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on light of FFVII remake; Does anyone else feel like jRPGs were 'better' before it?

No. I, II, III, IV and V in particular are the worst for thee mainline 10 games. Even Tactics and XII are better. PS1 era is pretty much the golden era of jRPGs where it was at the peak of quality and quantity.
I actually think V is one of the best in the series from a gameplay perspective. If they ever pulled off a job system like that again and combined it with an interesting narrative it might easily become the best JRPG of all time.
 
I think what I realized is the "big three" on the SNES venture pretty far from typical jRPG tropes, and that maybe I just never really liked jRPGs that much. I didn't like Final Fantasy II (IV) very much when it came out because like other people said, it's super linear. I think Final Fantasy VII just crystallized those tropes that were already there. So over time I moved towards cRPGs and aRPGs on the PC and every time I've gone back to jRPG games they rarely click with me.
 
I liked JRPGs before voice acting. Particularly the PS1 generation.
GOD YES, this so much. Voice acting was a huge step backward from the book-reading feeling that text heavy games gave you. Even when it can be turned off, it feels wrong to do so when the creative intent is for it to be there.
 
Going back and playing later SNES/Genny JRPGs that I appreciate is their leanness.

The trend was going away from the dungeon wearing away at resources, and the late SNES-era games had a strong movement towards not only not utilzing that strategy, but replacing those long dungeons with side activities, completely changing the tone away from anything "dungeon crawler". There was also a trend towards sub-35h run times.

PSX JRPGs had more than a few titles that had those long dungeons, but not the goals and rigor of a dungeon crawler to advertise value. "60 hours of gameplay!"

I'm not sure why this was, but I do know FF7 wasn't alone in that, but it's real.
 
I feel like there's enough amazing stuff before and after that it's not worth judging for me, personally. (Though I do hate that SO much of the discussion surrounding JRPGs is focused almost exclusively on their stories, as the mechanics are much more important to me, personally, yet they almost seem to be treated as an afterthought by a rather large chunk of gamers).

What FFVII DID do to the genre that I really don't like is shift things much more towards a three-person party being the norm rather than four-person, especially within its own series. Super lame shift that just feels way too limited to me, especially when a lot of games want to push you towards using the main character and the/a "healer".
 
If there was any change, it came more from Final Fantasy 8 imo...

Especially the CGI, the change is much more evident in VIII than VII imo if you look at how often it's used but in particular what sort of scenes they're used for... I was just thinking about that the other day, actually. Having replayed VII recently, it's really not all that cinematic per se. It's story heavy, to be sure. A lot more dialogue than VI. But the conversations are often still primarily presented in a way very similar to VI. And the primary storytelling method is still dialogue. CGI was still rather conservative, and it was really as a reward, used specifically for action set pieces. To this day, I feel VI and VII are very parallel to one another, and VII is very much like a natural evolution of what was done with VI, not only thematically 'world in danger' and 'steam punk/diesel punk', the esper/materia systems, but even the way the games use dialogue, uses pacing to break the game up into explore/reward for each segment of the game (namely from the overworlds being similar IMO), heck even how both games use a lot of comedy and goofy scenes. I feel like FF VI would have been told and looked a lot like VII had VI been a PSX game.

It was really with VIII where the CGI began to become so heavily used even more mundane things... even overused. Things like the introduction CGI for Quistis that just shows her walking through a door and smiling -- there's very little point to it. I remember at times playing VIII and feeling like, 'did we really just need to wait and load for a CGI to show thaaat?' But it's also where Sakaguchi really started to try treat FF like a Hollywood epic IMO, and you see that not only in the far greater use of CGI but also the greater focus on romance and the lack of comedy.

VII still reminds me a lot of VI in terms of overall presentation and story scenes, just a natural evolution of it. It's really with VIII that I felt it had a significant change it how it presents itself.

That said, I think any effect on JRPGs could be overstated. For one, there really aren't that many. So, if VII and VIII had any effect, it was sort of the COD effect that raised the bar so high that killed off too many smaller projects. I think you saw that somewhat in series like Suikoden III trying to present itself differently. But we still got Suikoden V. Still got games like FF XII. But a lot of that isn't because of VII per se but could just be the nature of the business.

