Can someone summarize to me the appeal of JRPGs?

[luj1]

Can someone summarize to me the appeal of JRPGs?

Personally they're not my cup of tea, I tried a few but I'm genuinely curious thanks

 

[Sentinel]

classic jRPGs (until 1999) or nu-jRPGS (FF10 onwards)?

 

[Gregz]

Personally they're not my cup of tea, I tried a few but I'm genuinely curious what's the appeal thanks

Some of them clone, and even improve upon, the Wizardry model. Therefore some are worth playing.

 

[luj1]

classic jRPGs (untl 1999) or nu-jRPGS (FF10 onwards)?

classic

Personally they're not my cup of tea, I tried a few but I'm genuinely curious what's the appeal thanks

Some of them clone, and even improve upon, the Wizardry model. Therefore some are worth playing.

Yeah I understand that, but what about the non-crawler ones?

 

[Mustawd]

An anime you can play.

 

[luj1]

An anime you can play.

A pretty good explanation tbh

 

[Mustawd]

An anime you can play.

A pretty good explanation tbh

1. Set default main characters in look. You can play dress up with outfits mostly.
2. Set companion characters in look and class (mostly).
3. Set and very linear stories
4. Voice acted cutscenes. Some games have so much VA and party banter that it really does feel like an anime. Bravely Default is a great example of this.

 

[HanoverF]

Autism.

 

[Jenkem]

which ones have you tried? I feel that most JRPGs get lumped in with either shitty animu shovelware or big budget Final Fantasy type casual shit. The ones most prominently talked about are generally the more casual or story focused games, like FF. Dragon Quest is infinitely better than FF games but aren't as popular in the west, DQ was made to be a mixing of Ultima style stories and adventuring with Wizardry based combat, the game is focused on world building and battles actually use buffing/debuffing (both the player needs to use these and the enemies will use these) unlike FF games which focus less on the systems and are generally more about the bombastic story and cutscenes. The better stuff is more niche while the more casual stuff is more mainstream like how Persona is more popular in the west because it is a lot more casual than the rest of the SMT franchise.

The only JRPG series I really play are Dragon Quest, SMT (except Persona waifushit) and Xeno series.. I would absolutely recommend playing a DQ game like 4 or 7 and any of the mainline SMT games, especially Strange Journey.

 

[luj1]

which ones have you tried?

Just Chrono Trigger and FF 7, but it was long ago and I haven't finished them.

I also heard good things about Vagrant Story and Xenogears (I think?).

 

[rusty_shackleford]

they appeal to children and adults with the psyche of children
it's why you see so many manchildren taking photos of themselves holding nintendo devices with soysmiles

 

[smaug]

Why ask? Why think about it when you could just

instead?

 

[Exhuminator]

This is a very WRPG biased board. You won't get much in the way of objective informed answers here.

 

[luj1]

Exhuminator Do you have an opinion on this matter?

Maybe I should ask a mod to move this to the JRPG subforum?

 

[Mastermind]

Good turn based combat, which has been shit in the west since at least Fallout (itself decline)

 

[Damned Registrations]

There's a pretty wide variety within the genre tbh. I'm fond of ones that reward exploration, and which have plenty of interesting new mechanics and unconventional items and abilities as the game unfolds. It's a pretty different animal from most western rpgs where you know how everything works and what you can potentially acquire before you even start playing.

Some good examples:

Lufia 2 - Over the course of the game, you can find overpowered (temporarily) equipment by finding secrets in the dungeons, pet monsters which don't contribute much but look cool, find a dungeon that is essentially an in game roguelike version of itself, and a bunch of puzzles that range from trivial to actually fairly tricky.

SaGa Frontier - Open world game where you can assemble your own party with 7 different starting characters with their own scenarios, something like 30 total characters, and some are mutually exclusive and it varies by who you started with and there's a ton of sidequest type stuff. The character growth mechanics are crazy and vary from mechs which have their stats determined entirely by equipment (and they have many slots and can equip literally anything) to monsters which change forms and absorbs spells from dead enemies, to humans that learn sword or kungfu skills in moments of inspiration at random in the middle of fights.

Breath of Fire 3 - Has a master/student system where you find mentors (some really well hidden) around the world that alter stat growth while you're matched with them and teach skills over time, letting you customize any of the characters quite a bit, and a dragon gene system for the main character where you can find fossilized dragons around the game, again, often rewarding exploration, and you combine up to 3 at a time to create a transformation spell that can vary immensely. Not knowing how the different dragon types interact, or what skills the crazy buff musclehead master or reclusive fisherman will teach your party members makes for a lot of "I can't wait to try this out" moments that last pretty much the whole game. Oh it also has a fishing and town building minigame but they're both pretty meh, but also give more of those hits of novelty.

