Why I can't stand JRPGs anymore.

[Kaiser]

I used to love them, play them like a maniac and master them. However as time went on I started standing them less, there are few things that pretty much TURN me off always. Here is a list of them:

1. Cliche characters/story. I mean come on how many times you want to hear the same old story with same cliche characters. I despise one cliche most, weak main characters, whoever came up with this shit needs to be shot. I don't say the main character should be macho or something like that but at the same time he should'nt be a complete coward/pussy.

2. Pacing. Want a bad example of story pacing? Go play Final Fantasy IX, I lost interest on the third disc because that's when the story seriously started to drag on. I quit before visiting the various shrines to then access Terra *sigh*.

3. Lame final bosses. It's just sad when you make it to the end and 3/4 of time in jrpgs nowadays, the final boss is a joke. No challenge at all, I want him to absolutely kick my ass.

That's pretty much about it, my favorites to this day are: Chrono Trigger, Chrono Cross (I consider it an entirely different franchise than Trigger so I don't compare them) and Valkyrie Profile 1 (The second sucked period and suffered from the 3 bad things I mentioned).

I think i'm getting too old for this, or rather I need a very long break from them.

[Ed Oscuro]

I hate JPRGS because they were the breeding ground for all the harebrained content-stretching ideas (backtracking and so on) found in far too many games these days. I just got off a post about Okamiden, though, so feel free to judge whether I'm too close to the subject to be rational at the moment

[Kaiser]

I hate JPRGS because they were the breeding ground for all the harebrained content-stretching ideas (backtracking and so on) found in far too many games these days. I just got off a post about Okamiden, though, so feel free to judge whether I'm too close to the subject to be rational at the moment

If you have fun with it, it is not a problem. My issue is that I no longer have fun with them, last one I beat was Tales of Phantasia on PSX and that was 2 years ago. I beat it because it was enjoyable but the final boss was too easy. However that can easily fixed with the hard mode accessible in options and suddenly the fight became more fun. More Jrpgs need difficulties off the bat in the options.

[trap15]

I despise one cliche most, weak main characters, whoever came up with this shit needs to be shot. I don't say the main character should be macho or something like that but at the same time he should'nt be a complete coward/pussy.

Typically, this comes from Neon Genesis Evangelion's Shinji, who is a complete puss. So blame Gainax

[Ruldra]

I used to be big on RPGs but I too lost my interest in them. A big part of them is to sit and watch the story unfold and I don't have the patience for that anymore, I just want to get into the action. RPGs that involve minimal story is what I play nowadays (Demon/Dark Souls and 3D Dot Game Heroes for example).

I despise one cliche most, weak main characters, whoever came up with this shit needs to be shot. I don't say the main character should be macho or something like that but at the same time he should'nt be a complete coward/pussy.

While some games have this (Catherine), this is mainly an anime cliche. Every protagonist seems to be this kind of guy, it literally makes my blood boil when I see it. It's the main reason I can't watch anime anymore.

After Evangelion, it seems like every anime needs to have at least one Shinji/Asuka/Rei-like character.

[Specineff]

It's either a jerk, an emo, an emo jerk or a Mary Sue for a protagonist in Square's recent games. (Sazh in FF13 was the only character I liked from the roster.)

What about Tales of Symphonia? Lloyd felt like an okay character, they didn't use the amnesia plot device, and the plot was interesting overall. Baten Kaitos Origins also felt like a fun game.

[Kaiser]

It's either a jerk, an emo, an emo jerk or a Mary Sue for a protagonist in Square's recent games. (Sazh in FF13 was the only character I liked from the roster.)

What about Tales of Symphonia? Lloyd felt like an okay character, they didn't use the amnesia plot device, and the plot was interesting overall. Baten Kaitos Origins also felt like a fun game.

I plan to play Tales of Symphonia at one point. You'll definitely hate the Tales of Abyss then, amnesia is USED as a plot device but unlike all cases of it, it's logically explained later on in an unexpected way that I will not spoil. I think I'll play tales of destiny next as a jrpg just waiting till exams are over.

