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Let's talk about JRPGs that have good writing quality

Chairman Yang

Chairman Yang

if he talks about books, you better damn well listen
I'm trying to figure out all of the JRPGs that have writing quality on par with the better WRPGs. By "writing quality" I'm referring to things like dialogue, characterization, and plotting. So far, I've come up with:

Lost Odyssey: The short stories in the Thousand Year Dreams are good. The rest of the game's writing isn't really.

Final Fantasy Tactics: Some intelligent plotting and characterization. The original translation is horrible but the underlying content is solid.

Anachronox: A JRPG-style game, but not actually made in Japan. Not sure if this would count.

What others (if any) do you think are noteworthy?
 
Dragon Quest VIII really works with the way the accents complement the characters' written personalities. Final Fantasy XII also has a superb translation. Vagrant Story has an excellent plot and is translated very smartly.

I'm going to stand up for Suikoden 2's plot, but not for its translation. The plot is very tight and focused, with great payoff in the end and only reasonable twists and turns.
 
My personal favourite is Vagrant Story.

I mostly enjoyed the script of Final Fantasy XII as well. The story itself isn't that amazing, but I liked the fancy words.
 
Mother 3. To a lesser extent, Earthbound.

FF XII if completed as intended probably would have made it there. As it is it sort of falls apart.

Dragon Quest V.

You could make a case for FF VI.
 
Star Ocean 4 is a good one.

Okay fine fine I'll go with Vagrant Story too. That's mainly because it avoids all of the nonsense and sticks to what's important.
 
Before someone beats me soundly to the punch

Valkyrie Profile: Essentially many morbid short stories about individuals serving as a lead into a larger tale of conflict between gods. The accents, nature, and circumstance for each is unique and engrossing alone and together.
 
FF Tactics and XII are some of the most elegant games i've played so I guess they fall under the category. Alexander O Smith was it ?

also Persona 4, while a cheesy high school setting, has amazing stuff too, presents what it offers superbly.
 
Dascu said:
My personal favourite is Vagrant Story.

I mostly enjoyed the script of Final Fantasy XII as well. The story itself isn't that amazing, but I liked the fancy words.
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These are the only two correct answers, and Vagrant Story >> FFXII.

everything else is just horrible.
 
Yeah, between FFT, Vagrant Story, the sparse nuggets of story and dialogue in FF12, and maybe Tactics Ogre, looks like Matsuno is one of the few JRPGs developers delivering good writing.

Forgot about Earthbound/Mother 3. They have intelligent writing.

I can't say I agree with any of the Dragon Quests, though. Their writing is bland at best, and very simplistic. Mind elaborating on your choices, Man God/Y2Kev?
 
Seanspeed said:
*crickets*
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Paper Mario - The Thousand-Year Door ?

Though it was a long long time ago since I played it. I remember the writing as warm-hearted, witty and with some nice undertones.. concerning modern society and what we in Sweden call I-landsproblem. Usual everyday problems in industrialized countries, negligible in comparison to things like poverty and famine. And some funny caricatures.. but a lot of this had to do with the visual design as well.. can't remember well enough if the writing stood on its own.
 
SMT: Nocturne is very consistently written, a miracle considering the heavy philosophical subject matter it is covering.

Also laugh if you will but I enjoyed the story of "The World Ends With You" despite it's silly weeabooness, it's very well done for what it is!
 
avatar299 said:
WRPGs have good writing?
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Yes, sometimes. In some cases, even by the standards of good movies or novels. Planescape: Torment and Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines are the two obvious examples.
 
I really haven't been impressed by the writing in the SMT spinoff games I've played (Devil Survivor, Digital Devil Saga, Persona 3). It's competent and a cut above most JRPG stuff, but that's it. Is Nocturne a lot better than these?
 
ilikeme said:
Paper Mario - The Thousand-Year Door ?
Click to expand...

The entire series, more like. And throw in the Mario & Luigi games, for good measure.

Mother 3, FFT (PSP), FFXII, and Vagrant Story are the greats, in terms of localization.
 
Chairman Yang said:
I really haven't been impressed by the writing in the SMT spinoff games I've played (Devil Survivor, Digital Devil Saga, Persona 3). It's competent and a cut above most JRPG stuff, but that's it. Is Nocturne a lot better than these?
Click to expand...
You're going to have to tell us why you aren't impressed!

And as for Dragon Quest, I don't think it is really fitting to call it bland. I think the writing matches the game...sort of a comfort food type. That probably wouldn't change your mind actually, lol. It does a very good job in establishing a very believable world with different cultures and people living in it, with tons of side talk and party chat, multiple lines per NPC, and rich, interesting, or heartwarming dialog and conversations you can have with those NPCs. Dragon Quest is the king of this.

I haven't played a Matsuno game in Japanese, but I wonder if you should credit Matsuno or AOS (or now his many Ivalice-style imitators?).
 
Chairman Yang said:
Yeah, between FFT, Vagrant Story, the sparse nuggets of story and dialogue in FF12, and maybe Tactics Ogre, looks like Matsuno is one of the few JRPGs developers delivering good writing.
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Well, that about wraps up my suggestions.

