JRPGs don't grab me like they used to

Final Fantasy Online Forums > Video Gaming Discussion > Role Playing Games

< Prev 1 2 Next >

05.29.2018 3:55pm

Thread Creator

Inquisitor
Jericholic V2.0

This sounds like it's meant to rip JPRG's but it's not. I started playing through Xenoblade Chronicles a couple of months back. It is THEE GAME in my backlog that I have wanted to play more than anything else. I'm about 12.5 hours in (just got to Satorl Marsh) and I have to say I am enjoying the game, but it already feels like a slog to some extent. I felt incredibly disappointed because this was a game that I have literally had sitting in my backlog for six years and I was FINALLY getting around to playing it, and I already feel burned out on it. So I started to think about why and here is what I came up with:

JRPG's just don't grab me like they used to. My issue wasn't with Xenoblade, but with the genre in general so I started to reflect some on JRPG's I've played the past few years.

Back in 2015 I played Tales of Vesperia, and I loved a lot of things about that game, but it also DRAGGED on towards the end and I found some the characters and tropes to be absolutely atrocious. Just as an example, I found Rita to be one of the most annoying characters in gaming, and I also found the party referring to Raven (you know, the 34ish year old guy who is/was the same age as I was when I played it) as "old man" to be absurd. I still enjoyed the game, but things like this really took away from my enjoyment of it.

I slogged through Persona 3 for a couple of years. It took me a long time to get through the game more so because of my work schedule, having a baby and not being able to dedicate meaningful time to the game than anything else. But the game had it's problems for me. Social links didn't grab me like I had hoped. They largely weren't meaingful to me like say, walking around the Normandy and talking to everyone after every mission in Mass Effect was/is. Some of them were also just ridiculous.

I have also been playing Final Fantasy IX on my phone now for a little over a year. The reason it has taken me so long to get through that came has more to do with the fact that I don't particularly like playing on my phone more than anything. But this is a JRPG that absolutely holds up for me. In fact, one of my thoughts playing that game was "How great would it be if Final Fantasy IX were released in 2018 as an open world game?" If done right that could be an amazing single player experience. I played Final Fantasy 7 a few years back and felt that game held up marvelously well. Same with Chrono Trigger and Dragon Quest 8. Hell, I played Dragon Quest 3 about a year and a half ago and that game was amazing despite being 25ish years old.

So then there's Xenoblade which does a lot of things right. The voice acting is quite good (love the British voice actors), the combat is a fun take on turn based combat. There's a decent amount of exploration despite the story itself being fairly linear. The plot is interesting and does'nt seem to dive into the power of friendship (yet). I should be loving everything about this game, and I can objectively say it is a good game and what I want from the genre.

Then I take a look at Western RPGs like Mass Effect, Fallout, Dragon Age, etc. The Xbox 360 era was what introduced me to WRPG's and I fell in love. Mass Effect supplanted Final Fantasy as my favorite game series and it's not even close. Despite it's flaws, I still fire up Mass Effect Andromeda and can just drive around the barren, boring planets in that game doing MMO side quests and listen to the banter between my squadmates. I can fire up Fallout 3 (which I've never actually finished) and just wander the Wasteland aimlessly exploring. And I generally enjoy these experiences more than JRPGs.

So what's the deal? As I look at some of the examples I've listed above I guess for me one of the things that I really struggle with in modern JRPG's comes down to dialogue, writing and presentation. Persona 3 is a great example. I actually love the overarching plot. High School students who are essentially part of a secret society of sorts trying to solve the mystery of Tartarus, a tower that appears during the Dark Hour, a mystical hour at midnight that only a few people know exists. All while people in the general population are coming down with "Apathy Syndrome" from the creatures that exist within Tartarus and the Dark Hour. It's so different than most JRPG's, and the game generally delivers. But pacing issues (in my opinion), and over the top ridiculousness during some of the social links (Kenji wanting to bone his teacher as one example) really detract from the experience. Yuri from Tales of Vesperia is one of the best protagonsists I can remember in any RPG, but Rita's over the topness and constant berating Raven as "old man" just comes across as silly and somewhat tone deaf in an otherwise solid game.

This makes me sad. I will still conitnue to play JRPG's even if it makes no sense based on what I am writing here. I know good ones exist, and I can still enjoy them. I have come to determine that my "issues" with Xenoblade have more to do with my inability to get consistent play time due to life/family obligations is preventing me from really diving into that game how I'd like, and that is making it harder to enjoy.

I'm curious if others have had similar experiences with JRPG's over the years. Do you still enjoy them or do you find yourself drawn to other genres now more? Am I on an island by myself here?