[Krimzon Kitzune]

I hate JPRGS because they were the breeding ground for all the harebrained content-stretching ideas (backtracking and so on) found in far too many games these days. I just got off a post about Okamiden, though, so feel free to judge whether I'm too close to the subject to be rational at the moment

If you have fun with it, it is not a problem. My issue is that I no longer have fun with them, last one I beat was Tales of Phantasia on PSX and that was 2 years ago. I beat it because it was enjoyable but the final boss was too easy. However that can easily fixed with the hard mode accessible in options and suddenly the fight became more fun. More Jrpgs need difficulties off the bat in the options.

Tales of Destiny was great, too. Sadly, the final boss was pretty easy in that one. At least it's amusing - you get to fight a giant steak!l

[DragonInstall]

The reason I can't stand jrpgs is the story and characters are usually childish. The games never seemed aimed towards adult, and thus I lose interest quickly.

Also having a main character who is a wuss infuriates me, and that seems to be the theme with jrpg's now days.

Action rpgs suck compared to traditional ones... maybe I'm just getting old.

[Acid King]

I used to be big on RPGs but I too lost my interest in them. A big part of them is to sit and watch the story unfold and I don't have the patience for that anymore, I just want to get into the action. RPGs that involve minimal story is what I play nowadays (Demon/Dark Souls and 3D Dot Game Heroes for example).

This. I don't think I've put serious time into any traditional Japanese RPG since I played Morrowind in 2002. Too much plot, too many cutscenes, too much reading about characters I don't give a shit about... I just don't have the patience for it. I'd rather have minimal plot and lots of free exploration and fighting.

[guigui]

I just don't have the patience for it.

I think the word "patience" is the true problem here. When I was young (about 16) I finished Shining Force II about 25 times, guess I had nothing else to do.
Then, suddenly as you grow up, you realize that time actually passes. This is when you stop playing JRPG and start playing shmups. Not sure if this is a good thing though.

Also

I'd rather have minimal plot and lots of free exploration and fighting.

Demon's Souls and Dark Souls are your games.

[Jason X]

JRPGs are just too goddamn long anymore, plain and simple. They were great when I was 17 and had all the free time in the world. Granted, I pretty much play games every minute that I'm not at work, but it just takes so...damn...long...to get anywhere in freaking things.

WRPG's are pretty bloated, as well, but I can tolerate them better because they don't feel like a bunch of anime stereotypes.

[Zaarock]

I'd rather have minimal plot and lots of free exploration and fighting.

Demon's Souls and Dark Souls are your games.

And the Ys series.. though they're definitely linear. Haven't played the Xanadu series also by falcom but that should fit as well

[Acid King]

I just don't have the patience for it.

I think the word "patience" is the true problem here. When I was young (about 16) I finished Shining Force II about 25 times, guess I had nothing else to do.
Then, suddenly as you grow up, you realize that time actually passes. This is when you stop playing JRPG and start playing shmups. Not sure if this is a good thing though.

True, but I think on my end it's not so much the time that bugs me, it's the non-interactivity. I have the patience to play difficult sections of a game over and over again and not get frustrated. When I started Ninja Gaiden 2 on Master Ninja I probably played the first Test of Valor a hundred times or more before I beat it. I just don't have the patience to want to watch unskippable cutscenes or read dialogue. JRPGs are too passive for me anymore.

I'd rather have minimal plot and lots of free exploration and fighting.

Demon's Souls and Dark Souls are your games.

And the Ys series.. though they're definitely linear. Haven't played the Xanadu series also by falcom but that should fit as well

Yeah, Dark Souls is great. I had close to 100 hours on that game before my 360 went kablooey and I still had a long ways to go before the end. I'll have to give Ys a look.