 

[Puukko]

This applies to Japanese games as a whole, but I think they typically have a few qualities that set them apart from western games - music, boss fights and style. "Style" is a rather vague term, but it refers to the wide range of themes and visual elements present in these games, from DMC/Platinum-esque cuhrayzeee to bizarre varieties of scifi and fantasy as well as just straight up anime in video game form. As a rule of thumb, Japanese games tend to get more outlandish and arguably more creative while western games are decidedly more grounded. Neither approach is strictly better, but sometimes you just want to cut loose and forget all notions of Tolkien-style fantasy in favor of something straight up weird and that's where Japanese games, including JRPGs come to play.

I've played a good number of Japanese games over the years but for a long time I really only played JRPGs occasionally, picking titles here and there and never really diving deep into any particular series, but earlier this year I got hooked by Shin Megami Tensei. What I think appealed to me was the relative maturity of the series as it is light on the anime tropes in favor of more bleak settings. On top of that, having all these different mythologies, religions, folk lore and urban legends pooled into one series where you've got Odin and Krishna working together to overthrow the Hebrew Jahweh. That combined with collecting demons like Pokemon except with considerably more depth made for a very attractive combination of rather unique design elements. Oh, and the music, would be criminal not to mention that. If there was someone looking to get JRPGs but who is easily put off by anime tropes and moe, I'd say this is a fine series to get into.

 

[mushaden]

I think it's safe to say that if you've tried Chrono Trigger and it wasn't your cup of tea, then no JRPG is going to be. Xenogears is probably the one that's the most like playing a non-shit anime. I have really fond memories of it. Maybe try Final Fantasy Tactics for the best combat.

 

[Exhuminator]

Exhuminator Do you have an opinion on this matter?

As someone who's played, and enjoyed, equal amounts of WRPGs and JRPGs, sure. But summarizing the appeal of JRPGs in a one off sentence isn't so easy. I'll do something different:

Top 5 common characteristics of WRPGs*
Create your own protagonist(s) = good for self expression
Highly nonlinear campaign = good for longer lasting sandbox fun
Total moral freedom = good for roleplaying elasticity
Western high fantasy setting = good for fans of Tolkien-esque aesthetics
Interactive world elements = good for physical object manipulation (for puzzles or emergent gameplay)

Top 5 common characteristics of JRPGs*
Predefined protagonist(s) = good for defined storytelling purposes
Front and center plot exposition = good for making the gameplay feel consistently purposeful
Variety of world settings = good for folks tired of Tolkien-esque aesthetics
Complex battle systems = good for players who enjoy tinkering with deeper battle mechanics
Linear game progression = good for gamers shorter on play time

So depending on what aspects you're seeking from an RPG, either the WRPG or JRPG approach could be more appealing. But one is not better than the other, not in any objective sense. Each approach has as many weaknesses as strengths. Those saying otherwise are either uninformed due to lacking a solid frame of experienced reference, or they have some misconceived agenda to push.

*This is all a gross generalization based on the most common foundations among these two expressions of RPG. You can indeed find WRPGs that ape aspects of the JRPG formula, as well as the inverse being true as well. In recent times schools of thought from both approaches have crossbred and homogenized. The stalwart modern WRPGs that refuse to accept Eastern influence tend to be crowdfunded, and thus are immune to modern demographic influence.

 

[groke]

 

[Damned Registrations]

It's kind of funny Disgaea is known mostly only for having big numbers by people who haven't played it. The weird puzzle aspect of the battles and the dozens of layers of mechanics are far more noteworthy. I guess you can't fit that into an image though.

 

[turkishronin]

I unironically play JRPGs for the story

 

[Curratum]

I mostly find them appealing when they have fairy-tale-like art direction, my favorites are FF IX, Dragon Quest XI, Ni No Kuni.

When I do play a jrpg, I am in it mostly for a very light-hearted, childish if you will, relaxing story with some light adventuring along the way. I don't really care about the mechanics or grinding, I just enjoy the colorful ride. They make me feel like a kid again.

 

[Tehdagah]

 

[CryptRat]

Nothing specific to JRPGs, I like interesting turn-based combat systems, character customization, level design. Even excluding direct Wizardry clones there is still a lot to find in these departments. I think the very first Dragon Quests and Dragon Quest clones (FF1) has fun level design by the way, the world structure, secrets... Also the SMT series for example contains a lot of good games and they're not strict Wizardry clones with the demon mechanisms.

I think 99% of JRPGs without party creation would benefit from party creation but it's the same with western ones.

- Laplace no ma : horror setting and interesting dungeon(s), decent enough character system with small numbers.

- Metal max returns : open world and tank customization.

- Final Fantasy the 4 heroes of light : AP-based combat system and jobs.

- Unlimited Saga : heavy-PnP feel, numerous skills, atmospheric missions which have a time limit so skill checks (chest opening, swimming, diplomacy ...) that you can fail and retry take all there sense.

- Resonance of fate : interesting twist on a still turn-based combat system, + some other other things like gun customization world tiles you have to fill in to explore.

- also Labyrinth of touhou 1&2 just have extremely good boss fights, maybe the very best, you bring 12 unique characters from a big roster into fights and customization is also far above average because it can be very critical since the games are hard, they are touhou games so the art is retarded as hell (but not porn at least) but they're worth getting through the retardation.