Why end 80s/earlier 90s JRPG's so different than modern ones?

[Gastrick]

"Deconstruction" actually means "an autistic growup who take stories written for children way too seriously". Take Ideon, for example : much more bleak than Evangelion ever was, but still a children show that never took itself as seriously as Eva ;p

I see, your definition is better. All the points I've heard about Evangelion being a deconstruction have been false idiocy that they read on tvtropes.

 

[lightbane]

"Deconstruction" actually means "an autistic growup who take stories written for children way too seriously". Take Ideon, for example : much more bleak than Evangelion ever was, but still a children show that never took itself as seriously as Eva ;p

I see, your definition is better. All the points I've heard about Evangelion being a deconstruction have been false idiocy that they read on tvtropes.

It's a vicious circle of asperging and pretentiousness. As mentioned, everything EVA did, others did better and did so first, it's just that they didn't know any better, or didn't bother. Either way, it became trendy, which influenced future games and anime shows.

 

[Maxwell's Demon]

Deconstruction is satire or criticism using a postmodern lens, not whatever you're going on about. Hideaki Anno is a postmodernist, so calling NGE a deconstruction checks out.

 

[lightbane]

a postmodern lens,

Which usually translates into pretentiousness and sperging obsessively about "x" work to make it more "realistic"/see why "y" would fail in a realistic situation or because I say so and so on. Lately it seems deconstruction also has to be grimdark, when it necessarily shouldn't be.

 

[Maxwell's Demon]

Which usually translates into pretentiousness and sperging obsessively about "x" work to make it more "realistic"/see why "y" would fail in a realistic situation or because I say so and so on. Lately it seems deconstruction also has to be grimdark, when it necessarily shouldn't be.

Saying one idea is more "real" than another is an allusion to a metanarrative (i.e. totalizing worldview). Postmodernism regards metanarratives with skepticism and tries to refute metanarratives through the process of deconstruction. That includes the metanarrative that one can perceive reality as distinct from fiction.

And yes, it is usually a bunch of pretentious sperging that people who are too lazy/stupid to enter STEM use as a cope. Postmodernists can be broadly classified into one of two groups:

1.) Very intelligent and lazy people who use seemingly impenetrable jargon to leech resources from academia and wider society without producing anything.

2.) Dupes who think couching ideas in fancy words makes those ideas intelligent.

 

[Gastrick]

As mentioned, everything EVA did, others did better and did so first, it's just that they didn't know any better, or didn't bother.

Yeah. The only original thing in Evangelion is semenhand.

Deconstruction is satire or criticism using a postmodern lens, not whatever you're going on about. Hideaki Anno is a postmodernist, so calling NGE a deconstruction checks out.

Deconstruction is a nonsense term that is vague enough to apply to anything. Tvtropes refers to several shows as a deconstruction or reconstruction(another fake concept) when it doesn't make sense, Evangelion just had larger fanbase to read it including Youtubers who spread it to new fans. As soon as anyone watches more than a couple mecha shows they find out that those weren't tropes at all or at least that they had been thoroughly "deconstructed" by a long list of shows, that there was nothing left over for Evangelion. Also, Anno wasn't a postmodernist, he was a psychoanalyst by his own words and never uses the term "postmodernist" in an interview.

 

[Thac0]

Which usually translates into pretentiousness and sperging obsessively about "x" work to make it more "realistic"/see why "y" would fail in a realistic situation or because I say so and so on. Lately it seems deconstruction also has to be grimdark, when it necessarily shouldn't be.

Saying one idea is more "real" than another is an allusion to a metanarrative (i.e. totalizing worldview). Postmodernism regards metanarratives with skepticism and tries to refute metanarratives through the process of deconstruction. That includes the metanarrative that one can perceive reality as distinct from fiction.

And yes, it is usually a bunch of pretentious sperging that people who are too lazy/stupid to enter STEM use as a cope. Postmodernists can be broadly classified into one of two groups:

1.) Very intelligent and lazy people who use seemingly impenetrable jargon to leech resources from academia and wider society without producing anything.

2.) Dupes who think couching ideas in fancy words makes those ideas intelligent.

