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[Zog]

The thing about Lost Odyssey that really bothered me was the inability to grind. Maybe this is because people complained about over leveling in JRPG's or maybe it's because over leveling would have broken the game. Over leveling should always be an option. I did finish Lost Odyssey and I enjoyed it but replays are hurt by the fact that you cannot approach that first boss being more powerful. Every playthrough will be the same since you really can't adjust the difficulty with grinding/not grinding.

 

[Zog]

JRPGS were better when they were doing more with less- Everything was far better with mini-sprites, world maps, towns/castles, and of course the old school turn based battles.

Now that everything has to be made to scale, function in real time, be open world, its just not the same. The worlds are big, graphics often impresive, but the stories and gameplay itself are just dumbed down big time. (FF15 is a big joke compared to anything from the FF4 through FF10 "era"). Hell its not even really an RPG anymore IMO.

Yes, I think that there was a time when game developers had to rely on good gameplay instead of good graphics.

 

[Danjin44]

Yes, I think that there was a time when game developers had to rely on good gameplay instead of good graphics.

This might have been true back in PS3/360 era but I feel like recently we got nice number of JRPG that dont relay too heavily on high tech graphics. Just look at games like Persona 5, Xenobalde Chronicles 2, NieR Automata, Tokyo Mirage Session and upcoming games like Ni no Kuni 2, Valkyria Chronicles and Octopath Traveler. All these game look absolutely beautiful but they don't have tech graphics, especially compare to FFXV but instead they rely on their art direction for their great visual and hope more JRPGs got that direction.

 

[NahaNago]

H
We got some gems that didn't try to do too much different like Lost Odyssey and the Xenoblade games, but it seems like everything now is focused on shaking up that formula that just works for no good benefit to most fans. Action combat is another thing that just is assumed as default now. I don't hate action combat, but it doesn't have to be every game.

I also think that advanced graphics themselves have ruined a lot, since so much of a character's personality was filled in by the player's imagination in the past. We don't have that limitation anymore which has led to some comically bad cutscenes and voice soundbytes. That's also why i think it's going to be tough for SE to keep any of the humor bits in FFVII remake.

I honestly think SE is pretty much the same as they have always been but now they have the power to push out what they imagined and folks just aren't wanting it. SE really does seem to work best in expressing themselves when they have a limited amount of graphical power to do so since we are imagining it or due to the cutesy miniature versions aren't appalled by what we see. I guess you can think of it as SE games of old are like anime dragon ball and the newer versions are the live action hd version of dragon ball they always wanted to make. They just don't translate so well. I also pretty much have given up on the FFVII remake capturing the humor and charm of the original.

 

[Zog]

This might have been true back in PS3/360 era but I feel like recently we got nice number of JRPG that dont relay too heavily on high tech graphics. Just look at games like Persona 5, Xenobalde Chronicles 2, NieR Automata, Tokyo Mirage Session and upcoming games like Ni no Kuni 2, Valkyria Chronicles and Octopath Traveler. All these game look absolutely beautiful but they don't have tech graphics, especially compare to FFXV but instead they rely on their art direction for their great visual and hope more JRPGs got that direction.

I am looking back to the SNES/PS1 era. The art direction in most JRPG's these days is anime, who isn't tired of seeing it?

 

[Shadoron]

*MINOR SPOILERS* Seems the spoiler tag feature isn't working right. You've been warned.

What a great topic to revive. I've been skimming though it, and everything said rings true. I took a break from most AAA JRPGs for a number of years, and am currently playing both FFXV and Xenoblade 2 at the same time. It feels like modern JRPGs have lost something lately. In their effort to modernize with current treads in western RPGs (open world, active combat, AAA graphics, and deeper plots), Japanese Devs have hodge-podged everything together... and not in a good way.