[Daigohji]

I used to love JRPGs, up until a few years ago. For a long time I thought the problem was that thaey had stagnated while western RPGs have taken huge strides forward. But I'm currently replaying Xenogears and I realise that JRPGs haven't stagnated, they've regressed. Xenogears is a huge game, but it covers a lot of ground. The writing is far from perfect, but it's a lot tighter than the likes of recent Star Ocean games or abominations of bad writing like Eternal Sonata. A recent JRPG will use 100 lines of dialogue to explain something that could have been covered in 5, and it will all be overwrought, painfully blunt and badly voice acted. Characters are increasingly indistinguishable, and hardly any Japanese developers seem to have twigged that the mute, personality-free protagonist or brave young swordsman with a strong sense of justice aren't compelling main characters. But the biggest problem is the emphasis of developing a gimmicky battle system at the expense of all else. If you're lucky there might be a gimmicky setting too, but the basics of plotting and sense of progress have been lost. A modern JRPG plot has no sense of escalation or expanding scope in many cases (again, Eternal Sonata is a typical example), most of the tasks in the game will be banal fetchquest drudgery with, at best, tenuous links to the central plot, and then suddenly it's the endgame, you save the world, roll credits.

[DragonInstall]

My favorite rpgs are still from the snes days. Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy 6... It's amazing how bad square has become from those days.

I think jrpgs now days are way too influenced by anime. Too many anime cliche characters, story, and setting. Jrpg's are made to satisfy weeaboos basically.

[RNGmaster]

You're all forgetting CAPTAIN BASCH FON RONSENBURG OF DALMASCA.

[Ed Oscuro]

Then, suddenly as you grow up, you realize that time actually passes. This is when you stop playing JRPG and start playing shmups. Not sure if this is a good thing though.

The wisest thing I've read in a long while!

[BryanM]

Giving the Etrian Odyssey series a go might alleviate both of those problems somewhat.





[insert image of fucked up giant ogre thing with a bunch of arms and nails nailed into his body here]

Shining Force II

The saddest thing is when you grow up and decide to make a simple editor for the game, and then maybe some more enthusiastic fans might create a rom hack that'll be played by a total of ten people in the entire world.

Fuck yeah~

hardly any Japanese developers seem to have twigged that the mute, personality-free protagonist or brave young swordsman with a strong sense of justice aren't compelling main characters. But the biggest problem is the emphasis of developing a gimmicky battle system at the expense of all else.

As bloated as this post is becoming over time.

Chaz from Phantasy Star 4 is the perfect example of a main character who brings life to the game, with his wonderful dumbass sassy comments. And he's just a rehash of the brave young swordsman trope!

"Gimmicky" is a bit of a weighted word; for god's sakes game developers, mix things up alittle. The core essence that kills this genre is:

* Variety - Compare Futurama the movies to the episodes. The movies are full of filler and C-list jokes that never make the cut in 20 minute long episodes. One thing you may have noticed from your favorite jRPGs: They're made up of dozens of completely unrelated "episodes". Does it really matter when Sephiroth turned your girlfriend into a Seaking in relation to the subquest where you have to kill the unicorn molesters?

* Pacing - More than 3 seconds for a smack animation is too long.

Breath of Fire 1 is my idea of the perfect game. Perfect in the quality of being awful.

[drunkninja24]

You're all forgetting CAPTAIN BASCH FON RONSENBURG OF DALMASCA.

DON'T BELIEVE ONDORE'S LIES!

[DJ Incompetent]

Half Minute Hero and Vidiot Game are as far as I wanna go nowadays. They get to the point.

[Hagane]

Demon's Souls and Dark Souls are your games.

Also Gothic 2 and Risen. Not Japanese, but fit that style. Any more games like these, preferably on PC?

I also loved JRPGs, but the more I got into arcade games the more evident their flaws (clutter, shallow system, etc) became to me. I still like Valkyrie Profile 1, even though it needs an option to skip cutscenes. The first two Star Oceans are nice too, but they have the same problem than VP. Still like SRPGs too. Huge Ogre Battle fan.

[trap15]

You're all forgetting CAPTAIN BASCH FON RONSENBURG OF DALMASCA.

DON'T BELIEVE ONDORE'S LIES!

These 2 posts made my day.

[BryanM]

[Talking aboot gimmicky battle systems...]

Also an example of "American Kirby is more badass", as the cover features more conflict.