I mean, almost every genre gets fewer classic games. Think of all the shmups, fighters (MK or SF clones), adventure or beat 'em ups (Batman/Double Dragon/TMNT/etc clones). I mean, fighters are different. Racers are different. Quite a few genres were different back on the SNES when teams could more easily make small games, and a lot of genres 'changed' at some point during the PS1-PS2 period. You could attribute every genre, not just JRPGs, to games like FF VII but also VIII, Shenmue, Tekken, COD -- everything become bigger budget (Shenmue), more cinematics or 'set pieces' (COD) or CGIs as rewards (e.g. Tekken), etc.
 
I think, loosely speaking, there is FF pre-VII, VII, and post-VII/post-Sakaguchi. FFVIII is a lot more like modern FF in tone, world development, characters than FFVII is. FF VII is basically just like FF VI when you get out of Midgar in terms of story structure (i.e. a loosely strung together series of vignettes DQ-like), world-building (i.e. largely the lack thereof), characters (it really isn't until VIII that you get the cast of blah good-looking people), etc.

In terms of game flow, all of the PSX FFs are like the SNES ones. It isn't until X with the loss of the world map and the much more day-to-day pacing of the story that that changes. Yes, PSX FF was a transition period, but FFVII and FFIX are clearly more in line with old school FF while FFVIII shows the most hints of the series to come (while still playing like an old school FF).

FFVII does have a light 'punk' vibe and it does realize the technological aspiration of VI better than VI, so it does have a slightly different feel, but that is also different from modern FF.
 
We haven't had another Tactics or Valkyrie Profile. We're given more cute-more chibi and less groundbreaking story telling. When's the last time you heard someone bring up the story in Final Fantasy or Tales? Give me one groundbreaking JRPG in the last 7+ or so years that has had people talking.

A lot of the people playing JRPGs today weren't even gaming when FF7 first came out. A lot of the newer fans didn't even play the games or they've spent the last 5 or so years catching up. Your new JRPG fan has to go back in time to find the groundbreaking stories because no one is listening to this modern JRPG stuff. No one really cares either. If it's good, it'll be good, but I stand corrected. The past was better.
 
perhaps youre right. I do think Square's ultimate "vision" of the whole series is probably what 7 was and what they always wanted to do. It just seemed much more explicit and clear in that game, maybe cause of the tech, yeah.
I would say it's the tech that ultimately made so many of those older games so much more memorable. Sprites are super easy to identify with, so easy that weird looking blobs become highly defined characters in your brain. The music was simpler due to the synthesizer being able to push limited musical melodies and as a result, created a need for much simpler but ultimately catchier music.

Those games may not have been better than any of the more modern games today, but they were, without a doubt, more memorable, and the tech required that (you simply couldn't identify with sprites that didn't have visual hooks and due to the low resolution, you frequently needed those hooks to identify them at all). 3D has a rather massive downside of not aging gracefully (while 2D has the massive downside of not scaling gracefully) and that hurts its memorable qualities. If it looks ugly to us after a few years, it's hard to go back again and again. Good 2D spritework is timeless, good 3D model work will probably need to be updated.
 
Not really. To be fair, I can't even grasp how someone can like FFIV. Gameplay is nothing special. Exploration is barely there, a very very linear game (despite some people claiming a game like FFXIII isn't like the old FFs) and leveling up is even worse than FFXIII. So we're left with the story. And yea, I came to hate that too, so much so I didn't even bother finishing it. I didn't care.

I used to always hear people proclaim how 'great' jrpgs were in the old days instead of modern day trash. Then I went to see for myself. And after FFIV, FFVI, CT and maybe some others, I've come away content that some people just need to put others down to inflate their own opinion.
 