Combat: If active style combat is here to stay, then it needs to be simpler. FFXV wants it's combat mode to be quick and responsive, yet it actively fights you along the way. Not having real armor, and relying on dodges to mitigate combat damage sounds fun on paper. But, the game sends so many monsters against your party at the same time, that you can't keep up. I just finished up the third "dungeon" Sword Tomb, and if I didn't have years of FF games under my belt, I would have had my first game over screen. Luckily I had stocked up on potions and phoenix downs, so I limped through it. Literally spinning your camera stick around constantly, trying to make sure every enemy is accounted for so you can constantly dodge isn't very fun. How am I supposed to handle mob control, when there's no room for error? Not to mention the four different meters, for four different attack systems... the 8 (10?) Ascension skill trees, obtuse purchasing menus that fight your natural instincts to find information.. I miss the little arrows that told you if a weapon was better or worse than what your party was currently equipped with. Stick to one or two combat derivatives, and slowly ramp them up over the course of the game. Xeno 2 hasn't been much easier, either. Played and loved Xeno 1, I shouldn't have to look at a series of jpegs online to understand the new combat mechanics in Xeno 2. That's a direct reflection on how poor in game tutorials have become. If we need instruction manuals again, then games should come with them. I shouldn't have to surf GAF to understand basic combat systems.

Open World: I'll keep this one short. If JRPGs are going to attempt open world games, then they need to have the content to fill them. Both games are still basically corridors or zones parading as "open world." There's nothing inherently wrong with zone or corridor styled games, just own it and do them right. Or, put in the effort and go full open world. Meaning unique and varied content everywhere, and real side quests. Not just fetch quests or monster hunts. Or artificial (literal - FFXV) roadblocks until you progress further along the main quest line.

Plot: Look, I'm a fan of anime and manga. But I can only take so much high school and young adult angst before I've had enough. The gaming "baby boomer" generation (those of us that fall in the 30 - 50 year range) is growing up. It's about time that gaming as whole grew up with them. Japanese media seems to be "stuck" centering on youth. By doing so, they continue to limit their plots to the same tired tropes. I'll give Xeno 2 a pass, because what I've seen so far is at least different. Although my current party's *combined* age probably isn't much older than myself. And the injection of anime styling into *everything* coming out of the East is getting old. It's time for some variety in ages for main characters, and along with that, variety in character motivations. FFXV falls into a trap that I've seen countless times - dumping you into the story without giving you a reason to care. The main character's father, and home town / kingdom gets destroyed within the first 30 minutes of the game, which sets off the main plot. The problem is, I could care less about either of them. And the reason for that is I've never experienced the giant city that gets pummeled to the ground, and I've only had one 2 minute encounter with the main character's father, before he kicks the bucket. The main characters in the game don't even seem to care. They just lost their home, friends, and family... and yet they continue to crack jokes while we all joy ride around in a pimped out Audi. And I don't give Western Devs a pass on this one either. Their answer is to make everything "dark" and "mature" and "deep." There needs to be a balance, there needs to be more varied plot setups, and for the love of Pete - there needs to be real game opening emotional setups... or world ending, main quest starting story points just fall flat.

 

[Zog]

Yeah the game openings are horrible. You may spend an hour with cutscenes before you even get to play. You don't know or care about these people or these settings yet and these cutscenes should come later if at all, the opening is the wrong place for them. Add in the tutorials (which are needed because shit has to be more complicated than necessary and because we don't have manuals anymore, Switch doesn't even have digital manuals) and it's just a really bad starting impression.

 

[Daniel Thomas MacInnes]

I'm probably not the foremost expert on the subject, but Japanese RPGs have felt incredibly stagnant and creatively dead since the turn of the century. It's always the same setup, the same plots, the same heroes, the same villains, the same battle system, yadda yadda. I think half the reason I loved Panzer Dragoon Saga so much was how its real-time battle system felt so fresh. That was 20 years ago.

Japan hasn't really moved beyond the Dragon Quest archetype. Final Fantasy added story elements which became ever more epic, peaking at Final Fantasy 6 or 7, depending on whose counting the votes. At the time, I felt that Shenmue would mark a new direction for the genre, taking the idea of "role playing" into a virtual world. Sadly, that never really happened, and Grand Theft Auto 3 took Yu Suzuki's idea in an entirely new direction.