[ancestral-knowledge]

I compared some games that I played over the years and came to the same conclusion as the OP. Just some examples here. Not all are JRPGs though but that doesn't matter. Oh and i never had a PC Engine and there were many JRPEGs on that. Maybe someone could name some good ones (if there are any)

Final Fantasy 13 - fucking terrible, HATE IT
Final Fantasy 12 - terrible
Final Fantasy 10-2 - i don't even....
Tales of the Abyss/Symphonia - meh ... mediocre
persona series - okay

dragonquesst 8 - very good!
Panzer Dragoon Saga - good
Tales of Phantasia SNES - good
Grandia 2 - good

Secret of evermore - awesome
Faxanadu NES - awesome
Zelda 1 NES - awesome
Zelda 2 NES - awesome
Final Fantasy 1 - very good
Final Fantasy 6 - awesome
Zelda 3 SNES - holy shit!
terranigma -awesome
secret of mana - awesome

Exception: Rogue Galaxy : i like that very much


Since i have the time i will write down what pisses me off in these games nowadays. I will not get into every point in detail.

1) Long stupid cutscenes. Even worse if unskippable. Fucking hate them.

2) Several games have stupid parts where i am forced to play certain characters i hate. I am not able to play the character i want for some reason. No, I have to play stupid fucktards like Penelo from FF12 because "Mr. blabla has been abducted and we have to rescue him" or the party splitted at some point. Fuck that.

3) What the heck happened to exploration? In final Fantasy 1 or Zelda 1 I tried to figure everything out on my own with the little hints the game or the manual gave me. Now there is only one path to move on and if not then it ALWAYS leads to a chest with like 5 potions in it noone gives a fuck about. Cities arent as fun to explore as they were in Zelda 2.

4) Complicated battle systems/weapons noone gives a crap about. A battle system should be simple and fun and should not need pages of explanation. The materia system of Final 7 is a perfect example although some combinations are far too powerful. Final 13 on the other hand has an awful paradigm bullshit system that everybody hates.

5) The games are far too easy. I can literally get through some games by just pressing x over and over. Try that with Zelda 2 and you will fucking die. I played through Zelda 2 last weekend on the NES. No internet, no walkthrough and no fucking emulator bullshit. It's tough but very doable. I have the feeling that the older RPG games are harder in general because limitations only allowed that much of content so to make a game last longer they made it harder. Give a new kid Zelda 3 that knows Zelda only from 3D titles as Ocarina (or even worse: the wii) where you can randomly smash every button to succeed and the kid will get obliterated. I showed my girlfriend (who plays akai katana and wii crap) Zelda 3 and she died and died and died and died until she gave up in the first fucking palace.
These games never were that difficult to begin with as you could always kill 100 more of the green blobs to level up and defeat the last boss in one hit but you get the idea.

6) Lame final bosses. See point 5. And i don't mean that you have to have uber gear and level 99 on every character to be able to kill the final boss. The final boss should just always be a tiresome cruel fight.

7) Over-complicated bullshit storylines with 150 timelines, 99 parallel universes, time travel and 55 turning points. Perfect example: Final Fantasy 12 & 13. I hate such stories. Most of them are not deep in fact. Striped down they are often shallow bloated bullshit tha could come directly from a mediocre anime.

Impossible to find crap. Shit you absolutely need a guide for because it's fucking ridicilous to find. OH !!! HOW CONVINIENT! THERE IS A FULL PRINTED GUIDE IN COLOR FOR YOU RIGHT NOW FOR 49 $ FROM PIGGYBACK! THANK YOU SQUARE ENIX ! If a developer puts in shit noone is able to find out on his/her own he/she is a moron. A player should be able to figure shit out on his own after maybe several playthroughs. But who cares nowadays? Idiots today read the guide before they even fucking play the game ( look at the Saidaioujou thread how we idiots try to figure out the mechanics from replays instead of discovering them for ourselves. We do it because we already know that the mechanics of Cave shooters are so fucking cryptic noone will ever figure it out on her own. And even if someone does, it's not fun. It fucking sucks. Yes i think some shmups mechanics fall into this category too. Sorry.).

