20s

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This. I actually have a hard time with most JRPGs now that I'm an adult not because it's for kids but because most of them to me feel like a grind fest with characters that don't feel real (there is no way a teenager is going to be as mature as most of the protagonists in these games)

Mix the fact that it can be a grind fest in most of these games and I can see why people would get into them and I used to love that but now it really is a time thing and since I'm gonna be getting a plot I'm usually not into, it's just not worth it. I bought I Am Setsuna not too long ago and only after I got it did someone tell me the story greatly improves after 40 hour of playing and like yeah no not for me

 

[Mesoian]

Ignore the ages late teen charecters are often written as somebody in their late 20s

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Written, modeled, acted...

Age ain't nothing but a number, but a lot of young fiction, japanese or otherwise, don't really treat age with much mind, the concept of "young and hot" being more important in the long run.

 

[Vitamin_B_Complex]

The whole self insert/role playing thing isn't something that I've done or have ever appealed to me. I'm just here to appreciate the story/characters like any other narrative based game/media.

So there could be huge gaps in age/whatever between myself and the main characters but it doesn't really make a difference to me, so long as they are interesting.

Click to shrink...

Yeah, I have never felt like I was the character in any game. Even games like Dark Souls with character customization. To me it is the story of the characters that I partake in, not me being the guy or girl in any game. In short, games don't make me feel like Batman anyone.

 

[dtcm83]

Already been mentioned in other posts, but I guess it depends on what you want out of an RPG. If roleplaying the main character and really feeling like you are connected with the character is important, then I could see how you might feel a disconnect and would want to play games with older/more mature characters that align better with where you are at in life. The whole high-school hero plotline that is present in so many JRPGs (and in many anime shows in general) can certainly be a turn off to me at times because I don't feel like I can relate or care enough about the plot/setting. I left high school many years ago and have long since moved on from the social/typical struggles of a high school student. But if the game is simply a really good game in terms of presentation/mechanics/etc., I'll still give it a shot since I don't typically prioritize roleplaying the main character in video games (otherwise I'd have a really limited selection of games to chose from :-P).

 

[Dice]

You people really care about this

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But there are many stories to tell. The coming of age tale about 'Hiro', the naive teen from a small village with a strong sense of justice, gets reaalllly old.

 

[Dogui]

I guess games like Persona have some sort of "live again your school days but with cool supernatural stuff this time" kind of appeal, but they're more of an exception.

In most games of the genre, age is sorta meaningless. Protagonists can be really young because it would be easier to justify they doing stupid stuff so they can develop to a stage of not doing stupid stuff anymore later in the game, but all in all, looks like to be just a cultural thing.

There's several indie jrpg inspired games from ocident where characters are on their 20's but aside the age number, they work the same.

Roleplaying as someone different from yourself is sort of the basis of an RPG, and at the same time, lots of jrpgs doesn't work like actually getting in the protagonist shoes.

 

[Deleted member 46958]

Going through this thread, I'm starting to thing that my feelings formed because of how I look at things as a writer, and it's separate from age.

Look at Persona 2: Eternal Punishment for example. From a writing perspective it's still refreshing insofar as the cast.

I think I just want more variety in character and setting.

 

[Kill3r7]

I can no longer do it, mid 30s. I really struggled with XC2 but forced myself through it. Jin was my favorite character in the game. That should tell you all you need to know.

 

[Hippopuncher12]

I love JRPG's and I don't have a real problem with things like the characters being teenagers or whatever. I have noticed my will to play them or at least newer ones has gone down the last few years but it's probably due to the fact that I don't really like the "high school" settings of some of them or romance type stuff. I just want to level up and kick some Dragon ass man.

 

[AnansiThePersona]

But there are many stories to tell. The coming of age tale about 'Hiro', the naive teen from a small village with a strong sense of justice, gets reaalllly old.

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Final Fantasy's constant subversion of these tropes is probably what made it so popular. It's actually pretty common in FF to play as a young adult rather than a teen

 

[Crayolan]

I'm in my 20s and have no trouble relating to characters in their teens. Y'all were teens at one point too.

 

[passing breeze]

It's no weirder than reading Harry Potter books or playing Spider-man. You don't have to be young or identify with the characters to enjoy YA media.