Meanwhile, the West eventually seemed to abandon fantasy role playing completely. The days of Wizardry and Ultima became the online worlds of Everquest and World of Warcraft, and that was pretty cool (Sonic Team offered their own variation with Phantasy Star Online). There was a vast amount of experimentation in the early years of CD-ROM and multimedia. Myst really shook things up for a while, much to the frustration of hardcore fans (it was an echo of the death of text adventure games in the mid 1980s). Fantasy themes were absorbed into real time strategy games, and that was fun.

Since the Playstation 2 era, videogame developers have become far too obsessed with mimicking Hollywood movies. It's crowded nearly everything out of the room, leaving nothing more than massively expensive AAA titles that need to sell four or five million copies just to break even. And let's not get started on First Person Shooters, which seemed to drive nearly every other genre extinct.

I'm of two minds on this subject. On one hand, I really want to see something truly new and inventive. I want the genre to evolve and become something fresh and exciting again. I couldn't be bothered with yet another Final Fantasy and its collection of rave culture Barbie dolls. On the other hand, well, I still want to play all those older RPGs that I missed years ago. Be honest, you'd rather play Chrono Trigger than nearly any other videogame. And I'm looking at a massive stack of Sega Saturn strategy RPGs that call my attention.

I was thinking about this idea over the weekend, that all the best innovations and creative breakthroughs in videogames came from software teams who struggled with primitive, underpowered or over-complicated machines. Only a Sega Saturn could give birth to Panzer Saga. Only a Super Nintendo could spawn Chrono Trigger. Only an Apple II, Atari 800 or Commodore 64 could create Ultima 4. But now that we have God-like technology, computers like Playstation 4 that have almost unimaginable power, and what comes of that? Nothing. What has Ezra Dreisbach or Yu Suzuki done lately? Hand an artist a dozen paint colors and watch them create the Mona Lisa. Hand that same artist a million colors, and what does that produce? Velvet Elvis and cuckoo clocks.

 

[Epona is a Pony]

I like JRPGs because the gameplay tends to be unique and has good music and visuals.

 

[Zog]

Yes, My SNES Classic gets more playtime than my Switch or any modern console. I have modded it to put many other classic JRPG's on it like the Breath of Fire games, the Lufia games, the Phantasy Star games and a few JRPG's that I want to play even though the reviews are bad (Paladins Quest, Secret of the Stars, The 7th Saga). Yes, the SNES Classic can play Master System and Genesis games.

 

[Danjin44]

I personally Im very happy with recent JRPGs, both from visuals and gameplay. Again I'm also not one of those people who think all anime artstyle look the same.

 

[Shadoron]

Be honest, you'd rather play Chrono Trigger than nearly any other videogame.

I'd pay a nice chunk of change to be able to selectively erase my memories of playing Chrono Trigger and FFVI. Only to be able to experience them, for the first time, all over again.

I was thinking about this idea over the weekend, that all the best innovations and creative breakthroughs in videogames came from software teams who struggled with primitive, underpowered or over-complicated machines.

I agree with this. Hopefully a breakthrough in computational power and A.I. will give rise to devs fighting over character and world interactions, instead of just pushing polygons. The past 15 years have all been about upping the ante on graphics over substance and creativity, for most AAA devs. The pendulum needs to swing back. The Ultima games from 4 to 7 are a perfect example. Graphics capabilities for PC's at the time continued to improve, but not at the breakneck speeds we see now. Back then it was all about pushing the limits of world immersion and interactivity, along with story and character. Whole new genres of games were being made. I get that gaming has been established now for many years, and that we've been coasting on evolution instead of "revolution." But, there's going to be some form of video gaming disruption in the future. There always is. I'm ready for it.

 

[Shadoron]

I personally Im very happy with recent JRPGs, both from visuals and gameplay. Again I'm also not one of those people who think all anime artstyle look the same.

