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NeoGAF's Essential RPGs: 2017-2018 edition - Vote open until Oct 13th - Win Free RPGs

MoonFrog

Member
It isn't that simple. The majority of JRPG represented here have a lot in common with anime, from cartoon art-styles to story and character tropes.

I get it. I throw around 'anime' as a negative word at times myself, but you kind of need to say more than that or we're just going to assume you're talking about everything in a meaningless broadside.
 

FiveSide

Banned
A bit OT but also worth noting that making blanket statements about anime is the same kind of generalization that people who think "Japan = anime" are making. There are plenty of anime shows that don't have the qualities people are referring to when they describe something as "anime" or "too anime." Many classics from the 90s are like this, but also recent shows like Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinju, which is a realistic character drama about rakugo performers. Not every anime is Naruto, SAO, and K-On (or, in genre terms, shonen, isekai, and moe slice of life).

Anyway, that's a bit of tangent, so adding something more relevant:

I'd honestly be shocked that anyone thought TW3 didn't get enough love, because it's by far the most often praised RPG here in almost every thread about the genre recently. The only other example I can think of is Persona 4 (and Bloodborne, I guess).

W3 is a tricky one because it gets both a lot of praise for its story, and a lot of criticism for its gameplay. It seems to me like it's more polarizing than something like Bloodborne. BB gets a lot of praise for its gameplay and atmosphere, on the other hand it gets significantly less criticism for the flaws that it has (it still gets the criticism, but not merely as much).
 
Oh good, the Butthurt Brigade arrives in style, and not fashionably late this time!

A bit OT but also worth noting that making blanket statements about anime is the same kind of generalization that people who think "Japan = anime" are making. There are plenty of anime shows that don't have the qualities people are referring to when they describe something as "anime" or "too anime." Many classics from the 90s are like this, but also recent shows like Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinju, which is a realistic character drama about rakugo performers. Not every anime is Naruto, SAO, and K-On (or, in genre terms, shonen, isekai, and moe slice of life).

Anyway, that's a bit of tangent, so adding something more relevant:



W3 is a tricky one because it gets both a lot of praise for its story, and a lot of criticism for its gameplay. It seems to me like it's more polarizing than something like Bloodborne. BB gets a lot of praise for its gameplay and atmosphere, on the other hand it gets significantly less criticism for the flaws that it has (it still gets the criticism, but not merely as much).

Anime is better as a medium, not a genre, yes.
 

kswiston

Member
Most of Japan's highest grossing films of all time are animated, so it can't be that niche. Even if the outright Otaku bait stuff is.
 

MoonFrog

Member
Yeah it is a thing where when I say anime as a pejorative I mean "bad anime" as in qualities I've noted in anime or 'anime' content I consumed that I didn't like.

It isn't the most useful term in this respect. I try to do it less now.

Draw out those qualities you don't like.
 

Azuran

Banned
Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy also consists of anime tropes and their artstyles, so idk.

FFVI has a literal hammy clown blowing up the world while the main character is a typical melodramatic "anime" character. There's also a large purple tentacle who loves making tentacle jokes. But for some reason nobody considers that as an "anime" game ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I don't take an argument seriously if someone uses "anime" as a pejorative.
 

FiveSide

Banned
FFVI has a literal hammy clown blowing up the world while the main character is a typical melodramatic "anime" character. There's also a large purple tentacle who loves making tentacle jokes. But for some reason nobody considers that as an "anime" game ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I don't take an argument seriously if someone uses "anime" as a pejorative.

The anime comparisons never come into play until someone wants to use them pejoratively. So the well-executed anime tropes in FFVI are seen as solid writing and memorable characters. When some of those same tropes appear in FFXV and are executed less well, suddenly "there's too much anime in FF now."

Anime can be good or bad like anything else. But there's this practice of saying any Japanese media product got "too anime" as soon as the writing falls off a cliff. It's bizarre and unfortunate.

What I always found hilarious is that, setting aside general aesthetics and visual design, it's not even like Japanese games have a stranglehold on the kind of things that people describe as being "too anime." Mass Effect in particular has all the same problems that people think "anime" games have, our lord and savior Space Jesus Shepard fights aliens while romancing teammates, complete with a Gainax Ending? Huh, you don't say...
 
People using anime as a negative term is one of my biggest pet peeves on this forum. It contributes nothing.

They contribute unwanted hostility to a thread. So I guess that's exactly what they want to do.

"Anime" is an useless description. If you use the word to talk about art style, there's a clear distinction between Japanese trends in design from decade to decade. If you want to talk about pervy stuff, there's a whole genre of anime like that while there are series that avoid those trends. If you want to talk about tropes they also differ from genre to genre. RPGs borrow a lot of their tropes from "shonen" manga and anime, which can be about sci-fi, supernatural stuff, slice of life, etc.

Throwing around the word "anime" doesn't cover what people think it covers.
 

Opa-Pa

Member
I get that the use of the word anime to criticize games may be annoying to some, but I wish people didn't act like they didn't know exactly what others mean when using it.

There's a clear difference between power of friendship anime and Shonen like story anime vs "beach episode" and lolicon crap anime lol. Guess which kind people usually complain about.

W3 is a tricky one because it gets both a lot of praise for its story, and a lot of criticism for its gameplay. It seems to me like it's more polarizing than something like Bloodborne. BB gets a lot of praise for its gameplay and atmosphere, on the other hand it gets significantly less criticism for the flaws that it has (it still gets the criticism, but not merely as much).

Oh yeah, I've noticed this. It's actually the main reason I haven't played it myself yet.

