Explain to me the appeal of JRPGs

[NoSoup4you]

FFXII is the reason I stopped playing JRPGs. That and turning 18.

 

[Morenatsu.]

turning 18 is when i started

 

[Derringer]

FFXII is the reason I stopped playing JRPGs. That and turning 18.

Final Fantasy XII is a abomination of bad production, from the disjointed Star Wars-Ivalice shit to the boring MMO gameplay, it's like they were designing a timesink to justify the wasted dev time and money they pumped into the art, engine and model assets. That line of thought paved way to XIII, XIV and XV, un-involving sandboxes both open and closed.

 

[WhiteShark]

Do we count metroidvanias as JRPGs here? Pretty much all of the handheld Castlevania games are excellent.

 

[Deflowerer]

The Legend of Heroes: Trail in the Sky FC: I got maybe 1/3 of the way through this and then lost any will to live. Just an utterly boring story, with unattractive graphics, and zero difficulty. I guess I could try playing it again if I run out of sleeping meds.

Not true if you play on the hardest difficulty.

The difficulty is horribly inbalanced on maximum. Aerial, Earthen Wall, White Gehenna, Speed Up and the Tear spell line is all you really need. Most of the game is still not that hard, except the bossfights, which suddenly become ridiculous. Not ridiculous in that their moveset is hard to keep up, ridiculous in that you start dealing 0 damage with attacks and spells, and need to chain limit breaks for permanent damage.
Also the hardest fight in the game, and one of the few where the enemy offense can keep up, is after one of the most retarded game decisions ever.

Spoiler

The two burgeomeister dogs

You go from a fairly high level zone where you can grind well to a much easier zone. Then after talking to someone you get locked in in that easy zone, together with the bossfight. The bossfight is brutal. You can't go back to the higher level zone to get more levels. You have to beat the boss at level 16-18 or so, since enemies in the zone are level 14, so they start giving 1 xp after a while. And that requires perfect execution with optimal quartz setups.

So unless you want to play a fairly chill game for most of the time with odd difficulty spikes and then get assraped if you didn't grind presciently at the right spot do not play Sky FC on Nightmare for the first time. Maybe the gameplay gets good with Cold Steel or later entries, but for FC I can't call the combat a selling feature in good conscience. It is not bad, but outclassed in the genre.
.

Dunno, maybe I was lucky? I played it on Nightmare for the first time and while there were some of these difficulty bumps that you mentioned (I almost thought I was soft-locked with final boss gauntlet), I never did any grinding. In fact, I avoided almost all normal encounters once I got the Quartz that made enemies ignore me. Most of the difficulty spikes just required me to re-arrange my party or quartz setup in one way or another. Also, while Chaos Brand made it possible to cheese quite a bit of tougher encounters, it was good to see a JRPG that doesn't have every boss being resistant to such status ailments.

But I agree that you better actually like the story and the characters rather than pure gameplay if you want to have the motivation to push through it.

 

[WhiteShark]

The only fight I remember being actually challenging is the one near the end that you don't actually have to win, but now I don't recall if I was playing on the hardest difficulty or not.

 

[d1r]

Pro

• They're easy to get into (if you survive the obligatory 45 minutes of story time at the beginning of the game)
• They have a very nice and addictive gameplay loop
  
• They have a tendency to have great soundtracks
• Most of them have unique settings that you don't see in western RPG's

Con

• Art style is a VERY BIG hit or miss (and it's probably a miss for most of the time for people who can't get into manga or anime)
  
• They can be grindy (though some people like me don't have a problem with that)
• Writing sometimes is really ass,almost unbearable, and full of cringe (Kingdom Hearts, Xenoblade Chronicles, ...).

Neutral

• Tendency to focus more on character and party member developement than story itself (stories sometimes are just really meh, whereas the focus is more shifted towards your bond with the people meet on your journey).

 

[JDR13]

Writing sometimes is really ass, almost unbearable, and full of cringe

Sometimes?

 

[d1r]

Writing sometimes is really ass, almost unbearable, and full of cringe

Sometimes?

Final Fantasy XII was a very nicely written game.

 

[JDR13]

Writing sometimes is really ass, almost unbearable, and full of cringe

Sometimes?

Final Fantasy XII was a very nicely written game.

The only game from Square that didn't have cringe dialogue was Vagrant Story.

 

[Derringer]

The english voice directing for XII is well done, I couldn't say anything about the story or script though.

 

[Morenatsu.]

i love cring

 

[Smigle]

Play Vagrant Story. It's the most chad JRPG in history and the best thing Square ever put out. All others will make you gay.

What if I'm already gay?

 

[Nifft Batuff]

Two reasons:

1 - Unique settings.
2 - TB.

 

[Falksi]

Writing sometimes is really ass, almost unbearable, and full of cringe

Sometimes?

Final Fantasy XII was a very nicely written game.