A lot of the people playing JRPGs today weren't even gaming when FF7 first came out. A lot of the newer fans didn't even play the games or they've spent the last 5 or so years catching up. Your new JRPG fan has to go back in time to find the groundbreaking stories because no one is listening to this modern JRPG stuff. No one really cares either. If it's good, it'll be good, but I stand corrected. The past was better.
^yeah I mean the genre in general changed a lot though

it's crazy to think that, FF IV to FF X was, what, about 10 years? let's say about or just under 10 years since I bet most people that played FF IV maybe played it a while after it released. 10 years for basically all the 'classic' FF games we talked about... it's been almost 14 years since then =p

in those 14 years since ff x, I think I've enjoyed...5 or less jprgs? =p a couple of suikodens, ff xii, and i guess the tactics ogre port is changed enough that it could be considered to be a new game. so i'm not sure if VII really changed the games so much killed them off lol because if the last 14 years were nothing but FF VII clones, I'd likely have bought more than 5 games lol
Not really. To be fair, I can't even grasp how someone can like FFIV. Gameplay is nothing special. Exploration is barely there, a very very linear game (despite some people claiming a game like FFXIII isn't like the old FFs) and leveling up is even worse than FFXIII. So we're left with the story. And yea, I came to hate that too, so much so I didn't even bother finishing it. I didn't care.

I used to always hear people proclaim how 'great' jrpgs were in the old days instead of modern day trash. Then I went to see for myself. And after FFIV, FFVI, CT and maybe some others, I've come away content that some people just need to put others down to inflate their own opinion.
context for VI is pretty important, I think.... back in the day, something like the on-land journey from Narshe to Zozo was probably as epic as the open world was Witcher 3 today.

the first time you step out out into the harsh world of ruin? that was probably one of the most expansive and daunting gaming environments to date.
 
I would say it's the tech that ultimately made so many of those older games so much more memorable. Sprites are super easy to identify with, so easy that weird looking blobs become highly defined characters in your brain. The music was simpler due to the synthesizer being able to push limited musical melodies and as a result, created a need for much simpler but ultimately catchier music.

Those games may not have been better than any of the more modern games today, but they were, without a doubt, more memorable, and the tech required that (you simply couldn't identify with sprites that didn't have visual hooks and due to the low resolution, you frequently needed those hooks to identify them at all). 3D has a rather massive downside of not aging gracefully (while 2D has the massive downside of not scaling gracefully) and that hurts its memorable qualities. If it looks ugly to us after a few years, it's hard to go back again and again. Good 2D spritework is timeless, good 3D model work will probably need to be updated.
I think FFVII's lego characters were memorable in the same way sprites are. Combine that stylized 3D with the beautiful pre-rendered backgrounds and you have something that sticks with you for a long time. The 3D that came after was certainly less memorable, though. FF8's character models in particular are like the worst stage of 3D's awkward adolescence.

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This was beautiful back then. Looks terrible now, and not in a charming lego FFVII way
 
Not really. To be fair, I can't even grasp how someone can like FFIV. Gameplay is nothing special. Exploration is barely there, a very very linear game (despite some people claiming a game like FFXIII isn't like the old FFs) and leveling up is even worse than FFXIII. So we're left with the story. And yea, I came to hate that too, so much so I didn't even bother finishing it. I didn't care.

I used to always hear people proclaim how 'great' jrpgs were in the old days instead of modern day trash. Then I went to see for myself. And after FFIV, FFVI, CT and maybe some others, I've come away content that some people just need to put others down to inflate their own opinion.
I agree with this alot actually. I played ffvii for the first time and i dont get the hype? I feel like the newer ones are alot better.
 
context for VI is pretty important, I think.... back in the day, something like the on-land journey from Narshe to Zozo was probably as epic as the open world was Witcher 3 today.

the first time you step out out into the harsh world of ruin? that was probably one of the most expansive and daunting gaming environments to date.

That's fair, but when that same atmosphere is lambasted in other games, it doesn't make me think highly of someones opinion (not talking about you here). There are plenty of memorable moments to me in other games too, so it's not gone with time. It's just not that memorable to some, in the same way I find the older games not that memorable.
 
FF7 feels pretty much like any other Final Fantasy game that came before it other than a little more steam punk and some longer cutscenes. I'm playing through it right now and there are numerous points in the story where you can go do significant side stuff.

I would say 8 or 10 is the real turning point for the series.

7 has all the goofy charm of the previous games where it rides a line anime-comedy and melodrama.
 