 

[SatelliteOfLove]

Its more about the more realistic/human they get, the more con-TROV-ersial and misunderstood they get by some of the communities who play them.

It almost feels like the opposite is constantly pulling them in.

 

[chrisypoo]

I'm in my 20s and have no trouble relating to characters in their teens. Y'all were teens at one point too.

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Yeah but we've had to relate to them countless times in JRPG's, it just seems odd that JRPG's generally tend to fixate on the specific demographic of teenagers and children. I think what some of us, myself included, would like to see is simply more JRPG's in which the main playable crew is composed of functioning, working, adults, and not always young adults. We don't get many games where our main character is over 50, so I'd really like to see more games like that.

 

[Mauricio_Magus]

I'm in my 30s and this isn't a problem for me at all, I do have a good laugh about characters being too young at times but whatever, they are written by adults it's not a big deal to me.

 

[Xavi]

28 here and I mostly play JRPGs and I've never had these kind of thoughts.

 

[Renna Hazel]

I find it odd that age makes a big difference here. Video game characters are nothing like me and never will be, so I don't look for myself in game characters. I can certainly enjoy characters who aren't similar to me, as that would be kinda boring to me anyway.

 

[JG_Lionheart]

36 over here and whenever I think I'm over the JRPG genre, a game comes along to remind me that you just have to find a good JRPG. For me this time it was Romancing Saga 2.

 

[Linkura]

I'm 31 and a woman. Been playing mainly JRPGs for over two decades. I don't care who the protagonist is as long as it's written decently.

 

[atomsk eater]

I can play through games with younger protags fine, especially if they aren't written to be completely naive or braindead, but I definitely would like more games with older characters. Older women (here defining old as past mid-20s) are especially are rare in playable roles.

 

[Aaronrules380]

I don't get why people care so much tbh. It rarely even matters at all

 

[Scarlet Spider]

Never bothered me, hell it never even crossed my mind. I enjoy the games regardless of their age. Not like it'll stop me from playing Pokemon or any other JRPG.

 

[mnk]

Outside of stuff like Persona that take place in the real world, it's not like JRPG teenager protagonists are even really that relatable to real life teenagers in the first place.

 

[Nephtes]

I cannot do most JRPGs with voice acting outside of Final Fantasy any more. Many times the extremely high pitched/childish sounding voices of some of the casts are just too much for me.

I don't think it has anything to do with my age, but rather how these games are presented.

In the past you had a mess of pixels to look at which despite not being all that realistic, gave your imagination room to fill in the blanks.

New games are so detailed as to not leave room for that and in my opinion, it seems to skew many main characters quite young. Xenoblade Chronicles 2 comes to mind in this regard. Combined with the voice acting, and I just can't get into these games any more.

Whereas, Final Fantasy VI and VII will still be infinitely playable till the end of time (for me) despite characters like Terra and Yuffie being teenagers...

 

[Another Castle]

Yeah, it's pretty weird. This spills over into anime as well. Lately, I've had to seek out series that don't revolve around teenagers even as the most critically acclaimed of the lot continue to mainline that age group. I mean, you really can't help what demographic it's aimed at. Problem is I don't think American teenagers are the primary consumers of JRPGs in the West.

Persona 5 is the last game I played like this. Love it, obviously, but the dating options are exceedingly strange for a 30-year-old. Do I date teenagers because I'm a teenager? Do I date adults because I'm an adult IRL? Do I go nuclear and date the pre-teen because ~plot~?

It's weird, for sure.

 

[MilkBeard]

I can play through games with younger protags fine, especially if they aren't written to be completely naive or braindead, but I definitely would like more games with older characters. Older women (here defining old as past mid-20s) are especially are rare in playable roles.

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Yeah, same. It's more the design mentality of it being aimed exclusively for teenagers that would put me off.

If they have a varied cast (as JRPGs often do) with some older characters, even though the main character is younger, and the game approaches some universal themes, then I definitely appreciate it.

Final Fantasy still aims at characters roughly in their 20s, so I am completely fine with this, as they are not too old for younger people, and not too young for those who are older (at least for me).

And again, if they make, for example, a game where you are in high school, such as Persona, if they make the story and characters to be deep, then it can appeal to a wider audience.

So really, the quality of the story, the writing, and the character development is more important than age. Unfortunately, a lot of JRPGs suffer exactly in this area.