Nier was too. Never heard video game characters talk so naturally about everyday things. Characters talk like they're real people and I never had to cringe while listening to their conversations.

Lost Odyssey was hit and miss, but when it his it hit well. Vagrant Story, Earthbound, Radiant Historia etc.

Lost Odyssey



Plenty of JRPGs have good writing, it's just usually nowhere near the level of good CRPG writing.

Earelier in the thread JDR13 you were championing FF12, and that's another..........

Drace: A viper amongst our Senators!?
Vayne: With Chairman Gregoroth as its head With what dignity remained him, he confessed the poisoning and passed his own sentence.
Bergan: A viper with many tails, much of the Senate is culpable.
Vayne: We have no choice but to strip the Senate of authority and assign powers of autocracy to myself until such time as order-
Drace: Spare me your lies! I see the serpent coiled here before me.
Zargabaath: Drace, you speak too freely.
Drace: Zargabaath, do not tell me you join in this mummer's farce!
Zargabaath: With Rozarria poised to invade at any moment, our leader must have a free hand.
Vayne: The once-great House Solidor is now reduced to myself, and my dear brother Larsa.
Drace: Surely you would not go so far. [draws sword at Vayne] Vayne Solidor! As Judge Magister and upholder of the law, I hereby place you under arrest!
Bergan: You misunderstand, Vayne did not make himself autocrat, it was the very Ministry of Law which you serve. Do you see it now, Drace? When you bared your sword at his excellency, you bared your sword at the law.
Drace: You wear the mummer's motley well, Bergan.

 

[Carpincho Pampeano]

You've been brainwashed with decades of leftist propaganda and the electronic jew, it''s too late for you to relate to soulfull products such as the JRPG genre.
Give up and continue raising your wife's son.

 

[jungl]

Jrpgs allow you to explore genres you enjoy but do not see in Crpgs often. Steambot chronicles and Sakura wars for the ps2 for example. These two games are set in a steampunk modern setting with mechs. Steambot chronicles is one of the most soulful games ever made.

Whats the last Crpg we seen steampunkish stuff with mechs arcanum underrail? Exactly.

 

[NerevarineKing]

Play Shin Megami Tensei 3: Nocturne (or Strange Journey)

 

[Arthandas]

Play something a little bit more cultured like Sengoku Rance...

Are there even any difficult jrpgs apart from Wizardry clones and some Atlus titles?

 

[Deflowerer]

Play something a little bit more cultured like Sengoku Rance...

Are there even any difficult jrpgs apart from Wizardry clones and some Atlus titles?

Are there any difficult WRPGs? Besides Wizardry 4.

 

[Arthandas]

Are there any difficult WRPGs? Besides Wizardry 4.

Yes, and even those which are easy are miles ahead of typical braindead jRPG in terms of difficulty, at least they have difficulty settings which still seems like a novel concept to some of jap devs.

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

Play Shin Megami Tensei 3: Nocturne (or Strange Journey)

I picked this up and have played a little bit. It’s not really grabbing me, but I’ve only played for a couple hours (just got out of the hospital). One thing I really don’t understand about JRPGs is their obsession with teenage (or younger) protagonists. Teenagers fucking suck and are the most annoying people on the planet. I don’t want to play as one.

 

[Thac0]

Play Shin Megami Tensei 3: Nocturne (or Strange Journey)

I picked this up and have played a little bit. It’s not really grabbing me, but I’ve only played for a couple hours (just got out of the hospital). One thing I really don’t understand about JRPGs is their obsession with teenage (or younger) protagonists. Teenagers fucking suck and are the most annoying people on the planet. I don’t want to play as one.

I'd play it until our 100% certified noob filter Matador. He should be about 8 hours in I think? Maybe a bit less. He is a little taste of how higher level SMT bossfights go and why people like the combat.
Demifiend is barely a character tho, he is just a walking pile of abilities and demons. Also he shoves bugs into his eyes.

 

[dacencora]

Play Shin Megami Tensei 3: Nocturne (or Strange Journey)

I picked this up and have played a little bit. It’s not really grabbing me, but I’ve only played for a couple hours (just got out of the hospital). One thing I really don’t understand about JRPGs is their obsession with teenage (or younger) protagonists. Teenagers fucking suck and are the most annoying people on the planet. I don’t want to play as one.

That would be one of the only drawbacks to the genre for me. I would like to see more variety in the age of protagonists in JRPGs for the same reasons that you mention.

SMT: Strange Journey Redux has you playing a soldier, probably still only 18-20 or so, but at least not in high school. SMT IV similarly has you playing a "soldier" at that age.

I can't think of many others where you play an older person, but I am still pretty new to the genre overall.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

. One thing I really don’t understand about JRPGs is their obsession with teenage (or younger) protagonists

If I say anything, the weeaboos will get angry.