Good, one in the thread who knows what words mean. Ultimately I agree that postmodernism is a massive bunch of wankery. Especially if paired with Nihilism it becomes such an exhausting ideology to argue with.
So nothing is real, all you believe has been conditioned into you and everything is meaningless? Congratulations, your grand aspirations have ended in less than nothing.

Deconstruction in media can be more entertaining, as to properly break the rules of a genre you have to first understand them. But 99% of so called decontruction, be they misnomed or not, are garbage.

 

[Maxwell's Demon]

Deconstruction is a nonsense term that is vague enough to apply to anything.

Any use of the term, deconstruction, in the fields of philosophy or literary criticism to refer to something other than postmodern criticism is a misuse of the term.

Tvtropes refers to several shows as a deconstruction or reconstruction(another fake concept) when it doesn't make sense, Evangelion just had larger fanbase to read it including Youtubers who spread it to new fans.

TVTropes just wants to sound smart and doesn't know what the word means. The people who wrote their article on deconstruction are probably postmodernists of the second variety, as they mistook satire for deconstruction, something fairly common on the internet, due to the aforementioned impenetrable jargon. Take this section, for instance:

While sometimes perceived as an aggressive attack on the meaning or entertainment value of a work or text, deconstruction is not properly about passing judgment (and in fact, the term "deconstruction" was picked over the German term "Dekonstruktion" to suggest careful attention to the detail within a text over violently emptying the work of all meaning).

The people who perceive it thusly know exactly what deconstruction is, but are opposed to it. This is also ties in with the classic motte-and-bailey style of argumentation used by charlatans the world over. "Oh, no! I didn't mean to say it's meaningless and has no value! It's just, like, totally contradictory and horrible."

Also, Anno wasn't a postmodernist, he was a psychoanalyst by his own words and never uses the term "postmodernist" in an interview.

Funny thing about that, you see, most of the big figures in postmodernism like Derrida and Lacan are also psychoanalysts. They liked to do inane nonsense such as use Freudian psychoanalysis to write literary critiques of scientific papers. Of course they did this without learning any of the specific jargon for the fields they criticized.

Especially if paired with Nihilism it becomes such an exhausting ideology to argue with.

Saying "paired with nihilism" is redundant.

Anyways, this is getting a bit off topic.

 

[Nathir]

How is "breaks every bone in his body in every fight, because he can't properly control his super strength, to the point where he had to adopt a kick-oriented fighting style since he fucked up his arms that badly" not a flaw you dumb fucking motherfucker? Not to mention the whole hero complex thing which leads to him jumping in to help people to a nearly suicidal extent, ending in all those broken bones. I mean it took Deku like three seasons to get halfway proficient at using 10% of his power, and he's still pretty low on the hero pecking order. And he very much is creative in using his admittedly generic power, since he's very analytic and observant.

So his flaw is that he tries too hard?? I hope you realize how stupid this whole paragraph is as a defense of Deku's character. You are just talking about his powers, which doesn't mean anything as far as characterization go. That said most shonen protagonists are better then everyone else so complaining someone doesn't have flaws is kind of pointless and lame anyway. And just reading that paragraph made me cringe as only trash anime can. "breaks every bone, can't control his strenght, hero complex, 10% of his power". Lmao. It's a 15 year old kid with no idea about life or anything, who just wants to be a superhero. Also there are no repercussions for over-exertion. There never are repercussions for anything in these types of shows. Pushing your body over the limit and being unable to move was already done 30 years ago by DB, and it doesn't mean shit because everyone gets patched up.

Yusuke does have a fun personality, and if you're an edgy teenager you may find the whole "he's a deliquent, his mom is a prostitute" thing super cool, but his powerset is pretty much the same as Deku's (super strength plus shooting stuff from his fingers for a limited number of times) with less drawbacks (no broken fingers here), and late in the show he's revealed to have super duper awesome demon blood, which instantly turns him into one of the most powerful beings in the world.