I think FFVII's lego characters were memorable in the same way sprites are. Combine that stylized 3D with the beautiful pre-rendered backgrounds and you have something that sticks with you for a long time. The 3D that came after was certainly less memorable, though. FF8's character models in particular are like the worst stage of 3D's awkward adolescence.

latest


This was beautiful back then. Looks terrible now, and not in a charming lego FFVII way

The polygons are not huge, but the texture work is much much more sublime than 7s. Painterly, almost like spritework (there's a breakdown somewhere on here that shows similar out of MGS1).

It's also MUCH less out-of-place and jarring than Popeyes.
 
I think FFVII's lego characters were memorable in the same way sprites are. Combine that stylized 3D with the beautiful pre-rendered backgrounds and you have something that sticks with you for a long time. The 3D that came after was certainly less memorable, though. FF8's character models in particular are like the worst stage of 3D's awkward adolescence.

This was beautiful back then. Looks terrible now, and not in a charming lego FFVII way
I don't really think the SD 3D of FFVII was all that charming, but even as jRPGs go that intentionally blocky look is anomalous. I will say that the remake shatters all notions of the actual characters not looking extremely disturbing however.

FFVII has never really been terribly memorable to me, at least not in a, "I want to play that game again" kind of way. Plenty of brain-viruses and faux-shock though!
 
As a European I honestly had no idea JRPG's even existed before FFVII, so no.

Nintendo magazine had a walkthrough of NES Final Fantasy with pictures and enemies, so it was the first time I heard of the series. Did not bother with the name again till the Final Fantasy VII hype.
Back then I knew much more about Western computer RPGs. Had not heard about Chrono Trigger and other titles.

From same magazine I also knew about SNES Shadowrun. I think it trumped most SNES JRPGs back then regarding plot and dark atmosphere. Could have appeared on computers as well.

JRPGs were far too niche in Europe. Maybe because due to computers Europe had western RPGs.
 
I have a lot of respect for modern JRPGs, and I could name off many great ones that have come out in the last 10 years, but in general JRPGs have been on the decline since the PS1 era. I can't think of any ground breaking JRPGs today that have done what these games have.

Panzer Dragoon Saga - is still one of a kind. Why haven't any modern RPGs treid this formula?
Chrono Trigger - Still unmatched in it's pacing.
Final Fantasy Tactics- Still the best SRPG.
Terranigma - hasn't been topped in the Action/RPG department.
Secret of Mana - nailed couch co-op and while it has many faults it's still more fun than anything I can currently think of.
Star Ocean 2 - Still the best in the series.
Castlevania: SoTN - Can't think of any 2D Sidescrolling RPG that even comes close.
Dragon Quest 3/5 - Still the best in the series.

Games like Xenoblade Chronicles, Bloodborne, Bravely Default, etc all are fantastic and I'm glad JRPGs are recovering from the PS360 era, but we still have a ways to go. The greatness and creativity of the SNES/PS1 era is on the way out as gaming becomes more Hollywood and the budgets for games increase. We're now in an age where graphics and DLC are king and gameplay and innovation are put on the back burner.
 
^yeah I mean the genre in general changed a lot though

it's crazy to think that, FF IV to FF X was, what, about 10 years? let's say about or just under 10 years since I bet most people that played FF IV maybe played it a while after it released. 10 years for basically all the 'classic' FF games we talked about... it's been almost 14 years since then =p

There are a lot of good classic JRPGs that won't ever be outdone. I know graphics and gameplay get better/faster, but the sheer amount of work and quality make them stand out. You can have unlimited JRPGs, but maybe a handful of them are actually amazing. I think there's been great JRPGs since FFVII and a lot of them are on PS2 and so forth.

You also had a bunch of RPGs that were never localized and so forth. Last gen we had good JRPG's on 360, a handful of classics released on DS, and a few overlooked games on the Wii. There wasn't a lot to gloat about because action games and open worlds were taking off. Linear game play experiences were everywhere. I think it's wrong to criticize games because they didn't allow you to go everywhere. That's part of their charm. They came as an advancement and they exceeded in a lot of areas (eg: story, music, 2D graphics, enemies, etc.).