I don't want to come off like I'm totally down on JRPGs. I am, contrary to how my initial post was worded, enjoying my time with both Xeno 2 and FFXV. And I do plan on finishing them both. It just seems like Japanese Devs are trying to emulate the successes of modern AAA titles, and losing some of what made older JRPGs the best in the business. I'm all for them continuing to keep the quirkiness that JRPGs are known for, and even some of the classic "youth based" tropes that pop up time after time. They just need to maybe expand outside that comfort zone a bit. It seems like they are trying to change up the wrong parts of the formula, trying to mimic the wrong parts of western styled RPGs. It would be a real shame if every RPG that came out was just a clone of a BethSoft RPG.

 

[Zog]

If we want to get past the 'push more polygons' nonsense then people have to stop concentrating on resolution and frame rate. That's what video game discussion has largely become.

 

[Danjin44]

I don't want to come off like I'm totally down on JRPGs. I am, contrary to how my initial post was worded, enjoying my time with both Xeno 2 and FFXV. And I do plan on finishing them both. It just seems like Japanese Devs are trying to emulate the successes of modern AAA titles, and losing some of what made older JRPGs the best in the business. I'm all for them continuing to keep the quirkiness that JRPGs are known for, and even some of the classic "youth based" tropes that pop up time after time. They just need to maybe expand outside that comfort zone a bit. It seems like they are trying to change up the wrong parts of the formula, trying to mimic the wrong parts of western styled RPGs. It would be a real shame if every RPG that came out was just a clone of a BethSoft RPG.

That part I agree, for me this the biggest reason I didn't enjoy FFXV. With that game SE tried so hard to push that open world and to make the graphics as technically as impressive as possible, they kind lost sight of make the actual combat and open world interesting. I said this before in other threads but I wish FFXV structure was similar in Xenoblade Chronicles, which have how areas to explore but still be linear. I heard Dragon Quest XI which makes me very happy.

 

[Shadoron]

That part I agree, for me this the biggest reason I didn't enjoy FFXV. With that game SE tried so hard to push that open world and to make the graphics as technically as impressive as possible, they kind lost sight of make the actual combat and open world interesting. I said this before in other threads but I wish FFXV structure was similar in Xenoblade Chronicles, which have how areas to explore but still be linear. I heard Dragon Quest XI which makes me very happy.

I'm definetely excited to see how DQ XI turns out too. They have always seemed to straddle the line between old school charm, and new school mechanics very well.

 

[staen]

Plot: Look, I'm a fan of anime and manga. But I can only take so much high school and young adult angst before I've had enough. The gaming "baby boomer" generation (those of us that fall in the 30 - 50 year range) is growing up. It's about time that gaming as whole grew up with them. Japanese media seems to be "stuck" centering on youth. By doing so, they continue to limit their plots to the same tired tropes. I'll give Xeno 2 a pass, because what I've seen so far is at least different. Although my current party's *combined* age probably isn't much older than myself. And the injection of anime styling into *everything* coming out of the East is getting old.

Definitely agree there. I'm assuming they do it because it results in more sales. XC2 did it and it's the most successful XC game to date. Atlus seems to be doing it too with character and art redesigns for Radiant Historia and Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey. Still peeved about that. It's unfortunate, but I feel these games are aimed towards the newer generation, not the ones who grew up playing them.

I'm definetely excited to see how DQ XI turns out too. They have always seemed to straddle the line between old school charm, and new school mechanics very well.

It's funny how we're talking about how jrpgs need to evolve but DQ has largely remained the same and has been consistently great. I feel many other jrpgs lost their charm trying to adapt to the changing industry and either don't want to go back or don't know how to.

I honestly think SE is pretty much the same as they have always been but now they have the power to push out what they imagined and folks just aren't wanting it. SE really does seem to work best in expressing themselves when they have a limited amount of graphical power to do so since we are imagining it or due to the cutesy miniature versions aren't appalled by what we see. I guess you can think of it as SE games of old are like anime dragon ball and the newer versions are the live action hd version of dragon ball they always wanted to make. They just don't translate so well. I also pretty much have given up on the FFVII remake capturing the humor and charm of the original.

I'm not sure about that. I haven't played them, but what do you make of I am Setsuna and Lost Sphear? Aren't those attempts at recapturing that old school jrpg feel? The games come off as a bit soulless and only seem to capture old-school jrpgs on a surface level.