So you say yourself Yusuke has a fun personality and then go on about powers again, which are meaningless. Now I don't like YuYu and found it terrible when I watched it, but Yusuke as a character was fun to watch in the first 30 or so epsiodes. Which already puts it miles ahead of My Gay Academia. It's the same crappy shonen, except Deku is a crying turbofag that loves superheroes. And Yusuke being a demon is terrible storytelling, but is Deku any different? He has no powers, and then the strongest superhero literally gives him the strongest superpower for free. They barely knew each other, and Deku cried really hard. He really deserved that.

Now let's compare him with all the oh-so-flawed old school shonen protagonists. Kenshiro? Blows up motherfuckers by gently tapping them since day one.

Based Kenshiro. And just btw Kenshiro is a 20-30 something year old, that spent his entire life training in what is considered to be the best martial arts school. His entire life are battles and hardships. Deku is a crying millenial 15 year old kid, with no life experience that is given his supwerpower for free by a chance meeting.

Goku? Fights the best martial artist in the world nearly to a draw after a year of training, learns his ultimate technique by seeing it once, is completely pure of heart.

Except that Goku has been training since he was a child with his grandpa already, and surviving his entire life in the wilderness before meeting Bulma. It wasn't "one year of training". And you might have missed it but DB started out as a comedy. It was supposed to be funny when everyone underestimated this 15 year old kid with no idea about anything, only to get their ass whooped. E.G. just look how how general Silver is introduced vs. how Goku handles him when they meet. The moment DB started focusing on power level bullshit (circa King Piccolo arc) was the moment it started going downhill and became worse and worse. And just btw, Goku had a flaw. He was incredibly dumb and sheltered. Atleast for the first 3 arcs.

Jonathan Joestar? Pretty much the ideal hero, even if his story ends in tragedy; he picks up Hamon very quickly, he gets most generic superpower(superstrength), he has no flaw and is incapable of having any anger and rage towards a guy who bullied him his entire life and fucking murdered him, embracing his severed head as they both sink to the bottom of the ocean.

Well, he considered Dio his brother still, and realized Dio was what made him the person he is. But expecting weebs to understand human emotion is like expecting dogs to understand algebra.

Now, preferring the old school shonen aesthetic is completely fine, in fact I too find it more appealing, but claiming that old shonen are that much deeper and more complex is plain false; but as usual you present a bunch of poorly informed cherry picked bullshit to try and present your opinion as objective fact and I'm getting fucking sick of it.

The characters are much deeper and complex in older shows. It's not even a contest. I'm not trying to say old anime/manga was some Shakespearian stuff, but almost anything created after circa 2005 is unparalleled autism made by otakus with no idea about human interactions and emotions. Constant high schools, crybaby characters talking about their feelings or videogame powers. Or Isekai self-inserts.

 

[Drakron]

Or Isekai self-inserts.

Isekai is a reflection of current Japanese society, that the only way you can get ahead if get some kind of cheat and that is a real pessimist view of society but thats why its popular. Also it started as web novels as characters with OP powers was fairly common before that (the usual high school battle harem) it was the whole transported to another world that was unique ... BTW this is just limited to a specific gender, shoujo got overrun by Reborn as Villainess that I dont think its just a copying a successful mold.

And no, characters are not much deeper and complex in older shows ... read older popular stuff, nothing really changed in that department.

 

[Nifft Batuff]

You can find the last good anime in the '70s (date of production in Japan).

 

[lightbane]

Isekai is a reflection of current Japanese society, that the only way you can get ahead if get some kind of cheat and that is a real pessimist view of society but thats why its popular.

Yeah, that's pretty much it. If that's what isekai animes are all about (even though many afterwards forgot the original motive), what are animes with weapons/machines/vehicles/whatever that take the form of little girls or young women supposed to mean?

 

[Cryomancer]

Isekai is a reflection of current Japanese society, that the only way you can get ahead if get some kind of cheat and that is a real pessimist view of society but thats why its popular.