I was looking through Far East of Eden's handbook and I noticed how many men and women came together to make such a game. There are entire orchestras assembled for the soundtrack, art directors, voice talents, and each character has their own charm.

Now a days you have talent working on games they've never heard about before and it just seems like people are jumping from one contract to the next in order to get work accomplished for a developer. There are hundreds and hundreds of wonderful games out there, but it's hard judging rather or not they're better than what we've had. I see some older JRPGs and they have quality that lasts a very long time. I can go back and replay FF9, but I probably won't replay something like Blue Dragon or Star Ocean The Last Hope. FF9 holds a wonderful story with interesting characters/enemies. Even with FFXIII I finished the game, but I never want to see that enemy ever again. It just didn't stick with me over time. Anymore Lightning is the only thing people remember from FFXIII. I remember Vayne Solidor, but who else does? He was a better enemy than a lot of what we see now.
 
Yes, actually. Its purely personal but JRPGs from the PS2 era onwards and those that followed from those design paradigms have always struggled to retain my interest. I loved many SNES and Genesis RPGs and I enjoy modern games that take mechanical inspiration from them
 
FFVI had multiple writers unlike previous installments. Sakaguchi could not be an active director because he had just been promoted executive vice-president, so multiple people in the development team contributed their scenarios and character arcs (including Nomura and the future co-writer of Xenogears). Then they handed all the ideas to Kitase and told him to turn them into a coherent whole.

Interestingly, some of the scrapped ideas for FFVI were used in subsequent installments: a dark and mysterious male protagonist in his 20s (he was replaced with Terra), Celes as a more conflicted spy actually sided with the enemies (this became Cait Sith in FFVII), a character using dolls as weapon (the idea wasn't used until FFX), etc. Also, the unused backstory for Edgar and Sabin was practically dumped into Xenogears wholesale with the Rene and Roni characters.

That's awesome! Do you remember where you read all of this, or is this just a composition of lots of smaller details you've read over the years?
 
Yes, I love me some 16 bit RPGs. Even though SNES had the most Genesis and PC-E had quite a few amazing ones as well.
Although there's also a huge amount of classic JRPGs after PS1, on GBA/DS/PSP.
 
I think it ushered in the greatest era JRPGs ever had, actually.

The PSX/N64 generation was the most creative, diverse and interesting collection of JRPGs we've ever gotten. Barring a couple notable exceptions (Chrono Trigger, Earthbound, earlier Final Fantasies, etc). Squaresoft specifically came into their stride and made a deeply original portfolio of games.
I wouldn't even include N64. It got utterly destroyed by PS1 in almost every genre.
 
The thing about JRPGs is that they age like fine wine, far better than their Western equivalents. Though I loved them in the past, there's no way I'm ever going back to ES: Daggerfall or Ultima or Icewind Dale.

But I don't even mind NES graphics for JRPGs. If you don't enjoy the cinematic style of FF7 and their ilk, there are still oodles of JPGs that pay homage to the older styles.

I honestly don't see the point in complaining about how JRPGs have changed over the years. There are tons in each generational "era" that are still must-play even by today's standards. It makes for a very robust and rewarding genre to be a fanboy of!
 
I feel like there's enough amazing stuff before and after that it's not worth judging for me, personally. (Though I do hate that SO much of the discussion surrounding JRPGs is focused almost exclusively on their stories, as the mechanics are much more important to me, personally, yet they almost seem to be treated as an afterthought by a rather large chunk of gamers).

What FFVII DID do to the genre that I really don't like is shift things much more towards a three-person party being the norm rather than four-person, especially within its own series. Super lame shift that just feels way too limited to me, especially when a lot of games want to push you towards using the main character and the/a "healer".
My brother...

Well said.

Besides, we should be happy that JRPGs are not a niche genre -- despite yearly complaints of them dying out. The fact that you can have multiple chibi/super anime RPGs coming out on one end of the spectrum while games like XCX and FF15 are also still coming out kinda blows my mind. This genre has never before been more nuanced and diverse.

To think I grew up in a time when Final Fantasy numbers didn't match because Japan didn't bother to release them all here... We have it so good now.
 