I appreciate good writing in my games when it complements the rest, but gameplay has to be good too or otherwise I don't care, and I've seen enough fans of TW3 call the combat bad to not be too interested in giving it a try anytime soon (plus I don't have access to the other two games and I'm very particular about that kind of stuff).
 

firehawk12

Subete no aware
I get that the use of the word anime to criticize games may be annoying to some, but I wish people didn't act like they didn't know exactly what others mean when using it.

There's a clear difference between power of friendship anime and Shonen like story anime vs "beach episode" and lolicon crap anime lol. Guess which kind people usually complain about.

Shounen anime? :p

The issue with using anime as a dismissive word is that if you do that, you can't get offended when someone who hates games thinks all games are shit because they are just murder and rape simulators.
 
I get that the use of the word anime to criticize games may be annoying to some, but I wish people didn't act like they didn't know exactly what others mean when using it.

There's a clear difference between power of friendship anime and Shonen like story anime vs "beach episode" and lolicon crap anime lol. Guess which kind people usually complain about.

People see a picture of a 2D character made by a Japanese artist (or in the style of a Japanese artist) an immediately call it "anime avatar", yes, for that people who only want to derail discussions your avatar is the same as one of a Senran Kagura game. And they do it on purpose to shame you and try to push their own distorted and sometimes false claims.
 

MoonFrog

Member
I still need to finish Bloodborne (got it with my PS4 in December 2016). On the guy with a cage on his head. I think I've done the optional bosses I've got access to, going by the trophy list. (Also on the chalice dungeon with the dim creature referenced below--I wanted to play the game but I didn't want to go into that room in NoM).

I lost steam on that one room with the (NoM)
spiders
for quite a while. They scared me a lot :p

In general, I had the most fun with Bloodborne up through the dim creature granted sight. The thing with me and Souls games is that I often find they have too high boss density for my liking. I really like working through the areas, figuring out the enemies and the maps and I feel that is really tilted towards the first half or so of Bloodborne.

I was really disappointed with the college and the castle in these regards. They were really small. There are the
nightmare and the return to that gaol area
but idk, the balance has just seemed a bit off since then to me.

EDIT: Also, upon checking my mail, thanks for the CSH key. That was a really generous offer and I'm sure it drove this thread :). I'm looking forward to playing it.

Also, I plan on buying it again when Nintendo lets it on Switch. I want to actually support you guys on this.
 

kswiston

Member
As I understand it, everyone should have their Cosmic Star Heroine keys now (minus 3 people who explicitly passed on it). Check your PMs.

Thanks again to Robert from Zeboyd games for the generous offer!

If you don't play games on PC, have CSH already, or have narrower gaming tastes, give your key to a friend or fellow GAF member.
 

Xetherion

Member
As I understand it, everyone should have their Cosmic Star Heroine keys now (minus 3 people who explicitly passed on it). Check your PMs.

Thanks again to Robert from Zeboyd games for the generous offer!

If you don't play games on PC, have CSH already, or have narrower gaming tastes, give your key to a friend or fellow GAF member.

Checked my PMs, nothing there.
 

FiveSide

Banned
I still need to finish Bloodborne (got it with my PS4 in December 2016). On the guy with a cage on his head. I think I've done the optional bosses I've got access to, going by the trophy list. (Also on the chalice dungeon with the dim creature referenced below--I wanted to play the game but I didn't want to go into that room in NoM).

I lost steam on that one room with the (NoM)
spiders
for quite a while. They scared me a lot :p

In general, I had the most fun with Bloodborne up through the dim creature granted sight. The thing with me and Souls games is that I often find they have too high boss density for my liking. I really like working through the areas, figuring out the enemies and the maps and I feel that is really tilted towards the first half or so of Bloodborne.

I was really disappointed with the college and the castle in these regards. They were really small. There are the
nightmare and the return to that gaol area
but idk, the balance has just seemed a bit off since then to me.

If nothing else, make sure you do Bloodborne's DLC. I wouldn't go so far as to say it "redeemed the game" in my eyes, but to be honest I wasn't the biggest fan of Bloodborne at first, and the DLC helped with that a lot. It has an unholy trinity of bosses that are the best sequence of bosses in video-game history, in my opinion.

Playing the game on a BL4 run also helped, I enjoyed that run substantially more than the regular one.
 

kswiston

Member
Checked my PMs, nothing there.

I looked on my spreadsheet (link on post 699), and your username was typo'd somehow (I tried to copy and paste names, so no clue what I did). PM me a reminder and I will manually send one when I am back at my laptop.

Probably within an hour.
 

kswiston

Member
Thanks to Stumpokapow as well for writing a script solution to send out all of the CSH PMs. Without him, I probably would have taken a week to get through them manually. PMs have the same anti-spamming time out as regular posting.

Will the results of this become a new thread? I assume with a link here to direct us there?

As Moonfrog mentioned, I will be updating the OPs. I want the user lists in the same thread.
 

Emarv

Member
Huge thanks to Robert and Kwiston. Been excited for CSH forever (will eventually double dip on Switch), and I'm super stoked for the final list. Thanks for all the hard work, Kwinston.
 

lazerfox

Member
Thanks a lot for the CSH key! I installed it right away and played it for 30min.

My reaction when I saw the Bestelle staff whirl

q8ZwmVU.png
 
Before playing them I'd written off Persona 4 and Valkyria Chronicles as being 'too anime'. Valkyria Chronicles actually turned out to be great, especially thematically. Whilst both had issues (obligatory beach visits and one having the hot springs moment), they were still great. I've always wondered if Disgaea has struggled more because of this.

The essential RPGs threads were one of the initial things that drew me to GAF years ago. Good to see it continue.
Very much the same! I've been using them as ways of identifying games I need to play. The writeups some people give have convinced me more than anything else. After this year, Terranigma has moved up that list. kswiston's great designs for the OPs (and Kuwabara's 'writing/music theme last year) really helps too.

Thank you for the CSH key Robert!
 
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