Isekai could be interesting, but sadly is 99,9% of the time a OP self insert protagonist. Brainstorming some isekai ideas :

• A technomancer from a high tech/high magical world going to a low tech world or no/low magical world and having to adapt to a completely different culture and civilization.
• A diehard militant atheist going to a high fantasy theocratic world and having to deal with the fact that in this world, the supernatural is real. And Gods probably too. Would he accept the religion? Become a Xardas style antitheist?
• A gunsmith going to a low tech world trying to develop firearms to make humanity able to face stronger and more dangerous mythic creatures.
• The MC going to a steampunk/frostpunk/etc world - not only the high magic medieval world.
• The MC goes to a magocracy as a slave
• (...)

All of this ideas sounds interesting IMO.

One isekai which I loved is Drifters. The characters who got isekaied are historical figures.



A comment from that video

Deconstruction in media can be more entertaining, as to properly break the rules of a genre you have to first understand them. But 99% of so called decontruction, be they misnomed or not, are garbage.

Madoka was a amazing show IMO. And a good deconstruction of the mahou shoujo.

 

[Nutmeg]

Why they changed so much?

They specialized rather.

Do you find the fun in JRPGs comes from:

1. Well paced adventure with world building and side quests with developer defined (e.g. party) "challenge" dungeon crawls secondary? Play Trails in the Sky.

2. The second thing above? Valkyrie Profile 2 or Labyrinth of Touhou 2.

3. Creating your own party and dungeon crawling? Elminage Original or Elminage Gothic.

4. Creating your own party and tactical combat? Gungnir.

5. Single character building and action? Dark Souls.

6. Arcade action just lengthier and with a pleb filter escape hatch through grinding? Ys Origin or Oath in Felghana.

In the early days the boundaries were far more fuzzy and the design far more confused. For example, in the first Valkyrie Profile, the devs didn't think to add a way to skip scenes, so every time you wanted to go through another juicy dungeon crawl, you'd have to mash x through a 20 minute intro you'd already seen 20 times. Conversely Phantasy Star 4 had a brisk pace suited to crawling, but the crawling was shallow.

You had some good instances of 1 in the early 90s (e.g. Chrono Trigger), but many horrible instances of it too. The problem usually being horrible pacing and writing, and since by design everything else is secondary, it just ends up sucking. I guess this is what most people think of when they think of JRPG, but it's really just one of many design specializations.

 

[Cryomancer]

Only a update. Purchased FF5. Liked a lot the game job system, but the androgeny of the MC(Bartz) and the lack of player input on dialogs really makes things worse IMO. I mean, is this a boy or a girl?

Recently I purchased Mithril gear and ... Guards took me to the prison without even being able to defend myself and on prison, doesn't matter if you have summoners, dark mages and time mages, you can't use this magical abilities to escape. There are a lot of fire in the city but I can't cast blizzard to get rid of the fire.


Don't get me wrong, I an liking FF5. One class which I loved in concept but hated the execution is the blue mage. A mage specialized in copying enemy monsters attacks seems quite interesting and unique however, enemies rarely hit it with spells to make him learn. Maybe it will become interesting on late game. Some of the dialogs are quite interesting but I don't think that I will like it like underrail, another game that I've purchased. BTW, considering that this year I've purchased FF5, Underrail and Craftopia. Which means that 2/3 of the games that i've purchased this year are JRPGs. FF5 also doesn't have a lot of boring grind. I grind only till I get enough gil to buy decent eqquipment and magic and go to the MQ. Which makes things even better. The dungeons are quite interesting. The ship wreckage was very cool IMO. The magic is also tiered and martial classes also get a lot of cool stuff. The job system is amazing IMO.

I wanna reach the end game soon, so I can unlock the necromancer class. FF5 is one of the few games which made necromancers able to become undead. And craftopia, at moment, I liked it a lot too. I can't wait until the devs adds the option to play it as a demon or a elf. The combat of the game is quite fun and interesting. And crafting mechancis too.

 

[Nutmeg]

Recently I purchased Mithril gear and ... Guards took me to the prison without even being able to defend myself and on prison, doesn't matter if you have summoners, dark mages and time mages, you can't use this magical abilities to escape. There are a lot of fire in the city but I can't cast blizzard to get rid of the fire.

See you're not thinking like the Japanese.

RPG elements are solely for combat and dungeon crawling.