 

[sotojuan]

I'm not sure about that. I haven't played them, but what do you make of I am Setsuna and Lost Sphear? Aren't those attempts at recapturing that old school jrpg feel?

Setsuna and Lost Sphear are, if you can excuse some rudeness, sort of embarrassingly low budget. I'm not sure why SE is publishing them aside from making a quick buck. Sure, they "capture" the old school feel by having old school combat systems, but the presentation of the games are just awfully lazy. People can see that and it turns them off. Octopath and the Bravely series are better examples.

--

I see people in this thread complaining that JRPGs never moved past a certain formula, but my experience has been that people want JRPGs to go back to that formula (particularly in battle system mechanics) and not try to be open world action adventure wannabe Western games. Speaking for myself, I can forgive bad character design and weird stories if the battle system, battle animations, and leveling up system are well done (example: FFX).

 

[synchronicity]

If we want to get past the 'push more polygons' nonsense then people have to stop concentrating on resolution and frame rate. That's what video game discussion has largely become.

Yeah. Sometimes people get so hung up on technical details (in any genre), it seems like they lose the ability to focus on the game itself.

Personally, I'm willing to forgive performance issues if the in the big picture everything else is interesting/compelling. I'm not saying I'd give broken games a pass, but many in the gaming community seem to fixate on relatively insignificant minutiae.

 

[NahaNago]

It's funny how we're talking about how jrpgs need to evolve but DQ has largely remained the same and has been consistently great. I feel many other jrpgs lost their charm trying to adapt to the changing industry and either don't want to go back or don't know how to.



I'm not sure about that. I haven't played them, but what do you make of I am Setsuna and Lost Sphear? Aren't those attempts at recapturing that old school jrpg feel? The games come off as a bit soulless and only seem to capture old-school jrpgs on a surface level.

I haven't played either of those games as well. I'll get to them later. One problem with most jrpgs is everyone tries to change up the combat everytime so instead adding a new gun with a new either more or less fire power like first person shooters with some extra movement ability we change every thing about the combat. Maybe instead they should focus on subgenres like tactics like, kingdom hearts like which would probably be tales like since they would have released like ten of them by the time kingdom hearts three comes out , and traditional combat like. This way they can focus on other aspects of the game without having to redesign everything about combat. I would think with those limitations in place we could see some amazingly created battles.

 

[kevm3]

My main problem is the environments are often dull and the characters are lame. Jrpgs used to have some of the best graphics and environments out there. I used to actually want to explore the worlds. Now, a lot of them either have a monotone color palette or really dull, generic environments to explore.

For example Chrono Cross's backgrounds were amazing:

On the issue of characters, I'm tired of everything being babyfied and characters given that generic saturday morning cartoon kid voice like what happened in secret of mana remake or they look like kpop rejects. What ever happened to cool casts like Breath of Fire 3? The cast of the Lunar games were cool too.

 

[-Minsc-]

I feel any stagnation I see in JRPGs is on my end and not the developers. Time is limited and they are just not a priority. Being well on the road to my forties I feel it's better to devote more of my time to learning practical skills in life over learning the mechanics of an innovative video game. With this mindset it means if I were to pick up a new JRPG I'd go for something which seems familiar.

 

[Daniel Thomas MacInnes]

My main problem is the environments are often dull and the characters are lame. Jrpgs used to have some of the best graphics and environments out there. I used to actually want to explore the worlds. Now, a lot of them either have a monotone color palette or really dull, generic environments to explore.

For example Chrono Cross's backgrounds were amazing:

On the issue of characters, I'm tired of everything being babyfied and characters given that generic saturday morning cartoon kid voice like what happened in secret of mana remake or they look like kpop rejects. What ever happened to cool casts like Breath of Fire 3? The cast of the Lunar games were cool too.

The Saturn/Playstation era has some wonderfully gorgeous RPGs, especially where 2D sprite graphics are concerned. It was the last great triumph for the art form, before polygons completely conquered everything. At least in Japan, people were able to enjoy everything, instead of the West, where 2D was treated like the plague by 1996. Thankfully, we are finally regaining that balance thanks to today's indie scene.