For FF12, even if the central story is rather sparse, the writing in the unlockable bestiary entries is great.

The Mario RPG series also stands out as some of the best JRPG writing, which is kind of shocking.
I really haven't been impressed by the writing in the SMT spinoff games I've played (Devil Survivor, Digital Devil Saga, Persona 3). It's competent and a cut above most JRPG stuff, but that's it. Is Nocturne a lot better than these?
Click to expand...

Nocturne has easily the best writing out of the SMT games released in the US. I wouldn't say the other ones are bad (DDS is particularly good), but Nocturne stands far ahead of the rest.

Y2Kev said:
I haven't played a Matsuno game in Japanese, but I wonder if you should credit Matsuno or AOS (or now his many Ivalice-style imitators?).
Click to expand...

Both, I guess. Even Tactics Ogre, localized by Atlus, was great.


I'd give The Dark Spire as honorable mention. As brief as the dialog and descriptions may be, Atlus completely nailed it.
 
Chairman Yang said:
Yeah, between FFT, Vagrant Story, the sparse nuggets of story and dialogue in FF12, and maybe Tactics Ogre, looks like Matsuno is one of the few JRPGs developers delivering good writing.

Forgot about Earthbound/Mother 3. They have intelligent writing.

I can't say I agree with any of the Dragon Quests, though. Their writing is bland at best, and very simplistic. Mind elaborating on your choices, Man God/Y2Kev?
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Dragon Quest V is a simple story that is very well told. It's all about a boy becoming a man, a man becoming a father while stopping an evil cult with bad intentions toward his family. Bog simple I know but the feelings come through so well that it is really hard to describe why exactly it is so well done. It's got the tone exactly right. An upbeat tone in a throughly depressing world. It's a triumph of execution over an otherwise standard story.
 
Final Fantasy IX's commentary on human life and the Final Fantasy series itself, balanced with an archetypal tale of the "in-game" story, puts it at the top of my list. The writing's quite nice, too, even if the translation didn't capture the fanservice bits.
 
STAR OCEAN 4

lol

Seriously:

FFVI
Chrono Trigger
Persona 4 - Great interpretation of a Japanese Highschool cast + murder mystery
Xenogears - Philosophical
Breath of Fire (
you fight God, making you question if you did was right or wrong for the world
)
Valkyria Chronicles - Light heartwarming story
Earthbound (never got to play Mother 3) - Very light and very heartwarming story.
 
this thread only makes me want to rage about how much i loathe the writing in recent anime i've watched and japanese games i've played.

but let's stay on topic. mother 3 probably is your best bet for good writing that's a japanese game. i never really got into the mario rpg business because of how void of personality mario has to be to be mario in a mario game which subsequently pulls me out of the game every time. never really was a fan of the silent protagonist.
 
Mario has an absolutely hilarious personality in the Paper games. Sure, it's pretty much all done with simple yes or no questions, but that is the beauty of it!
 
JRPGs tend to have very simple and child-like writing. If you play them for long enough you can get drawn in, but if you've ever read a good book, there's really no comparison.
 
Don't kill me, but I genuinely like the Nojima penned main-series FF entries, particularly FFX.

But then I go more for concepts and ideas than specific wording and construction as when dealing with translated text its hard to judge where the blame lies.
 
PantherAttacks said:
JRPGs tend to have very simple and child-like writing. If you play them for long enough you can get drawn in, but if you've ever read a good book, there's really no comparison.
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Well, I don't think anyone is going to compare JRPGs to novels, but you're really overgeneralizing.
 
Chairman Yang said:
It's competent and a cut above most JRPG stuff, but that's it. Is Nocturne a lot better than these?
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The writing sparse in Nocturne, but that's probably its biggest strength. And the fact that you only have text to follow and no VA helps it as well. It also doesn’t have the awkward pacing (due to the gameplay) that the Persona games suffer from.

I feel that the writing (setting, events, pacing etc.) in Nocturne is better than all the PS2 SMT games I've played so far.
 
TWEWY starts out really generic emo JRPG fare, and I really hated it. But somewhere around the halfway point it took a turn for the awesome, and the writing and plot of the back half of the game ranks up there among my personal favorite.
 
Chairman Yang said:
I really haven't been impressed by the writing in the SMT spinoff games I've played (Devil Survivor, Digital Devil Saga, Persona 3). It's competent and a cut above most JRPG stuff, but that's it. Is Nocturne a lot better than these?
Click to expand...

In my opinion I would say Nocturne's credit goes to the fact that its written out like a religious theology & philosophy class. Rather then beating themes over your head and or forcing them they fit within context of the game and what you as the player are doing.
 
Hmm...

I assume we're all referring to the re-translation and not the original FFT, right? If not...really, guys? I mean, really?

I don't know about 'intelligent' and 'witty', but I did enjoy the Mario RPG games, Mother series, some of the FFs...

And before we blame 'this guy are sick', let's not lay the blame on the story writers, but the localization team?

Nobody mentioned Lunar? Even if the story has been beaten to death. I'm not sure the story was all that great, but the characters were lovable.

It just seemed that most Japanese companies are writing these stories for a purely Japanese population. I don't think I've seen anything that has come across WRPGs yet though.
 
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