The story and events are meant to be non-interactive, just something to click through till you regain control of your party for the next crawl.

When there are adventure elements, they follow adventure game rules. You match pegs (items) to holes (locations) and press A next to NPCs (or navigate a dialogue tree, if it's a bit more flavorful) to activate a trigger.

There was never meant to be an intersection between the two. This is absolutely deliberate and intentional design. The mindset here is that the player is reading through someone else's already completed tabletop campaign, and the parts they control are a disconnected game that is loosely thematically related e.g. the story says the party has 3 characters and their names are Tifa, Luca and Reimu, that look like a big titty anime bitch, a nerdy girl and a loli witch, so your character shall look like this too (despite what you, the player, may have equipped them with). The story says they are exploring some ancient ruins, so the dungeon tile set and enemy sprites will match.

The goal isn't to simulate a world, or to have player narrative participation. And IMO, it shouldn't be, because the logical conclusion of this is some kind of boring VR or economy simulation --- see what Chris Roberts and Lord British are doing, that's exactly what they wanted to do since the very beginning, and what you are complaining is missing.

Instead, the Japanese made their goal to create a game with something to read and watch in between or to create something to read and watch with a game in between depending on what the devs care about more.

My own preference is all game, no shit in between.

 

[Nutmeg]

One class which I loved in concept but hated the execution is the blue mage. A mage specialized in copying enemy monsters attacks seems quite interesting and unique however, enemies rarely hit it with spells to make him learn.

Blue mages are absolutely necessary for efficient play. Especially for the first few bosses IIRC.

Japanese play RPGs to complete them at as low a level as possible, or in the least amount of time, or they ignore that and just play casually to go through the story scenes (hence why the games eventually ended up having scene skip buttons or trivial dungeon crawling depending on which group they were catering to). Anyway the former two ways of playing are are both good measures of efficiency. To play this way, you need to understand the game's systems better. You don't seem to understand the game very well yet. Play again and focus more or look up some strats.

On the topic of FFV, a late realization for me was that FFVII's materia system is a direct evolution of FFV's class system. Changing class gives you different menu options, equipping materia gives you different menu options. Materia are leveled up, classes are leveled up. It's just finer grained. Too bad the encounters weren't designed around materia the way FFV's were designed around classes.

 

[Thac0]

One class which I loved in concept but hated the execution is the blue mage. A mage specialized in copying enemy monsters attacks seems quite interesting and unique however, enemies rarely hit it with spells to make him learn

In pretty much all FFs Blue Mage is purely for speedruns/postgame. Blue's become incredibly broken if you know which spells you can get where, since there are usually some spells you can get way too early for how good they are.
But yeah without a walkthrough they are boring. I never use them myself since I can't bring myself to use a guide on games this easy.

but the androgeny of the MC(Bartz)

Bartz is supposed to be a boy, but my man Amano likes himself his femboys. The biggest Gigachad of Final Fantasy looks like this in concept art. FF IV Cecil Harvey:

The story and events are meant to be non-interactive, just something to click through till you regain control of your party for the next crawl.

These are those things one takes for granted after growing up with JRPGs I guess. Licorice is right, JRPGs have two very strictly seperated gameplay styles. The story (cutscenes) and the gameplay where your buttons actually do shit. There is zero overlap between gameplay and story. There are some JRPG's that try to fuse gameplay and story, most notably FFIII has a lot of neat shenanigans where you have to be mini to traverse certain dungeons and some jobs aquried through story are basically needed for the next boss due to the way his kit is designed. The Jarpig fanbase absolutely hates it and FF III is considered one of the worst FFs because of that by these heathens.

Anyway if you have no qualms with emulation the logical next step after FF V is Final Fantasy Tactics. It has almost the same job system which is indeed amazing, grid based fighting for more depth, and a better story. Also its difficulty is notably higher than any other mainline FF's, I almost locked my safe due to one nasty trap the game has.

Spoiler

There is a 1v1 duel between your hero Delita and a powerfull foe. When Delita is a caster this becomes very close to unwinnable. Mine was a summoner.