9) This gen has run out of ideas in a way, but there are always developer's with new ideas so we'll have to wait and see. VC is perhaps the most innovative RPG this gen, it's a hybrid RTS and RPG and it does some new things. Overall though, the genre lacks anything definitive of the RPG experience. I mean come on. Developers are too fucking scared of trying something new due to piracy or they are afraid of failure. Hell, I would do the same thing if my boss would be an asshole like the Square Enix President who basically says "No More Non Mainstream Games". They know same old shit sells.

10) JRPGs are becoming animes. And that sucks because 95% of animes today fucking suck. The days of ashita no joe or serial experiments lain are gone. Having watched over 450 series myself i fucking know it. I am the worst. The anime influence is why main characters become cliched emos, plots become boring and stupid. Everything is slowly degrading to a fucking dating simulation. I do not want to play a fucking dating ero game although i like hentai porn. I just don't like big titted sluts and little fucking lolis, all dressed inappropriate for their age, in my game. Oh and the cold intelligent female with glasses that is always cold towards the main character until she falls in love with him. Gotta love that one too.

11) Cliched douchebags characters that i hate. Yeah, the one with amnesia or the pussy-type one. This is mainly because of the 10th point. The stupid bitch female character with the high morals who heals. Oh yeah and the priest/miko one is always female like in the stupid animes. The tough muscular macho type man, who had a hard past he has to evercome but could not hurt a fly. Always another douche that lost his parents or shit like that and suffers constanly from that. Oh and there will always be a big tittied slut who is kinda clumsy and a loli cute one who is sassy. Fanservice bullshit ( look at the new Dodonpachi here). And the main character always sobs about how he wants to help the whole world and how he doesn't like to fight and to get anyone hurted. It's so stupid and lame.... i hate it...

12) Downloadable content. I mean ... what the fuck.. you have to pay to see the ending of Final Fantasy 13-2...

I could go on and on and on.....

Don't mind me though. I have obvious anger issues....

[mrsmiley381]

I haven't played a Japanese-style RPG that I've enjoyed since I played Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne back when it first came out. Second closest was Strange Journey for the same reasons, aside from being on a tiny screen. All the other MegaTens went down the trope drain while Nocturne let me be a mute god of destruction murdering everything in my path.

I really liked the story in Phantasy Star Universe. After a hundred hours of mediocre nonsense, the final ending I unlocked actually made me feel like I did shit for once. That was pretty cool, though having to play as Ethan Waber for the first twenty hours was the most painful thing ever.

[RNGmaster]

Final Fantasy 12 - terrible

What are you smoking, bro? I get that the grinding for rare items night turn people off but FFXII is a great game to play to chill out since it's so damn easy and you can just let your mind wander while you look at the ridiculously detailed backgrounds. There's a reason my avatar is the LEADING MAN and not some shmup character.

Also fuck gambits, real men manually select commands.

[professor ganson]

For most gamers it probably makes more sense to be a casual fan of JRPGs. They are a lot of fun if you don't take them too seriously. They typically just don't have the depth of gameplay or story to warrant massive amounts of time.

I have heard it said on a number of occasions that JRPGs just haven't managed to evolve enough over the years. That might be fair, but in may cases people just end up tiring of the genre. They either get burned out on it or just develop more sophisticated tastes. To avoid having the former happen, I only read one or two mystery novels a year. I think if I read too many, I'd quickly get bored of the genre. Same with JRPGs.

[iconoclast]

I usually don't play RPGs any more because they're simply not rewarding. I might play one if it looks like it has an interesting/deep battle system (eg. The Last Remnant, Resonance of Fate), or if it has a good story (Nier), but I'm just not interested in sinking 30-50+ hours into a game if it's going to have little to no payoff (or sense of accomplishment). I've always been into action games, so to me it just makes more sense to dump that time into a game that will challenge me, and thus, be fun to learn and clear.

[Damocles]

Roguelikes: The anti-JRPG.




Also, another recommendation for the Phantasy Star series.