I think FFVII's lego characters were memorable in the same way sprites are. Combine that stylized 3D with the beautiful pre-rendered backgrounds and you have something that sticks with you for a long time. The 3D that came after was certainly less memorable, though. FF8's character models in particular are like the worst stage of 3D's awkward adolescence.

latest


This was beautiful back then. Looks terrible now, and not in a charming lego FFVII way

I think FFVIII still looks beautiful,having played it recently.

Its really an outstanding game with regards to looks.I think this very model you posted looks great.
 
That's awesome! Do you remember where you read all of this, or is this just a composition of lots of smaller details you've read over the years?

The latter. Usually interviews with Kitase or others, etc.

These kinds of details are generally added to the Final Fantasy Wikia when people find them out but it's spread out in all the various articles. For example here is a sketch by Nomura with the scrapped male protagonist in the middle:

latest
 
The thing about JRPGs is that they age like fine wine, far better than their Western equivalents. Though I loved them in the past, there's no way I'm ever going back to ES: Daggerfall or Ultima or Icewind Dale.

I think that's because early WRPGs (and early western PC games in general), tried to push technology as far as possible before the technology was really there to do what they wanted. Japanese games have always been better designed within the restraints of the hardware available.

Look at Ultima Underworld. That game has almost the same gameplay as Bioshock, except it was made in 1992. It's sloppy as hell in today's terms in just about every way possible, but it's still pretty impressive what it accomplished at the time.

The reason so many older JRPGs age so well is because 2D JRPG design never really had the opportunity to advance beyond Chrono Trigger. Also it's because those 2D worlds are inherently abstract so they don't have the burden of looking real or immersive. 3D on the other hand will be a constantly improving process until we hit photorealism.
 
Pretty sure I've played way more post-VII rpgs then pre-VII ones so maybe I'm bias but I don't think they were better before it. Not saying the ones from before are bad since there are still some greats but just from a gameplay and visual standpoint I can't get behind many of 'em. FF VI's movement feel and the disparity in art between baddies & the party is a prime example of each of those I dislike. Just could not get into that game in the pre- or post- eras!
 
Yes. FF7 was ok but 1-6 were clearly better - in terms of storytelling, pacing, gameplay mechanics, you name it. In retrospect, the Namek-levels of length that Toriyama had Midgar take up were the early warning signs that not all was well in Squaresoft-land, but hindsight and all that.

As an aside -- I really wish we'd get another class based FF, like FF1/3/5. Dimensions was excellent but it doesn't quite count....

(No, FF12 IZJS doesn't either, although when we can play it on Steam rather via the backported FF12 US translation being shoved into the FF12 JP ISO that might change some stuff I suppose.)

I do have a soft spot for FF7's Materia system, though, Not perfect but better than later attempts.
 
Mood and characterization are the most important things to me in story-telling and I think Square's "cinematic" approach is the easiest way to convey those satisfactorily. The older games are simply to limited in that regard. There's something to be said about using limitations to create some creative storytelling but it's pretty obvious that Final Fantasy first to fifth, at least, didn't actually go that way.

Let's put aside the first three games, where the characters are barely even characters. Final Fantasy IV had these assortment of characters greatly hampered by inadequate amount of dialogue. It felt like there's a compulsion in making conversations as concise as possible resulting in every scene playing out very straight-forward with every character blurting out their thoughts and wants with no subtlety at all. This in turn make everyone seemed like a one-note, exaggerated versions of themselves and - coupled with the twists and turns they got - all the way through I was constantly reminded of telenovelas.

Things like hand handles in the Midgar train swaying back and fro along with the constant thumping of the wheels against the rails, or Delita playing the reed pipe while the wind blew over the crimson-lit grassy plain... those are memorable scenes to me. Those also hardly existed in the old games.

Those old Final Fantasy relied on visual and for their epic, dramatic storytelling despite the technology and medium not being quite there at the time, and I think they suffered because of it. They don't have the body language, blocking and changes in expression to bring nuance into their conversations, and they don't have the cinematic leniency to bring gravitas into their scenes. Perhaps this is preferable to those who simply want to be efficiently informed of the story akin to reading news articles. I, however, prefer reading novels.
 
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