 

[Nutmeg]

Also its difficulty is notably higher than any other mainline FF's

It's also super cheesable. Compare with Gungnir (my favorite FFT-like)

 

[lightbane]

here is zero overlap between gameplay and story. There are some JRPG's that try to fuse gameplay and story, most notably FFIII has a lot of neat shenanigans where you have to be mini to traverse certain dungeons and some jobs aquried through story are basically needed for the next boss due to the way his kit is designed. The Jarpig fanbase absolutely hates it and FF III is considered one of the worst FFs because of that by these heathens.

Some do that with variable levels of success indeed. Mario and Luigi series do that, integrating gameplay and story. But they're still Mario games, for good and bad. The third one is memorable though.

 

[Thac0]

Some do that with variable levels of success indeed. Mario and Luigi series do that, integrating gameplay and story. But they're still Mario games, for good and bad. The third one is memorable though.

Those have a large western fanbase tho. And I never heard that the weebs are particularily fond of them.

Last good example of this I have seen in an actual weeby game is Ni No Kuni. You play a Wizard apprentice, who learns a lot of spells to be used in and out of combat. Some combat spells can be used outside of combat to solve very simple environmental puzzles aswell. Reminded me a lot of Kingdom Hearts 1, which also had some small stuff like that like using thunder on exposed wires or fire on a pot to boil potions.
Both make it in my top 10 all time JRPGs, and probably in my top 5 aswell because of it.

 

[MpuMngwana]

Non-combat abilities aren’t that rare in jRGS (hell, Pokemon, which is probably the most mainstream jRPG series has for the longest time had hidden moves you needed to traverse the world), the main difference from archetypical cRPG skills is that in Japanese games they usually don’t give you alternate options to tackle situations, but are something you MUST get and then use to progress the story.

 

[Thac0]

Non-combat abilities aren’t that rare in jRGS (hell, Pokemon, which is probably the most mainstream jRPG series has for the longest time had hidden moves you needed to traverse the world)

And they were always hated by the fanbase and they effectively removed them by now with the HM telephone...
Massive fucking decline and it pretty much killed Pokemon for me, together with a thousand other small cuts. Using your Pokemon to cut down bushes and shatter stones to progress like in the animu was a small but potent part of my enjoyment.
Especially those places were high level HM moves were used to hide treasures in early game dungeons for some slight metroidvania elements. Like HM strength rocks hiding optional items in early game caves where you only know HM shatter.
That and the massive toning down on puzzle gyms. I like some easy to medium puzzles in my JRPG dungeons to spice up the flow of gameplay. Gen 3-4 were really good for this.

They used to be semi-frequent but got much more rare over time, by now most games only have DQ style spells for escaping dungeons, warping to towns and healing HP and status ailments out of combat.

 

[Nutmeg]

Non-combat abilities aren’t that rare in jRGS (hell, Pokemon, which is probably the most mainstream jRPG series has for the longest time had hidden moves you needed to traverse the world),

I think I covered this when I wrote:

When there are adventure elements, they follow adventure game rules. You match pegs (items) to holes (locations) and press A next to NPCs (or navigate a dialogue tree, if it's a bit more flavorful) to activate a trigger.

Unless you think matching "surf" with water isn't matching a peg with a hole.

There are of course other, more interesting, approaches to adventure puzzles that you sometimes find in Japanese games (e.g. block puzzles, teleporter puzzles), but they all fit squarely into the game camp, not the simulated world camp. Even modern things with physics engines that you can abuse e.g. BotW you can tell the devs were going for something far more rigid and logical.

My favorite JRPG from the 80s in terms of adventure puzzles is Sweet Home. It's not terribly complex, (although it's more meaningfully complex then your average Western shit) but there's nothing quite like it to this day. Everyone here should play it.

 

[MpuMngwana]

Licorice Well IMO there’s a difference between adventure style puzzles which you mentioned(use item X at place Y, forget about item X) and semi-systemic use of abities like Pokemon HMs (where once you get Surf for example you can traverse any body of water, or how Strength allows you to move a certain type of boulder).

Was Sweet Home that survival horror-ish rpg for the NES? That’s been on my radar for a while, I’ll check it out eventually.